“Do you need a hand?” Bette asked an elderly lady who had just exited one of the revolving side doors of the retail section of The Plaza Hotel, heading towards the curb of the street. The woman had paused, to lean on her walking stick on one hand, struggling to regain her hold on two shopping bags plus her handbag slung on her other arm.

“Thank you,” the woman said, smiling at Bette, who had quickly walked over to her side. Bette gave her a friendly smile of her own, and gently took hold of the shopping bags before they slipped out of the woman’s arm. Pedestrians were swarming around them, pushing past one another, heading in seemingly several different directions all at once.

“My pleasure,” Bette responded, as she guided the elderly woman by the elbow to an area near street signs that was less crowded than the busy sidewalk area the elderly woman had stopped in. She looked in the direction the woman had looked at as they took a few steps to the spot Bette guided them to.

Bette saw a dark blue Bentley slowing as it approached where they stood. It pulled up by the curb in front of them, and the driver jumped out, jogged around the front of the car, and extended his arm to the woman.

“This is my car,” the woman told Bette in a low, cultured voice, by way of explanation. She turned to the driver, “I’m alright, Casey. Would you please just grab the bags from this nice lady who was helping me.”

The driver gave Bette a quick smile as he took hold of the bags she extended to him, and then he opened the car door for the elderly woman. He took the cane from the woman.

“Thank you again for stopping to help me,” the woman said, smiling once more at Bette, as she straightened up after letting go of the cane. She gave Bette a quick once-over, taking in the younger woman’s tumble of soft brown curls that fell in waves past her shoulders, the sexy, glamorous look of the brunette’s fashionable wrap dress done in a mod 70s’ dark-brown print design, complemented by simple gold chains around her long, elegant neck and gold earring loops framing a beautiful face. She couldn’t help but smile again at her “rescuer.”