Rushing Waters Read Online Free Page A

his viselike grip on her.
    “It’s fine.” She smiled at him. “You ought to take one of those fear of flying classes. I hear they help.”
    “I’m not sure anything will help after last year, since my wife ran off with an idiot named Nigel. I haven’t been myself since.” He seemed sad as he said it, but less agonized than he had a moment before. He was returning to normal, with some embarrassment over the discomfort he had put Ellen through, clutching her arm. “Do you suppose they thought we were going to crash?” Charles asked her in a conspiratorial tone.
    “I don’t think so. They just don’t take any chances, and the weather looks pretty bad.” She could see men in heavy yellow slickers guiding the plane in, and fighting the heavy winds outside. “It looks like we’re in for some pretty nasty weather this weekend until the storm passes.” She sounded disappointed. She and her mother loved walking around the city.
    “This isn’t a storm—it looks like a cyclone.” He was watching the men in slickers too, and then the jumbo plane rolled the rest of the way toward the terminal and parked at the gate. “Whatever it is, thank you for getting me through it,” he said to her humbly.
    “I’m sure we’ve just been through the worst of it,” she said confidently, as they both stood up and gathered their things when the plane stopped moving.
    “Enjoy your stay in New York,” he said, still slightly embarrassed, then hurried off the plane rolling his carry-on bag behind him. Ellen followed the mass of other passengers more slowly. She was thinking about him and the details he had shared about his divorce as she walked through the terminal toward baggage claim. He seemed smart and nice, and he was handsome, but obviously a very anxious person, and it sounded like he’d been through a lot in the last year, with his wife running off with Nigel, and taking their daughters with her to live in New York. Ellen felt sorry for him again as she waited for her bag to appear, spotted it, took it off the carousel herself, and put it on a cart to roll through customs. She had nothing to declare and was out of the terminal quickly. When she walked outside, a long line of people were waiting for taxis, and there were none. She saw Charles Williams at the head of the line, and he signaled to her to join him. She hesitated for a minute, then moved forward.
    “Do you want to share a ride into the city? I don’t think there will be enough cabs for everyone. Where are you going?” he asked her.
    “I’m staying with my mother in Tribeca,” she explained, suddenly feeling as though they were old friends after a slightly nerve-racking final hour of the flight and the choppy landing in New York.
    “That’s perfect. I’m staying at the Soho Grand. I’ll drop you off. I owe you something for nearly tearing off your arm.” He smiled again as a cab pulled up where they were first on line and got in. She gave the driver her address, and then Charles told him his hotel. Her suitcase was safely in the trunk. And they chatted normally on the way into the city.
    “I’m sorry I told you all that about the divorce. It’s been a bad patch in my life. It’s been a bit of an adjustment, especially to have my daughters so far away and living here. I try to see them as often as I can, and they spend school holidays with me in London.” He turned to the driver then. “What news of the hurricane? It looks like it’s already here.”
    “This is nothing,” the driver said in a heavy foreign accent. “You should have seen Sandy five years ago. Our garage lost most of our cabs. It was ten feet underwater. I think this will blow itself out when it hits land, like Irene, the year before Sandy. That was a lot of noise about nothing. Everyone got evacuated and nothing happened. But Sandy—that was worse than Katrina in New Orleans. I live in Far Rockaway, and my brother lost his house.” Even five years later people spoke of