Chapter 4

"I didn't sleep very well last night," Jarrod admitted at breakfast.

Beth looked a little trapped. "Neither did I. I kept thinking about yesterday, about how lovely it was to feel – well, to feel that way again."

Jarrod smiled. "What way?"

Beth smiled. "Close to someone else. I haven't felt that way in a very long time, and the past few days, with you, it just happened."

Jarrod took her hand. "That's the way I felt about it, too. I wished yesterday didn't have to end. I suppose that's why I couldn't sleep. So, I got up and went out to the back of the train, and I looked up at your star."

Beth's smile grew. "You did?"

"I can't imagine I'll ever think of it as the North Star again," Jarrod said. "I think it will always be Beth's Star for me now."

Beth looked a little embarrassed.

"What is it?" Jarrod asked. "Did I say something inappropriate?"

Beth shook her head. "Not at all. It's just that when I couldn't sleep, I got up, too, and I went out to the platform between cars. And I looked up at the stars and tried to find yours, but there were so many, and I never did ask you which one was yours."

"Oh, mine's easy to find," Jarrod said. "Since I was a boy, I always imagined my star was right there on the front lip of the Big Dipper, pouring all the other stars out into the sky."

Beth smiled at the picture he had just drawn and said, "Dubhe."

Jarrod was surprised she knew the star's name, but then he realized maybe he shouldn't have been. "You know it."

"Yes," she said, laughing a musical laugh. "When you draw a line between Dubhe and Merak, the star at the bottom front of the Big Dipper – "

"And you extend the line out, it takes you to Beth's Star," Jarrod finished her thought.

Beth nodded. "Your star leads to mine."

Jarrod squeezed her hand. "I'm not remotely surprised."

"I'm going to make a guess," Beth said, suddenly changing the subject. "You like poetry. You like music. You – play the piano?"

"Badly," Jarrod said.

"Oh, I doubt that. You have the hands of a pianist, long fingers."

Jarrod laughed. "That just means I can reach the keys. It doesn't make me any more talented."

"But I'm right about poetry and music."

Jarrod nodded. "You're right about poetry and music. And I wouldn't be surprised if you love them, too."

"I can get lost in anything by Shakespeare, poetry or plays. And any of Mozart's music, especially his piano concerti."

Jarrod shook his head. "It seems the more I discover about you, the more I reveal myself."

"I hope you will try to play the piano for me someday."

"All right. I'll put that at the top of my list. And at the top of your list, will you put reading some Shakespeare to me?"

Beth nodded. "If I read you Romeo and Juliet, do you promise not to laugh when I imitate their voices?"

Jarrod smiled.

Beth went on. "I have a tendency – " and she let her voice drop as low as it would go – "to try to sound like Romeo, or at least how I think Romeo might sound." Then she went back to her normal voice. "But I can never quite do it."

"I won't laugh – much," Jarrod said. "As long as you promise not to laugh when I play the piano."

"I won't laugh – much," Beth said.

After breakfast, they went back to Jarrod's car again, to watch the plains go by outside the window. Beth had never seen them before, and for a long time she just took things in as they sat together, holding hands. But then she suddenly shook her head. "It's like being lost at sea – or at least how I've imagined it would be. Everywhere you look, there is just nothing. In this case grass, not water. But you can see forever and forever, and while you might strain to see a house as much as you might strain to see a ship at sea, there's none there."

"Actually," Jarrod said, "there are houses out there, but they're made of the same material all around them, so they vanish into the landscape. And granted, there aren't many of them."

Suddenly, Beth turned and looked at him, and he instantly lost his train of thought.

"I'm getting as lost in your eyes as you're getting in the grass out there," Jarrod said, and he stole a kiss. Then he felt embarrassed. "I'm sorry. That isn't a safe thing to do, when we're alone here like this, and I don't want – "

Beth put her mouth on his, cutting off his sentence. Jarrod put his arms around her, and for a long time they shared each other, just arms and kisses. Not that Jarrod would have minded it progressing to something more, but Beth was not the kind of girl to take advantage of. He finally sat up straight.

And cleared his throat. "I think perhaps we might take a walk up to the lounge car," he said with a hint of an embarrassed laugh in his voice.

Beth laughed. "That's probably a good idea."

They got up, straightened their clothing out, and walked together to the lounge. It was just before lunch, so it was not very crowded and they hadn't begun serving alcohol yet. That's probably good, Jarrod thought. I might lose all my inhibitions if I'm not careful.

They shared coffee and lunch in the dining car and then returned to the lounge car again for a while. They talked for hours, about silly things like ladies hats with too many feathers and how difficult it was to get a man to close a cabinet door. They were completely unaware the time was slipping away until more people began to come in and the light outside began to fade. Jarrod checked his watch. "My goodness, it's almost seven," he said.

Beth looked around. "I was afraid when I decided to take this trip that I would be bored silly, so I brought several books to keep me company. I haven't opened a one."

Jarrod chuckled. "What did you bring?"

"Oh, a Dickens, and Les Miserables."

"In English or French?"

"Both," Beth said with a laugh. "My French isn't very good, but I try. I thought if I failed, I should have it in English, too."

"Just what I would have done," Jarrod said. "And Dickens - did you know, A Christmas Carol was published only two days after I was born."

"Really?" Beth laughed. "How marvelous, to be attached to that wonderful story."

Jarrod stood up and helped Beth to stand, saying, "Why don't we go to dinner?"

They were both a bit nervous as they sat down to dinner, afraid that when they finished and it was time to get up, they would be arriving in Denver and Beth would be getting off. Forever. They tried not to let it overshadow their time together now. They kept talking and talking. They discussed Angelo's monologue in "Measure for Measure." They discussed Mozart's Requiem and which parts of it had to be completed by a student because he had died before he finished it. Jarrod told Beth about San Francisco and his home there and how he wished that someday he could show her that city.

But then, Beth suddenly noticed that everyone was gone, that she and Jarrod were alone in the dining car, and that meant that soon they would be arriving in Denver. A sadness came into Beth's eyes, and she talked about how the past few days had been a fantasy, they weren't real. Jarrod took her hand. "You're wrong, Beth. It's real."

And moments later, Charles, the waiter, told them that they were arriving in Denver. Jarrod stood up and helped Beth to her feet, but neither one of them was smiling now. It was over. Whether it was a fantasy or whether it was real, it was over.

"Beth, I'm going to see you again," Jarrod said.

"Oh, I hope so," she said.

Jarrod kissed her – and the train jolted to a stop. They were in Denver. Beth had to leave.

When he started to escort her off, she said, "Jarrod, you stay here." And she fled the car.

Jarrod saw her beginning to cry as she hurried out the door. His mind going away with her, he paid Charles for the meal and a tip – and then he made a decision, a decision that put the life back into his heart. He headed for the door. "Charles, take my bags out of the next car and put them off the train."

"But I thought you were going on to Stockton, Mr. Barkley," Charles said.

Jarrod beamed at him as he went out the door. "I've changed my mind!"