Reid & Robie

Travel is the best way to be lost and found at the same time.

– Brenna Smith

After half an hour on the rails, Willie Dare, perpetual alien without home or country, found himself sitting on a train going nowhere.

The prolonged stop at some tiny, unnamed station in Italy’s Puglia region forced the conductor to walk up and down the aisle mentioning a mechanical issue that needed repair. After twenty minutes, the engineer got on the intercom to explain the unexpected delay, but there was little in the Italian report that Willie understood.

As a constant stranger traveling across borders Willie was used to being surrounded by languages he didn’t comprehend. Still, his ears picked up when he caught two words he thought he recognized. “Quaranticinque minuti,” or what Willie took to mean that he, his wife and their fellow passengers heading to Brindisi would be stuck on a motionless railcar for another forty-five minutes.

Hunger pains were beginning to worm their way through Willie’s body. Small at first but soon announcing themselves with increased frequency and an audible intensity that Willie felt echoed around the metal box. Checking his watch, Willie realized it was near noon. Then he remembered that he hadn’t eaten in 24 hours.

At 00 Restaurant in Lecce yesterday, Willie’s midday repast began with a plate of warm flatbread generously topped with prosciutto, cheese, dried figs and walnuts – big enough for a meal. After splitting the sumptuous appetizer with his wife, Willie was full by the time his bowl of pasta carbonara hit the table but bravely dug into the succulent, creamy egg pasta anyway. Come dinnertime, Willie was too full to contemplate food again.

Willie’s stomach soon recalled a different afternoon at 00. After all, the restaurant had become a favorite haunt during the couple’s week in Lecce. Located just around the corner from their apartment, Willie’s wife had dubbed the place, “Double Oh! As in OOMG!” So during one of those rare spring days without rain, Willie and Carrara sat outside Double Oh exchanging yummy noises with each bite of bread slathered in creamy burrata topped with briny anchovies and a sprinkling of grated lemon peel.

Double Oh was the best restaurant Willi had visited in months. Not since stuffing himself on beef fajita nachos and spinach quesadillas at Mi Cocina in Dallas before leaving the States had he enjoyed food so much. Nearly a year later Willie could still recall the ice-cold mambo taxi, a swirled, frozen concoction combining two of his favorite beverages, margarita and sangria. On that final, surprisingly cool, summer, late afternoon, he and Carrara had lingered on the TexMex patio for hours.

Thinking about all this food was making Willie ravenous. The memory of dishes, so vivid in his mind made Willie’s mouth water and his stomach growl louder. Clutching his ribs as another sound emanated from his midsection, Willie suddenly realized the local train had no bar car. That meant the continued delay could leave him stranded for hours without food.

Overcome with hunger, Willie made up his mind. He wouldn’t sit around while starvation gnawed at him from the inside. No, with forty-five minutes before the train might be ready to resume its journey, he would go to the café he saw outside his railcar window. Just beyond the tiny station, Willie made out red letters proclaiming Due Sorelle, or Two Sister’s Café.

 “I’m running out to grab a sandwich. Want anything?” Willie asked his wife.

“What? You’re getting off the train?” asked the clever Carrara. “It could start again any minute.”

“No, they said it would take another forty-five minutes,” Wille countered.

“Because now you speak Italian?” Carrara commented dryly.

But Willie’s overwhelming hunger meant he was past caring about the barb from his wife. Standing, he checked his wallet for cash. Then after momentarily contemplating leaving his phone on board, Willie grabbed it out of habit, shoving the rectangular bulk into a pocket before bounding off the train buoyed by images of thinly sliced prosciutto on crusty bread as he headed down the stairs to the tunnel beneath the tracks.

Outside the station, Willie found the small café and got behind a line of locals grabbing small, strong cups of coffee and sandwiches. When he got to the counter, Willie didn’t see any premade paninis but ordered two anyway – one for him and one for Carrara since Willie sensed his wife’s snarky remark meant she was getting hangry. Then Willie paid and sat down to wait for the man behind Due Sorelle’s counter to prepare his sandwiches.

Suddenly Willie’s phone vibrated in his pants pocket. It was a text from Carrara.

For several seconds Willie was momentarily stunned, staring uncomprehendingly at the four-word note from his wife. Willie, the train left! When the meaning finally sank in, Willie turned toward the station and looked out the window at empty tracks. The train that had been idling on the rails – his train – was nowhere in sight.

For a second, Willie considered dashing out to try and catch it, but he realized it was already too late. Instead, he sat at the café waiting for his sandwiches. At least now he wouldn’t have to share, thought Willie.

On the train, the clever Carrara raced up and down the cars looking for the conductor, but the man who’d been roaming the aisles had suddenly vanished. Then seeing the view outside change from town to rolling countryside, Carrara realized any attempt to stop the train was futile. Returning to her seat, she sat by the window and researched afternoon trains to Brindisi.

There was time, Carrara thought. Thanks to the near-constant rain that had tried to derail their trip and their host’s ridiculous 10.30 a.m. check-out time, the pair had left Lecce earlier than expected. In Brindisi they planned to take a ferry across the Adriatic to Albania, but the boat didn’t leave until midnight. That left plenty of time for Willie to catch another train to the port, Carrara told herself.

Willie’s wife found another train leaving in half an hour and texted Willie. Buy another ticket. Either at the station or online. If all else fails, get on and pay the conductor for a ticket. But get on that train!

The next train didn’t go straight to Brindisi but backtracked to Lecce where Willie would then have to get on a high-speed train to the coast. By taking the quicker, more expensive route, Willie would arrive in Brindisi before his wife.

New obstacles flashed through Carrara’s mind. Her husband didn’t have his passport, only the Global Entry card he always carried proud of the combined TSA Pre-Check status and Global Entry access it gave him when returning to the U.S. Was that enough to get Willie through security? Carrara wondered. Maybe, she thought, if he used it alongside the picture of his passport Willie had stored on his phone, the one showing the long hair he’d worn since his days in rock radio.

With the two, Willie might be able to talk his way onboard, Carrara hoped. “He has to,” she added to no one in particular.

But Willie Dare was a bigger rule follower than his bad-boy image let on. Years earlier when a U.S. Customs agent asked Willie if he had any meat products in his luggage, Willie had proudly confessed. “We bought a serrano ham at the airport in Madrid,” he said grinning before the smile disappeared and the agent confiscated Willie’s cherished Spanish pork.

Sitting at Due Sorelle Café devouring the first grilled ham and cheese panini, Willie got another text from his wife. You may have to talk your way through security.

I’ll do the best I can, came the reply.

You can! she typed trying to bolster Willie’s resolve.

It wasn’t just about missing the ferry. If Willie didn’t make it to Brindisi in time for the 11:59 p.m. sailing, the Dares would overstay their visa and be in Italy illegally. Having spent 83 days in Greece within the last six months, today was the couple’s 90^th – and final – day in the Schengen zone, a 27-country region of Europe that limited the amount of time noncitizens could stay on the continent. If caught, Willie and Carrara could be fined, jailed or both. With flights deporting people to third countries half a world away, every government was looking to crack down on illegal immigrants clogging their systems. That made it doubly crucial for the Dares to leave Italy before midnight.

Willie texted his wife that he had tickets back to Lecce and then on to Brindisi, adding We’re leaving now, words that allowed Carrara to relax for the first time since the train started rolling again.

All too soon her cellphone vibrated again with another note from Willie. I got on the wrong train. Will not make it back to Lecce in time for the next train to Brindisi. And the one after that is full.

Got on the wrong train?!? The clever Carrara was temporarily stupefied, her mind unable to process how something like this could happen. But Willie knew. After buying a ticket for the return to Lecce, Willie had heeded the agent’s advice. “Hurry, the train leaves shortly,” she told him.

Returning to the platform, Willie took a seat on the train and texted his wife he was departing. But while Willie’s attention was focused on his screen, he missed the line of cars pulling up at the next track and the rush of people scrambling to get on.

Missing the return to Lecce meant Willie also missed the highspeed train to Brindisi. He continued texting his wife. I have a ticket for the 10:26 p.m. train out of Lecce. It gets into Brindisi at 11:30 p.m. Once back in Lecce I will go to the ticket office to see if an agent will take pity on me to get on an earlier train. If not, I’ll be there before the ferry leaves. I promise.

Barely, Willie realized but didn’t add in his message.

At the Lecce ticket office Willie tried talking his way onto the next train but learned there weren’t any seats available. It was Sunday, after all. The end of a long holiday weekend in Italy, and people needed to get home.

When Willie’s train finally left Lecce, he willed the conductor go faster aware that he still had to catch a cab to the port, find his wife and make it through Customs and Immigration before boarding the ferry – all in under half an hour. As Willie’s taxi pulled up at the harbor, Carrara was waiting. Throwing his suitcase at him, she led the race to Immigration. As the couple ran up the gangplank, the boatswain ushered them inside the m/v Vittorio Emanuele II then locked the metal door behind them.

Flopping into the nearest seat, Willie watched impassively as deckhands loosened the ship’s ropes. Exhausted, emotionally drained and out of breath, Willie Dare, perpetual alien without home or country had made it. Checking his watch, he noted it read 00.00. Or, as Willie saw it, Double Oh, Double Oh.

Placing one hand over his stomach, Willie felt a sudden, familiar spasm.