The train was a heavy, breathing beast. It smelled of velvet dust and hot metal. Clara had a window seat, and she pressed her forehead to the cool glass, watching the familiar pastures of Carstairs shrink into a green blur. She was terrified and thrilled in equal measure.
Clara thought of her mother’s sandwich, now eaten. She thought of the five-dollar bill, folded in her shoe. She thought of the typing class that started tomorrow morning, in a beige room full of other girls learning to be secretaries. alice munro wild swans
Her name was Clara. She was seventeen, leaving the small town of Carstairs for the first time, bound for a typing course in the city. Her mother had packed her a egg salad sandwich wrapped in wax paper and a stern warning about men who offered to buy her a soda. Her father had given her a five-dollar bill and a handshake, as if she were already a stranger. The train was a heavy, breathing beast
Alice Munro once wrote about a girl on a train, about the fine, almost invisible line between menace and longing. This is a story like that, though the girl’s name is not Rose, and the train is not going to Toronto. But the feeling is the same: the feeling of a life teetering on a single, strange choice. She was terrified and thrilled in equal measure
He smiled. It was a small, almost sad smile. “There’s a late bus. We’d be back by morning.”
By the time they reached the city, the sun had set. The train station was a cavern of yellow light and echoing footsteps. Mr. Ellison stood up, put on his hat, and looked at her.
