Letters From The Ledge (16 page)

Some time in the middle of the night he felt the ledge calling to him. He got up and went outside, taking his journal with him. He looked out toward Sarah’s building and imagined her sitting there in the darkness, watching him.

He was falling for her, and it scared him. There was something about her that felt so different. A draw that came from some deep, untapped well and satisfied a thirst he hadn’t known existed. It pulled him almost against his will. What he couldn’t figure out was if the need was really for her, or just a balm to protect him against the pain of losing Tess. The second made pursuit unfair. The first was absolutely terrifying. He’d never needed anything beyond his ability to resist.

At first he sat, but when he got too restless he stood. When he couldn’t stand anymore he walked, back and forth. Fear of falling had long been replaced by a fear of never falling. It was a strange fear, but he had it all the same.

It was quite the bizarre set of coincidences lining up in front of him. Nate working with his dad and then finding one of his airplanes, meeting Sarah, Sarah watching him without knowing it was him…

A shiver ran through him and his stomach once again protested the brandy / cognac combination. His need was getting the best of him on more than one level. He felt sick and not even a joint sounded good to him. He’d tried to blame genetics for his drug and alcohol use, but now he knew the truth: that there was something even more sinister lurking in his gene pool: something–and some
one–
that no one seemed to know anything about.

The adoption piece explained a lot, but left so many unanswered questions in its place, twisting it all into a convoluted mess. Now, more than ever, he needed to find out who he was, and what he was really made of. If he was the son of a rapist, then what other evil tendencies lurked inside him? Genetically, did that make him any better than Tess’s stepfather? He heaved at the thought of what he’d done to Tess; what some unknown man had done to his mother.

He lost the entire contents of his stomach several times over the edge of the bricks, then gripped his arm at the site of last night’s cut until it turned his shirt bright red. He wanted to slice it clean through and bleed himself clean of every violent act; every unknown sin. He longed for the angels Tess spoke of, to carry him away too, and it all dissolved in to a crumpled, fetal mess of tears.

Through the haze of darkness he looked out toward Sarah’s building as a light in one of its windows formed a silhouette. His insides ached with a longing he couldn’t name and he reached out toward her and lost his balance. He felt his body falling and he didn’t care. Suddenly he felt two strong arms gripping him on either side, and he hoped they would carry him to her, but they set him back on the ledge instead.

“Like a duck on the pond.

On the surface everything looks calm,

but beneath the water those little feet are churning a mile a minute.”

-
The Replacements

When Paige looked up from the stack of printouts, Frank was standing in front of her. “Can I help you?” She took off her glasses and rubbed her temples.

“Let’s go to lunch.”

“For what?”

Frank smiled. “It’s a little American tradition we have around here. People stop working and eat together, sometimes around noon. We call that lunch.”

“I’m aware of the procedure, Frank. What’s the occasion?”

“Well, the fact that you’ve once again graced our office with your presence, of course!”

“Cut to the chase Frank. What do you want?”

“Testy today, aren’t we? I was thinking a deli sandwich, how about you?”

“I’m not hungry.”

“Well now, that’s not humanly possible. Chelsea said you’ve been here since six-thirty and you’ve only left that chair to use the bathroom. She’s brought you three cups of coffee and you haven’t eaten a thing. So unless you’re hiding Power Bars in your purse I figure I’ve got a pretty good argument working.”

“Would you like to know how many ounces I peed each time or are you content to just log my number of trips to the ladies room?”

“Why so edgy?” He put one hand on the desk and the other on her shoulder. She cringed inwardly. The man made her want to puke. “A girl’s got to eat. Kevin’s going to think I’m not treating you right.”

“Frank, can I be honest with you?”

“Please.”

“I don’t think your wife would appreciate our having lunch together for no good reason.”

“I have a lot of very good reasons.” Frank’s smile reminded her of a seriously disturbed clown face from a horror movie she’d seen once.

“Then why don’t you call Kelly the stewardess? I’ve got work to do.” She pushed away from the desk, grabbed her purse and walked out of the office. “Chelsea, I’ve got some work to finish in my own office today. Have the printouts on the desk in there sent over and I’ll look at them again in the morning.”

“Yes ma’am.”

Out in the fresh air Paige breathed a huge sigh of relief. Being near him was suffocating. She sat down on a landscaped wall outside the ring of buildings and dangled her feet over the sidewalk, thinking about what the view must be like from the balcony at Frank’s place.

Brendan seemed so intent on pushing the envelope. He walked the ledge but never took the leap into stupidity. Pushing her luck had only ever gotten her into trouble. New York was too dangerous to push on. If you pushed, the city pushed back. It wasn’t worth it, but then neither was spending day after day working for people like Frank. What she needed was a vacation–a real one this time.

__________

Not even dinner at her favorite Italian restaurant was enough to get Paige’s mind off of work. It was really starting to wear on her.

“Why don’t we take a vacation?” Nate was twirling spaghetti onto a speared meatball as he spoke.

Paige cocked one eyebrow up. “Have you been reading my diary?”

“You have a diary?” Nate’s eyebrows went up.

“No, but if I did that’s what it would say. After today, I’m beginning to think I really missed the boat in Switzerland.”

Nate put his fork and knife down. “Switzerland is land locked.”

“Would you be serious for once!” Paige huffed.

“Here–you’ve got sauce on your chin.” Nate reached over with his napkin and took a swipe at her.

She leaned out of his reach and grabbed for her own napkin. “I’ve got it, thanks.”

Nate narrowed his eyes, but just kept smiling. “So, where do you want to go?”

“Someplace where there are no computers, no cell phone service and–“

He whipped out his cell phone and held it up in the air, pretending to look for a signal. “Let me just call the Verizon guy. I’ll try and get a list of places they haven’t hit yet.”

“Are you going to listen to me or not?” She smiled and took a sip of her wine. The waiter swooped in silently to fill her water glass. “Good service.”

“Here or at your ideal vacation spot?”

“Both.” She put her elbows on the table. “I’ve honestly never been anywhere except the Midwest–and Switzerland, but that trip was kind of a bust, unless you count the view from Frank’s conference room and…well, that one bridge.” She looked down, embarrassed to have brought up a sore subject. “Sorry. I didn’t mean it like that”

“That’s ok. We’re over it, right?”

When she nodded, he took her hand across the table. “If you could go anywhere, where would you want to go?”

“I don’t even know how to answer that. I mean, there are places I want to see before I die, you know? Like the Vatican, the Eiffel Tower, the Cote D’Azur, and Venice and Greece and…”

He pulled out a pretend notepad and pencil and took notes in the air, tallying the imaginary stops on their itinerary. “We’d better leave soon, then.”

“Stop teasing Nate! I’m serious. I don’t want to see them all at once, and that’s not even really what I mean.”

“I guess I’m not following you then.”

“Those are places I want to
travel
to. There’s a difference.”

“A difference between traveling and taking a vacation you mean?”

“Exactly!”

He nodded. “Ok, so what’s your idea of an ideal
vacation
?”

Paige closed her eyes and took a deep breath in. A smile spread across her face as she imagined the scene. “White sand” she kept smiling. “Blue water-“

She peeked across the table and watched understanding dawn on Nate’s face.

“And a big bed high up on a cliff overlooking the water so that you wake up feeling like you’re sleeping on top of the ocean.”

He blew out all his breath. “Wow. I think I’m aroused. I’ll just make a few calls…” he started to reach for his phone again.

She opened her eyes and slapped the top of his hand. “I was just teasing about that last part.”

“No, really. I gotta find that place.” He pulled his phone back out and pretended to be dialing numbers.

“Like it even exists outside my imagination.”

“Hey–money buys just about anything these days, didn’t you ever watch Fantasy Island?”

“Well, I’d settle for white sand and blue water.”

He grinned. “Let me guess–and a lounge chair and a pink umbrella in your drink and maybe a cabana boy to rub suntan oil on you all day long, right?”

“Mmm…I hadn’t thought of that.” She waved her pointer finger a couple of times at the table in front of him. “Add that to the list, would you?”

“No problem.” He pretended to write. “Do I get a cabana girl?”

“Not on your life, buster.”

Nate held both hands in the air, palms up. “What–there’s a double standard?”

“Of course there is, silly.”

“So you get the cabana boy
and
me? That hardly seems fair.”

Paige wrinkled up her mouth into a pout. “You’re right. It’s not fair. Sucks to be you.”

Nate laughed out loud. “Ok, I get it! You women are all the same.”

“It’s true. We’re a horrible bunch.”

Suddenly Nate laid both forearms across the small table and leaned toward her, captivating her with his eyes. “Forget the cabana boy. What if I want you all to myself?”

Paige let a demure smile spread slowly across her lips. “Then I guess you’ll have to fight for me.”

“Bring it on.” He leaned his face in and she met him across the table for a kiss. “What do you say we get out of here?”

“Sounds good.”

__________

When Nate got home from work the next day, Paige was at the sink doing up the last of the breakfast dishes. He came up behind her and put his hands over her eyes. "Guess who?"

"Ted Kaczynski?"

"Close. Try again."

"Tom Cruise?"

"Mmm. You’re getting closer."

She sighed. "Well, your hands smell too good to be the plumber, so I guess I give up."

"I like Tom Cruise–let’s stick with that one."

She smiled. "If you’re Tom Cruise can I turn around now? I’ve always wanted to kiss you."

"Not until you answer one question."

"What?"

He kissed the back of her neck until she melted into his chest. "What’s blue and white and pink and twirly?"

"I don’t know, what?"

Nate let go of her eyes and let her turn around. He held up two plane tickets. "The water in Barbados, the sand on the beach outside our villa, and the umbrella in your drink." He waved the tickets back and forth. "And you were supposed to guess the cabana boy but I suppose I can live with being Tom Cruise. The roles are basically interchangeable."

She threw her arms around his neck. "Are you serious? Tell me you’re not joking!"

He used his Brando. "I would joke with you about a thing like this?"

She held onto his neck and he swung her around once before setting her back down on the floor. She kissed him soundly. "So what’s the occasion?"

"We are."

"We are?"

"Yes."

"How do you figure?"

"Well, sit down." He guided her over to a spot on the couch and sat on top of the coffee table, directly across from her. He laid his arms across his knees and held both of her hands. "I hope you won’t think this is weird or morbid or anything."

"What?"

"It might seem kind of backwards at first. Just follow my logic, ok?"

Paige cocked one eyebrow. "I’m listening."

"You know how I always give my mother flowers on my birthday?"

"Yes. Why is that, anyway?"

"It started with my dad. He did it for his mother. I guess he figured if she had to endure twenty-seven hours of labor in order to have him that day, then why should he be the only one who gets remembered?"

Paige shrugged and nodded. "You come from a very strange family Nate. So…your mother likes Barbados?"

"Two years ago today–"

Her face went absolutely still. He waited for her mind to adjust as she did the mental math.

"Well, I was thinking–why not make today a day that we can remember with joy because we decided to take our first tropical vacation together?"

She pushed his hands away. "You’re not well Nate."

"Think about it! Why not turn it into something you can remember in a good way?"

Paige got up and started pacing around the room. "There you go again! You can’t even see it, can you?"

"Hey - I was trying to do a good thing here!"

"How do you even remember the date? I’ve tried to block those details completely out of my mind!"

"If we do that it will never get better."

"I don’t
want
to remember it. God, sometimes I think it affected you worse than it did me. Why do you insist on torturing yourself? It’s hard enough as it is. I wish you’d just stop bringing it up altogether."

"We have to be able to meet things head on. I don't want to spend the rest of our lives refusing to talk about the white elephant standing in the middle of the room. Now, I’m not saying we should always talk about it."

"No, you want to make it a national freakin’ holiday!"

"I just don’t want to be dysfunctional about it."

"I am
functioning
the very best I can Nate. I get up every day and I push those memories back. I go to work. I do my job, and I’m choosing to move forward with my life. I’m not in denial Nate, but I don’t want to focus on it either."

"I’m not suggesting that you’re in denial. I just want to go away with you. I want us to go on vacation together."

"Then why make it revolve around the date of my rape? Why even go there? This is what I meant about penance. It’s like you’re trying to make it all ok and it’s not ok! It’s never going to be ok!"

"That’s
not
what this is about!"

"Well whether or not that was your intention, that’s still what it feels like!"

"Why can’t you just accept my gifts without judging their intent?"

"It’s the way you bring them around, Nate! If you want to give me a gift, then give me a gift–no strings attached; no…
guilt
attached, no date attached, no memories attached. Why can’t we just make our own wonderful memories and let the good start to overshadow the bad for once?" She sat down on the couch and leaned back into the cushions. "I don’t understand how your mind works. You just–try too hard sometimes."

He grabbed his keys off the counter. "I’m going for a walk."

He closed the door too hard, and realized it too late, proving her theory. He punched the wall next to the elevator and cursed the air just as the doors opened. A tall, heavyset woman with a scarf circling her head stepped out of the elevator just as he was getting on.

"Hi Mrs. Stephenson. Sorry about that. It wasn't directed at you."

"Are you all right, Nathan?"

"Fine. Just going out for a walk."

"At this hour?"

"Yes, ma'am."

The big Ukrainian woman just nodded. "Ok Nathan. Whatever you say."