Jilly-Bean (Jilly-Bean Series # 1) Read Free Page A

show indifference and promptly returned to her reading. On the front page of the Globe and Mail the headlines read: “Global Warming: Environmental Changes Ahead!” Scientists were concerned about the melting icecaps.
    “Not'ing but doom and gloom!” the man announced loudly with distaste. “Dis is what de media 'ave to print to sell de papers.”
    The words were like a jab to her ribs. She looked up again from her paper and this time gave the man a hostile glance.
    The man quickly wiped his fingers over his nearly bald scalp and leaned forward. With a wan smile, he added, “De winters 'ave been getting hotter, I 'ave noticed.”
    She smiled briefly and nodded assent, then craned her neck to see above the seat in front of her, looking for an escape, any vacant spot in the narrow overcrowded compartment. None was to be found. She slowly turned back and glanced at the man, who was still looking at her, expectantly, smiling hopefully. She felt a low throbbing pain like a migraine developing but resigned herself to her spot by the window, chiding herself for not having taken an earlier train. Undeterred by her hostile glances, the man continued to make attempts at small talk, while she replied in monosyllables and tried in vain to avoid making eye contact with him; instead she would stare at the back of the seat straight in front of her as she spoke. Over the next hour, she learned the man's name was Pierre la Boite; he talked about his background, his family, his wife, his two kids, the amount of rain that had fallen within the past few weeks and whether global warming could have anything to do with it. Maybe the newspapers were right. As the time passed she grew increasingly anxious and alarmed by his shiny coal-black eyes with their penetrating gaze.
    At last the train wheezed as it made its way slowly into Union Station; the anxious passengers waited eagerly to escape the confined hot space and proceed to their destinations. Hurriedly they retrieved their luggage from the overhead compartments, struggling and pushing to be first off the train. The ride had left Jillian exhausted. The snapping sound of the luggage compartments opening and shutting, like bullets, seemed deafening. There was a buzzing in her ears; people were pushing past her, struggling to get out. She was swaying, wiping at her eyes in a half dazed state. She retrieved her day bag from the compartment above her seat. But Pierre la Boite was hovering directly behind her and suddenly laid a clammy hand on her shoulder— an unexpected movement that caught her off guard and caused her to straighten and freeze, dropping the bag with a thud. She turned sharply to face him, forcing herself to view him more clearly, and was immediately struck by the anxious look in his beady black eyes. So embarrassing! The same look Selby Travis had used to give her— a boy in her sixth-grade class who had had a crush on her— the only boy ever to accidentally wet himself in front of the whole class while the teacher was giving a lesson in Canadian geography.
    “Yes, what is it?” she asked, her voice faltering. She absent-mindedly wiped at the beads of perspiration forming above her brow. The compartment had become unbearably hot and oppressive, and the smell of his cologne was overpowering.
    Pierre la Boite continued to stare at her with his sheepish grin, sweat gleaming on his forehead. His mouth was moving but with no sound coming out, like an announcer on a TV set on mute, but then slowly his words became clear; he was speaking half apologetically: “Per'aps we could get together some time— maybe for coffee?”
    She was astonished: “Coffee? I'm not a coffee-drinker,” she retorted.
    “It doesn't 'ave to be coffee,” he said in an apologetic tone, his face turning red.
    Had she heard him right? The competing voices in the background had become disconcertingly loud. Her eyes widened in alarm, and as she stared at this middle-aged man standing before her, every