It suddenly occurs to me maybe I should have looked at a traffic map or something instead of mooning over George for the last hour. I search for the map app on my phone. “Let me see what I can find out online?—”
“Don’t bother.”
I look up to see red brake lights spanning out in front of us, a sea of stopped cars. We slow down to join the pack. We’re still moving, but it’s a crawl.
“Shit.” I let out a sigh. “Okay. I’ll tell her.”
“Wait.” George reaches out to touch my hand, stopping me from texting. “There are commuter trains. Metro-North. I don’t know where.”
“On it!” I start searching for train information. I have no clue if this could work, but at this point, I’ll try anything to avoid having to tell Zoe we’re not going to make it. The situation sucks, and as the person who made off with the rings, I feel more than a little responsible. Also, I’d rather not mess up George’s ex’s wedding only hours after we even got together.
“I’m getting off here.” George steers towards an exit just coming up on the right. “Bronxville.”
I search, and we’re in luck. “There’s a train station in Bronxville!”
I guide him to the station. We pull into the lot. “The window is closed,” I tell him as I read the information online, “but we can buy tickets on the train.”
“Great. When’s the next train?” He pulls into a space and cuts the engine.
We both climb out and start walking towards the tracks. I scroll the website, trying to make sense of it. “Uh…”
Just then, a bell starts clanging, and lights flash, as the gate lowers on the track crossing next to the station. A train is pulling up on the side of the track closest to us, mercifully marked “To NYC.”
We look at each other. Then we both break into a run.
We make it on board with seconds to spare. The car is fairly full, mostly with boisterous people clearly on their way to the city to celebrate the new year, but we manage to find a pair of seats together. We sink into them as the train pulls away from the station, on its way to Manhattan. As we catch our breath, we share another look, then both burst out laughing.
“I should probably text Zoe,” I say. “What should I tell her?”
A conductor enters the car. “Tickets, please.”
George flags her down. “We need to buy tickets to Grand Central, please. And can you tell me what time the train gets in?”
“8:10 p.m., sir,” she says as she takes his credit card.
Shit.
I’m just trying to compose the text to deliver this bad news when Zoe beats me to the punch.
Zoe
Good news. They’re having trouble getting the elevator unstuck! Wedding on pause until they do. Hurry, hurry, hurry.
George finishes paying for the tickets and turns to me with a grim expression. I hold up the phone and smile.
“Wow, a reprieve!”
“Do you think we’ll make it?”
He wrinkles his nose. “Maybe?”
“Better than definitely not, anyway.”
“Agreed.”
We sit in silence for a few minutes. It’s dark, but we’re close enough to the city there are lots of lights passing by. What a day.
I chuckle. “This has got to be the weirdest first date I’ve ever been on.”
