Strangers on the Tube 2 by C.J. Newt Read Free Book Online Page B

small price to pay for a symbolic act, she thinks, clasping it tighter.  An unusual looking lady, Beth is over in the United Kingdom along with her husband Herb, the renowned television evangelist.  Bored sitting around in their plush London hotel room with memories making her yearn for their simple past, she decided that she had to do something or she would go crazy.  Herb had his business to take care of for a British Christian network, so she got dressed and slipped out.  She has an idea of where she wants to go, but not for her the taxi or the fancy hired car.  Despite her high life, and her plastic enhancements (for the televisual work) Beth is still a down to earth girl from Nebraska and the trip on the tube helps her remember the same trip she took twenty years ago when she spent a year studying in London.   
        Such memories, and she is stunned at how little the tube has changed.  Twenty years ago, she had her whole future ahead of her and a world of endless possibilities.  She could so easily have married her boyfriend at the time, and spent the rest of her life here in London.  What sort of person would she have become?  She wonders whatever became of him.  Probably married with a few kids, she thinks.  But fate steered her back to the states where she had met Herb, a student at the time, like herself.  In those sepia days, he had been a free spirit, exciting to be with and ready to change the world.  Against family wishes, he had agreed to her request to be married in a little church in London.  To this day his father still complained about the costs of shipping the entire family to that ‘ damned cold place ’.  After the wedding, Herb had wanted to become a missionary in Africa.  But his father had compromised enough, and made that clear.  Their moneyed ways and contacts could not possibly be wasted by a trip to a continent that no one visited.  She thought now that she had lost a bit of Herb right then, when he had succumbed to his father’s wishes and begun his own ministry, which had grown and grown with substantial backing, branching into the media.  And as the years passed, he changed until the student who wanted to change the world was replaced by the powerful Mr. Superchrist, as she now cynically thought of him.  Beth was a good wife.  She was supportive and an excellent hostess for she had soon found out that her role was a very political one and involved becoming the perfect hostess, whispering asides and guiding investors and rich worshippers in the right direction.  Praise Jesus!  Praise the Lord!  Praise the donation and praise satellite television.  Who will give us an amen? 
        Their house, which has featured in a style magazine, is an eight bedroomed mansion with a swimming pool, a conference centre and a gym, set in landscaped gardens with tennis courts in an affluent area.  She took her place at Herb’s side and watched as he ascended from humble preacher to the Superchrist figure he had become in certain parts of America today.  He was a man she could no longer claim to love, for she couldn’t recognise the student within in that she had fallen in love with.  How could a person change and become someone so entirely different to what he had been?  She clasps the bible tightly.  This she will put on the altar of the church in which they got married.  It’s a small, lovely church.  She hopes that this symbolic act will bring back the man she married.  No more Mr. Superchrist with television and book deals and an ego grown wild.  She wants Herb the student back, not the mega preacher he has become.
        The portly woman standing near the pole staring at the reflections on the window is called Sandrine.  She is struggling to be positive.  You see Sandrine (name changed) was a star in the eighties.  She was member of a girl group that took the UK by storm.  In the group she was the lead singer.  But toward the end of the eighties it all went