people.
With the elevator rising two floors a second, it took only sixty-six seconds to get to the Skydeck. A large television screen in the elevator kept us apprised of our skyward progress, informing us, with illustrations, when we’d reached the height of the Sphinx, the Eiffel Tower, and the Empire State Building.
As we stepped out of the elevator, I noticed that April was clearly afraid. No, terrified. As I ventured toward the windows, she remained close to the inside wall. The floor was moderately crowded, and I stayed close enough to the windows to see out, but still near enough to April to talk.
Along the north face of the deck was a series of glass boxes that extended out from the building. “Look,” she said. “They built ledges for crazy people.”
I saw that if you entered a box, you could walk out over nothing, looking almost 1,400 feet straight down. “That’s really cool,” I said. “Let’s walk on it.”
April shook her head, clutching onto the corner of a wall. “No, I hate heights.”
“Come on, you know those could hold like five tons.”
“I don’t care. I hate heights.”
“Then why did you bring me up here?”
“I wanted you to see the city.”
“You’re terrified of heights, but you still came up here for me?”
“Yes.” She continued to cling to the wall.
Again, I was taken by her kindness. “Thank you. Would you mind if I walked out on the ledge?”
“No,” she said. “I might not look though.”
“You don’t have to.”
“Okay.”
I had to wait for a few people in front of me, then I walked out onto the ledge, which, I admit, took a little getting used to. I looked back at April, but a large group had come between us. Instead, I took a picture of my feet with my new phone, then walked back to her.
She looked relieved to see me. “Was it a thrill?”
I grinned. “Yes.”
“Good. Can we continue?”
“Of course.”
We continued walking around the deck with April staying as close to the inside wall as she could. Finally, I put out my hand. “Come here. That wall’s not going to do any good. You can hold on to me.”
She swallowed, but still reached out to me. I took her hand in mine. “Now just tell me if we’re too close and I’ll back away.”
“Okay.”
We continued our walk around the deck, with me slowly inching closer to the perimeter as we walked. April never told me to stop, though I could tell when she was nervous, as she dug her fingernails into my hand. I never took her closer than ten feet to the window. When we approached the western-facing window, she said, “We live out that way.”
“I can see the diner,” I said.
“Really?”
“No.”
She hit my arm.
One thing I found peculiar was how many men stared at her. I caught at least a half-dozen of them, some with their wives or girlfriends, looking at her longingly. I wondered if she noticed the effect she had on those around her. I doubted it. I thought of what Timothy had said about Polish women and thought it applied to her as well.
When we had walked the entire deck back to the elevators, I asked, “Had enough?”
She nodded quickly. “Yes. Have you?”
I would have denied it if I hadn’t. “Yes. Let’s go.”
She still held my hand while we were in the elevator. Only when we were on the ground floor did she relinquish it.
“I made it,” she said.
“Thank you for taking me.”
“You’re welcome. Before I came to Chicago, I had never been higher than a two-story building.”
I looked at her quizzically. “Really?”
She nodded. “I’d never even been in an elevator.”
I wasn’t sure what to say to that. “That was very brave of you to go all the way up.”
“I’ve done scarier things.”
I couldn’t help but wonder what they were. We walked outside of the building onto Jackson Boulevard. “Now where?”
“Millennium Park,” she said.
“Is that in walking distance?”
“Everywhere is in walking distance,” she said. “If you have the time.”
I laughed. “Do we have the time?”
“It’s only twelve blocks.”
Millennium Park ran along Michigan Avenue and we entered along Michigan and Randolph. The park’s centerpiece, the Jay Pritzker Pavilion, rose ahead of us with the bandshell’s sheets of steel bent like a schooner’s sails, reflecting the morning sun.
We got to the edge of the pavilion and looked down.
“There was some controversy when they built this,” April said. “The structure was too high for the local ordinances, so they got around it by having it classified as art instead of