Second Chances

Get Me To The Plane On Time

When the limo stopped in front of her apartment building precisely at 4:15 PM, Maddy pushed open the front door with her bulging suitcase in tow. An overnight bag would have been the practical choice, but having spent more than three hours sorting through her wardrobe, she packed almost everything she owned. She knew she would pay dearly upon her return when she'd confront eight torturous flights of stairs but she had other far more pressing worries.

The limo driver, a middle-aged man with a neatly trimmed mustache and graying temples, rolled down the window and shouted from the curb, "You Madison Taylor?"

"Yeah. That's me."

"Be careful on that sidewalk. Looks slippery." He popped the trunk.

Struggling with her suitcase, she asked, "So, you're not--"

He rolled up the window.

"Sure wasn't expecting that." She gritted her teeth with determination. Venturing carefully onto the slick sidewalk, she made slow progress toward the vehicle, one cautious step at a time.

He rolled down the window. "You mind moving a little faster? You don't wanna miss your flight."

Picking up her pace as she approached the rear of the limo, Maddy nearly did a split when she hit a patch of ice.

"You should talk to your landlord about this sidewalk," he said. "Somebody could get hurt."

Maddy strained to lift her suitcase into the trunk. She propped herself against the bumper then, with her face red from exertion, she muscled the suitcase in on the second try. She slammed the trunk, clung to the polished vehicle on her way to the passenger door, then plunged into the limo's tan leather interior. 

"Boy, that sure looked heavy," the driver said.

"It is." She buckled her seatbelt.

"You got nobody in your building to help you? That doesn't seem very neighborly."

"You know," Maddy sighed. "When you see somebody getting picked up by a limo on TV, the driver carries the bags."

"You see flying horses on TV, too, but I don't see any horses flying around Manhattan." He chuckled at his own joke.

"I wish I was on a flying horse right now."

He bit into a sweet roll and, as he steered away from the curb he offered an open box. "You wanna pastry?" There were only two Danish, both looking as though they were ripped out of the mouth of a ravenous dog.

"Leftover from this morning?"

He shrugged. "Who said pastry was just a morning thing?"

"I'll pass." She looked down at her sensible shoes and thought, "Maybe I should have packed heels. What if everyone else is wearing heels except me?" 

"You in the mood for some music?" he said through a mouthful of Danish. "Maybe some Christmas songs will cheer you up."

"Cheer me up?"

"You seem sorta grumpy if you don't mind me saying so."

"I'm just a little nervous about the flight."

"You know, it's ten times more likely that we die in a crash on the way to the airport than your plane going down."

"That's not what I meant. I'm not scared--"

"Probably twenty times. Look at the way these maniacs drive." Crawling along in slow-moving Riverside Drive traffic on their way to George Washington Bridge, he said, "We could be stopped at a light when a truck comes barreling around the bend, and WHAM! We'd be sitting ducks. Burnt to a crisp." He blasted some Christmas music and sang along. "Pa-rump-pum-bum-bum!"