TAXI DELIVERY, page 1
TAXI DELIVER
By: Brooke Williams
Copyright © 2013
Blue Ribbon Books
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead is purely coincidental.
For questions and comments about this book, please contact us at [email protected]
CHAPTER ONE
Jed Leida swerved to the left and laid on the horn. He refrained from yelling out the window like so many other New York drivers were prone to do. He may have been a taxi driver, but he liked to think that he was more patient than the others. He wanted to set an example in case he ever ran across anyone he knew. It wouldn’t be good if he saw a classmate who knew he was a Christian while he was screaming at someone for cutting him off.
Jed knew he was held to a higher standard because of his faith and he was okay with that. That wasn’t to say that he didn’t get frustrated with the drivers that continuously broke the laws of the road. But it was what driving in New York City was all about. And being a taxi driver wasn’t what he was going to do for the rest of his life…he hoped.
Since Jed was a born and raised New Yorker, getting a taxi license had been easy. And, with tips, it paid much better than waiting tables or one of the other jobs the city offered that included strange hours. Jed could always get a fare in New York and those who were traveling from out of town often tipped very well. It was a great way to put himself through law school and the hours worked well with his schedule.
Whether Jed was currently in classes that ran during the day or in one of many pesky evening studies, he could easily drive the taxi around the city in his off hours. He used his few breaks between fares to read up on criminal law, tax law, or one of the other many subjects he had to master before he attempted to pass the bar exam next year.
His job also allowed him to enjoy the city a little bit more than he would have otherwise. Given his schedule, driving the taxi was about the only way he was able to get out to see the sights. Not that there was much of the city he hadn’t already seen. Whenever relatives came in from out of town, Jed was the local tour guide. He had been to the Statue of Liberty so often he could recite all of the stimulating facts by heart with ease.
Jed didn’t mind his busy life. He wished sometimes that it would slow down a bit so he would have time for the things he really enjoyed, like seeing his friends and making the trip to the suburbs to see his mom and younger brother. But it was the price he had to pay to put his future on track. He wanted to be a lawyer and he had to work hard and pay his dues in order to get there.
In the meantime, Jed certainly met a lot of interesting people. There were families from the Midwest with shell shocked looks upon seeing the city from the first time. There were starry eyed teenagers who moved to the area to find their fame. And, of course, there were locals who hardly gave him a second glance. Jed wasn’t sure what he enjoyed more, a taxi filled with chatter about the city and all its wonders, or a quiet cab that allowed him to rest his mind and concentrate on the drivers around him.
Jed swerved to the side of the road upon seeing a woman up ahead with her arm raised, the universal symbol in the city to call a taxi. He beat the other cabs on the street to her. She was now all his to be taken wherever she needed to go.
* * * * *
Sadie Walker knew she had pushed herself too far. She hadn’t been in the city for very long and she simply wanted to see what was around her small studio apartment so that she knew what her options were later on. She hadn’t been trying to speed anything up. In fact, she would have been happy had the baby waited another week…or another month for that matter. She certainly wasn’t ready for his or her arrival.
Sadie wasn’t sure if she was ever going to be ready, but none of that mattered. The baby was ready and that was that. And now here she was, blocks from her apartment, without a phone or anyone really to call in the middle of the largest city in the country with sudden urgent contractions nearly taking her to her knees.
She took a minute to thank God that New York was exactly where she was. Because had she been in a city any smaller, the cabs might not have been so readily available. She watched a few rush past, their lights off indicating they already had a passenger. She took a few steps and tried to breathe in and out the way all of the books told her to do it.
Another contraction hit and she grabbed her bulging belly and slightly bent over. She realized that had she not been in New York, perhaps someone would have been concerned about her. Perhaps someone would have even stopped and asked if she needed help. To which she would have adamantly said yes. But Sadie wasn’t used to asking for help and she knew this was something she had to do on her own. It was simply the way it was.
As the contraction subsided, she raised her arm high into the air, slowly tilting it back and forth to let the upcoming cabs know that she was in need of a ride. She put a smile on her face so that no one would get wind of her predicament and pass her by.
“Lord,” she prayed under her breath, “I need you now more than ever.”
The cab that pulled over looked bright and clean and the driver leaned back and opened the rear door for her.
Sadie collapsed into the backseat gratefully. She wasn’t sure she could have stood on that sidewalk any longer had she tried.
“Where to, miss?” the friendly driver asked, glancing at her in the rearview mirror.
“I’m…” Sadie began as another contraction began to tighten her belly. She breathed in and out quietly so as not to alarm her driver. She stared at the rearview mirror to ensure that he wasn’t watching her, waiting for her answer. “I’d like to go to the hospital,” she said as calmly as possible.
The man squinted at her as he met her eyes and then turned on his signal and edged his way back out into traffic.
Sadie sighed with relief. Traffic was slow, but she had a ride now. She was on her way to the hospital and even though she was going to have to go through it all alone, she was going to be okay. There were going to be doctors and nurses and interns and plenty of people to keep her company. Everything was going to be just fine.
CHAPTER TWO
Traffic was slow and Jed thumped his fingers on the steering wheel along with the music he had softly playing in the cab. He always had the inspirational station on unless his fare asked him to change to another channel. Listening to music that sang God’s praises was the only thing that got him through slow traffic. That and the thought that he would get paid more at the end of the ride and have that much less to earn that day.
Jed glanced in the rearview mirror again. It was hot outside, but not as blistering as it could be for a New York summer. The woman in the back looked pale and flushed and Jed was starting to get a little concerned. He had noticed the bulge beneath her shirt that told the world that not only was she expecting a baby, but soon. He hoped she wasn’t suffering from heat stroke or some other consequence.
“Do you live here or are you just visiting?” he asked as he shot a look over his shoulder. He wanted to make sure she was okay and the best way he could do that was to engage her in conversation. He didn’t want to directly come out and ask, but he thought that maybe he could get a read on her situation by talking to her.
The woman took a deep breath and leaned forward a bit. “I…I live here,” she said.
“Me too,” Jed offered as he inched the cab forward. “All my life. You?”
“What?” the woman asked after a long pause during which she seemed to try to even her breathing.
“How long have you lived here?” Jed asked, his concern rising very quickly.
“Oh,” the woman replied, wiping the back of her hand across her forehead. “Just a couple of months.”
Jed nodded, wondering what brought her there. Maybe her husband got a new job on Wall Street and moved them to the area to set up a new residence before the baby was born. He was willing to bet she didn’t live right in the city. She was probably just there for the day, doing some shopping for the nursery or something. Jed liked to think that he never forgot a face and he was certain he would never forget hers. She had a fresh look about her and her sandy blonde hair, though part of it was stuck to her sweaty face, looked very soft and shiny. Her bright blue eyes told him that she had plenty of stories and he was certain that she was athletic when she wasn’t in her current condition.
“Oh,” the woman grunted, bending over in her seat a bit more.
Instead of making more small talk, Jed was certain it was now more than obvious that he needed to ask her if she was all right. “Are you okay, miss?” he asked, halfway turning around in his seat.
The woman put one hand up toward his face as if to tell him to hold on for a moment. Jed waited as the driver behind him honked. He turned back to face the road and pulled a few more feet forward to satisfy the impatient person behind him.
The woman let out a deep breath and said, “I’ll be fine. Just get me to the hospital.”
Jed nodded and sat up straight in his seat. He could see cars lined up for several blocks. It was nothing new to him, but he wondered how long it would take to get through. That part was different on a daily basis. It all depended on why things were backed up. Had there been an accident? Were there inexperienced drivers on the road? Or were there simply too
“Wait,” Jed said, more to himself than to his passenger. “Are you…do you need to go to the hospital because…”
The woman seemed to be panting behind him. “Yes, yes,” she said anxiously. “Is there any way to hurry? Take the back roads? Whatever?”
Jed’s eyes widened as her panic caught on. “You’re…”
“In labor,” the woman supplied as her face screwed up to ward off another contraction.
Jed turned around in his seat to see if this whole thing was real or just a figment of his imagination.
“Seriously,” the woman whispered. “Go.”
Jed wondered a number of things. Was this the woman’s first baby? How long did they have to get to the hospital? How in the world was he going to get through the traffic? Was she okay back there? Could he help somehow? Jed stopped his mind from racing away with the situation and instead began to pray out loud. “Dear God,” he said as he searched for a path ahead of them so he could turn and take a way that might not be so stuffed with other vehicles. “Please be with us right now and get us to the hospital as quickly as possible. Prepare the medical professionals for the birth of this precious child. May he or she be healthy and well. And take care of the child’s mother as well, Lord. Calm her fears and give her a spirit of peace. Amen.”
Jed saw his chance half a block ahead and quickly turned down a back alley. He wasn’t sure the back roads he knew by heart were going to be faster, but at least they were moving now.
CHAPTER THREE
Sadie had never done this before, but she was certain that things shouldn’t be happening this quickly. She hadn’t been able to take the birthing class at the hospital, given her move and the other circumstances surrounding her pregnancy, but she had read several books to prepare herself.
According to the books, there were stages to labor. She was first supposed to feel mild contractions, which could go on for days. Many women even mistook these contractions to mean labor and went to the hospital too early. Sometimes, the contractions were just practice in order to prepare the woman’s body for the upcoming labor. Other times, they were the very early stages of labor, but they were part of what was known as non-active labor. Sadie had never felt a mild contraction. Somehow, her body seemed to have skipped all of the stages but the final one.
When the next contraction hit, she gasped in the backseat of the cab. She felt a warm liquid soaking the bottom of her baggy dress. She looked down. Certainly she had not just wet herself.
“Lord be with me,” she said, just loud enough for the driver to take notice.
“Excuse me?” he said, a worried look on his face as he glanced at her in the rearview mirror once again.
“My water just broke,” she said, without thinking about the panic she might cause for her driver.
“You’re kidding,” the man said, not looking back but instead speeding up on the side road he had taken.
Sadie let out a pained sigh. She wished that she were. She wished a lot of things at that moment, but none of them were happening. What was happening was the birth of her child. Of that, she was certain. It didn’t matter that she had never done it before, she could tell as a woman that she was quickly moving through the process. It didn’t matter if the hospital was a block, a mile, or a whole city away. They weren’t going to make it.
“Pull over,” she said as she gasped for a breath. She was feeling the strong urge to push and she knew she would have to listen to her body soon.
“We’re not there, just hang on lady, I’m doing the best I can.”
“You don’t understand,” she said, in one breath as she clutched the back of his seat. “You have to pull over. Now. This baby is coming. We’re out of time.” Sadie spoke in short, staccato sentences. It was all she could do. She wanted to describe to him what she was feeling so that he would understand the urgency of the situation. But it was all she could do to get out the words she had already spoken. Now, she had to concentrate on what her body was telling her to do.
* * * * *
Jed couldn’t believe his ears. Was this woman actually telling him to pull over? Was she going to have her baby right here and now? How in the world had he gotten this fare in the first place, of all the cabs in the city?
Jed pressed the accelerator farther to the floor. The hospital wasn’t far away now. Maybe if he just went a little faster…his thoughts were interrupted by a moan in the backseat. He felt her arms clutch his head rest and shake it a little. She was telling him that he needed to do as requested. There was no longer any time. He had to pull over.
Jed searched the road in front of him. There weren’t many options. New York didn’t exactly have areas in which you could just pull off and have a baby. Jed found the parking garage for one of the city’s many high rise office buildings and quickly turned in.
The immediate area before him was filled with cars. There wasn’t one space in which to park. The woman’s breathing in the backseat told him that it didn’t matter. Double parking was the least of his issues at that particular moment. Jed pulled the cab up behind two other vehicles and threw it into park. Without looking into the backseat again, he could tell that she was very ready to have that baby. She was no longer sitting up and the noise she made was entirely different. She was also no longer talking to him, no matter what he said.
Jed said another prayer, this time silently, and threw open the driver’s door, rushing around to the side of the vehicle. He opened the side door that he had so slowly opened for a pregnant woman hailing a cab just minutes ago with a whole new fury. The first thing he saw was the woman’s blonde hair, splayed out on the seat. She looked at him upside down, her face filled with fear.
“You’re going to have to do this,” she said, with a new sense of peace in her voice, as if she knew her body was going to take care of the main part of the work.
Jed nodded and closed the door. It wasn’t her head he was going to need to attend, though he wished more than anything that he could just stay on that side of the cab and talk her through the agony she must be in.
He rushed around to the back of the cab and popped the trunk. Under the flap in the back was an emergency kit. He grabbed the kit and extracted the blanket from it, leaving the jumper cables splayed on the cement below the trunk. He uncovered the emergency medical kit and took a quick inventory. There was a bottle of water, a few bandages, and the blanket. Not much with which to deliver a baby, but it would have to do.
Jed stuffed the items under his arm and ran to the other side of the cab. He opened the door and saw the woman’s knees jammed up into the air. He couldn’t hear her breath and for a second, the whole world stopped. She soon let out a huge gasp and Jed realized she must have been pushing.
“The radio,” he said. “I need to call for help.”
The woman nodded emphatically and Jed opened the front passenger door and grabbed the radio from the front panel. He wasn’t sure why he didn’t think of that even before the situation became so dire.
