Rushing Waters Read Online Free PDF Page B

somewhere and go out to sea at the last minute, and we’ll wind up with a mountain of bottled water and food we don’t need. I have flashlights, candles, batteries, and everything else. I hope they don’t get everyone all riled up again—they do it now every year. Like the boy who cried wolf. It took me months to drink all the water I stocked up last time, and I gave all the food to a homeless shelter to get rid of it. Let’s face it—how much canned tuna and peaches can you eat?” Ellen smiled at her mother and decided she was right. “A little shopping?” Grace suggested. “I need a new sweater for Blanche—she ate all the rhinestones off her old one.” She looked slightly annoyed, and Ellen laughed.
    “She has more clothes than I do. It’s a shame I don’t wear her size,” Ellen teased her. Her mother was unashamed of how much she loved the little dog, and readily admitted that she spoiled her rotten. There were dog toys all over the otherwise pristine living room, and most of the apartment.
    “We could do some shopping for us too,” her mother said thoughtfully. She was always generous with her daughter, and frequently sent her gifts in London when she saw something she thought Ellen would like.
    “I wouldn’t mind looking in at some of the vintage and antique stores. I have two clients to shop for while I’m here,” Ellen commented. And occasionally she made unexpected finds in some of the shops downtown, of unique items she couldn’t find anywhere else. Ellen liked pursuing unusual resources and made frequent trips to Paris, to the auction rooms at the Hôtel Drouot, where she had bought some fabulous things for her clients and even her own home. Going to Drouot was like a treasure hunt—you never knew what you would find. But she had had good luck over the years in SoHo too, although the weather wasn’t too conducive to shopping, but neither of them was daunted by it.
    Ellen had brought running shoes with her, and she knew she could borrow a raincoat from her mother. She made herself a cup of coffee, and they agreed to leave half an hour later. Ellen thought of calling George, but it would be lunchtime at the country home where he was staying, and she didn’t want to disturb them. She turned on a small TV in the kitchen and switched it to the Weather Channel to listen to the news. Weather maps in different colors were showing the hurricane’s path and speed, indicating that it was heading toward the shores of New Jersey and New York, but she knew that that could change at any moment, and often did. The announcer on the screen said that the city would be issuing hourly statements, but there were no plans to evacuate residents or shut down public transportation yet. It would be almost inevitable if the path the hurricane was on didn’t alter, but the storm was still far offshore in the Caribbean and much could still change, and it could be downgraded to a tropical storm long before it reached their shores. There was no cause for alarm yet, as Ellen switched off the TV and went upstairs to dress. She sent George a text message so as not to interfere with his activities or hosts. She knew he was staying at the crumbling old Tudor manor that had been in their friends’ family for years, which lent itself perfectly to the big weekend parties they liked to give, and which George enjoyed so much. Ellen sometimes found them a little overwhelming, among people who formed a tight clique many years before, but everyone was always pleasant to her, even if she wasn’t one of them, and she was part of the group now. Most of them had known each other as children, and even married childhood friends.
    Sometimes feeling like an outsider among them was a bond she shared with her friend Mireille. They laughed about it privately and made fun of them sometimes. Many of their social group were titled and could trace their ancestry back for half a dozen centuries with ease. It was a frequent topic of conversation