If I had to describe it I would have said that she had her sea legs. She swayed from toe to heel in the ebb and flow her hand resting gently on the rail in front of her like an after thought. Her ease was all the more evident as the man with nervous eyes directly to her left gripped the rail like a life line. Was she adrift? Certainly, but she wasn’t casting about for rescue like the man. Her eyes swung over the throng pausing to read this or that sign, to stare out the windows where brief and eerie light would often break the gloom, and when anyone met her gaze head on she smiled before looking away. If the thought that I shouldn’t be watching this sure-footed woman had actually crossed my mind I would have dimissed it, the T was a dull dredge of a task only made better by people watching, but it didn’t. So I waited to see if she would notice me also a veteran of the halting jerking MBTA holding a book in one hand and the rail in the other. Till then I would continue to make sailing analogies. She even wore nautical navy trousers and linen all she needed was sun and surf and the look would have been complete. The slow moving green line surfaced, whale-like, she  adjusted her bag freeing a pair of sunglasses and caught me looking. Her eyes dropped and heat raced around my collar. No smile for me then, but she looked back up quickly and smiled before putting on her bright green frames. I watched as she pressed the call button and waited for the doors to open. As the doors slid to a close I walked over to the window to watch her disappear as the T sank back underground. She waved once and fell out of sight. Maybe she was more like a mirage … or a fever dream…