NADIA Photo Tour, Continued!

Back in the concourse, Nadia checked her watch one more time. Good, they had to have taken off by now. She opened the stall door (appropriate term, she thought wryly) and came back out of the women's restroom, turning down the concourse in the opposite direction her cameraman had gone a few minutes before.

Her heart slammed in her chest like a thousand midget carpenters. She was throwing a wrench into her career for this. But there wasn't going to be another chance to find out, on her own, without being spoon-fed bits of information from someone else. No, this was something she had to do on her own, right now, if she was going to find out the truth.

In another five minutes, she was in the loading zone. A taxicab stopped in front of her, and, before she knew it, Nadia was in the back seat, heading toward the Chrysler Building as the plane with her cameraman took off for London. She would probably lose her job for ducking out like this, but she couldn't think of another way to find out for sure if she had indeed seen this place before. Maybe she could catch up to some more of her ever-elusive memory.

Oh, well. Maybe if I play my cards right, I won't get into too much trouble. It would be  worth it, just to touch something that was hers alone, something she wouldn't have to share.

Nadia looked out the cab's windows at the skyline spread out before her as they crossed the Queensboro Bridge. There arose in her consciousness a disturbing kind of tingle, like another part of her was awakening from some deep and hidden slumber.

 She wasn't sure exactly when she began suspecting Petr and the others were holding information from her. But now she was positive they knew something they weren't telling her, and that made her more determined to find out exactly what it was. If they wouldn't tell her, then she'd just find out on her own.

Right now.

The taxi ride was over before Nadia knew it. She did not remember paying the cabbie and getting out, or how long she stood on the curb staring up at the hulking profile of the Chrysler Building. Her mind buzzed and her knees shook as she walked down East 42nd Street until she saw Staley's.

She stepped through the door and waited in line until the counter attendant took her order. She ordered automatically, what she had always ordered, but somehow her voice seemed not to be her own. “Double-decaf-mochaccino latté with a cinnamon stick, please.”

As she turned away from the counter with her cup, a strange pressure mounted in her head. This place is important somehow. But how, exactly? She was so distracted and lightheaded she bumped unsteadily into the man behind her. “Sorry, Jake,” she started offhandedly, but then the man's face came into view. Jon? He had shaved his beard, but those eyes… Jon! A rush of recognition crashed into her mind and, as she started to fall toward the floor and her vision closed in, she heard him ask, “Do I know you…?”

* * * *

The story behind the photo:

I actually didn't count on being sent to the East Coast for work any time soon. But I got assigned to  a school in New Jersey for an advanced avionics suite in Falcon 900EX EASy. And hey, guess what's right next to New Jersey?

So my instructor and I took the Imperial Ferry from the Jersey Side to Manhattan this morning,  and  I got to visit a couple sites from Becoming NADIA. I'm blessed to be able to continue my Blog Tour of The NADIA Project with a couple shots of the Chrysler Building.

So I made up the name Staley's, based of course on Starbuck's. And as Old Bill said, "They's a Staley's 'round the corner from ever' damn where in New York." 

We walked around, visited the Chrysler Building, the Empire State Building, Central Park, Grand Central Station, and about a dozen or so places in Mid-Town Manhattan, just to say we'd been there.

And I got these shots. I have one more place to relate. We'll catch up with that next week.

Till then, keep it real, folks. Be You.