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his lips. Tom had obviously touched a nerve here.
    “Well, actually, our families don’t, you know...”
    “Don’t know you’re getting married?”
    “Don’t know and don’t approve of us getting married,” said Julie as she dabbed at her eyes with the back of her hand.
    “Come on, Jule, Tom doesn’t need to hear about this.”
    “Well, he asked,” she shot back.
    Steve looked at Tom and tried to affect a carefree attitude. “So we’re doing it on our own. Because we love each other.”
    But Julie said, “His family doesn’t approve of me. They think because I’m from some little podunk Virginia town in the Appalachian Mountains that I’m some sort of white trash. Well, my father might have worked in the mines since he was sixteen, and my mother never finished high school either, and”—she looked at Steve—“your parents are high society in Connecticut, but my family is not trash. They’re every bit as good as yours, and in lots of ways better,” she added with fervent Southern spirit.
    Tom noted that he’d been right about their origins: the Virginia gal and the Connecticut boy. “So, does your family approve of the marriage?” he asked Julie, trying to defuse the tension a little.
    “They like Steve a lot, but they think I’m too young. I’m in college. We both are, at George Washington University in Washington. That’s where we met. They want me to finish school before I get married.”
    “Well, that’s understandable, especially if they never had a chance to go to college. I’m sure they just want the best for you.”
    “The best thing for me is Steve.” She smiled at him, and Tom could tell the young man’s heart was melting at what she was going through. These two might be young, but they were old enough to be absolutely head-over-heels in love.
    Julie continued, “And I’m going to finish college, and then I’m going on to law school, at the University of Virginia. I’m going to do my parents proud. But I’m going to do all of that as Steve’s wife.”
    “Well,” Tom said, “it’s your life, and I think you should follow your heart.”
    “Thanks, Tom,” Julie said, and she gave his hand a pat.
    If only he’d followed that advice with Eleanor, things might have been different. Ironically, they too had met in college. Eleanor had been one of those incredibly smart people who graduated high school at sixteen and college at nineteen. After college, they’d done some investigative reporting in the States, and scored a couple of big stories, before taking the leap and signing on as the entire overseas bureau for a fledgling news service. They had collected the experiences of a lifetime—several lifetimes, in fact. They’d fallen in love, like Steve and Julie. They should have been engaged and then married, too, yet it had ended so abruptly that Tom still found it intensely painful to think about their last moments together.
    “So, is the minister on board?” For a second Tom thought Father Kelly might be officiating, but he’d said he was retired and surely he would have mentioned a wedding.
    Steve said, “He gets on in Chicago. The ceremony takes place the next day. Our maid of honor and best man are getting on in Chicago too.”
    “Well, good luck to both of you. I take it everybody on the train is invited,” he added.
    “We sure hope somebody will come,” said Steve.
    “Right,” added Julie nervously, “otherwise it will be a pretty lonely wedding.”
    “No bride should have to settle for that. I’ll be there, Julie, and I’ll bring all my train friends with me.” Tom didn’t yet have any train friends, but how hard could it be to make friends on the Cap? He sort of already had Agnes Joe in his back pocket.
    “Lounge car at nine in the morning,” said Steve. “The station stop is La Junta.”
    “That means ‘junction’ in Spanish,” said Julie. “Seemed appropriate for a marriage.”
    “I’m curious: Why the train in the first place?”
    Julie