I DID NOT DO IT

 

Day 7 of the Flash Fiction Marathon: Write a story that takes 

place entirely on the bus or train when you're commuting to work 

 

“I didn’t sleep with your sister.”

Marianne looked up from the sweet roll she was nibbling at the man sitting kitty corner to her on the train. They were only two of four people in the car, the others at the far end. She’d bought the roll and a tea just before boarding at Cornavin on her way to work to work in Nyon, a twenty-minute trip. Since she didn’t see her first client until 11, she missed the commuter crush each morning.

“You always do this, accuse me of sleeping with every woman I know and some I don’t.”

He was adorable, Marianne thought. Movie-star adorable with wavy brown hair, what they call bedroom eyes and white teeth, the kind that if it were a movie, there would be a ping and a flash of light.

“No, I don’t want to cancel our trip.”

Mobile phones, Marianne thought, often gave an insight into other people’s lives that one didn’t necessarily want. The man, probably in his early 30s wasn’t speaking that loudly, but his voice did carry across the narrow aisle between the seats.

“Of course, Amy denied it. It didn’t happen.” The man ran his hand through his hair.

Outside, the Alps were visible on her left and vineyards covered the hill to her right.

“The tickets are non-refundable,” he said.

Marianne crumbled the paper that the roll had come in and put it in the tiny container for trash.

“Of course, Amy denied it. It didn’t happen.”

They were almost to Nyon. Marianne took the last sip of her tea and got up to put her coat on. The temperature had been 5° that morning and there was frost everywhere.

“I didn’t sleep with Gina either.”

The train pulled into Nyon. For a second, Marianne debated staying on to the next stop to hear the end of the conversation. The man might be going all the way to Lausanne or Zurich even at the end of the line, and she had things to do.

As she stood up her eyes met the man’s.

She resisted handing him her card:

Marianne Bosset

Couples Counselling

She would never know how it ended, but she suspected he’d be better off with someone else.

372 words