The Empire Builder arrived at the Minneapolis/St Paul Amtrak station early. Dressed, I moved forward out of the Sleeper Car into the Coach Car. She was sitting in her seat writing something. I slipped into the seat next to her.

"Hi there. Cum here often?"

"As often as I can."

"Let's go make some calls."

We stepped off the train and went inside the train station to the pay phones (if you're old enough to remember those?). I called my soon to be ex-wife first, at her office, to let her know that I was planning to spend the weekend in Chicago. Other than noting our son might be disappointed by not seeing me over the weekend, she didn't give me a difficult time over my change of plans. I told her that I'd call later in the evening to talk with him. I couldn't have a long conversation with her because I needed to make another call and I was working against the clock with the train departure schedule.

My next call was to my travel agent (remember those?) to have him change my Friday night flight to a Monday flight. He gave the options and I selected an early evening flight.

"Done!"

She called a girlfriend who was going to pick her up to let her know that she would be bringing home someone she met on the train. She wanted to make sure there was enough room for the three of us and luggage. Didn't want a car full of friends and no room for luggage.

With those calls out of the way we spent a few more minutes in the train station before heading out on the platform. I had my memories of one of our trips to Minneapolis when I was in my teens that I shared with her: about a birthday celebration, staying with friends, going to a Minnesota Twins baseball game. She whispered in my ear "any enemas?"

"No, but I bet one of the people we stayed with would have been able to give me a good one." I hadn't ever thought about that trip in that way until she mentioned it. Yes, I bet either one of the two women there could have administered a very fine enema.

It was a steady rain that was falling. Not heavy. More like you might experience on most winter days in Portland or Seattle. We were called back to board the train. When we got onboard the coach car, she told me to wait a moment once we climbed the stairs to the second level. We were planning to go to breakfast as the train left. The coach car was now nearly full of people and this part of the morning run made this seem more like a commuter train than a long haul train.

I watched her as she walked up the aisle back to her seat. There was a guy wearing a suit sitting in the seat next to hers (with her "occupied" sign in it). She said something to him and he stood up in the aisle while she stepped in and reached for something under her seat. He was unaware that I was watching him from the front of the coach car, but I bet he thought that this was his "lucky day" by the way he was watching her as she leaned over. She got what she wanted, thanked him, and started back up the aisle towards me. I was watching him over her shoulder.

As she came up to me, she grabbed me by the hand and gave me a kiss as I turned to move forward in the train.

"You just ruined that guy's train commute," I said.

"No, you did," she said with a smile.

We got to the dining car and sat down to order and eat breakfast. She had retrieved the journal she was writing in when we arrived at the train station. She was writing in it before breakfast and I could tell she was writing about me because I could see my name (upside down) throughout this section she writing.

"Writing about last night?," I asked.

"Shh! I want to write this while it's all fresh in my mind. I don't want to forget..."

She continued to write as I watched in silence the train leaving the suburbs of St Paul. She wrote through the orange juice being delivered and her coffee (I drank milk) and continued to write for just a bit longer as breakfast was delivered. She finished up stating that was enough for the moment. And we started to eat our breakfast together.

Knowing that we were now spending the weekend together, she started to tell me the places she wanted to take me in Chicago and the things she wanted us to do (it was the type of conversation that you'd have in polite company. Not the "I want us to fuck our eyeballs out until we are so exhausted we can't get out of bed" conversation).

I hadn't asked, and beyond the initial question about writing about last night, I wouldn't ask to read someone's personal journal. But she offered it to me to see what she had written, explaining that she would write some more about other parts of the trip that she hadn't had a chance to expand upon (yet).

She opened it to the page where she started to talk about me.

"There's this cute guy on the train sitting next to me in the observation car."

There was then a portion that she had written before we got to Minneapolis that included a quick recounting of what the train trip had included for her. And then she had started writing about the previous night. Although I looked up at her while reading the various passages, I read through it all before saying anything.

"Is this true?"

"Every word of it."

"Who is Jody?"

"She's my best friend. You'll be meeting her."

I sat there knowing that I really couldn't talk about what she wrote in her journal while we were in the dining car.

(to be continued)