Chapter 01: Snowstorm
The snowstorm seemed to come out of nowhere, either because it surprised the weathermen, or because Ben hadn't paid attention to the news in a while. To him, it was an ordinary Wednesday on the road, so he had stopped by the local mall food court on his way back from work.
This week, work had been meeting with general contractors in Cleveland for a building development he helped design. His architecture firm probably didn't need to send him to another city to meet with contractors, but they liked to look like their firm was "involved" every step of the way. Ben didn't mind. Getting away once in a while wasn't bad, and while Cleveland was as unremarkable as he suspected, it was a change in scenery at least. And yet he had just finished a chicken sandwich from a fast food chain in a food court that could have been anywhere.
He headed back out to the parking garage, nearly forgetting where he had parked the rental SUV, and was suddenly thankful that the gas-guzzling 4x4 was the only thing the rental agency had left. Huge flakes of white snow were falling fast between levels of the garage. It looked like it was going to be a real blizzard. He found his rental, got in and started it up.
Just as he was getting ready to back up, a group of five people began to approach a minivan to his right. The first climbed into the driver's seat and attempted to start it up. Click click click, followed by cursing.
"Not working again?" he heard another person say.
Ben threw the shifter back into park, stepped out and asked if the driver needed a jump.
"Gotta check under the hood," said the goateed man. By then, the other four were grumbling and shaking their heads. This clearly wasn't the first time this man's vehicle had broken down.
The hood propped open, Ben could see the driver shaking his head. "Geez. I fix one thing, something else breaks."
"Sure it isn't just the battery?" said Ben.
"Nah. Put a new one in yesterday. Probably the sparkplugs or something," the driver replied. "I'm sure I can fix it with parts from the store."
Ben presumed the group must have been employees of one of the stores in the mall, probably Dex's.
"How long's it gonna take?" asked a stringy-haired blonde woman.
"Couple hours," the man responded.
"This blows." "Seriously, Marty?" "I gotta start driving myself to work." It was a roundtable of complaints.
"Just a couple of hours. They'll get the roads clear by then. You can hang out in the store while I fix it," Marty defended himself.
"I have a dog at home, remember?" said one woman. She was a woman of average height, with greasy brown hair. "I can't say any longer or he'll pee all over the apartment."
"Sorry, Rachel," said Marty. "Nothing I can do but try to fix it."
Ben looked at the woman. "How far are you all from here?"
The stringy-haired blonde answered for her. "Most of us are about twenty minutes from here, but Rachel only lives seven miles away."
Rachel shrugged. "I could walk home faster than it would take for Marty to fix the minivan."
"If you're only seven miles away," said Ben, "I can give you a lift. In fact, I can try to drop you all off."
Marty chimed in. "By the time you got everyone back to their homes and got back to wherever you live, you'd be stranded in this."
"Well, I'm in a hotel about ten minutes from here," said Ben.
"Tell you what," said the stringy-haired blonde. "Why don't you just get Rachel home to her dog? If the storm dies down and you're able to get back here, I'm sure none of us would complain, but I'm sure Marty will get this beast running again, so don't worry about it either."
"Are you sure about this?" Rachel asked.
Ben smiled. "It's no problem, really."
Rachel shrugged and climbed into the passenger side of Ben's SUV. "Later, suckers," she joked to her coworkers.
Ben started the engine and pulled out of the parking garage. "You're completely okay getting a lift from a total stranger?" he asked.
"I'm Rachel," she said.
"Ben."
"See? We aren't strangers anymore."
The roads were bad. Even with a 4x4, ice had been building up on the road and it was slow going. Ben did his best to ease Rachel's fears with small-talk. "How long have you worked at Dex's? Are you originally from Cleveland? Do you have family in the area?" Things of that sort. "Too long. Indianapolis originally. No."
If Ben had to guess, Rachel was about thirty. She wasn't a beauty queen, but she also wasn't unattractive. She carried some extra weight. At least it seemed like it, based on what he could gauge under her thick jacket and sweat pants. She spent much of the ride to her apartment making sarcastic jokes about her carpooling coworkers and asking Ben questions. "Where are you from? What do you do? Is this your first time in Cleveland?"
"Baltimore. Architect. Yes."
It was a good thing Ben didn't take all of the carpoolers. Just the seven miles to Rachel's apartment took fifteen minutes, and while his hotel was ten minutes from the mall, it was ten minutes in the opposite direction.
He pulled into the parking lot of a two-story row of apartments.
"Really, Ben," Rachel said, "thank you so much for the lift. I can't even tell you what this means to me."
Grabbing her bag and opening the door, she nervously, quickly leaned over and kissed his cheek. Then she stepped out, closed the door and headed to the apartment.
Ben smiled to himself. He was always being told he was a good-looking guy, but it wasn't every day relative strangers gave him a kiss. He put the SUV in reverse and looked over his shoulder out the back window. Rachel stood by the door to the apartment waving as her Chocolate Labrador bounded around in the snow nearby.
As Ben started to press down on the accelerator, he nearly missed getting run over by the shovel of a snowplow as it barreled on by, throwing a mountain of snow at the back of his vehicle.
"No way," he muttered under his breath. Rachel was running toward his SUV, shouting "Are you okay?"
