Waltz of Her Life

Linda had never been to New York. As the plane landed, she thought that the biggest city she'd ever seen was Chicago. She was a little girl when she rode the train up north with her mother and spent a couple of days gawking at the massive buildings and crowds of people. They also visited an aquarium with five floors. But New York seemed twice as large! The next few days would hold many wonders and discoveries.

It was the second time Linda had ever flown before, the first being her senior class trip to Colorado, for skiing. That ride had been bumpy, like a bus careening through ravines and over rough gravel, but thankfully the flight to New York had been velvet-smooth. As they emerged from the airplane corridor into the terminal, her first thought was that it seemed like the United Nations. She saw men wearing fezzes and turbans, and women in flowing caftans, sharply dressed stewardesses walking together in their navy blue suits, families searching all the signs and digital readouts overhead. Had they landed in another country?

"This way to the baggage carousel, babe," Stephen said. It had been so long since Linda had traveled that she had to buy luggage. The clerk at the store convinced her to buy a funny looking rectangular suitcase with wheels on the bottom and a telescoping handle at the top. He said that it was the latest and greatest thing, and that it would make getting around airports 100% easier. She noticed that all of the stewardesses pulled wheeled suitcases behind them.

"Are we going to rent a car?" Linda asked, after they found their luggage on the carousel.

Stephen grinned. "And mess around with New York traffic? That's the beauty of all of this, sweetie. You don't need a car in New York. They have the best buses, cabs, and subways in the world."

Linda vaguely remembered the movie "Death Wish," where a group of rough characters tried to rob a man on the subway and he shot all of them. It gave her a queasy feeling.

They walked down a wide corridor amid swarms of people and noise, following signs that read "Ground transportation." Soon they found themselves on a curb in a warm, sultry, New York afternoon, with taxicabs, vans, and airport shuttles whizzing past. "Did you call for a cab?" she asked him.

Stephen laughed. "Honey, you don't have to do that here. It's like fishing in a barrel. You just grab the next one that comes along."

That next cab was unlike any yellow cab she'd ever seen before. It was black and long and looked like a limousine that movie stars rode in. Yet it carried a white plastic sign on the top as if it were any other, normal cab. "This seems expensive," Linda said, as Stephen ushered her in. "Maybe we should just get one of the yellow ones."