Retirement Rails

I was ringing up a dozen nightcrawlers for a guy in an Alfred Earnhardt hat when the bell over the door went off and she walked in. Ramon Crenshaw, twenty-eight years old, three summers at Hendrick's Bait and Tackle just outside the Pine Ridge entrance, and I can tell you the bell does not sound like that for most people. It's a cheap brass thing that mostly clunks. This time it kind of rang.

She was thirty-one, though I didn't know that yet, and she had the look of somebody who'd already put in ten miles that morning. Dusty boots, pack straps worn over a gray shirt, a water bottle with a dent in it. Not a local. Locals don't get dusty before ten a.m. unless the boat broke.

"Morning," she said, coming up to the counter while Alfred Earnhardt counted out exact change, which took a while. "Do you sell trail snacks, or is this strictly fish business?"

"We got jerky and we got those granola bars that taste like drywall. Other than that, you're on your own."

"Drywall granola it is." She looked around while I finished the transaction, and that's when she saw it, the thing everybody sees eventually. Sitting on the back counter behind the register, taking up about four feet of plywood, was my model railway. N scale, a loop of track through fake pine trees, a little mountain with a tunnel, a shunting yard I was sort of proud of.

Alfred Earnhardt left with his worms and his receipt, and she leaned on the counter and looked at it properly.

"Okay, that is not what I expected to find at a bait shop."

"Boss's idea of a display. It's mine, though. I run it on lunch breaks."

"You run trains on your lunch break." She said it like she was filing it away. "How often does the little one crash?"

"About once a week. Usually in the tunnel. I've got tweezers dedicated to the rescue."

She laughed at that, a real laugh, not a polite one. "I'm Giselle, by the way. I'm camping at the loop campground, site fourteen, and my supply chain for the week had a gap where the snacks should be."

"Ramon." I got her the drywall granola and the jerky, and she paid, and then instead of leaving she drifted along the counter and looked at the railway some more. There was a red caboose I'd hand-painted badly, and she pointed at it.

"That one's seen things."

"That one's been through two derailments and a drop from this counter. It's got history."

"See, that's the difference between me and you. I plan supply chains for a living, everything on schedule, everything accounted for, and here you are running a train in circles for fun. Doesn't the loop get boring? Same track, same mountain, same tunnel?"

"Trains don't take detours," I said. "That's kind of the appeal. Everything else in my life takes detours."

"Everything worth doing takes detours," she said, and then she looked a little embarrassed at herself, like she'd said something more honest than she meant to. "Sorry. I've been alone in the woods for two days. I talk to cashiers like they're podcast hosts."

"You're fine. Actually, that's the most conversation this counter's had all week besides worm prices."

She shouldered her pack, and I don't know what came over me, but I heard myself say, "I don't suppose you want a second invitation to anything today, but there's a retirement party at the diner tonight. My coworker Philippe. Thirty years behind the counter here. Whole town's gonna be there, meaning maybe fifteen people. Free cake, mediocre beer."

Giselle stopped with one boot out the door. She turned around and looked at me, and I watched her actually consider it, which I hadn't expected.

"Retirement party," she said. "For a bait shop guy."

"For Philippe. He's a legend. He once talked a man out of buying a boat."

"Well." She smiled. "I did say I wanted to break my routine this trip. What time?"

"Seven. Diner's got the back room. Just tell them you're with the shop."

"I'm with the shop," she repeated, like she was trying the words on, and then she was gone, boots crunching off down the gravel toward the trailhead, and I stood there wondering what I'd just done.

---

The party was exactly the kind of party you'd expect. Philippe held court near the coffee urn telling the story about the boat, and Peggy from the license counter had brought a sheet cake with a fish drawn on it in frosting that looked more like a shoe. I found Giselle by the beverage table at about seven twenty, holding a beer and looking genuinely entertained.

"You came," I said.

"I said I would. Also there's cake, so this is already the best party I've been to in a year." She touched her bottle to mine. "Your boss just told me your train crashes in the tunnel weekly. She confirmed your story."

"Independent verification. Good."

We did the party things for a while. Philippe gave a speech. We applauded. The cake was fine. But somewhere around eight, the room got loud the way small rooms do, and Giselle tilted her head toward the hallway by the restrooms where there was a bench and a corkboard of fishing photos, and we ended up there, out of the noise, sitting close on the bench under a mounted bass with a plaque.

"So here's my situation," she said, turning the beer bottle in her hands. "I'm thirty-one. I do logistics. Everything in my life arrives on time and I can't remember the last time I did something just because it sounded interesting. Then I walk into a bait shop and there's a man who rescues model trains with dedicated tweezers, and he invites me to a stranger's retirement party, and here I am."

"Is that a complaint?"

"It's an observation. I'm having a good time. I'm also wondering what your deal is, Ramon, because you don't invite campers to retirement parties, I'm guessing."

"First one ever," I admitted. "You looked like the kind of person who'd say yes."

"What kind of person says yes?"

"Somebody bored of the loop."

She looked at me for a moment and then she laughed, quiet, down at her bottle. "Okay. That's fair. And since we're being honest in a hallway, I'll say the other thing I've been thinking. You're easy to look at. I noticed it at the counter and I've been noticing it all night, and at some point I figured I'd just say it instead of doing the dance."

"Well, that's efficient," I said, and my face was warm, and I didn't mind it being warm. "I'd say the same. I noticed you before you got all the way through the door, if we're being honest in hallways."

Giselle set her bottle down on the floor by the bench. "So what happens now? Because I've got a campground and a week of vacation, and you've got a train to rescue on Monday, and I feel like there's a whole range of options between shake hands and goodbye, and something at the far end of it I haven't tried in years."

I took a breath. There was something I'd thought about for a long time, honestly, years, the kind of thing you don't bring up at a retirement party hallway, but she had opened a door and my mouth went through it before my brain could stop it.

"Depends how adventurous your week is," I said.

"Why, what are you offering?"

"Trails tomorrow. And maybe more than trails, if you wanted. I've got a few things I've never tried and always been curious about."

Giselle raised an eyebrow. "Curious about, specifically?"

I leaned in a little, close enough that I could smell the campfire smoke in her hair, and told her, plain, what I'd never tried, and I watched her face while I said it. She didn't laugh. She didn't look away either.

"Well," she said, after a second. "That is definitely a detour."

"That's one word for it," I said. "You can say no. That was the whole point of saying it out loud instead of just hinting at it for a week like a normal person."

"I know I can say no!" She picked the bottle back up, mostly to have something to do with her hands, I figured. "It's just interesting, is all. You know what you want. I can't remember the last time I was with somebody who knew exactly what he wanted. Usually it's this whole negotiation where neither person admits to wanting anything until it just sort of happens and everybody pretends it was an accident."

"That sounds exhausting."