February Fever by Jess Lourey

and I’d wake up thinking about Noel, and I always wished for the same thing.
    I wished I had saved her.
    I should have looked at the license plate. I knew my letters and numbers. I could have looked, and I could have remembered, and I could have saved her if I’d been smarter and braver.
    The sound of the train whistle startled me back in the moment. I was surprised at the hot tears pushing against my eyelids. I blinked them away and waved back at the little girl who had sparked this whole memory. Her face lit up with a gap-toothed grin. Beyond the missing front teeth and the Velveteen Rabbit, she really didn’t look much like Noel. My friend had been blond, and this girl was brunette. Noel had been petite, with a pointier chin.
    And she’d been so courageous, so beautifully perfect and bossy and bold.
    I tried to catch a last look at the girl’s mom, the woman who had originally bumped into me, but she was wearing oversized sunglasses. Even so, I could make out a little of her profile. I was struck by how little mother and daughter resembled one another. Oh well. I didn’t look much like my mom, either.
    â€œMira! The train!” Jed yelled into my ear. “The train!”
    I jumped, thinking of Fantasy Island . Jed was too young to know who Tattoo was, so I spared him the rerun memories. The train was indeed firing up, a silver behemoth with smoke unfurling from its chimneys. The whistle blew again, and the crowd began to shuffle like anxious cattle. I struggled to push away thoughts of Noel, but remembering her had dusted me with sadness.
    â€œYou stay by the luggage, and I’ll get Mrs. Berns,” I said.
    Jed nodded happily, perched on his tippy-toes to get a better view of the train. He was as excited as I’d been earlier. My heart warmed a bit. He was such an amazingly upbeat person that he elevated the mood of everyone around him.
    I located Mrs. Berns toward the rear of the station, which was easier to navigate now that everyone was crowding outside to get in line for the train or to see off loved ones. She was near the pop machine, a red-and-white, bubble-shaped, old-fashioned appliance that still dispensed glass bottles. It was in keeping with the style of the rest of the station, which was somewhere between “cool retro” and “college-boy basement apartment” in both appearance and smell. Plywood walls had been erected to create a corner office in what was otherwise an open space rimmed with benches, the walls lined with maps and schedules.
    â€œMrs. Berns!”
    She glanced over at me. I realized an older gentleman was talking to her. It was funny because she usually went for the younger guys. This one was white-haired, pushing eighty least. Maybe she knew him from Battle Lake? She gave me the “just a minute” look, and so I pretended to read the Why Train Travel Is Better poster while she finished her business. I stood there for all of two minutes before she appeared at my side.
    â€œTime to go?”
    I glanced over at her, surprised she’d reached me so quickly, then back toward the soda machine. The old guy was still standing there. “That was fast,” I said. “Do you know him?”
    â€œName is Jack, he’s traveling to Missoula, widowed, and wants to get in my pants.”
    I raised my eyebrow. “You guys covered a lot of territory.”
    â€œThe important stuff, anyhow. But he’s not my type. They get to be that age, once you get to the bedroom it’s like trying to stick an oyster in a slot machine.” She pointed toward the door. “We better get on that train. It’s not gonna wait for us.”
    She turned on her heel without giving me time to process her comment. It was probably just as well. The less I thought about her sex life, the better, especially since it was often more interesting than mine—recent events being the notable exception.
    I caught up with her near Jed. I