You could say, “Oh, come on, now,” to the rain as you and Gustave walk to Penn Station. Then you could comment that your hair already looks like a terrifying cross between Willow’s on Buffy The Vampire Slayer, the mom’s on That 70s Show, and what might theoretically happen if Pat Nixon jammed a spoon into an electrical outlet. You could almost lose Gustave when he sinks up to his neck in a large puddle. Then you could feel grateful that Gustave isn’t as complainy as you, because if you had sunk up to your neck in a large puddle, Gustave would have to hear about the injustice of your squishy socks for at least three hours. Then when Gustave — uncomplainily, mind you — asks how you’re actually getting to Princeton, you could explain as mildly as possible that you’d planned to walk, but since it’s fifty miles, you changed your mind and decided to take the train. From Penn Station. Towards which you’re walking, right now. Then you could clear up a bit of confusion regarding the difference between Penn Station and Grand Central Station, and renew your mutual vow to go to the Oyster Bar sometime soon and act really posh and drink martinis, even though neither of you likes martinis very much. Talking about future fun times involving yucky alcohol might take your mind off the rain. You might even mention that your mom wants the next Bunting Girls’ Day Out Convention (expected attendance: two) to take place at the Russian Vodka Room. “There’s a Russian Vodka Room?” “I think so.” “It’s cool that you have a mom who would want to do that. Does she want to pick up men too?” “Okay, that’s really wrong.” “Well, she could help you pick up men.” “Oh, god. ‘Next on the Lifetime Channel — My Mother, My Madam.'” “Ha ha, gross! And then your dad could come in as a client or something like on Twin Peaks?” “Ohhhhh, DUDE, that is NASTY! Ew ew ew ew EW!” “And then there’s a rooftop chase sequence at the end where you’re all, ‘Blood isn’t thicker than water, Daddy — you tramp!’ and then you shoot your dad, played by…who would play your dad? And he falls off the building and then you and your mom share a jail cell and find the Lord.” “Gross! Stop! I don’t know…Paul Dooley?” “Too old. Harry Hamlin?” “Too short. Who plays me?” “Edie Brickell. Then Paul Simon could play your dad.” “Can we not talk about this anymore? Ever?” “‘Doo-it-doo-doo, feelin’ grooooveeee!'” “SHUT UP, GUSTAVE!”

At Penn Station, you could stop at Krispy Kreme for coffee and donuts, because Krispy Kreme makes the superior donut, and then you could stop again for coffee and donuts at Dunkin Donuts, because Dunkin Donuts makes the superior coffee. You could speculate on the reasons why Dunkin Donuts coffee is so much better than any other coffee; you think it’s the Styrofoam cup, actually, but you’d hear arguments. After that, you could slog over to the NJ Transit ticket line while commenting, not exactly out loud but not exactly to yourself either, that maybe people might think twice about walking in front of you and then stopping, because it’s possible that you might “accidentally” thwack them in the head with your tote bag, and you’d really hate to give a total stranger a cauliflower ear in a totally-not-on-purpose way just because they didn’t, you know, know how to walk in public places like, say, a busy railroad hub. Then you could get your tickets and shuffle down to Track 3.

You could take your seats, two of you in a three-seat bench, and people might glare at you when you give your tote bags the middle seat, but you could glare defiantly back at them and turn to look out the window at rainy Newark. You could discuss Angelina Jolie, controlling Latin ex-boyfriends, and how Dunkin Donuts coffee breath is the worst kind of coffee breath, and how that’s ironic. You could chew a piece of gum and stare out the window and remember the times you sat on that same train by yourself, drunk, heartbroken, a little of each, watching the industrial flats of central New Jersey crawl by, not wanting to go back to school, wanting to go home to your parents and not wanting to want that, wishing the other passengers would go away because they made you feel more lonely, and the times you got off the train and wandered away from the station, digging in your back pocket for your smokes, your nose filling with wet decaying pine needles, running into someone you knew, feeling like you might have gotten a little dramatic on the train, coming back to your senses, back into your life. You could remember the times you sat on that same train with Ernie, exhausted, hungover, a lot of both, talking about how you couldn’t wait to sleep on the train, you had so much work to do when you got home, can you believe he started talking about last year, oh my god, no, me neither, dude, what’s his problem, dude, I have no idea, dude, he has a lot of problems, and then you’d talk about all of his problems, and then you’d talk about all of everyone else’s problems, including people you didn’t know personally and people that didn’t go to school with you, and then you’d talk about theoretical problems of people who might not even exist, but would have big problems if they did, and then you’d wish for a Coke to take the edge off the beer-sludgy feeling, and then you’d giggle about farts. You could look out the window and smile about how you and Ernie traveled everywhere together, knew everything about everything, passed judgment on everyone, knew each other’s thoughts, talked without speaking, talked all the time, laughed all the time. You could miss college. You could know you wouldn’t go back on a bet, but you could miss all the laughing.

Despite all your big talk, a man might ask for the third seat on your bench, and you and Gustave might move over without comment and nod politely at the man, and the man might read his paper, and you and Gustave might start discussing the technicalities of surgical penile-enlargement procedures — purely by happenstance, of course — and while Gustave explains in the matter-of-fact voice he customarily uses to relay shocking rated-R factoids that such a procedure generally involves some sort of uprooting and regrafting, and that afterwards the penis tends to yaw a bit, you could wonder if such a conversational topic might inspire your new seatmate to stand in the foyer instead, or to switch seats. But he might not move, and the man sitting directly in front of you might listen very very hard to your discussion as if he had something to gain from the answer to your questions, like whether major insurance carriers would cover such a thing, and if so, would they impose some kind of limit — men with more than four inches need not apply, that kind of thing — and you would wonder to yourself if, instead of clearing the entire train car, you might find yourself surrounded by shy men with thumbs in their pants.

You could get off and find the Dinky waiting and hand your overstuffed tote to Gustave and sprint down the steps and through the tunnel and up the steps with your messenger bag flapping against your ass and into the scary little bathroom in the Princeton Junction station, because Dunkin Donuts coffee is the best, but it’s the fastest-acting on the bladder, and you could smile all smugly to yourself as you corrected the grammar of the graffiti in the stall — smug not because of your grammar, but because you finally finally have a pen in this situation, a pen you have lamented not having so many times before. Then you could dash back out and down the steps and through the tunnel and up the steps and find Gustave standing beside the Dinky, looking mildly confused but not complainy as you probably would look, and also looking like a Christmas tree because he’s festooned with bags because he packs even less efficiently than you do, which hardly seems possible to you, and you consider asking him if he knows that you’re only staying over one night, right, but then you decide not to because it’s bitchy and you already barked at him for coming to your apartment an hour late even though it didn’t matter. Or, you know, you might have done that.

You could give Gustave an extremely boring tour of your undergraduate residences. He could listen politely. He could give his all to “wow, really?” and “hey, cool.” He’s good at that. You could feel grateful for that. Gustave could also pretend to not mind when you can’t find the bed-and-breakfast, even though you lived in the damn town for four damn years. You could spend five bucks on a damn map, only to find out that you could have snagged a free map at just about any store in town, not to mention that the establishment you’re looking for is, literally, two blocks away. Gustave could feign enthusiasm through all of this, just as he did when you cracked yourself up on the train regaling him with the story of The Eyebrow Follicle That Would Not Die, the indefatigable eyebrow hair that everyone in your family has that requires a pair of pliers and a tourniquet to remove, and when you got to the part where the woman at the beauty salon had to put her foot on your face and lean back to get the eyebrow hair out, and the eyebrow hair yelled out “I’ll be back” in an Austrian accent, and Gustave started doing the crossword, you trailed off all, “Well, all this by way of saying that I need to buy tweezers,” and Gustave said all politely, “Uh huh, tweezers,” and you considered apologizing for babbling but then thought, why open that can of worms?

You could arrive at the B&B and get checked in and dump your stuff on the floor and sit on the edge of your bed, only to have the other end of the bed flip up all threateningly and dump your ass on the floor. You could make jokes about how, if you try to smoke in your non-smoking room, the bed will eject you Knight Rider-style through the window. Even after you know full well that you have to sit in the middle of the bed, you could keep forgetting and then getting dumped onto the floor. “The bed hates me.” “You can always sleep in this one with me.” “That reminds me, I need earplugs.” “And tweezers.” “Yeah, tweezers.”

You could go out for pizza, at the place where you used to work. You could stuff your hands in your pockets because you feel like you should go fold boxes like you used to do instead of just standing there “like a lump,” as your boss Jon used to say. Jon also used to threaten to kill you with his hands, and to stuff you into the sausage slicer, and to make you lick the mop if you didn’t shut up, but he did that to everyone, and you liked him anyway. You could wonder what ever happened to Jon. You could wonder if Adolph still works there. You could note aloud that they never used to have cannoli.

You could go to CVS to get tweezers and earplugs. “Hey, weren’t you just saying you needed poker chips?” “Yeah, and thank god they’re right next to the no-frills apple juice!” “Aw, look at that cute little battery!” “Aw, look at that cute little nailpolish!” “Ew, look at the cover of YM.” “Ewwww.”

You could go back to the B&B and watch TV and make fun of O-Town in YM. “How do dreadlocks on a white guy constitute ‘keepin’ it real’? And what is up with that pose? ‘Hey, clavicle! I’m turned on now!’ I mean, not.” “I know, right? And what’s going on with Erik-Michael’s hands?” “And what’s up with Ashley’s sunken, hairless chest?” “Or the sunken, hairless hairdo? It’s receding, hon. Cope.” “I think that’s the standard gel working there.” “It’s not ‘working,’ though. It sucks.” “Hey, a letter about testicles changing color!” “Oh, Jesus. Don’t the girls read Erica Jong anymore? How dumb are these kids?” “I thought all the girls gave blowjobs at parties now.” “Yeah, what’s up with that? Wouldn’t they see that the balls don’t get blue while they’re down there?” “Well, it’s all out of focus. Maybe they’re closing their eyes and thinking of the empire.” “It doesn’t last that long. I think they have time to think of ‘the em –‘ and then it’s over. And it is kind of fuzzy.” “Heh. ‘Fuzzy.'” “Heh. God, I hate Jacob Underwood so much. Like, if I saw him, I’d try to punch him in the face. Why do I hate him so much?” “You shouldn’t hate him, Sarah. He’s keepin’ it real.” “He’s keepin’ it butt-ugly, dude! And he’s so smug! I hate him!” “It’s Dan I hate. Yeah, you have nipples. I think we get it.” You could hold up the magazine and imitate Trevor’s stoned expression. Then you could draw a little mustache on Jacob’s smug, assy little face. Then you could hate him some more. Then you could head out with Keckler and Mathra for dinner and drinks at the Annex, but not before the man-eating bed dumps you on the floor again.

You could have never met Keckler before, but she’s funny, and plus you know Mathra wouldn’t marry someone who didn’t rule. Sure enough, she rules even more in person. The four of you could eat greasy appetizers and drink beer and tell stories on each other and on mutual friends, and eventually the Annex staff could sweep you out with a broom. It’s time for a run to Hoagie Haven, and the four of you could repair back to the B&B at one in the morning with sandwiches to watch the Real World Hawaii marathon. You spread out the map on the bed to catch the grease. You sit around laughing and making fun of stuff. Then it’s time for bed.

But you could just…not go to bed. You could get ready for bed, and then you could get into bed, and then you and Gustave could get obsessed with the Real World and watch the entire marathon until five in the morning. “Shut UP, Amaya!” “Shut UP, Matt!” “Did he just say ‘clean penis’? I don’t feel well, suddenly.” “Yeah, he did, and neither do I.” “Shut UP, Kaia!” “Is it light out?” “Not yet.” Then the marathon could end and you could stay up even later, reading. You could leaf through YM to the picture of Jacob crouching in a non-sexy pool of water and punch the picture repeatedly in the face, and then both of you could break up laughing because it’s five-thirty and neither of you has any earthly business being awake. Gustave could make regular trips to bathroom. “Damn sandwich.” “Do you want an Alka-Seltzer?” “Nah, I’m good.” “Do you want a book?” “Nah, I’m good.” “Well, if you run out of toilet paper, there’s always Jacob.” “Hee hee!” “Hee hee!” You could announce that Richard Nixon is the Amaya of American presidents, in total seriousness. Then you could fall asleep facedown in your copy of The Final Days and wake up with a paper cut on your lip mere moments later when the alarm goes off because the B&B doesn’t have late check-out.

You could stagger downstairs and into the street and head for the Starbucks. Gustave could want to stop at Origins, though, and you could pick out some incense and then ask the saleslady how on earth you match foundation to your skin tone because, frankly, you’ve reached the age of twenty-eight without ever quite figuring that out. She could invite you to sit down. You could sit, thinking that she’ll just try a few color cards against your face and then recommend something with green in it to counter your rosacea like every other skin-care consultant has since the beginning of time, but maybe she’ll compliment you on your even skin tone, and maybe you’ll laugh all “tell me another one,” and then Mathra calls Gustave on his cellphone all “why the hell isn’t Bunting picking up” and Gustave is all “well, one minute she’s picking out incense, and the next thing I know she’s getting tweezed and now there’s something happening with moisturizer and a white pencil — just come down. No, we’ll be here a while. The oatmeal moisturizing toner just came out, we’re not going anywhere.” You might sit there, flattered by the attention but terrified by how close a woman who’s actually not totally incompetent with make-up is to your face. You might start sweating. “You don’t wear make-up, ever? Seriously?” “Seriously. I wouldn’t wear more than lipstick to my own wedding.” “Oh, you two are getting married?” “BWA HA HA HA HA! Um. No.” You might consider telling the saleslady to stop, that it’s Saturday morning, where’s she going with that lip liner, you don’t need your eyelashes curled, what does that pencil do, maybe not so glossy, and all the while Gustave and Mathra and Keckler lurk about at the edges of your vision, smirking at you as you slowly disappear, and by the time you get up the nerve to protest, the saleslady has probably handed you a mirror. You could smile vaguely, because you don’t look bad, but you might look…wrong. The familiar blotches of red on your cheeks may have disappeared. Your eyebrows might look a little too Jennie Garth for you. You might look like a TV star. You might look shiny and beige. You might not know if you like it. You could buy a few things, even though there’s no damn way you can replicate the look at home. You may wonder how far away from the store you have to get before you can blot your lips about seventy times without the saleslady seeing you. You wouldn’t want to hurt her feelings, but you don’t look like you. Maybe Mathra is smiling uncomfortably at you because this isn’t the Bunting he knows; the Bunting he knows busts out strawberry Chapstick for a hot date, but this Bunting looks like a drag queen and it makes him ooky. You get a block or two away and you probably start blotting on a Kleenex. “It’s not that bad,” Keckler could say reassuringly. “You should have seen some of my wedding makeovers.” “Dude. Joan Crawford,” Mathra could add. “Total Joan,” Keckler could say. “You look very nice. You’re just not used to it.” “I don’t need this before caffeine,” you might sigh.

You all could go to Starbucks and fortify yourselves. You could make math jokes. Mathra could take them in his usual good humor. You could make up a TV series called Mathnum, P.I., except the “P.I.” part would be “pi” to make the math tie-in more obvious, and a bunch of good-looking math grad students could solve math-related mysteries while sporting bushy mustaches. You could do a little shopping. You could do a little more shopping. And you and Gustave could wind up exhausted and happy on the train platform just in time for the one-twenty-seven, carrying your shopping bags and hoping to get a three-seater for the ride home. You could look out the window again on the way home, very tired, not thinking much of anything except that you hope the strap on your tote doesn’t break (although it could), and that you can’t wait to stretch out on the couch with the cats and giggle shamefacedly to yourself while you order the *NSYNC flavored lip gloss that you and Gustave are going halfsies on, and to take a nap. Gustave could catch a few winks next to you. As the train inches into Penn Station, you might think that it’s good to get out of town now and then. You might think that it’s strange to go back as a visitor to a place that you used to think of as home. You might think it’s too bad that your friends are all spread out now, that someone has to get married or die for everyone to get together in one place, that there’s always someone missing and someone who couldn’t make it and someone who you couldn’t find. You might think that all the times you sat on the train years ago, you didn’t know Gustave, or that he existed, and he didn’t know you. You didn’t know Keckler, or that she existed, and she didn’t know you. You’d never have looked out the window and thought about them back then. You didn’t think you’d ever know anything but what you already knew back then. You might wonder why you always think about these things on trains, why you always get pensive and nostalgic and don’t end up reading your magazine.

You could wake up Gustave, because it’s time to get off the train.

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