silk. He handed the keys to a valet and nodded to the doorman. We walked straight into the elevator, where Charles hit the button for number seventeen.
I gulped.
“First time in an elevator?”
“Yes,” I admitted, feeling a tugging sensation in my stomach as we jerked upward.
“Don’t be afraid,” he said, pulling me toward him with both hands on my waist.
I looked up into his eyes. “What happens if it…falls?”
“It won’t,” he said, squeezing me tighter. “I promise.”
When the elevator jolted to a stop, the doors opened, and a man in a white suit stood waiting. “Good evening, sir,” he said to Charles, before tipping his cap at me. “The suite is ready for you. Will you be dining inside or out tonight?”
Charles turned to me. “Does the balcony sound all right?”
I nodded, so caught up in the grandeur of the moment, I forgot my voice.
The steward slid a key into the lock and held the door open for us. I followed Charles inside, and gasped at the sight. Tufted silk sofas, oriental rugs, drapes made of velvet the color of rubies—the place looked like a palace, or at least how I’d always imagined one to look.
Charles slipped off his jacket and tossed it nonchalantly onto a sofa to our right. He walked to the bar by the far window and flipped on the radio, letting the soothing sounds of big band seep through the air, before selecting two martini glasses from the cabinet. I watched as he unlocked another cabinet and pulled out two ornate glass decanters, pouring liquid from each into a shiny silver shaker. Next he scooped ice inside, then closed the top before shaking the vessel with an expert hand.
When he handed me a glass, I marveled at the thin layer of ice at the top. I was careful to keep my hand steady or risk sloshing the drink all over my dress. I stole a look at myself in the reflection of the window as I held the drink to my lips. Fashionable. Like I belonged. I swallowed the ice-cold liquid, so strong a fit of coughing ensued.
“Sorry,” I said, setting the glass down on a side table. “I guess I wasn’t expecting it to be so strong.” I scolded myself for the naive comment.
“The first sip is always the hardest to take,” Charles said, popping a green olive into his mouth. “After that, it goes down like butter.”
I picked up the glass again, and after a second sip, and a third, the drink had lost its bite, just as he had promised. My cheeks felt warm and my head light. When I finished the glass, he refilled it. I stood at the window staring out at Seattle, sparkling, effervescent. The spring cherry trees on the street below had just burst into bloom, and from the seventeenth floor, they looked like cheerful clouds of pink lining the streets. The city was full of promise, which is exactly how I felt. I felt the stubble of Charles’s chin on my neck as he perched his head over my shoulder to share the view with me.
“It’s beautiful out there, isn’t it?” he whispered into my ear.
“Yes,” I said.
A crescent moon hovered low in the sky, like a painting hung just for us.
“Where would you want to go,” he said, “right now, if you could be anywhere in the world?”
I thought for a moment. Caroline and I had talked an awful lot about Paris. And New York. But in that moment, I didn’t want to be anywhere other than where I stood.
“Right here,” I whispered, turning to face Charles.
“Me too,” he said, taking my face tenderly in his hands.
As he leaned closer, the steward cleared his throat. “I’m sorry to interrupt, but dinner is here, sir. Will you still be taking it on the balcony?”
“Yes,” Charles said, weaving his fingers into mine. He showed me to the balcony, where a table, two chairs, and a half dozen carefully tended stone urns filled with flowering plants waited. Like a magician, the steward produced two plates from a cart somewhere behind us. I sank my fork into a tender piece of fish, its buttery flesh yielding to the tines. A bite of steaming hot roll was washed down with a sip of red wine. I squinted, unable to make out the French words on the label, just the date, 1916. I’d been a scrawny little girl then, chasing my younger brother and sister around the dusty streets outside the ramshackle building we