Letters From The Ledge (7 page)

"Yes. He’s a business associate."

The look of distaste on the boy’s face told him more than he wanted to know. "You look a little young to be one of my dad’s business associates. Unless of course you come with a pretty young girlfriend."

Nate was momentarily speechless. "How old are you?"

"I’ll be eighteen in a few weeks.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yup. I can finally vote
and
kill terrorists.”

"Listen, I was just–"

"Looking for the bathroom?"

"Yeah."

"Across the hall."

"What are you working on?" Nate pointed to the computer. The boy blew the smoke right at him and put the joint down in an ashtray. Nate tried unsuccessfully to wave it away from his face.

"Just some graphics and stuff."

"Really? I do a fair amount of graphic design myself. Well, not really myself anymore, but it’s what my company does." Nate watched the change in the young man’s face.

"I’m trying to learn some new programs so that I can pair computer graphics and photography for a project I’m working on."

Nate’s interest was piqued. "That’s a really nice setup you’ve got. Of course, nothing beats a Mac for design."

"Nothing but the best." He picked up the joint again and took a long drag off of it, challenging Nate with his eyes. They were hard and cold, but inside there was a little boy who somehow reminded him of Paige. "You want some?"

"No, thanks. Show me what you’re working on?"

"Sure." Brendan clicked over to some of his favorite pieces and spun the screen toward Nate, who squatted down, viewing them with interest. He looked at the elements on the page and started asking questions about vector graphics and the different tools and techniques he’d used.

"Wow. This is seriously good. You have a real talent." He started naming the version-specific programs Brendan had used and the boy’s face lit up. "Are those your photographs as well?"

"Yeah." He was almost smiling. The more they talked the more his countenance changed. He snuffed out the joint and sat up higher in his chair, his enthusiasm growing by the second.

"You want to see some more?"

Nate looked behind him. Frank could wait a few more minutes. "You bet."

Brendan clicked through his meager portfolio and talked in animated tones about the effects he was trying to create. Nate showed him a few simple tricks embedded in the program he was using and the boy was genuinely grateful. Nate watched as he rubbed his eyes a few times, trying to focus through the fog but he was too far-gone.

"These your poems?"

Brendan shuffled the papers off to the side of his desk. "No. They were-" He took a deep breath in. "–a friend of mine’s."

"Hey man, it’s no big deal. I write poetry too."

The boy’s head shot up but he kept quiet.

"You know, I wrote a program when I was in college as a project. It was a tutorial for one of the graphics programs you’re using. Would you like a copy of it? It might be a little less tedious than trial and error."

"Yeah! That’d be awesome!"

“Maybe you could come over to my office and shadow some of our designers one of these days. You’d learn a ton just being around people who do this for a living."

"Really? That’d be great!"

"Is this what you’re planning to go to school for?"

The shutdown was on scale with Chernobyl. Brendan grabbed his iPod and flopped onto the bed. "I’ll bet my dad’s looking for you." He closed his eyes and turned it up until Nate could hear the song selection from across the room.

The boy and his room were like polar opposites. Everything was neatly in place. His shirts were grouped by color in the closet and most of them had price tags still hanging off the sleeves. He was dressed in ripped designer jeans with holes at the knees and white long johns underneath, but what caught Nate’s attention was the shirt he had on.

He took a couple of steps toward the bed to get a closer look. The olive green shirt had an eagle on it with the word "Stranded" scripted in yellow drips from an eagle’s talons. There was also a graphic with a winged woman’s mirrored reflection and the words ‘love’ and ‘hate’ on either side of the mirror. The image speared his heart. It took all he had to walk away. "Thanks. It was nice meeting you."

Brendan never opened his eyes. Nate found the bathroom and returned to the large open area just as Frank was coming out of one of the other doorways.

"There you are!” He handed Nate a small rocks glass with a splash of brown liquid in it and started for the stairs. “Come on up to my office and we’ll have a look, shall we?"

Nate followed Frank up the spiral stairs into another huge open area that served, presumably, as an office. An enormous mahogany desk floated in the center of the space and there was Frank’s chair behind with no other chairs in the room at all. A wall of bookcases lined one side and a few well-placed sculptures and paintings gave the eye something to feast on, but only from the perspective of the person sitting in the chair. The wall behind the desk was blank, giving the person standing in front of the desk no choice but to look directly at Frank.

A sliding glass door off to the right looked like it led to a balcony with a beautiful view. Frank sat down at his desk and turned on his computer, then began rifling through the drawers in his desk.

Nate fingered a few plaques and pictures on the bookcase before walking over to the door that led outside. "Do you mind?"

Frank looked from Nate to the door. "If you go outside? No, why would I mind? I never go out there–there’s not much to see from this side of the building. It’s the master suite that has the killer view."

Nate slid the door partly open and stepped out onto the balcony. He couldn’t believe they lived so close. Hell, they could probably see each other from their windows. He scanned their building, trying to find the fire escape where Paige seemed bent on spending so much time. When he did the calculations in his head, it suddenly clicked in his brain. He looked all around and when his gaze fell down and to the right he sucked in his breath.

Earphones still attached to his brain, there was Brendan, just below him, standing out on his balcony. Paige was not going to believe this. He looked over at their building again and thought just maybe he could make out her shape on the fire escape, but it was too dark to tell and the angle made it difficult to judge. Still, line of sight would work both ways.

When he looked down again Brendan was sitting, writing in some kind of a book. Maybe they were his poems after all.

Frank looked up when he walked back inside. "I told you. Nothing to see out there."

"Nope–nothing at all." Nate glanced over his shoulder and thought about Frank’s son and his nightly ritual of contemplating suicide. Killer view indeed. Poor kid. Paige was probably right. He wasn’t really serious, just messed up. Come to think of it, inhaling the air in Brendan’s room had made him a bit woozy himself. Or maybe it was the two gin and tonics he slammed at the Carlton. Or was it three? Either way, he tried to focus on what Frank was saying, but it was getting harder to stay on task, and he hadn’t even tasted the scotch. Nate blinked a few times and realized he was not in his right mind.

"Would you excuse me for a minute?"

"Sure, what do you need?"

"One too many gin and tonics. I need to use the bathroom again."

"No problem–I’ll just get some of this on its own disk and send it with you to look over. It’s getting late and I should let you get on home."

"Thanks. Be right back."

Instead of using the bathroom in the upstairs hall Nate went back down to the one he’d used before. When he was finished he splashed some cold water on his face and peeked through the open door into Brendan’s room again. Brendan was back on the computer, and looked at him through eyes that could barely focus.

"What the hell is that shit you’re smoking?"

"What do you care?"

"It messed me up man, and I didn’t even try it."

A smile spread across Brendan’s face. "I know–it’s really good. Like right now for instance, I could care less that you’re one of my dad’s ‘business associates’. Fuck him." The lilt in his voice and the dripping sarcasm were hard to escape. Brendan tried to keep his mouth shut but snorting laughter ripped through his sinuses until he fell, quite literally, out of his chair.

Nate couldn’t help it. He took one look around the room engulfed in a cloud of smoke and laughed. When Brendan finally righted his chair Nate slid a business card over onto the side of his desk.

"When you’re ready to get serious about graphics and photography, give me a call."

The laughter disappeared as quickly as it had come. Brendan looked at the card, then back at Nate. "You were serious?"

"Dead serious." He let the words hang in the air. "But not like this.” He looked around the room. “Not like this."

“These walls are funny.

First you hate’ em, then you get used to ‘em.

Enough time passes, you get so you depend on them.

That’s institutionalized.”

- The Shawshank Redemption

Two hours after he’d left, Nate quietly turned the key in the lock and stepped back into the apartment. It wasn’t much different from how he’d left it. The knife and the vegetables were still out on the counter, but Paige was nowhere to be seen. He checked the bathroom, but she wasn’t there. A walk was highly unlikely, with her purse and cell phone still on the table in the kitchen. Then he noticed her sweater against the window.

The fire escape. Aptly named.

He slid it open just a crack, enough to alert her to his presence without startling her too much. She moved over to let him open it the rest of the way. When he stuck his head out, her tear-stained eyes were full of remorse.

“I’m sorry.” No sound came out as she mouthed the words.

The corners of his mouth turned up ever so slightly as he looked her over to make sure she really was all in one piece. “Mind if I come out?”

She shook her head and hummed out her answer, scooting slightly to one side to make room for him.

“Are you cold?”

Paige just shrugged her shoulders and sat there. The arctic chill coming from her hand said otherwise. Next he touched her cheeks. Her hair was damp and she smelled like lavender. A lavender ice cube.

“Mmm…you’re warm.”

Audible words. It was progress. She was back all right, but not quite making sense. Nate took off his jacket and made her put it on, then pulled her tightly into his side. She wouldn’t go in until she was good and ready, so he figured he’d be as useful as he could until the time came. She fairly melted into his chest.

He kissed the top of her head and breathed in the scent of her freshly shampooed hair. “Baby, I’m so sorry. I–”

She lifted her head slightly and put her finger over his lips.
Ok, so just hold her, right?
They sat in silence and he tried to imagine her world. This city she loved with abandon had dark streets and dangerous alleys. She’d suffered plenty of pain at the hands of some of its less than desirable decision makers, but still she loved it. Still she stayed. That had to mean something.

He looked out at the other buildings. It was a sea of brick and steel. No wonder living in New York made people hard. Maybe it really was the natural order of things to conform to your surroundings over time, like the way dogs and their owners ended up looking alike.

“There goes the light.”

“Where?”

Paige extended her arm toward the girl’s window. “Maybe her mom’s telling her to get to bed. After all, it is a school night.”

“You seem to find that girl just as interesting as the boy on the ledge. I would think it’d be the other way around.”

“I only noticed him because of her. She sits in that window looking lost and afraid and then spends a lot of time writing about it. At least, it looks like writing from here.” She smiled up at him. “Sometimes I make up my own parts of the story.”

Nate looked down his chin at her. “So that’s what you do out here–spy on other people and try to imagine what they’re doing?”

Paige slapped his chest playfully, the ribbing of his jacket sleeve making a muffled thud from her hand inside it. “It’s not spying. It’s people watching. There’s a difference.”

He tipped her chin up. “At least you’re smiling.” There were those eyes again. He couldn’t help himself. He leaned his head down and kissed her. Her lips were soft, but still guarded. He pulled away and looked back up at bird boy, attempting to redirect his thoughts.

She settled back onto her perch on his chest. “She seems to be watching him. He seems to think he’s invisible. At least, that’s my read.”

He weighed the possibility of telling her about meeting Brendan, but she still seemed too fragile. “Do you think he wants to jump?”

“I don’t think anyone
wants
to jump.” Paige was silent for a while, until the rest of her answer came whispering out. “I think he wants to be free.”

Nate jerked his chin down and looked over the top of Paige’s head. She looked so small, swimming in his jacket like that. The thought that she might have considered suicide had never even been a blip on his radar screen, and it caught him off guard.

Paige’s gaze returned to the girl’s window, now vacant. “I guess she’s gone to bed.”

She was talking more, starting to make sense. He wanted to keep drawing her out. “Did you journal when you were that age?”

“For a while, when my parents were going through their divorce.”

“What happened?”

Her eyes took on a sarcastic glint. “They-got-divorced.”

“I know that part, silly. I’m talking about the journaling.”

“What makes you so interested?”

“Can’t a guy be curious?”

“I don’t remember. I headed off to college and…well, I just didn’t. I was too busy studying and partying and trying to work part-time to pay for it all. I didn’t have time for foolish childhood pursuits.”

“Last time I looked, journaling was hardly a foolish childhood pursuit.”

“Whatever.”

Sometimes her shields went up so fast he got left behind.

“How about you Mr. Sensitive? Did you journal?”

Nate watched to see what her reaction would be. “Still do.”

Her momentary shock was followed by embarrassment. “You’re kidding! When?”

“Usually when I’m on the subway, or having lunch, sometimes in my office, but generally whenever I’m people watching. We have that in common, you know.”

Paige registered that thought and sat up, genuinely surprised. “Really? I would have never guessed that about you. How come you never told me about that?”

“Journaling is a pretty personal thing.” Nate shrugged. “I guess it just never came up.”

She elbowed him in the ribs playfully. “So what kinds of things do you journal while you’re
people watching
?”

He looked at her, stone-faced. “Mostly just poetry these days.”

“Poetry…” She was sitting there shaking her head in genuine disbelief. “How could I not have known this about you?”

Nate just smirked and shrugged his shoulders again.

“How long have you been writing poetry?”

“About as long as I’ve known you.” He searched her eyes, adding to the truth, and watched the shields drop, revealing eyes that were so soft, he could glimpse the part of her that could still be surprised by tenderness. It filled him with hope, like an unexpected gift.

“Have you ever written a poem about me?”

Nate shifted his position. “It’s late. Let’s go in. I’ve got a long day ahead of me tomorrow.”

Paige huffed and followed him inside. She took off his coat and hung it up, then closed the curtains. He dropped the bed down and began getting undressed. She watched him shamelessly.

“What? You’re a full-fledged voyeur now?”

She walked over to where he was standing and pulled the white t-shirt out of his pants for him. “Let me help you with that.”

For some reason serious often ended in sex, and although it seemed like a bit of a disconnect, he wasn’t about to complain. Somehow it comforted her, and she slept soundly afterwards, unlike the nights filled with insomnia and nightmares that frequently robbed her of sleep.

They dropped down on the bed and he kissed her playfully. “You’ll never guess who I met.”

She pulled her shirt up over her head. “Who?”

“Jumper boy.”

“What?” Paige sat bolt upright. “When? How?”

Nate dropped back on the pillows and put his hands behind his head, looking up at the ceiling. He just smiled and let the suspense hang in the air for a while.

“Oh no you don’t!” She grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him. “Nathan Banks you tell me what you know!”

He held onto her back and pulled her into his mouth. “I know that you taste incredible. Everything else is immaterial right now.” He went to kiss her again but she wiggled out of his grasp.

“Stop playing with me and answer the question.” She snapped up her shirt and started to put it back on.

“Ok ok–I’ll talk!” He pulled her shirt out of her hands and tossed it off the side of the bed. She smiled triumphantly. “But you’re never going to guess in a million years.”

“Of course I’m not! That’s why you have to tell me!” She pretended to pound on his chest with her fists.

“His name is Brendan.”

“Okay…?”

“Evans.”

“Brendan Evans…Brendan Evans.” Suddenly understanding dawned. “Why does that sound familiar? Wait–no way! Are you sure? How do you know?”

“After I left here I went to the bar at the Carlton and Frank was there. We talked a little business, and he invited me up to his penthouse to get some info for a marketing campaign he wants me to put together for him.”

“You’re kidding me. And you said yes?”

“I keep telling you, if there’s one thing my daddy taught me, it’s to–“

“Keep your friends close and your enemies closer, I know–now finish the story please!”

“You know you’re especially cute when you’re bossy?”

“You won’t think it’s cute when I’m throwing a temper tantrum, now get on with it!”

“Hmm. I’m not so sure about that. Do I get popcorn?”

She grabbed his face and kissed him hard.

“Crap! Now I’ve lost my train of thought. What were we talking about?”

She flopped back on the pillows and let out an exasperated sigh.

“Ok, ok! So I’m at his house and I had to use the bathroom and I open the wrong door to find this kid blowing pot-laced smoke rings at my face.”

“No way!”

“Way. And then later I’m in Frank’s office upstairs and I’m wandering around, killing time while he looks for the files so I go out on the balcony to see if I can see our building from his.”

“You who doesn’t like heights. How very brave of you.”

“Thank you. Anything to keep myself from strangling the man.”

“I understand. Been there myself. So how did you figure out he was the jumper?”

“As I tried to find our fire escape I realized I was at exactly the same angle of fly boy’s balcony. And when I looked down, there he was.”

“What was he doing out there?”

“Listening to his iPod, writing in some kind of a journal.”

Paige slapped her leg. “I knew he was writing in a journal!” She got up and went over to the window, parting the curtains just slightly to try to get a glimpse of his balcony. “So, what was he like?”

“He said he mostly likes to watch all the other windows because he’s eighteen and, well–sometimes a really sexy woman will stand in front of her window in nothing but her bra and–“

She narrowed her eyes to match his sarcasm and shut the curtain, plopping back down on the bed. “Seriously, is he messed up?”

“He’s angry, but I’ll bet you would be too if you had Frank Evans for a father. Still, he is one smart and creative kid, the wise-ass part notwithstanding. I got a look at some of his computer graphics and photography stuff and he’s got real-deal, raw talent.”

“So now you’re best friends or what?”

Nate rolled over onto his side and tried to tickle her. “No, we’re not best friends!” He stopped as soon as she wiggled too much. “I think you’re right though. He’s not going to jump.”

“Do you think that’s weird?”

“What? You think he should jump?”

“Would you be serious please?”

Nate grabbed onto her and rolled, pulling her on top of him. “I’m sorry.” He kissed her. “What do you think is weird?”

“That I happened to notice him weeks ago out there on the ledge, and now it turns out that we know them.”

“I don’t know–I guess. Everything happens for a reason, right?”

Paige rolled off of him. “You always say that.”

“That’s because I think it’s true.”

“So, I put that particular shirt on this morning for a reason.” She pointed to the floor, where her shirt was now balled up into a small heap. “And what would that be?”

“That would be–” Nate traced a line with his finger from her one of her clavicles down to her sternum. “Because it looks amazing wadded up on the floor over there–especially because the red against the taupe in the carpeting is a particularly great combination. Makes me feel all happy inside.” He smiled and her eyes took on a soft glow.

“So that’s what has you all happy inside?”

“Well, that and–”

She kissed him before he could say anything more, running her hands up the sides of his ribs. “You know what I think?”

“What’s that?”

“I think you talk too much.”