A Murder Misstery Finis

Dearest Tracy,

I don't know where to begin. Since our night together in London I've thought a lot about what I've done. My life is so screwed up! I am a man, living as a woman, who can never come home. You asked me how can I live with myself? The answer is, I can't. I'm sorry for any hurt I caused you. Love,

Matt

I sealed the letter in an envelope, addressed it to Tracy in Rosemont, put a French postage stamp on it, and put it back in my purse. I knew if I sent the letter, it would lay a heavy guilt trip on Tracy, but that was not my intention. Just then my cell phone rang. "Allo?"

"Madeline?" It was Jacques.

"Bonsoir, mon amour."

He picked up my cue and continued the conversation in French, asking me where I was. I told him I was in the south of France, technically true, and assured him that I missed him and wanted him in my bed again soon. Jacques played along perfectly, and rang off with a promise to call me tomorrow.

A glance at my diamond watch told me that I was late for dinner. I stepped back into my heels, grabbed my purse and made my way down the gently swaying corridor to the dining car. It was quite elegant, half-filled with well-dressed diners seated at intimate tables set with linen, crystal and silver. I was shown by a uniformed attendant to a table already occupied by a smartly dressed woman of about my age.

I took the opposing chair and fumbled in my purse for a cigarette. She put down her Financial Times and lit one of her own. After we shared guilty smiles, she introduced herself as Gabrielle. Although I'd studied Spanish in high school and college, her Catalonian dialect was incomprehensible to me, and her French was as bad as mine, so we settled on English as a default language. I had to remind myself to dumb it down and speak with a French accent!

"My name is Madeline," I told her. Although I was supremely confident in my passing ability by now, it occurred to me that this would be my first sustained conversation with a woman other than Tracy. How did girls talk to each other anyhow?