We still should have had plenty of time, although we did pray rather intensely through New Haven, which often has traffic slowdowns. That went fine. In fact, the traffic was heavy, but moving well, until we neared the Whitestone Bridge in NYC, where we paid $4.50 for relief from the long, creeping line at the tollbooth.
[Side note: The Northeast has an "E-Z Pass" system of automated toll collecting, which I first thought rather ludicrous because cars are required to slow down to 5 mph (as opposed to the 35 mph we were used to with Orlando's E-Pass system), thanks to the use of gates, which bobbed up and down continuously like so many drinking bird toys on amphetamines. However, it's now obvious why drivers in this part of the country like the system: there are so few toll lanes for cash customers that having the E-Z Pass reduces waiting time considerably. It probably would have been worth obtaining one just for this trip.]
Finally over the bridge, the rest of the trip to the hotel went smoothly. Because time was short, and Janet still had to take the subway into Manhattan, we decided to drive her to the nearest subway stop rather than follow the original plan, in which she would have taken the hotel shuttle to the airport and caught the AirTrain and subway from there. She dropped her luggage in her room, and we sped off.
Marie Killilea once described her husband, Jimmy, as "undoubtedly the world's best husband and the world's worst invalid." In difficult driving situations, Porter is like that. Being inside the car with him is a miserable experience, but there is no one I trust more to get me quickly through crazy traffic and crazier drivers.
They say the driving in Boston is bad, and the drivers wild, but our experiences there were a Sunday drive on a country lane compared with this trip to New York City. Contrary to reputation, the people we asked for directions were very friendly. Not helpful, but friendly. We asked the friendly (Hispanic, probably) hotel desk clerk how to get to the nearest subway stop, and she gave us directions that seemed clear enough. Uncertain just how far we had to drive on a particular road (since the subway seemed further away than we had expected), we stopped at a gas station, where two very friendly (black) people told us it was just down the road and we couldn't possibly miss it.
We did. We saw nothing resembling a subway station. Where are the lovely Boston-style "T" signs when you need them? Stopping once again, we approached a group of equally friendly (Italian) men, who at least admitted that the stop is hard to discern, but who assured us that we could find it by going back in the other direction.
Easier said than done. So many one-way streets, and the road we needed to be on was not only one-way, but divided and semi-limited-access as well, so it was hard to tell where we had to get off the southern route to begin working our way back north for a second chance at the subway. We only knew we had gone too far when we arrived at the airport. The people of New York—a diverse, friendly bunch who cannot believe strangers are so dense as not to know the city as well as they do.
After some fruitless searching—there's supposed to be a subway stop near the airport, too—and more suffering the agony of seeing where we wanted to be with no visible way of getting there, Janet persuaded Porter to stop in a buses-only lane at one of the terminals. Having been to JFK airport once before, she knew that she could eventually get from the terminal to the train. So she hopped out, said a quick goodbye, and raced off to face the nearly impossible task of making her meeting on time. Not exactly the way we had hoped to begin a year's separation, though it did deliver us from the dangers of sloppy sentimentality.
I'm sure she'll fill in the details of how she made the miraculous journey, arriving at her destination a mere seven minutes late. We continued on our way south, paying $9 for the privilege of crossing Staten Island at a comfortable walking pace, finally exiting into New Jersey at about the same time Janet was walking into her orientation meeting. So many people love New York City that it must be a wonderful place under the right circumstances; whatever those circumstances are, I'm sure they at least involve public transportation and not being in a hurry. I was glad to see the back of NYC, and happier still to receive Janet's call, later that evening, that let us know not only that all was well, but also a likely reason for why we were unable to take her to the subway stop as planned.
Janet passed through that stop on her way from the airport, and discovered that it was obscured by trees, nearly impossible to see, and a rather unpleasant-looking place. What's more, she later discovered that it was a seasonal stop! Not at all a location where one would like to wait for a train that probably isn't going to come anyway. I'd only asked for directions to the nearest subway stop, not the nearest operational stop. Silly me. But by the grace of God, and the confusion of New York streets, we failed in our quest. And Janet made her orientation meeting and reception, found her way back to the hotel (a much longer process than getting into Manhattan), and flew out the next day.