Lady’s Lady’s Lady’s

The departure board flickered above the downtown transit stop, turning 4:17 into 4:11 and then back again while Anna S. stood beneath it with a paper bag cutting into her fingers.

She had ten minutes before the train. Ten minutes to buy coffee, cross the concourse, and get home before the evening rain began. The station was crowded enough to make everyone anonymous: coats brushing coats, shoes striking the tiled floor, voices rising beneath the iron ceiling. A child dragged a red suitcase behind him. Somewhere near the stairs, a busker played the same four notes over and over.

Anna shifted the bag to her other hand and saw Caleb T.

He stood beside a column near the ticket machines, one shoulder against the concrete, looking down at his phone.

She stopped without meaning to.

Caleb lifted his head.

For one second, their eyes met. Then he looked away, as if he had not noticed her at all.

Anna told herself it was nothing.

Downtown was full of people she might recognize. Caleb worked somewhere in the city. She had seen him before, months ago, perhaps at a café or outside a shop. There was no reason he could not be at the same station. The city was not as large as she liked to imagine.

The board flickered again.

Anna walked toward the coffee stand.

She kept her gaze on the menu, though she could feel the place where Caleb stood behind her, a pressure between her shoulder blades. She ordered a small coffee and paid with coins from the pocket of her coat. The cashier pushed the cup toward her.

“Careful,” the woman said. “It’s hot.”

“Thanks.”

Anna took the cup and turned.

Caleb was no longer by the column.

She searched the moving crowd before she could stop herself. A man in a gray coat passed with a folded newspaper. Another bent to tie his shoe. A woman in a yellow scarf laughed into her phone. Caleb was gone.

The relief came quickly, then embarrassed her.

She walked toward the platform stairs. Her shoes slipped slightly on a damp patch near the turnstiles. The coffee lid rattled in her hand. She could hear the train arriving below, metal grinding against metal.

At the bottom of the stairs, Caleb stood beside the map.

Anna almost dropped the cup.

He was studying the colored lines with an expression of mild concentration. One hand rested in the pocket of his dark jacket. The other held his phone.

He looked up as she reached the platform.

“Anna,” he said.

His voice was calm. Familiar. Too familiar for the crowded station, for the distance between them, for the way her name sounded in his mouth.

“Hi,” she answered.

She hated herself for saying it.

“Heading north?”

She glanced toward the tracks. “I’m taking the train.”

“That’s what I figured.”

The words were ordinary. That was the trouble. Nothing in them could be held up and shown to anyone. Nothing sharp enough to explain why her fingers had gone cold around the coffee cup.

The train pulled in with a rush of wind. People crowded toward the doors.

Anna stepped aside to let a man with a bicycle pass. When she looked back, Caleb had moved closer to the yellow line.

“You’re on this one too?” she asked.

He smiled faintly. “Looks like it.”

She wanted to ask why he had been at the ticket machines, why he had disappeared, why he was now standing beside the exact map she had stopped to read. Instead, the doors opened and the crowd pressed forward.

Anna entered the nearest carriage.

She chose a seat near the center, between an older woman carrying grocery bags and a man in a blue uniform. Caleb entered through another door. He did not look at her. He stood near the glass partition, one hand wrapped around the overhead rail.

The train moved.

Anna watched the city slide past in broken reflections. Her face appeared and disappeared in the dark window. Behind it, Caleb’s reflection remained steady.

She took out her phone and opened a message from her sister, though she did not read it. The screen gave her something to look at.

The older woman beside her shifted her bags.

“Are you getting off at Central?” the woman asked.

Anna looked at her. “No. Two stops after.”

Caleb’s reflection seemed to turn toward them.

Anna lowered her voice. “Why?”

“I thought you looked lost.”

“I’m not.”

The woman nodded, accepting the answer. “Good.”

The train slowed. At the next station, several passengers got off. Caleb remained where he was. At the following stop, Anna rose before the announcement finished.

She left the carriage quickly, coffee still in hand, paper bag tucked beneath her arm. She crossed the platform and climbed the stairs to street level. Rain had begun, fine and silver under the traffic lights.

She stood beneath the awning of a pharmacy and waited.

The station doors opened behind her.

Caleb came out.

He did not hurry. He did not look around. He walked past the pharmacy and stopped at the corner, checking his phone.

Anna stared at him through the glass.

The sensible explanation arrived first. He lived nearby. He had errands....