Jane Bites Back_ A Novel - Michael Thomas Ford [18]
Maybe she should give Walter a chance, Jane mused while looking out the window again. When she was honest with herself, she had to admit that she did like Walter very much. He was precisely the kind of man she allowed her heroines to fall in love with—strong-minded but willing to let her be herself, thoughtful and curious without being condescending, talented but without vanity. Yet if she allowed herself to be with him, she would risk wounding Walter deeply. She was especially wary now that she knew of his tragic past. A dead wife was no small thing. How would he ever accept an undead one? she thought.
It was all rather maddening, and no matter how she looked at it she could not come up with a satisfactory ending for the story. Walter would die and she would continue to live. Or he would ask her to make him a vampire, which she would refuse to do.
She thought for a long time, coming to no conclusions, and was relieved when a voice announced their imminent arrival at Pennsylvania Station. She busied herself with putting her coat on and gathering up her things. Then she sat and watched as the train crawled slowly through the long dark tunnels, until finally they came to a stop at a platform and the doors opened.
Jane stepped out and walked along the platform, the heels of her shoes clicking on the floor and her suitcase rolling behind her. Travel had become much easier since her day, but part of her missed the feeling of sophistication that had once accompanied it. Now people moved about so easily that some of the adventure seemed to have disappeared along with the inconveniences. Now it felt less like traveling and more like simply going somewhere.
As she ascended the escalator to the main concourse she noticed the boy from the train walking with his grandmother ahead of her. He turned back once and, seeing her following, pulled his grandmother quickly in a different direction. Jane cheerfully wondered how long he would have nightmares about the woman on the train, and at what point he would decide that she had never existed at all.
In the station’s cavernous main hall she stood for a moment, feeling the sea of people moving around her. She sensed their excitement, their hurry, their anxiety and joy. It rippled through her like electricity. She’d forgotten what it felt like to be in a city, particularly one as glorious as New York. Now she shivered with anticipation. Despite the passing of two centuries, she still felt like the girl from the countryside coming to London for the first time.
She hurried outside, anxious to be on the streets and among the crowds. As she passed through the doors of the station she felt New York envelop her. Its cacophonous voice filled her ears and its breath blew cold on her skin. For a moment she stood absolutely still, her eyes and ears adjusting to the many different sensations that flooded her mind.
“Move it, lady.”
A man brushed by her, his head bent toward the ground and his hands thrust into the pockets of his coat. Jane laughed at his rudeness. It too was part of New York’s charm.
Settling into a taxicab, she could hardy believe she was in New York, on her way to a publisher’s office. All of her previous books had been represented by her brother Henry. Not only had she never once visited a publisher, they hadn’t even known it was her work they had published. But all that was about to change.
I wish Cassie were here, she thought. She imagined sharing the city with her sister, seeing Cassandra’s face as she marveled at the buildings and people, hearing her voice as she chattered joyfully and reached for Jane’s hand, as she always had when they’d visited Henry at his house in London. She would, Jane thought, give anything to be able to see her beloved Cassie again.
The cab swerved in and out of the stream of traffic, ten minutes later pulling to a stop in front of the Browder Publishing building. It towered into the winter sky, its gleaming black glass reflecting the snow that fell lazily from the clouds that crowned the