A young pale blonde woman in a light brown trench coat sat elegantly with her legs crossed on a small blue seat in a noisy Subway car, and applied her dusty rose-colored lipstick as she awaited her stop which was nearly at the very end of the train’s route. She sat near the front of the train, but not in the very front. She peacefully and efficiently applied her makeup, before looking to her left and noticing an older, dark-skinned man reading a newspaper, and peeking in her direction. He did not continuously stare at her. He would glance in her direction, then back at the newspaper, then once again at her. She knew why. She considered moving to the back of the train, but the entire back-half of the car was completely full, and she decided that attempting to make room for herself would be discourteous and unnecessary. A middle-aged brunette woman wearing glasses with dark blue frames sat to her right, but exited the train almost immediately after 4th and King, one of the first stops. She scooted further to the right of the bench on which she was sitting once the woman left, only to find that the man who had been staring at her took this gesture as a welcome to sit beside her. He stood up, revealing his tall but weak physique, sat beside her enthusiastically, and smiled with one raised eyebrow at her, as if he were trying to indicate that everything was okay. She gave the man a sarcastic smile in return, her eyes looking away from him and to her right, observing the cold grayness of the subway’s walls, and noticing little bits of trash scattered along the tracks.

At first, the man did not say anything. He looked up and occasionally smiled at her when she would attempt to subtly glance in his direction, but the two did not speak for much of what seemed to the woman like the longest train ride in history. Finally, she could not take the silence. She quietly and breathily asked why the man kept looking at her. She wanted to apply heavier makeup, but decided that doing so would give her away. She did not want to look as though she was covering anything up.

At first the man did not say anything in response. He tilted his head to the left a bit and squinted his eyes, as if he were searching for a single grain of sand on the pale canvas of her feminine face. She became nervous, and found that her breathing had quickened. The man noticed her quickness of breath as well, and scooted a few inches away from her, expressing his concern and disinterest in making her nervous. He gave her a kind smile, and she immediately felt a swift wind of relief. She took a few deep breaths, returned his kind smile, and spoke in a casual manner as she turned to him and said,

“Anything of interest in the paper today?” He looked down and laughed ever so slightly, as she tried look over at what page he was reading. Unfortunately for the girl, the subway did not provide ample lighting for her to read the paper from such a distance and while trying to avoid being noticed. While mentally constructing a response to the young woman’s question, the man noticed her trying to peek at the page which sat open on his lap. He finally responded to her, casually turning to the sports section when she turned her head for a moment.

“Nothing much, just nonsense about the World Series, predictions based on bias and false hope” he said. Being a Seattle Mariners fan herself, the woman smiled and remarked that baseball was not her favorite sport, joking that her team had never even come close to appearing in the World Series. The man chuckled, noting that he was a Washington Nationals fan, and had also never gotten the chance to watch his team play in the World Series. The woman became more comfortable as they continued to make small talk.

“This man is so kind,” she thought. “And he clearly knows nothing, or if he does he doesn’t care which is just as good.”

“Where are you headed today? If you don’t mind my asking.”

“I’m going to my ballet class,” she quickly blurted as she twirled her hair into a messy bun. “The dance school I attend is at the very end of the subway line, so unfortunately I usually get there late, but it beats getting there an hour early and forcing myself to make small talk with the other students,” she smiled uncomfortably. The man quickly sympathized with her introversion, and proceeded to ask her if there was anyone in the class she did get along with.

“Oh it’s not that I don’t get along with my classmates, they’re all very nice people from what I can gather, I’m just not much of a talker.”

“I understand that. I’m sorry if I’m pushing your capacity for social interaction too far this afternoon.” This comment made the woman smile, as she assured him that she did not mind his company.

“No not at all, you’re very pleasant to talk to, I just have a hard time when people ask me too many questions about my personal life or my youth.”

“Rough childhood?”

“My childhood was alright, my young adulthood hasn’t been as smooth as I would’ve liked, though.”

“Your youth isn’t over yet, your joints still work well enough to dance the ballet.” He smiled sweetly and let out a little chortle before he asked, “how old are you, anyway?”

“I’m twenty-six, I had my birthday a few weeks ago.”

“Still so young!” the man exclaimed, “you still have all the time in the world to figure things out for yourself.”

She smiled exaltedly. “I suppose I know I’m still young, but it is hard to see a future when I feel as though I have already lived through enough excitement for an entire lifetime.” With this comment, the man became puzzled. He wanted to ask questions, as he had become increasingly curious with every mysterious comment from the young lady, but he did not want to pry, especially after she had gone out of her way to mention how much she did not like to talk about her personal life.

“Are you from this area?” he asked, hoping to retrieve some information about the mystifying woman without being overly nosy. To the man’s disappointment, the girl gave him nothing other than a somewhat irritated, “no,” and immediately turned her head. Understanding that he had overstepped, especially after she had specifically stated that she did not like being asked questions surrounding her personal life, the man returned to his newspaper, and gave her the space he had convinced himself she wanted.

She became even more irritated by this, then began to worry that she was letting her paranoia get the best of her. This man was kind, treated her completely normally, and thankfully appeared to be clueless to all that was right before his eyes--both in his hands, and sitting beside him on a hard blue Subway seat.

When he first returned to reading the paper, after the girl’s very firm and intimidating “no,” he noticed the woman was glancing at him with suspicion. “How the tables have turned,” he thought to himself with a smile.

Once she eventually stopped looking over at the man, the exhausted woman pulled out a paperback copy of an old Faulkner novel and began reading, never looking up from her book. At this point, she had decided that ignoring this man altogether would be the safest option for her. She was becoming too comfortable with him, and although she missed his small talk immediately when he stopped speaking with her, she knew that forgetting the whole ordeal and moving forward as though nothing had happened would be the safest thing for her to do. She didn’t want to be rude, she wanted to ask him about his life, where he was from, his age, his childhood, but she knew that she couldn’t without being pushed into answering questions about her own life. She became angry at the unfairness of her having to hide behind a façade. The longer she sat there, watching people on the same car smile and laugh with each other, the more upset she became. She tried her best to mask these thoughts with a monotone facial expression, but finally couldn’t help but to shed a tear. The drop of water fell from her right eye, and drew a line down her cheek, clearing a path through the layer of powder on her face, and revealing her weaknesses buried underneath her mask of contour.

The man quickly noticed the tear fall from her delicate face to the open page of the novel she was reading, creating a dark, wet circle that quickly enlarged as it soaked into page sixty-five of As I Lay Dying.

“Do you have children?” The woman asked abruptly.

“Two daughters, and my eldest just gave me my first grandchild back in October, a little boy,” the man said fondly. He smiled at the thought of his family, then noticed the girl look down and begin to cry again. Not knowing what to say, the man simply asked, “what about you? Do you have any children?”

At this, the woman squeezed her eyes shut, suppressing her tears.

“I have a seven-month-old daughter.”

“Congratulations,” the man said warmly, “having children is such a blessing.” He gently smiled and put his hand on hers, trying to reassure her without words.

“Tell me about it,” she said quietly with a melancholy smile, “I would do anything for my daughter.”

“Where is she now? Do you have her in daycare yet? Be sure to pick the right place, I think my daughter is still scarred from some of the children’s shows her preschool teachers used to make her watch,” the two chuckled.

“Actually, if I’m being honest, that’s where I’m going now. I don’t know why I lied, I’m sorry,” she said, shifting in her seat.

“No worries at all, I respect you wanting to keep your privacy, especially when talking to a complete stranger,” they both chuckled again.

“I’ve had her in this daycare on the east side of town, we live and I work on the westside, but she already has to grow up in the worst part of this city, so I wanted her to have a safe place to go during the day, especially considering she hardly gets to see me at all. I work full time.”

At this point, the woman had forgotten to care about the words she let escape her mouth. She pursed her full lips, which were swollen from her nervous bites. She waited for the man to continue the conversation, but he took awhile to think about what she had just told him.

He immediately wanted to ask about the child’s father, where he was, why he couldn’t pick her up from daycare, but he couldn’t risk scaring her off at the height of his curiosity.

“Does anyone help you with your daughter? It sounds like you have a lot on your plate,” he smiled in a sad but comforting manner, scrunching his body down to her level and turning his head to look at her. She took a moment to respond and he worried she was upset. She broke eye contact with him as she wrinkled her eyebrows in an impatient manner.

“I’m single. I’ve never been married, and her father isn’t in the picture. I grew up with a single father and no mother, and my father passed when I was nineteen. He left a decent amount of money, but I used it to put myself through school, and definitely don’t have enough in the bank at this point in my life to hire a nanny. I’m not in contact with any other relatives, and I only recently moved here, so I hardly know anyone in this area. Besides that, I’d never trust someone with Susanna, she’s all I have. It took me long enough to gain trust in a professional daycare facility with security cameras.”

“I understand. I was the same way with my girls when they were growing up, and now with my grandson.” He had to know more about the child’s father. “I’m sorry that the child’s father isn’t in the picture, for whatever reason he isn’t.”

“He’s not a bad guy. We aren’t together anymore but he still sends money. We never became very close, we met when I was interning at Providence St. Peter Hospital Olympia up in Washington State. He was working as an orthopedic surgeon at the time. We only saw each other a few times, but sometimes that’s all it takes,” she smiled and they both chuckled. The girl then became aware that she was talking too much, and decided to try and turn the conversation to him. Before he could inquire about her work in medicine, she abruptly asked him if he worked. She did this hoping to stay on topic and to not appear as though she was avoiding the subject, while still drawing attention away from her own career.

“I’ve been working as a lawyer for about thirty-two years now, in the field of criminal justice,” he paused and gave her a funny smile. “I majored in Criminology at George Mason University, and earned my law degree from George Mason Law School.”

“Very impressive,” she smiled. Feeling obligated to continue the conversation out of politeness, she decided sharing her own academic path wouldn’t put her at risk of revealing anything she wanted to keep hidden. Besides, she had done nothing wrong. She did exactly what she had to do. This man is kind. He defends people who have done wrong by the law for a living. She was safe with him.

“I majored in biology at Western Washington University, the best four years of my life. I then earned my medical degree at St. George’s University School of Medicine, the longest four years of my life,” she smirked.

“Then you began your residency at St. Peter’s?”

“Yes, about two and a half years ago. As you can probably tell, it didn’t work out.”

“Did you transfer to a hospital down here?”

“Lie,” she thought to herself. “But I have nothing to be ashamed of.”

“No, medicine just wasn’t my calling I guess. I moved down here with Susanna about a month ago. We’re still settling in, but I really like the social atmosphere here. Big cities excite me, too,” she told the man, forcing a smile through the dense knots that twisted restlessly in the pit of her empty stomach.

The train was nearing the end of the subway line.

“A few months ago, my daughter became very ill. That’s why I had to leave my job. I needed to take care of her,” the woman admitted, looking down at the floor of the dark, hollow car.

“That sounds noble to me, do you want to return to work at St. Peter’s?”

“I doubt I could even if I wanted to. Besides, we’ve built a nice life for ourselves here. Working as a sales associate isn’t quite as glamorous as telling people you’re a surgical intern,” she looked up and smiled goofily, “but with the money from Susie’s father and my working full-time at Payless, we make it work.”

“You’re quite an impressive woman. I’m sure you could get your job back if you wanted to, though, do they know about your situation? Your daughter being sick? Any decent business would understand--”

“No.” She sharply cut him off, and her breathing became heavy.

“I apologize, this really is none of my business, I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“No worries, I’m sorry I became defensive. Tell me more about your work, I’ve always been fascinated with law.”

“Nothing too fascinating about my job,” he simpered. “I defend criminals who claim to have been wrongly accused,” he paused. “Sometimes I defend those who commit crimes on the basis of morality, too. Crimes committed on behalf of family, loved ones.”

“He knows,” the woman thought to herself. She looked over at his lap. The newspaper still sat there, open to the sports section. “Are you still reading that paper?” she asked as casually as she could manage.

“Oh no,” he smiled knowingly, “you can have it.” He handed her the paper and she slowly reached her hand out and took it from him. She scanned the front page. News about the election. The second page, the war in Syria. The third page, Hugo Chávez’s victory in Venezuela. She began to feel relieved, until she turned to page four and saw a familiar face staring back at her. She lost her breath. Her face heated and she became dizzy. She looked to her left, into the eyes of a man who was a complete stranger, worrying her with his roguish stare, no less than an hour ago. He looked back at her with an expressionless face. He seemed to be waiting for her to say something. She had not yet recovered from the rush of adrenaline that took her speaking abilities, and looked back down at the monochrome photo on page four, questioning her decision to spend the twenty dollars she had on a dye job instead of a haircut, seeing as color is not quite as relevant when something is printed in black and white.

The car stopped and her heart nearly jumped out of her chest as she heard the sound of the subway doors opening. She couldn’t move. She sat there as people shuffled past her, desperate to escape the unlit metallic paddock in which they had been trapped for over an hour. The man hesitated, but reluctantly exited the car when it became apparent to him that she did not want to talk any more. She finally stood and turned to her right. She slowly walked to the car’s door, taking a deep breath as she neared the exit. The tip of her right foot touched the ground outside of the train as she looked up and found herself stopped in her tracks by a muscular Latina police officer of equal height.

“Esther Rubinoff, you are under arrest for the possession of stolen goods from Eastern State Hospital. You have the right to remain silent. If you do say anything, what you say can be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to consult with a lawyer and have that lawyer present during any questioning. If you cannot afford a lawyer, one will be appointed for you if you so desire.” The officer placed handcuffs around her wrists. The woman looked at the officer and then to her right, where she saw the man, the stranger who was no longer a stranger, walking towards the scene. He lent the girl a reassuring smile and a comforting wink as he uncovered his credentials, and prepared to show them to the policewoman aggressively handcuffing his most recently acquired client.