Ismée Williams - This Train Is Being Held

PUBLISHERS NOTE: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the authors imagination or used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Williams, Isme, author.

Title: This train is being held/Isme Williams.

Description: New York: Amulet Books, 2020. | Summary: Told in two voices, ballet dancer and private school student Isabelle Warren and poet and baseball star Alex Rosario grow closer after meeting on a subway, bonding over their parents expectations and their own dreams. Identifiers: LCCN 2019033767 (print) | LCCN 2019033768 (ebook) | ISBN 9781419734939 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781683354871 (ebook) Subjects: CYAC: Dating (Social customs)Fiction. | Social classesFiction. | Hispanic AmericansFiction. | Family lifeNew York (State)New YorkFiction. | New York (N.Y.)Fiction.

Classification: LCC PZ7.1.W546 Thi 2020 (print) | LCC PZ7.1.W546 (ebook) | DDC [Fic]dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019033767

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019033768

Text copyright 2020 Isme Williams

Book design by Siobhn Gallagher

: Excerpt from Love Sonnet XI by Pablo Neruda, from One Hundred Love Sonnets: Cien sonetos de amor (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2014).

: Hide-and-Seek 1933 by Galway Kinnell can be found in Strong Is Your Hold: Poems by Galway Kinnell (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2006).

Published in 2020 by Amulet Books, an imprint of ABRAMS.

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher.

Amulet Books is a registered trademark of Harry N. Abrams, Inc.

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To Abuela and Abuelo,
who came from opposite ends of the island

ISA

The M96 veers around a stopping taxi before slowing as it approaches Broadway. The bus speeds up, then the driver hits the brakes, eases off, then hits them again. I dont fall because its been jerk-stop, jerk-stop like this since Park Ave. Its OK. The drivers probably learning.

I push through the door to the sidewalk and dash across the intersection, the crossing signal flashing a countdown. My bag bounces against my shoulder as I double-time into the subway station. I run through my dance routine once more in my mind. Mom was home today so I couldnt practice.

The digital screen blinks zero at me. My train is pulling in. I dig out my unlimited MetroCard from my bag and swipe it through the turnstile. Below, brakes squeal. Doors thump open. My footsteps match the crescendoing opening rhythm of La Gioconda, the music of my audition, as I fly down the stairs to the platform.

I clear the bottom step as the conductors signal chimes. I could call out, Hold the train! People do it all the time. Instead, I launch into the air, my front leg striking out as if for a grand jet. The edges of the metal doors slice toward me. Im almost through. But my back ankle is still outside the car. Mom once saw a lady lose part of a finger this way.

I throw my weight forward, snatching my leg in.

The doors snap open. They pause, then clang closed.

A boy steps back. Hes maybe a year or two older than me, a junior or senior in high school perhaps. He must have held the door.

Thanks, I say.

He slips his hands into his pockets then lifts his chin at me. A Youre welcome, I guess.

The intercom scratches, informing us that holding the doors delays everyone and that there will always be another train. I press my lips together so I dont grin like an idiot. Mom says I do that when I get nervous.

I slide into a seat along an entire row of empties and check my bun for loose hairpins. Its the middle of the day so the trains not crowded. Across from me, a lady listens to music with her eyes shut. An Afro-Caribbean rhythm pulses from her earbuds. Even with the rush and rattle of metal wheels against metal tracks, I hear it. The boy who held the door for me hears it too. His head moves, ever so slightly, and the heel of his sneaker taps against a large duffel that hes pushed under the seats behind him.

The DJ womans chin drops to her chest like shes fallen asleep. Her hand lies still, an uncurled fist above her multicolored patchwork skirt, the kind Merrit brought me back from Peru after he hiked the Inca trail in June. He called me at lunchtime today. I asked if he was leaving his cell in his dorm room like I told him so hed meet actual people. The nerd flipped the camera to show students sitting in a circle on an emerald lawn, one of them holding a volleyball inked with the words favorite food and best pet. Mom, Dad, and I are hoping Merrit meets someone to help him forget Samantha, his high school girlfriend. The camera switched back to his smiling face. Just wanted to wish you luck, both for the audition and for keeping it from Mom. Couldnt have done that without my phone. He winked and with a clipped Ciao, signed off.

After, I found Mom in the library, reorganizing the booksby color this time. Her museum board meeting had been canceled. I wasnt sure if shed be angry or happy about that. I often wasnt sure if shed be angry or happy.

I cleared my throat. Hey, Mom? Im heading out to meet Chrissy. Were going to rehearse a bit before class. I hate lying. Its different if you just dont tell the whole truth.

Mom tossed a thick, glossy book jacket onto a pile with the others she was sacrificing, then looked at me. I didnt dare look away, even when my palms started to tingle. I was in my standard uniformhair up, tights under shorts. She couldnt have known about the audition, right?

Mom let out a long breath. She glared at the text in her hand, Using Food to Control Your Mood. The psychologist must have given it to her. The cover tore as she ripped it off, and I winced. At least she wasnt glaring at me anymore. I tip-toed to the hallway.

Remember, no subways, she called out. Its unhygienic. And unsafe. Forty-eight people were struck and killed by a train last year. Take a car. There are some twenties in my purse.

I like the subway. Its cheaper and often fastereven than a car share. And down here, its like the real New York, with people from all over the city, not just the tiny slice of the Upper East Side where we live. Not that I would ever tell Mom.

I took the money, said thanks, and slipped out. Its harder to manage Mom without Merrit around but I try not to let her affect me.

I swing my bag to my lap and sink back into my seat. The song coming from the sleeping ladys phone changes to one with a faster beat. I tap my toes, warming up my Achilles and gastrocs. I lift one shoulder and lower the other, then switch sides. Im swaying to the left then the right, trying to keep myself loose, as the train screeches into Eighty-Sixth.

My eyes close. Im concentrating on the music. The deep hiss of mouth breathing hits me a second before a warm sticky thigh presses against mine. I jerk upright and stand. A guy with a receding hairline sits in the seat next to where I was. Even though the entire row and three-quarters of the one opposite are free. I move to the doorway, the music from the colorful-skirted womans phone following me. I flick my hips, trying to remember steps from that one class I took at a resort in Vieques. The man with no sense of personal space is staring at me. He adjusts the thin silver frames of his glasses then his hand goes to his shorts to adjust himself.