Einstein, Say It's So

The outdoor rotunda, Pittsburgh's Pennsylvania Railway Station

The Broadway Limited left from Pittsburgh's Pennsylvania Railway Station around 1:06 a.m., the hour late enough to make my mother cranky about having to drive me downtown. We'd park under the great rotunda, never looking up at the circular patterns of terracotta-colored stones topped by centered slices of glass. Later I'd think about the lovers who parted from or joined to each other under this shelter all because of these tracks, the cumulative comings and goings, the damp jackets where faces had buried themselves in angst or relief. Then, though, I thought only about getting to my destination, maybe trying to sleep a bit through the night's journey, nodding off but shaking myself awake as every station was called, each clackety-clack of the rails taking me closer to him.

Imagine if I'd only looked up!

After the saying goodbye (I'm going, I'm going, I'm going!) and the thrilling sound of "ALL ABOARD!," if I was lucky enough, no one would sit next to me. Twice I remember not being lucky at all, sitting once next to a girl who was actively determined to save my apparently sorry soul before the train pulled into Trenton. Another time, I spent the entire trip turned fully toward the window in an effort ward off my seatmate, who was trying his best to "accidentally" touch the curve of my breast.

The Broadway Limited rounding Horseshoe Bend in Altoona, Pennsylvania.

When the conductor called "NEXT STATION STOP, ALTOONA!" ..."HORSESHOE CURVE COMING UP!" I never failed to rub my eyes, turning sleepily toward the window, to watch the train nearly meeting itself as it rounded the great bend.  Altoona was midpoint, or a little over, in my trip. From this point on, I was fully awake, anxious to be free of the train, to be jumping down the three iron steps, to be scanning the crowd for his face, to be kissing and falling and spinning and losing myself in the suddently very solid fact of us.

While Gary's strengths don't always include being on time (When we got married, I told him the ceremony was at 1:30--when it was scheduled for 2), he never was late to meet the Broadway Limited. We rode back to campus in his roommate's taped-together green Dodge Dart, feeling ourselves becoming invisible to the world. For the next 72 hours, there would be only two.

One of the many Princeton arches. Imagine your back curving against its stone, face rising to the one bending to you.

"Princeton was a great place to be in love," I tell my husband from the back seat of our rented SUV. Our oldest son rides shotgun because of his long legs, and three of us sit hip to hip behind them. We are making a lunch stop in Princeton, having left Philadelphia on route to Fairfield, Connecticut as we follow Rachel's college lacrosse team that's come East for Spring Break.

Gary drives down Nassau Street slowly, ostensibly looking for a parking spot, but I can sense he's searching for something else . He eases into a parking garage that wasn't there the last time we visited, and we spill out into a crossroad where our past looks haughtily at our present.

"We may not have lived up to your expectations," I whisper.

I can feel us here, still here, and while I'm glad for all that is, I want to weep for all that's lost. Would I sell a little bit of my soul to be young again, my long hair swishing mid back, the skin around my eyes smooth and taut, our married life yet to be, hanging before us like a glossy ripe plum? If our youth is fossilized anywhere, it is here.

And, if Einstein was right about the fabric of time, our past, present, and future exist simultaneously. Might an 80-year-old Jill be tapping her way down the street? Today, I'd be happier to find the 20-year-old Jill, who could be walking across campus after a Cat Steven's concert, the fingers of her left hand looped in Gary's belt, his arm slung proprietarily across her shoulders. Dorm windows open to the May air, a mash-up of "Morning Has Broken" and "It's a Wild World" floats above us.

If it were late enough, we might hear our young selves calling "HOT DOG MAN!", desperately in search of the vendor peddling steamed dogs and buns at 2 a.m. Sometimes we ate at The Grotto, a tiny storefront decorated with white fencing and plastic flowers, where candles dripped down the sides of rope-wrapped pot-bellied wine bottles. At The Grotto, we ordered either eight-inch club sandwiches or featherweight gnocchi (I've judged every dish of gnocchi by The Grotto's standards since then). We often tripped down dark stairs to a basement bar called The Annex where we'd drink Sicilian Kisses (Southen Comfort and Amaretto) until I spoke only in Spanish. Then we'd order the 99 cent ham and cheese special to bring back my English. Once we lunched at The Nassau Inn, our tureens of clam chowder served on a table carved deeply with initials of long gone boys and men. I believed the silver pitcher of cream served with the soup prophesised our future.

The Peacock Inn



If there is a place in which our younger selves could manifest, it would certainly be the Peacock Inn. Set back from the bustle of Nassau Street on Bayard, the Peacock seemed to be a spun-sugar house, lit from within. Was it our future selves climbing the steps,already transitioning into our next, more formal stage? We dressed up for those dinners, ordering wine, holding hands across the crisply-clothed table set along a curved wall of windows in this glorious old house.The details of what we ate have faded, but my fingers remember the silver's heavy curves. We walked in tandem, slowly, me crying a little at the end of our Peacock nights.The next day I'd again board the Broadway Limited, this time moving too quickly backwards, clack-clackety.

Nothing like a good old cup of Joe to bring us back to reality.

Today, our present selves are meeting old college friends, Bryan and Audrey, at P.J.'s Pancake House, one of the few eateries that hasn't changed much since Gary and Bryan graduated in the seventies. We sat in the corner nook, our younger selves crowding the booth, all of us catching up over P.J.'s best.

The corner table at PJ's, where we rubbed elbows with the past.

Rachel may have had the best plate: Eggs Benedict...

 

...with a side of strawberry pancakes!