Paddington Station, London:
Futilely, Michelle continued to attempt to flag a black cab down, as rain cascaded off her umbrella. "Great," she muttered. While she had full faith in the London Tube, it was going to be quite a battle to get her luggage up and down the steps, let alone change trains. Her slides were going to get soaked.
"Cab, miss?"
"Oh," As she had fretted over lugging her luggage around London, a cab had pulled up right in front of her. As if by magic. "Yes, yes."
She dragged her bags round to the side of the cab, and practically dove for the backseat of the cab, as the cabbie quickly, and efficiently hoisted the luggage into the backseat. Slamming the cab door behind him, the cabbie settled into the driver's seat again, and they were off.
In the mirror, gray eyes set into sharp, lined face twinkled at her from beneath a tweedy cap. "Where to, miss?"
"The Edward Lear Hotel." She settled into the backseat of the cab, and shook the droplets from her hair.
"Business or pleasure, luv?"
"Business." Her head was beginning to ache again; the strain of dragging her luggage through Paddington Station was taking its toll.
Reflections of eyes squinted in concern. "Look here, miss, are you all right? We can stop for a cuppa..."
"No, no, I'm fine. Just tired, and ...." A few fainting spells, oh, and I saw my dead fiancee a few days ago.
"Would you like to talk about it? The traffic will be rather sketchy with the storm. It will take a quite a while..."
"No, no," she shook her head. "I'll be fine."
"Well, as my wife likes to say," he screwed his voice up to a screechy falsetto," "Sometimes, it just ain't right to hold things in; you gotta let it out."
"Of course, sometimes I think she just watched too much Oprah while she was expecting."
Involuntarily, Michelle's lips crinkled into a smile. "Your wife sounds like a very wise woman."
"Oh, she passed away seven years ago," he chuckled. "But she's the wisest dead woman I know."
"Oh, I'm sorry," she sat up and leaned toward the driver's side, concerned. "I thought... it sounded like you still spoke to her."
"Oh, I do," he glanced over his shoulder as he inched his way off of the clogged roundabout. "She likes to pop down from time to time, let me know how she's doing, give me a piece of her mind...She lets me know when I've been a bloody idiot."
"Oh."
"I know it sounds a bit odd, but well... I never thought I'd love anyone like I loved my Madeleine, and I never have. I guess, it's just our way... of staying together. Anyway, my Madeleine never gave me bad advice while she was alive, and, she never gives me bad advice now that she's passed on."
"Just don't let her know that, will you?" He winked into the mirror.
"Here we are, the Lear Hotel..."
.................................
Lear Hotel
"Hello, British Atlantic Airways? I'd like to book a flight from London to Springfield in the United States of America... The name is Michelle Bauer...."