A Winter Dream - By Richard Paul Evans Page 0,26
a building.”
“Clever,” I said.
“They have concerts here. The acoustics are really good.”
“Who have you heard?”
“I’ve only been here once, but it was the Grant Park Orchestra. They played Rachmaninov’s Symphonic Dances. It was so beautiful I . . .” She stopped.
“It was so beautiful what?”
“I cried.”
“It really made you cry?”
She nodded. “It was like heaven. I kept thinking, I wish I could be that talented, to leave something that beautiful to the world. But I never will. I’m just a waitress.”
“I think you have more to offer the world than you think.”
“Like what?”
“Beauty.”
“Stop it,” she said.
“No. I mean it. Real beauty. Soul beauty. I don’t think you’re like other people.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’ve known you for less than a week and I’ve seen you demonstrate more acts of genuine kindness than I’ve seen in some people I’ve known my entire life.”
She didn’t say anything.
“I bet you’ve never intentionally hurt anyone.”
“Why would you want to hurt someone?”
“See? That’s my point. It doesn’t even occur to you to hurt others. Yet you’re totally willing to give of yourself to help those around you—like taking the time to show me Chicago. Or going up 103 stories even though you’re terrified of heights, because you thought I would want to see it.”
“It’s not a big deal,” she said.
“Yes it is. People just don’t do things like that. Especially for people they don’t really know.”
She looked uncomfortable. “You’re embarrassing me. I don’t understand why you’re saying this.”
“Because you called yourself ‘just a waitress,’ when the truth is, you might be an angel.”
She blushed. “If I’m an angel, where’s my halo?”
“I think you just leave it at home.”
She rolled her eyes. “Shall we go?”
We walked along the length of the pavilion, then cut back near the AT&T Plaza. Ahead of us was a bright silver monument.
“This is my favorite,” April said. “It’s called Cloud Gate. But the people here just call it ‘The Bean.’ ”
“It looks like a big silver lima bean,” I said.
“Or a big drop of mercury,” April said.
We walked all the way up to the monument, then underneath, the smooth, voluptuous steel capturing and bending our reflections. Below us, on the other side of the monument, was an ice rink.
“Do you skate?” April asked.
“I can kind of skate.”
She took my hand. “Let’s do it.”
After an hour of ice-skating (and more falls than I care to remember), we ate Chicago dogs with kettle chips at the Park Café, then walked south to the neighboring Art Institute of Chicago.
The museum was hosting a Roy Lichtenstein exhibit featuring 170 works spanning his almost fifty-year career. Every adman worth his carbon knows Lichtenstein’s work, as he (like Andy Warhol and his tomato soup can) demonstrated that commercial art can be fine art. April’s response to the exhibit was much simpler.
“How fun!”
The sun was falling as we left the exhibit. We walked a mile and a half to the Navy Pier, which, in spite of the season and hour, was still crowded with tourists. The Navy Pier is an amusement park with rides and attractions and its crowning feature is a 150-foot-high Ferris wheel patterned after the first Ferris wheel invented by George Washington Gale Ferris, Jr., for the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair.
In keeping with our Chicago-themed day, we snacked on Cracker Jacks and had an ice-cream cone—both Chicago World Fair inventions. (Back then the cones were called cream-filled cornets.)
We walked through the funhouse maze and, at April’s coaxing, rode the carousel. Stupidly, I forgot about April’s phobia of heights and bought us tickets for the Ferris wheel as well. When I led her toward the amusement, she stopped, staring at the lit wheel in terror. That’s when I remembered her fear.
“I’m so sorry,” I said. “I forgot. We can just give the tickets to someone.”
She stared at the wheel for a moment, then said, “No, I want to do it.”
“You don’t have to.”
“I don’t want to let fear run my life.”
We shared our gondola with three other people, who seemed to enjoy watching April as much as the ride itself. She clung to me the whole time, which, frankly, I enjoyed, and pretty much kept her face buried in my shoulder anytime we were higher than 20 feet.
As we climbed out of the gondola, our fellow passengers applauded. “Thank you,” she said, bowing. “It was nothing. We’re going skydiving next.”
By 9 P.M. we were both exhausted. Breaking with all things Chicago, we ended up at a Japanese restaurant.
“What a day,” I said. “You were running me like