After I had been sick -- the morning turned out to be fairly calm and normal. Nin, herself, turned out to be fairly calm and normal. I felt strange because nothing really felt strange at all.


     Life moved as it always had and I knew that if I didn't board the train north (if I ignored the ringing phone) then this day could feel like the day two days before it-- and I could probably get away with living like that for quite a long time.
     Nin was the only physical difference in my life and though in one sense I had acquired her company due in pat to what had happened to Ian; I could see it as being no more unique than meeting a girl, spending the night with her and being unable to liberate myself from her the next day...not that Nin wasn't a suitable companion. Half the time she was either so quiet, or my mind was screaming so loudly, that it felt like I was alone.
     I was curious as to why her ghosts haunted her. I was a mere two hour train ride from my problems and found them quite easy to disregard. She was more than an entire continent and ocean away from hers and still she woke up crying.
     What was so severe about her heartbreak that she couldn't stay in London without a phone and pretend that nothing had happened in the first place?
     She could be whoever she wanted to be. She wouldn't have to ask herself why someone wasn't reaching out to her-- she could take the control back and say that maybe someone was reaching out to her but she had chosen to miss it.
    
     It was a lie-- but a good lie. One that could keep someone going. Maybe even keep them from tears.


     We went back to mine from the studio. I bathed (but couldn't be bothered to shave) and changed my shirt (but only because the one that I had been wearing had Nin's make-up smeared across it). I pulled my suit down from the closet but was hard pressed to think of anything else to pack. I had spent years living out of suitcases but in this moment couldn't recall a single item needed for travel.


     I unzipped my weekend bag and opened it wide as it could go.


     'What do you usually pack?' I asked myself. 'Dunno. Passport...,' I answered, 'I shouldn't need a passport, though. I'm not leaving the country...' 'Pack it anyway. It's something, at least.' 'So it is.'


     I threw the passport into the empty bag. It hit the bottom with a sort of flat smacking sound.


     I wandered the flat having a continued version of this conversation with myself.


     'Toothbrush?' Sure. 'Deodorant?' Why not. 'Socks?' Might need them. 'Razor?' Could do. 'T-shirts?' Suppose so.


     I stopped when the bag reached capacity, then pulled the sides together and zipped it closed.


     Nin made tea and burned toast but ate it anyway. I tried to stomach a bit of crust she had left on the plate but grew ill at once.


     "Must have a touch of flu," I explained myself; though she didn't ask.


     We went to her hotel. She bathed again and practiced behind closed doors the same rituals that all polite girls do, despite your already having been intimate enough with them (in one form or another) to know what they're up to without the door in the way.
     She emerged looking like some French New Wave film. Her dark hair was pinned up and away from her newly made up face with eyes perfectly lined as if they had never wept. She had on this gray cable knit sweater dress that I knew was soft from the sight of it (but my fingertips itched for scientific evidence). I folded my arms cross my chest to keep my hands locked into myself.
     Later she would tell me that I looked different in the day-- worse. I felt terrible knowing that she looked different in the day-- better.
     I hated that she was pretty. It didn't seem right. She should have appeared as horrible as she felt. At least then someone would have known what they were getting into by the looks of her. Someone could be forewarned before they sat down at her table...but this way, the way she was, one glance--misjudged for a moment--and the only thought in a man's head would be,


     "She's quite pretty and that's safe enough."


     Then one would become stuck with this death trap, this self-depricating mess, that was so pleasant to look at it became uncomfortable.
     Despite Ian's faithfulness to Sylvie-- he would have fallen in love with Nin.


     I wished he'd been the one sat at her table.


     Nin pulled on a cream-coloured peacoat and a red silk scarf. With suitcase in hand; she signaled to me wordlessly that it was time to go.


***


     I purchased both of our train tickets and Nin frowned and sighed protest with her pocketbook opened and cash visible. I reached over and squeezed the brass clasp shut with one hand as I pulled our tickets from the metal plate with the other and thanked the attendant.


     "You don't do well with kindness," I told Nin as we boarded the train.
     "It's because I'm independent. I can take care of myself," She answered, curtly.
     "That doesn't mean that people can't be nice to you when you, yourself, are a nice person. May I have that?" I extended my hand for her train case and stowed it for her. We sat, "Your determination to be low maintenence has you becoming very tiresome to others."
     "Am I wearing on you?"
     "Perhaps your stubbornness is. I think that you've mistakenly confused it for strength."
     "What is it then?"
     "Weakness. It doesn't allow you to accept kindness but not because you don't see the good in people. I think that you accidentally believe that all people are good but that you don't deserve goodness."
     "And what makes you say that?"
     "You crying in a cemetary that you aren't 'good'."
     "Oh Lee, that was sooooooo ten hours ago. I've changed."
     "How so?"
     "I was wearing jeans then. Clearly, now I am wearing a dress."
     I released one uncontrolled laugh.
     "You're mad."
     "I like it," She reached down into her bag and pulled out the paperback mystery novel.
     "Being mad?" I asked.
     "No. You laughing. It's a good sound."
     "No one's ever commented on my laughter before."
     "Maybe you don't do it enough."
     "Guess I don't have enough to laugh about...," I looked from the window to her, "Or at."
     She quickly looked away from me. I waited a moment.
     "What are you thinking?" I asked her.
     "That I can't understand how you could have girl problems when you're considerate enough to ask what they are thinking."
     "Ah! You're lying... I'm flattered. What are you thinking, really?"
     She stared hard at the passing scenery.
     "Sometimes I make people unhappy without realizing it."
     Then she opened her book to the marked page and begun to read as if ending the conversation.
     I could tolerate about five minutes of the silence (looking out the window, inconspiculously watching people-- but failing at it as several pairs of eyes met mine with alarm, scratching at the denim on my knee...) before my brain started to scream chaotic nonsense. It was not words or thoughts but it was unbearably loud.
     "What are you reading?" I asked Nin.
     I knew perfectly well what she had been reading. I'd seen it the night before.
     "A mystery novel," She replied without removing her attention from the page.
     See, I knew that.
     "What's it about?"
     She skimmed to the last page.
     "292 pages."
     "C'mon, don't be clever. I was only asking."
     "I'm sorry I don't mean to be mean. I'm just, um, I'm just..." She let out a sad chuckle as if she secretly amused herself by in some way being a disappointment to herself then rested the open book on her lap, "I'm just a jerk. It's a 'whodunnit', Lee. It's what all mystery novels are about. Someone gets murdered or something gets stolen on the first page and about 200 pages later they tell you who and why. Then everything goes back to normal or they set you up for the next one in the series."
     "That sounds...absorbing."
     "Not really."
     "I was gonna say, actually, that it does sound awful. Why do you read it? I reckon every book is a mystery novel in someway... you spend the book trying to figure out what the story is and why it's important to tell. What's gonna happen next, etc..."
     "I started reading mystery novels after-- everything happened. So far it's the only thing that holds my attention and doesn't allow thought for other things. You get a series of facts, then like a puzzle, you try to piece them together. It's very cerebral. Regular books try to engage you emotionally-- something extremely dangerous to me. I've tried other things-- I was reading teen fiction for a while but that's all diaries and romance and vampires-- which is dumb. The last thing that I need is to believe that I'm going to be rescued by a vampire," She kind of blushed at me, "Though with the way that you're holding up in the daylight, I wouldn't be surprised if you were a vampire."
     "I always thought that vampires were unsympathetic creatures..."
     "Which only solidifies that women fall in love with creeps..."
     "And you, Nin, did you fall in love with a creep?"
     Her mouth pulled into a tight straight line.
     "He's a nice guy."
     I felt a painful twinge at her blatant stupidity. I supressed a wince and playfully covered her face with my palm; disheveling her fringe between my knuckles.
     "He obviously was not a nice guy 'else you wouldn't be here. Understand? Stop blamin' yourself."
     "What if it was my fault?"
     "How could something that you say doesn't make sense possibly be your fault?"
     "Maybe that's the part that doesn't make sense. Maybe I'm so close to it that I can't see what I clearly did wrong. Maybe I never believed that he'd love me so he never did... or he quit or I don't know..."
     I took my hand from her face, curled my fingers into a fist and knocked on the crown of her head.
     "Hello? Is Nin in? Can she come out for a chat?"
     She pushed my fist away.
     "Oh, leave me alone," She moaned.
     "Let. It. Go. Surrender to it. There is nothing that can be done about it so don't hold it to you so tightly. There is now nothing and therefore nothing to control."
     She stared at the book laying limp against her thighs.
     "You're too tired to fight me," I surmised.
     "I need much more coffee than this to function."
     "Look out that window. That's England. You are here and your troubles are not... I'd give just about anything to be you now. Anything to be on a train to elsewhere."
     She turned her head to glance out the window then tilted it towards my shoulder and allowed it to fall there.
     "It's my cheerful disposition that you wish you emulate..."
     "Or the mad hope that I could fit into this dress. It's just darling. You must tell me where you got it. New York? Paris?"
     "I stole it from my sister's closet."
     "The forgotten fashion mecca, I'm sure," I traced the frayed edge of her book with my thumb, "How many times you read this?"
     "This is the first time. I find most mystery novels aren't as good a second time through."
     "No, I don't imagine they would be."
     Her head became heavier upon my shoulder.
     "Nin?"
     I was met without response.
     I stretched my neck to get a look at her face. She was asleep.
     I set my head atop hers.
     "Your head must be heavy with the weight of your thoughts, clever girl..." I whispered then sighed as I came to envy her unconsciousness, "I would give anything to be you right about now. You're perfectly strange, Nin. Perfectly strange," I paused and turned my face just so my lips were against her clean hair. I spoke into it as though the strands would hold my words and she'd be forced to carry them with her until she washed them out.


     "And I don't see how anyone could bear to leave you behind."


     I waited to be certain the sentiment was good and tangled in before I plucked the book from her lap and opened it to the first page.


     "His corpse was found in the drawing room."