. . . a small knot of teens hung out in the back of a flatbed pickup listening to Beyonce. Dig watched as the solitary woman in the bunch tapped one of her comrades on the shoulder and pointed. The conversation cut off instantly. The shoulder-tapped comrade grabbed the brim of his baseball cap and switched it from backwards to forwards, and tipped the brim down low so that his eyes were in the shade. He raised the bottle of Pepsi to his lips and sipped it with a slowness that could almost be felt.
Dig crossed the lot and waved at the gang as he passed. The girl in the truck waved back nervously but the kid with the Coke just kept on looking at Abida, and didn’t acknowledge Dig’s presence.
One of the young boys with the rope said, “Hey mister,” in a tone Dig couldn’t decipher. Dig waved again. The boy waved back.
A thin concrete median at the end of the lot shielded the grass from errant tire tracks. Abida stood just shy of the grass line, her eyes on the engine, its wheels resting on a pair of tracks that ran thirty-odd feet on either side, as if to tempt the train into one last delusion of mobility.
“Typical New Yorker,” said Abida. “I get to Virginia and the first thing I gawk at is a train.”
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