Compartment 114

 

Calvin moved through the narrow aisle of the 7:55 train from St. Paul to Boston.  His suitcase with the broken zipper was swinging in front of him and he apologized every time it bumped another passenger.  A girl named Lyndsey followed ten feet behind him, moving patient with a single bag in hand.  Just passed seats 15A-15J they both entered a compartment numbered 114.

“Sorry you have to share it with me,” Calvin said as he struggled to stuff his suitcase in the top rack.  “I really couldn’t afford a second one, but it’s only 36 hours to Boston and there you’ll have your own room.”

“Thirty Six hours is it.”

“Yeah, I think so.”

“Well . . .”

She sat on one of the compartment seats and set her bag at her side, keeping it close to her thigh.  Her knees were held tight together as well, as if she didn’t want to take up too much space in the world.

“I think I’ll read for a while then,” she said.  “If you don’t mind.”

“Oh, right, of course” Calvin said.  He finished stuffing his suitcase away and turned back to Lyndsey.  “I’ll probably just go walk around a little by myself anyway.  Maybe watch as the train leaves.”

“Thank you for inviting me though.”  Lyndsey said.

“No problem . . . I mean, thank you for coming.”

“Of course.”

She had her book in her hand, but she didn’t open it yet.  Calvin stood at the door, waiting a few moments because it felt like he should wait a few moments.  And then he stepped out of the compartment.

He only took a few steps down the aisle before settling in an empty seat just in front of compartment 114.  And in that seat he watched as the train pulled out of St. Paul, moved through the suburbs, and crossed over the Mississippi into Wisconsin.

 

“Sorry,” Calvin said as he quietly opened the sliding door of compartment 114. 

“What?” Lyndsey said, looking up from her book.

“I don’t want to interrupt you.”

“Oh . . . I mean no, it’s quite alright.”

“Yes . . . well . . . enjoying your trip so far?”

“Umm . . . yes, so far it’s been fine.”

“Yes . . .  right,” Calvin said.  He was still standing at the threshold.  “And what are you reading?”

“Umm . . . Finding Laura it’s called,” Lyndsey said, closing the book to show him the cover, but using her finger to keep her page.  “Just a mystery, romance sort . . . nothing too special.”

“I see . . .”

He thought about rolling onto the balls of his feet then, it seemed like a moment where he was supposed to do that, but he didn’t.

“So how is your family?”  Lyndsey asked.

“They’re all good I think.  I don’t see them much, but they’re well.”

“And your brother?”

“He’s well too.”  Calvin said, slipping his hands into his pockets, and nodding gently.

“You can sit down if you like.”

“Do you mind?”

“Well, you did pay for the compartment.”

“Right,” Calvin said, moving quickly to the seat across from Lyndsey and sitting down.  His hands were still in his pockets and his eyes wandered over to the window where distant pine trees moved slowly along the horizon.

“So Calvin . . .” Lyndsey said.  She marked her page with a bookmark and set the book atop her bag—still resting against her thigh.  “May I ask why your brother couldn’t come on this trip with you?  If it’s not too forward I mean.”

“No, no, it’s fine.”  One of Calvin’s hands unconsciously left his pocket and scratched his nose.  “. . . he died.”

“He died?”  Lyndsey repeated, raising her voice only slightly. 

“Yes . . . and they don’t allow corpses on the train.  I checked.”

Calvin thought it was funny, but Lyndsey didn’t laugh.

“But . . .” she said.  “You just said he was doing well.”

“Well, he’s doing well for a dead person.  He’s not too decayed yet or anything . . . at least I don’t imagine he is . . . I haven’t dug him up and looked or anything.”

“Oh . . . ok,” Lyndsey replied.  A psychology minor made her wonder if his jokes were a coping mechanism, but she didn’t ask him about it.  “Well, I’m sorry for you.”

“Thanks.”

“And . . . when did he die?”

“Umm . . . two weeks ago.”

“And you’re still going on this trip,” Lyndsey said.  “It’s not hard for you I mean.”

“No . . . not really.”

“Alright.”  Lyndsey said.  She didn’t know what else to say to that and so silence hung between them.  Before it could grow too heavy, however, she rose from her seat and said softly, “I’m just going to go and use the rest room.”

“Of course,” Calvin said, rising hastily and pulling the door open for her. 

She looked at him as he did, trying to make out his thoughts, but all she saw was a small smile on his lips.  ‘Thank you’ she muttered to him and then stepped out into the corridor.

 

Twenty minutes later Lyndsey threw open the door to compartment 114.

“I’m not in love with you!” 

“I know,” Calvin said.

“And you’re not in love with me.”

“Yes, I know.”

“Then why do you do this?  Why do you set yourself up and make me have to skirt around, trying to be nice, trying not leading you on.  And why did you give me your dead brother’s ticket?”

“I don’t know,” Calvin said, speaking timidly now as Lyndsey stared down at him.  “I just . . . I wanted to go to Boston, and I thought you might like to go too.”

“But you can’t just do that,” Lyndsey said, pacing the compartment now.  “You can’t just invite me to Boston if you don’t know why?”

“Well, I’m sorry, but—“

“You can’t do this to someone if you don’t love them or if you don’t care about them or know them—“

“I care about you,” Calvin said.

“But you don’t love me.”

“Well . . .”

“No, you don’t love me Calvin.”

“No . . . but I don’t really believe in love.”

Lyndsey stopped pacing now and stared down at Calvin again.

“You don’t believe in love?”

“Not really.  So I figured it didn’t really matter if you loved me or if I loved you.”

“Calvin . . .” Lyndsey started.  She put her hand on her forehead, like people do when they want to think better, then she sat in her seat and looked across at Calvin.  She felt like a teacher who had to tell her student that not all children thought  , but she didn’t.  She didn’t say anything like that and the pause in speech grew longer and suddenly she rose again, took her book from her bag, stepped for the door, and said, “I’m gonna go read.”

She slipped into seat 15A, just ahead of compartment 114.  Her book was still held tightly in hand, but se didn’t open it, she didn’t even look at it, she just stared out the window, watching the scenery fly by until the night hung its black shroud, forcing her to stare at her own reflection.

 

All Calvin ordered for breakfast the next morning was a simple plate of toast.  He ate two pieces, and left the remaining two to grow soggy.  A fly landed on the toast at 9:12 AM.  As Calvin watched it rub it’s legs together, Lyndsey stepped into the dining car, moved over to his table, and sat down in the chair opposite of him.  Her book was still in hand, her eyes were worn, and her hair was disheveled from having slept with her head against the window.

“I’m sorry,” she said after the proper amount of silence had passed.

“I’m sorry too.”

“No, you don’t have to be, you were just trying to be nice.  And I’m glad you invited me along.  And . . .”  She shifted in her seat then.  “I mean, we have 5 more days together so we’ll have to get along, won’t we?”

“We will.”

“Of course, it’s not like we’ll always be together though either,” Lyndsey added quickly.  “I mean I’m sure I’ll go off on my own some when we get there.  As you will too.”

“Naturally.”

“Yes, naturally,” she repeated. 

She took a small sip of water and watched as Calvin played with his cold toast.  A fly was resting near the last dollop of butter and he was moving the bread around with his fork to see if the fly would get scared.

“And you don’t believe in love?”

Calvin smiled.  The fly flew away and so he put down his fork.

“Not really, no.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know . . . I just don’t think people are like that.  I don’t think we need someone else to complete us and I definitely don’t believe in ‘soul mates’.”

“You said you loved me,” Lyndsey said, grinning.  The waiter brought her a plate of warm toast and the fly looked down at it from the window.  “After only two weeks as I remember it.”

“And you dumped me right after that.”

“But you believed in it then.”

“I was young,” Calvin said, reaching over to take a piece of her toast, but she pulled the plate back from him.

“But you believed.”

 

As the train moved on through Indiana Calvin could be seen staring out the window of compartment 114.  Across from him Lyndsey sat read Finding Laura.  Suddenly, however, she shut her book, not bothering to mark her page, and turned her eyes to Calvin.

“How did he die?”

“My brother?”  Calvin said, still looking out the window.  “A car accident . . . in the rain.”

“And you don’t miss him now?”

“I miss him, I just don’t feel real messed up about it.  I mean, I’m don’t pine over my loss or anything.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know . . . I just don’t.”

“My grandpa died,” Lyndsey said and Calvin turned from the window to her.  “He’s the only person I’ve known that’s died, but that was when I was younger.”

“While we were dating I think, when we were on that school trip to Boston.”

“That’s right,” Lyndsey said, crossing her legs.  The act let her take up more space in the compartment than she had ever before.  “And you remember that?  Wasn’t it like eight years ago?”

“Well, will you remember my brother’s death eight years from now?”

“I suppose so,” Lyndsey said.  “And you don’t believe in love?”

“I don’t believe in the word, and I don’t believe in the way people use it.”

“So do you believe in marriage?  Do you believe in dating or children or anything like that?”

“I’m not that odd,” Calvin said.

“But you don’t believe in love.”

“I believe a relationship is just two people deciding that being together is worth all the trouble it causes.”

“Is that why I’m here then?” Lyndsey asked, grinning.  “To see if I’m worth it?”

“Sorry, but no,” Calvin said.

“Oh . . . well, then why am I here?”

“I just wanted to go to Boston,” Calvin said with a shrug.  “I thought you might like to come too.”

Reviews

[G.f. Snell Iii]

Hi Charles:
The best part of this piece is the scene where Lyndsey storms back to the compartment and confronts Calvin. The emotion is at a perfect pitch and the dialog is crisp and precise. Really well done. Unfortunately, the reader has to wade through a lot before getting to this part.

You are an ambitious writer, Charles, and for that you deserve credit. You're reaching for the stars, but you're not quite there yet. The good news is that many of your challenges will fix themselves with more experience. You''ll eventually write yourself out of it (if you keep on going).

You have a tendency to overwrite, which is common among young writers. You're not yet at a point where you trust your readers -- so you are constantly stage directing. Making the characters move and placing them around the storyboard. The results are passages of cluttered writing. Let me give you an example. Here's what you wrote:

"Only a few steps through the aisle did he go, however, before he settled himself down in an empty seat just in front of compartment 114. And in that seat he watched as the train pulled out of St. Paul, moved through the suburbs, and into the Minnesota countryside."

That's a lot of words and even includes an unnecessary "however." The second sentence actually repeats information from the first (stage direction). Here's how I'd edit it:

"He settled into an empty seat in front of compartment 114. He watched the train pull out of St. Paul, move through the suburbs, and into the Minnesota countryside."

The edited version is all your own words -- just pared back.

Let's tackle your dialog. The key to strong literary dialog is to make it sound real -- when it isn't. Real conversations are riddled with "uhs," "ums," "ers" and awkward pauses. We don't have to experience that in fiction. It's all right to thrown in an occasional verbal "tic," but they should be used sparingly. And please get rid of the ellipses -- they're distracting. Here's a section of your dialog:

�Sorry to bother,� Calvin said as he quietly opened the sliding door of compartment 114.
�Oh, quite alright,� Lyndsey said, looking up from her book.
�Yes . . . well . . . enjoying your trip so far?�
�Umm . . . yes, nothing to complain about so far.�
�Yes . . . right,� Calvin said, standing still at the threshold. �And what are you reading?�
�Umm . . . Finding Laura it�s called,� Lyndsey said, closing the book to show him the cover, but using her finger to keep her page. �Just a mystery, romance sort . . . nothing too special.�
�I see . . .�
�So how is your family?� Lyndsey asked after a moment of silence.
�They�re all good I think,� Calvin said. �I don�t see them much, but they�re well.�

Here's how I'd edit it:

�Sorry to bother you,� Calvin said, opening the sliding door.
Lyndsey looked up from her book. �Quite alright.�
�Yes, well. Enjoying your trip so far?�
�Nothing to complain about so far.�
�Right,� Calvin said, still standing at the threshold. �What are you reading?�
�'Finding Laura,'� Lyndsey said, closing the book, but using her finger as a bookmark. �Just a mystery, romance. Nothing special. How is your family?�
�They�re good, I think,� Calvin said. �I don�t see them much.�

I look forward to reading more of your prose.

[Johnny]

i love the straight-forwardness of Lyndsey .. the simple honest spewings of her simplicity ~~and i think that Calvin either is stretching out the 'what-if' possibility as it were ,to her so as to build up something.... but i wouldn't really know..

interesting read, indeed!

have a great week

[Ashley Day]

this was really good. I love how she keeps asking him if he believes in love. I do think they will fall in love in the end mostly because thats all they really talk about. But this was erally good. I liked it. nice work.

[Tim Johnson]

I like it. I felt it ended a bit prematurely but perhaps thats just me. I agree with Jess in the fact that perhaps you should trust negative space a bit more, but this is coming from someone who is not all that familiar with your work as a whole. Overall i like the character development. Within such a short space you virtually switch their roles. It seemed it was he trying not to step on her toes, in the beginning, him that wanted more from her, but by the end, it was her looking for him, trying to understand him, and hoping for more.

Nicely done

[Lance]

It's interesting that Lyndsey is reading a mystery romance novel in this piece, becaue that's the way this story feels to me, a romantic mystery. Does Calvin love her or not? Does he even believe in love? Does she want him to love her? I'm not sure, but I think I'm the only one who caught that.

Anyway, I enjoyed this story. The dialogue was what was most important. I'm not going to be so technical and debate the small nuances of word choice on this one (referrng to a post debating whether "a bit" should've been there or not), we all pretty much have our own voices when it comes to writing. I'm sure if this were a real character-driven piece, and you found it important that it all be authentic, you'd have them use that sort of vernacular. But it wasn't, it was mostly about the dialouge, I believe. Besides, this was too short to jump to conclusions about where they're from or not. For all we know, they could've just lived in St. Paul for awhile and were actually from England. Nevertheless, good job.

[Jess Myers]

who's Oliver? So overall it reminded me of Hemmingway's story Hills Like White Elephants, and then I scrolled down and read Lyttleton's response, and he said the same thing. I think the dialogue for the most part is pretty good and carries the story along, though I think the difference between this draft and a great story lies in the writer's ability to trust negative space and the weight of the unspoken. If you read Hemmingway's piece, there's a lot of stuff that goes unsaid, and you still know exactly what's going on in each character's head without the dialogue to drive it. There's an old french turn of phrase, esprit d'escalier, which is in effect the witty or brilliant thing you think to say on the stairs after the appropriate window for saying such a thing has passed. As writers, it's tempting to script the most witty and brilliant dialogue for our characters so that they, and we, seem witty and brilliant. But then it feels inorganic. Very few people are that quick witted and brilliant in conversation, so there are going to be moments in any interaction that you just smile and nod, or your focus shifts or your attention falters or something happens to break the patter of the conversation. Let your characters be imperfect in dialouge and they'll seem so much more real. This is a good write, I look forward to the rewrites.

[Everyday Is Just Anothe..]

Wow!!! That was amazing. I mean you're right. So much is unsaid here but yet in a way so much. I found when Lyndsey said "I'm not in love with you!" a turn to the story. A but random yes, but it explained a lot but a little. This story is amazing, good job!

Zoe_Li

[Razvratire]

This story is very well written and gives you just enough information so that you can see who teh characters are. I lvoe the dialogue!!! A very good piece overall.

[Aaron Burnette]

i loved the fact that you had a guy not believe in love, yet the girl does! i liked all the dialogue and the tragedy was placed exactly where it should be to make the story that much greater...overall this piece was good...

[Michael Carr]

I really enjoyed it, but I can't give it five stars. Your voice is wonderful and the setting and rhythm of the piece work well. However, some of the dialogue seemed too akward and forced at times, not like confused lovers but a writer putting it in. The story really is a beautiful one but I would have hoped for more detail of the charecters. Overall, a wonderful tale that will be even better if worked on more.