Girl on the Bus by Wyatt Tremblay

I saw her on the bus. A weary traveller. Alone.

I have no idea how long I may have sat across from her before I happened to focus on her face and was moved by a kindred loneliness in those eyes.

We don’t even take the same bus.

I wait at the Ogilvie depot for the 5:15 to Riverdale. She leaves that bus at the rear when it arrives to deposit its passengers for the waiting connection to Porter Creek. I enter the Riverdale-bound bus at the front. Sometimes I see her disembodied head bouncing hurriedly past the windows as I make my way to my seat, but we never meet.

Except at the traffic lights on 2nd Avenue.

It was like that the first time we took notice of each other. Our buses pulled away from the depot, coming to a stop, side by side at the lights. Hers waiting to turn right and mine, left. For a brief moment we sit across from each other, separated by glass, steel and the entire universe.

It was early December and very cold. She was in one of the newer, warmer buses, I in the older, colder red ‘RCMP’ bus. The previous passenger of my seat had cleared a small circle of ice from the window with their breath in order to peer out into the frigid world. The bus jerked to a stop. Distracted, I turned my head toward a flicker of motion that caught my eye. Her bus.

She was right there, just mere feet from me. There was very little frost on her window. I could have touched her had I not been separated by the boundaries of our two worlds. As if sensing my gaze she turned her face to mine. She had large dark eyes and smooth hair the color of those eyes. My age I guessed. And alone.

She smiled. She smiled and suddenly my world included someone beyond myself. Then the bus lurched and she was gone.

I don’t know why she smiled. We are strangers. Then I realize that she could probably only see my eye through the circle of melted ice and frost. She had smiled at an eye.

It was Friday evening. In the stifling aloneness of my apartment I thought of her throughout the weekend. I ride the bus out of necessity and like most of its passengers I pretend that it is a solitary journey. My eyes fix on a narrow corridor of space and I wait for the trip to end. I am alone. I do not talk. Others do not venture conversation.

She was there on Monday evening, at the lights. She sat in the same seat as before. There was less frost on my window this time so I took a chance and looked, hoping to catch her eye. She stared blankly ahead unaware of my hopeful gaze. She never saw me, never turned her head. Our communion last Friday had not been shared. I felt like a fool and slid back into the abyss of isolation.

Tuesday she looked. And smiled. I think she recognized my eye. My heart sat upright. There was hope.

Wednesday. Both our heads turned. Mine with a furtive glance, but she caught my eye and we smiled in unison. It had become a game. We were strangers that shared a common orbit around our loneliness.

Thursday the light was green and I only caught a glimpse of her as our buses wrenched us apart. She had turned to look over her shoulder. To look at me!

She was looking for me!

Friday she waved, smiled and waved again. A fragile gift from a graceful black-gloved hand.

We have met this way almost every working day for the past three months. A fleeting moment of repose in the sea of mind-numbing sameness that is life. Once, she fell sick and disappeared for several days. I began to fear that she had perhaps moved but then she returned, warming my heart with her smile, lifting a Kleenex to her flushed, petite nose as my bus lumbered away, leaving only a memory.

A smile. A wave. That’s how it went. We mouthed each other a “Merry Christmas” and I wondered who gave her presents. The New Year came, the terrible, bone-chilling cold of January but we never actually met. Never tried to share our names. We didn’t take that plunge, content to remain safely anonymous behind our panes of separation.

Four days ago I pressed a small, white cardboard sign to my window as we stopped at the lights. “Meet me?” It read.

I had wrestled with this for several days. Should I? Would it breach the unspoken limits of our casual friendship? Did I dare attempt to break through the man-made wall between us? Maybe she already had someone in her life. I didn’t think so, though. She appeared to be as alone as I was. The anticipation of our daily encounters was mutual, I hoped.

The next day she held her own sign to the glass of her bus. “Where? When?”

Her eyes where alive with expectancy. I caught a glimpse of delicate hand-drawn flowers on the corners of the sign before she was pulled away from me. It had started. We had taken the next tentative step.

Where to meet? I was suddenly gripped by fear. I didn’t really know her. She didn’t know me, but lonely people take chances. What does she like to do? I know she likes to read. She had held up a copy of a Len Deighton novel as we passed one day. I had read the same book.

The library. Safe. Public. Not overly romantic but a good start for two uncertain hearts.

“Tomorrow. 6 p.m. Library.” My sign flashed in big bold fearless letters the next day.

Her smile flashed genuine happiness, as she nodded her head and then mouthed a vigorous “yes” to me. Then she was gone, the promise of her lips imprinted on my pounding heart.

Tomorrow, I finally meet the girl on the bus. Who is she really? What is her name? Is it as lovely as she?

I hope she likes the man she finds on this side of the glass.

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