Come Find Me

Why are you frowning? I watched her get on the train at Florence station. She opened the door and, once inside the cabin, looked around, threw her backpack into the empty seat next to me. She took off her leather jacket, put down the paperback she was reading, put a square white box on top of her bag, and then plopped down in the seat diagonally across from me, fidgeting. It looked like she had just had a heated argument a few minutes before she left and was still sulking at the bitter words she or the other person uttered before hanging up the phone. Her dog, sandwiched between his ankles with a red leash wrapped around his owner’s arm, seemed just as restless. “Buona, be good,” she said at last, hoping to calm her down, “buona, be good,” she was still wriggling to get out of her grip. Its presence bothered me, and involuntarily I refused to put my feet down or move to make room for it. But she didn’t seem to mind me or that gesture of rejection. Instead, she rummaged through her backpack for a thin plastic bag, pulled out two tiny bone-shaped cookies for the dog, placed them in her palm, and watched as she licked them all. “Brava, great job.” The dog calms down for a moment, she leans up slightly to adjust her shirt, corrects her posture once or twice, and then falls into a sort of sad stupor, staring out over Florence as the train begins to leave Santa Maria station Novella. She was still angry, and perhaps subconsciously, she shook her head, once, twice, clearly cursing the person who upset her before she left. For a moment she looked so desperate that even though I was staring at the book in front of me, I caught myself trying to think of something to start a conversation, if only it could help calm the storm that was raging. waiting to swell up in the little corner near the end of this carriage. Then I changed my mind. It is better to leave people alone and go back to their reading. But when I caught her looking at me too, I couldn’t help but ask, “”Why are you so scowling?”” —- ISBN: 9798863995588