Sometime in the late 20th century, a young woman named Beth is on a train from Boston to Chicago. Although there are plenty of open seats around her, a man named Carl chooses to sit next to her. Beth wants him to go, but Carl keeps talking. He reveals that he works as a phone psychic; she recalls to herself a time when she was charged an exorbitant amount of money for a call to a phone psychic that she hung up on out of fear.

Suddenly, the train lurches forward and stops. It had hit something, and a passenger died from being thrown out. Carl goes up to another car to investigate; Beth stays, reading a magazine and eavesdropping on the people around her. When Carl returns, he and Beth play a game where he reads her an imaginary fortune. He tells her that she lives as though chasing meager amounts of happiness and that he doesn’t know if she’ll ever achieve anything more. Discomfited by the veracity of the fortune, Beth breaks off the conversation with Carl and tries to sleep. She stares out the window at the dead body and the officers and the deceased man’s family. Carl leans over to her and reassures her that a man, whoever she’s been waiting for, will come back to her, but that she’ll refuse him.