LITMIR.BIZ

       FIVE

      Fiona was late. She had left the brownstone in Gramercy Park, where she lived, in plenty of time and, miraculously, a taxi was just dropping off a passenger on Park Avenue.

      Her luck ended there. Bumper-to-bumper traffic was everywhere. Her driver crawled up and down side streets only to be greeted by another snarl of cars.

      Finally she thanked him, stuffed twenty dollars into his hand, and jumped out of the cab on Sixth Avenue and 32nd Street. She ran the four long blocks to the railway station, her overnight bag banging against her leg.

      Fiona raced into the 34th Street entrance, her pony tail flying. Penn Station was crowded even at three forty-five in the afternoon. She breathlessly asked the first person she saw where the Krispy Kreme Donut Shop was. Luke had suggested they meet there, because every employee in the station would know where it was.

      He was correct. But by the time she had pushed her way through the crowd to the entrance, it was three fifty. The train left at four o’clock, and she feared Luke might have gone ahead without her.

      Then she spotted him. There he was, holding a bag of donuts, looking impossibly handsome, as he searched the crowd for a woman he had never met.

      ‘I know what you look like,’ she had told him, but she had been wrong. He was better-looking in person than he was on air, if that was possible. He wore jeans, a pale blue cashmere sweater topped with a blazer and a vest. A long scarf of some exotic weave was wrapped around his neck.

      Layers, Fiona thought. Like me. He looked more like a professor from the Ivy League college where her father taught than one of the most respected television journalists on the planet.

      ‘Hi,’ she said, gasping for air like someone who had just completed the New York Marathon. He turned around and smiled at her, which did nothing to slow her breathing.

      ‘Sorry,’ was all she could choke out. That giddy feeling she had been battling all day came rushing back. This, coupled with shortness of breath from the run, and the insane physical attraction she was feeling for this perfect stranger, was making her feel faint.

      ‘No worries,’ Luke said, taking her bag. ‘We’ll make it with time to spare.’

      He grabbed her hand and started running, pulling her along behind him. His hand was strong and warm as he rushed her through the throng of commuters. They sprinted down the stairs to the track.

      ‘Board! All aboard for Washington, D.C.’

      The conductor stepped onto the last car, swung his light to signal the engineer, and slowly the train began to move down the tracks.

      ‘Oh no!’ Fiona gasped. ‘I’ve made you miss it.’

      Luke was undaunted. Hanging onto Fiona’s hand, he raced down the last few steps toward the train. He let go of her hand for a second, and leapt, still holding her luggage and the donuts, and was on the moving train. He reached out his hand to her, as the train began to speed up. He was pulling her, forcing to run alongside the train.

      ‘Jump!’ he cried. ‘I won’t let anything happen to you!’

      And so she jumped.

      She didn’t think about the consequences or the danger, she just jumped. He caught her, as he had promised, and didn’t let go. They held onto each other, there in the vestibule of the train, panting and wheezing and gasping for air.

      Fiona started to laugh at the ridiculousness of the situation, which made breathing all that much harder. Then he began to laugh, too, and soon they were gone in paroxysms of hysterical laughter mingled with dyspnoea.

      Fiona slid to the floor, and Luke joined her. When, finally, she could breathe enough to speak, she panted, ‘I’m Fiona,’ and extended her hand.

      ‘And I’m Luke.’ He grinned, taking her offered hand.

      He did not let go right away, and Fiona, the laughter gone now, made no move to pull away. They just sat there, holding hands. And looking at one another with a kind of wonder.