French Braid by Anne Tyler
1
This happened back in March of 2010, when the Philadelphia train station still had the kind of information board that clickety-clacked as the various gate assignments rolled up. Serena Drew stood directly in front of it, gazing intently at the listing for the next train to Baltimore. Why did they wait so long to post their gates here? In Baltimore, they told people farther ahead.
Her boyfriend was standing beside her, but he was more relaxed. Having sent a single glance toward the board, he was studying his phone now. He shook his head at some message and then flicked on down to the next one.
The two of them had just had Sunday lunch at James’s parents’ house. It had been Serena’s first meeting with them. For the past two weeks she had fretted about it, planning what to wear （jeans and a turtleneck, finally—the regulation grad-student outfit, so as not to seem to be trying too hard） and scouring her mind for possible topics of conversation. But things had gone fairly well, she thought. His parents had greeted her warmly and asked her right away to call them George and Dora, and his mother was such a chatterbox that conversation had not been an issue. “Next time,” she’d told Serena after the meal, “you’ll have to meet James’s sisters too and their hubbies and their kiddies. We just didn’t want to overwhelm you on your very first visit.”
Next time. First visit. That had sounded encouraging.
Now, though, Serena couldn’t even summon a sense of triumph. She was too limp with sheer relief; she felt like a wrung-out dishrag.
She and James had met at the start of the school year. James was so good-looking that she’d been surprised when he suggested going for coffee after class. He was tall and lean, with a mop of brown hair and a closely trimmed beard. （Serena, on the other hand, came very close to plump, and her ponytail was almost the same shade of beige as her skin.） In seminars he had a way of lounging back in his seat, not taking notes or appearing to listen, but then he would pop up with something unexpectedly astute. She had worried he would find her dull by comparison. One-on-one, though, he turned out to be easy company. They went to a lot of movies together and to inexpensive restaurants; and her parents, who lived in town, had already had the two of them to dinner several times and said they liked him very much.
Philadelphia’s train station was more imposing than Baltimore’s. It was vast, with an impossibly high, coffered ceiling and chandeliers like upside-down skyscrapers. Even the passengers seemed a cut above Baltimore passengers. One woman, Serena saw, was followed by her own redcap wheeling a cartload of matching luggage. As Serena was admiring the luggage （dark-brown, gleaming leather, with brass fittings）， she happened to notice a young man in a suit who had paused to let the cart roll past him. “Oh,” she said.
James looked up from his phone. “Hmm?”
“I think that might be my cousin,” she said in an undertone.
“Where?”
“That guy in the suit.”
“You think it’s your cousin?”
“I’m not really sure.”
They studied the man. He seemed older than they were, but not by much. （It might just have been the suit.） He had Serena’s pale hair and her sharply peaked lips, but while her eyes were the usual Garrett-family blue, his were a pale, almost ethereal gray, noticeable even from several yards’ distance. He was staying where he was, looking up at the information board now, although the luggage cart had moved on.
“It might be my cousin Nicholas,” Serena said.
“Maybe he just resembles Nicholas,” James said. “Seems to me if it was really him, you could say for certain.”
“Well, it’s been a while since we’ve seen each other,” Serena said. “He’s my mom’s brother David’s son; they live up here in Philly.”
“So just go ask him, why not.”
“But if I’m wrong, I would look like a fool,” Serena said.
James squinted at her dubiously.
“Oh, well, too late now anyhow,” she said, because whoever it was had evidently found out what he needed to know. He turned to set off toward the other side of the station, hitching the strap of his overnight bag higher on his shoulder, and Serena went back to consulting the board. “What is the gate number usually?” she asked. “Maybe we could just take a chance and head on over there.”
“It’s not as if the train will leave the minute they announce it,” James told her. “First we’ll have to line up at the top of the stairs and wait awhile.”