The Pacer

Issue date: 2/6/07 Section: Arts & Entertainment

Outten

She was gone, lost somewhere in the throng of people milling in the lobby of the train station. Men and women and boys and girls, single and in groups, standing or sitting or talking or hugging, some crying, some smiling. I thought the situation hopeless and almost gave up.

But there she was, standing at a soda machine. She had said on the train that she was thirsty - why wouldn't she be getting a drink? Except of course that the pockets on her skinny jeans wouldn't have held a lone quarter, let alone the three required to purchase a soda. Frustrated at the realization that she didn't have any change, Anna hit the machine with her fist, immediately pulling it back to her mouth to nurse.

"Allow me," I said, sliding three coins into the slot. "Consider it a down payment."

"Excuse me?" she asked, but her apprehension must not have been very high - she selected a drink anyway. The can hit the dispensing tray with a loud thud.

"What exactly are you putting a down payment on?"

"Some answers."

"What makes you think you're entitled to those, Ethan? We just met. I barely know you."

"But you owe me. Seventy-five cents for the twelve ounces in your hand, and technically, you owe me for letting you on the train with me. You owe Amtrak the price of a ticket, but I'm willing to let that go." I smiled now, walking over to a bench. "Come on. Why is Anna Monroe running from her fiancé?"

Anna groaned dramatically, casting her gaze towards the ceiling before sitting down next to me. "Fine. But only because you're so nice."

So she started telling me her story. As I already knew, Anna was engaged. The story of her engagement, however, proved to be quite amazing.

***

Anna was never popular in high school. Growing up in the northwest corner of Tennessee, she didn't attend church regularly, wasn't conservative, and didn't follow the golden rule of Southern Society: no matter what you might think of anyone in particular, you were to be friendly to his or her face. No matter what. Anna had a tendency to speak her mind whenever she felt the urge, whether she was in class, at the doctor's office, or in the occasional Sunday congregation. In high school, she was voted Most Likely To Be Infamous.

Which is why after graduation, when she started working at the free legal clinic that her mother ran, her classmates soon left her behind in thought, most of them preparing to leave for college.

As the excitement of graduation had finally faded in late summer, Anna was stacking files in the back when a massive cloud of dust billowed from the road outside her window. Red and blue flashing lights pulsed with screaming sirens atop two police cars as they pulled into the clinic's parking lot.

Throwing a quick glance to the tiny locker where she kept her personal belongings, Anna's stomach fell. What would her mother think when the police busted Anna for marijuana stored at a free legal clinic for the impoverished? The headline practically wrote itself.

Official voices echoed through the clinic lobby. Unable to move, the irony of this situation was not lost on Anna.

Perhaps her classmates had been right. Anna's reign of infamy began now.

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