Tigers in Red Weather Read Free

on, she smelled her wrist once more before closing the door sharply behind her.
    Entering the lounge car, with its curved wooden bar and low-slung,burgundy seats, Nick felt a trickle of sweat begin to pool between her breasts. She ran her gloved hand over her upper lip and instantly regretted the gesture. A waiter approached and showed her to an empty table. She ordered a martini with extra olives, wondering if they would charge her more for them. She pushed back the felt curtain and stared out into the night. Her own reflection stared back. Behind her head she could see a man in a navy blazer looking at her. She tried to make out if he was handsome, but a passing train obliterated his image.
    She leaned away from the window and crossed her legs, feeling the shift of her nylons between her thighs. The waiter brought her drink and when Nick offered up her cigarette to be lit he fumbled to locate his lighter. The man across the way stepped in, flicking a silver Zippo. All the young men back from the war carried Zippos, as if they came issued along with the uniform.
    “Thank you,” Nick said, keeping her eyes on her cigarette.
    “You’re welcome.”
    The waiter disappeared behind a partition of frosted glass.
    “May I join you?” the man asked. There was nothing hesitant in his request.
    Nick motioned to the seat, without looking up. “I’m not staying long,” she said.
    “Where are you headed?”
    “St. Augustine.”
    He had dark hair, slicked back with pomade. He was handsome, she supposed, in a Palm Springs sort of way. Perhaps a little too much cologne.
    “I’m going to Miami,” he said. “I’m going to see my parents in Miami.”
    “How nice for you,” Nick said.
    “Yes, it is.” He smiled at her. “What about you? Why St. Augustine?”
    “I have a brother there,” Nick said. “He’s decommissioning his ship. I’m going to see him.”
    “How nice for him,” the man said.
    “Yes, it is.” This time, Nick smiled back.
    “I’m Dennis,” the man said, extending his hand.
    “Helena,” said Nick.
    “Like the mountain.”
    “Like the mountain. How original.”
    “I’m an original guy. You just don’t know me very well, yet.”
    “If I knew you better, I would feel differently?”
    “Who can say?” Dennis finished his drink. “I’m having another drink. Would you like another drink, Helena?”
    “I don’t think so,” Nick said.
    “I see. Drinking alone. How sad for me.”
    “Who knows, if you wait around long enough, maybe you’ll find a companion.” The martini was making her feel brave.
    “I don’t want another companion,” Dennis said. He sighed. “Trains make me lonely.”
    Nick was aware of the night rushing by, the whine of steel hitting steel.
    “Yes,” she said. “They are lonely.” She pulled out a cigarette. “I suppose I will have that drink.”
    Dennis signaled to the waiter. This time Nick’s martini had only one olive. For some reason, it made her ashamed.
    “What’s your brother like?”
    “He’s lovely,” she said. “And very blond.”
    “So you don’t look alike.”
    “No, we don’t.”
    “Well, he’s one lucky guy to have a sister like you.”
    “Do you think so? I don’t know how lucky he should feel, really.”
    “I’d like a sister like you.” He grinned at her.
    Nick didn’t like the way he said it, or the way he grinned, as if therewas a complicity between them. Now that he was too close to her, she could see that he had brown hairs protruding from his nostrils.
    “I have to go now,” she said, trying to keep her balance as she rose to her feet.
    “Oh, come on.”
    “Don’t bother getting up.”
    “Don’t get all huffy. I was only kidding.”
    Nick walked out of the lounge. He could pay for both her damn drinks.
    “Any time you want some brotherly love,” she heard him call after her, laughing, before the compartment door cut him off.
    Back in her roomette, she practically ripped her blouse trying to get it off. Her head