“What is it?” Mae asked, and the woman’s smile broadened.
“Love.”
Maybe it’s being in the house with her dads, right across from the empty chair where her grandmother used to sit. Or maybe it’s that Mae misses Hugo, the pain growing worse with each interview she watches, remembering the way he sat beside her, his eyes bright as he listened to all those stories. She’s watched these a dozen times, maybe more, but this time something is different. This time she understands—all at once—what the film is about.
As it turns out, it’s not a story about love.
It’s a love story.
Her mind is so busy spinning as she thinks through what this means that by the time Hugo appears on-screen, she’s almost forgotten he’s part of it. She hasn’t watched his interview since she filmed it, hasn’t let herself, because she knows it will hurt too much.
And she’s right. The minute she hears his voice, she feels her heart wrench.
“But then I got on this train,” he says with that familiar smile of his, “and everything changed.”
“Ooh, a Brit,” Dad says, then looks over at Mae, who is watching the screen with a frozen expression. “Wait, is that him?”
She nods feebly, and they both reach for the volume button at the same time. “Turn it up,” Pop says, leaning forward to watch. Every so often, they exchange a look over the top of her head, but Mae’s eyes are on Hugo. Behind him the desert whips by, the metallic sound of the rails providing a familiar soundtrack. Mae never realized it was possible to feel homesick for a train. Or, for that matter, a person.
When the interview is over and the screen has gone black, Dad turns to her. “He’s in love with you,” he says, looking at her in surprise.
“What?” she says, shutting the computer. “No.”
“He is,” Pop says with a grin. “It’s obvious.”
Dad is still staring. “And you’re in love with him too.”
“I’m not.”
“You are.” He shakes his head. “I can’t believe it.”
“What?”
“You ran away and fell in love with a boy on a train,” he says, his voice full of wonder. Then he laughs. “Nana would be so proud.”
Hugo wakes early, thelight dull around the edges of the curtains. To his disappointment, there are still no texts from Mae. But he has one from Margaret suggesting a coffee shop just around the corner, and he marvels at the coincidence until he remembers that she knows exactly where he’s staying because she was meant to be staying here too.
As he walks to meet her, he’s oddly jittery. It somehow feels both like a first date and like he’s cheating on someone, and by the time he reaches the coffee shop—a small storefront with a few wicker tables out front on a quiet street—Hugo is wishing he were anywhere else. Briefly he considers doing a U-turn and skipping this altogether. But then he sees Margaret waving to him from the window, and he shoves his hands into his pockets, takes a deep breath, and walks inside.
“It suits you,” Margaret says, giving him a kiss on the cheek. She’s wearing a dress he’s always loved—a pale blue that matches her eyes—and her perfume is so familiar that it gives him a jolt.
“What does?”
She winks at him. “Travel.”
Hugo runs a hand over his hair, unsure whether she’s teasing him. “Who would’ve thought sleeping on a train would be so comfortable?” he says. Then his face starts to burn because of course he’d been sleeping there with Mae, and of course she doesn’t know that, and this whole thing feels like a terrible mix-up and there’s no one to blame but himself.
“Better you than me,” Margaret says. “I looked up the compartments, and I reckon I would’ve felt like a hen in a chicken coop in those beds.”
“I suspect there’s a joke in there about pecking me to death,” Hugo says.
She laughs. “No pecking before coffee.”
Once they’ve ordered, they carry their mugs to one of the tables outside. It’s still early, and the street is mostly empty, just a few people out running or walking their dogs.
“When did you get here?” Hugo asks, warming his hands on the mug.
“A couple of days ago. Turns out it’s pretty quick by plane.”
