Chapter 1
MIA
The agency said dress casual.
I looked around New York’s Grand Central Station, jammed with men and women in their classic black suits, guys in leather jackets and hoodies, girls in long overcoats all racing from corridor to corridor as if on urgent missions, and millennials in their slick polished patent leathers and stilettos looking ever so perfect with cell phone earpieces.
Okay, so the agency said dress casual. They probably didn’t mean cutoffs and Uggs. I was basing this thought on…well, every single person walking by me. Some tried to go through me as if I didn’t exist, and all so they could get wherever they were going faster, faster, faster.
As I scanned the room, the strangest thought came to me. All these people, all these shoes, and not one scuff mark on the vanilla ice-cream-colored marble floors. That was amazing if you think about it.
My neck was cramped from looking up for so long. Iwas mesmerized by the architecture adorning the walls.
Itucked my purse close to my side. A middle-aged balding bloke brushed by so close my eyes watered instantly from the onions he must have had for breakfast. A thick mustached older man wore aftershave so strong my nose felt like I snorted rubbing alcohol. His abrupt “move out of my way, lady” was equally as abrasive as his smell.
I wiped tears from my eyes with the corner of my sweater. I was in sinus overload from the Flowery Perfumes filling the air.
One black coat after another. No one seemed to care about the person next to them, much less make eye contact or smile.
I held tight to the extended handle of my suitcase at my feet that held my personal items and a few outfits. I was trying my best to see everything, so I just literally spun in an actual circle looking at it all. It occurred to me how awkward I must look, but no one seemed to care.
I wonder if anyone would say anything to me if I just lay down on the floor right here.
There was a mural on the ceiling, for crying out loud, and I wanted a good long look at it. I took all of five minutes to contemplate if I could get away with lying down.
Dare I do it? Ha. As if any of these suits would notice me. They would just step over me. I looked around again to see if I could do it.
Yeah, I’m for sure not dressed right. It must be much colder outside than I thought. I’m such a fruit loop.
I tugged at the hem of my shorts, feeling more than a little self-conscious. I knew my shorts weren’t too short because I just didn’t dress that way, but standing here with the fringed ends of my shorts lightly hitting the back of my upper thigh, I was regretting the outfit choice. Everyone had on hats, scarves, or gloves. But a small group of girls dancing off to the side gave me hope that people dressed in normal clothes. They had on jeans and sneakers I didn’t feel as much like a piker as before. There was the occasional casually dressed girl or guy in jeans and a sweatshirt, but the thing I noticed the most was all of the headphones.
Well, Mia, you already discovered it’s too cold to go outside in shorts. You forgot to check the temperatures in New York in late November? Way to think that one out in advance. The map says it’s not too far to the agency, so hot tea to warm me up, then I’ll walk.
A very tall man with a scowl between his eyes from his hairline to eyebrows, mysteriously dressed in a charcoal grey trench coat shouldered into me and nearly knocked me down. I took a quick step and backed up right into a woman with a metal briefcase. The man didn’t spare even a second of remorse for running into me.
Really? A metal briefcase. Who uses a metal case? Damn! That’ll be a nice bruise. Is everyone in New York this unfriendly?
With a huff of breath, I wished desperately for a hot tea from back home. It had been a long forty-eight hours of traveling. I felt like I was playing dodge ball just to get through the station in search of a tea shop, only further validating my opinion of people in New York.
Finally, the aroma I’ve been praying for. Well, almost. That smell is coffee, but where there was coffee there was also tea. Which way?
I glanced side to side. Surely one person racing by could tell me where to go? Ha, they all look like they would ‘tell me where to go’ if I bother them.
Let’s make a game out of it. Will it be red lips, plaid suit, or stilettos? Which one will help me?
I turned to my right where Stilettos was tapping away at her cell phone, chomping like a starved cow on chewing gum.
“Excuse me, do you—”
Stilettos walked away mid question.
Not Stilettos. Red lips just looks mad at the world. Let’s try Plaid Suit by door number three. He seems more focused on grooming himself and his hideous mustache.
“Sir? Do you know where I can get a tea here in the station?”
Plaid Suit froze in place like a deer caught in headlights, like he had no idea what I was talking about or why I was talking to him
Don’t laugh. Just walk away as fast as you can. I wonder if I can Google tea in Grand Central?
I pulled my cell from my back pocket. I had three bars, so that should be enough to Google something. Three minutes later, I dropped my cell phone unceremoniously into my oversized purse. I did an eeny, meeny, miny, moe out loud because…why not? No one was listening anyways.
Straight ahead down corridor number one was the winner. I took firm control of my suitcase, braced myself for the physical attacks, and forged forward. I really needed that tea.
“I would even take coffee at this point.
I glanced at my mother’s gold watch I always wore. I watched the hand slowly tick one second at a time. I had already wasted forty-five minutes just observing New Yorkers, and now I was nearly out of time.
“It’s time to go see outside before my afternoon meeting. Where a stranger would be changing my life…….temporarily. Ah, coffee, please let it be a Starbucks. Thank the lord, it’s a Starbucks. The one back home has tea, so please, please have tea. I’m freezing.
At least I had on Chloe’s knee-high, black sequin Uggs and not my favorite ankle-high Uggs. Chloe was a great sister and best friend. Somehow, she managed to get my Uggs into the little suitcase at the last minute knowing how much I loved them. I was going to miss her so much.
Oh shoot. Chloe. I forgot to call her. Where is your head, Mia?
I had promised to call to let her know I arrived safely. I needed to focus on the big picture here. The line in Starbucks wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought it was going to be with how many people were buzzing around running from train to train. Everyone had something in their hands, from coffee to pizza to donuts or a sandwich. Not a single table in Starbucks.
Does anyone sit and eat here?
I decided to place my tea order before the big hunt for my cell phone somewhere in the dark corners of my handmade denim bag.
“I’ll have a large black tea, please,” I said. “Two Splenda.”
Naturally I’d need my cell right when I knew it was hiding defiantly beneath my wallet, hair brush, sunglasses, and god knows what else TSA would allow me to keep. What I hadn’t expected to happen was to get my hair tangled in the sequins of those knee-high Uggs.
Damn, this hair. I should have cut it, but Chloe wouldn’t have it, and right now I I’d do anything to make Chloe happy. Like wear these crazy Uggs. Chloe hasn’t smiled in six months ever since her little girl Sophie got sick.