A Winter Dream(25)

“Those might be worth dying for,” I said. “And those grapefruit ones . . .”

“Yes!” she said. “I love those.”

“You’re standing,” I said. I stood. “Come sit.”

“No, I’m okay,” she said. “I’m just having a roll.” A broad smile crossed her face.

“What?” I asked.

“I like that you’re a gentleman.” She watched me as I took a bite of my omelet. “What do you think?”

“It’s good.” She looked pleased that I liked it. I took a few more bites. “So what’s the plan today?”

“First, we’ll go downtown and start our tour at the Sears Tower. Actually, it’s not really the Sears Tower anymore, it’s the Willis Tower, but everyone still calls it that. I thought we could go to the top so I could show you how the city is laid out. Then we’ll go on a walk through Millennium Park. Then over to the Art Institute of Chicago. Then, if we’re not too tired, we can walk down by the Navy Pier.”

“That’s a full day,” I said.

“We’ve got a lot to do. So hurry and eat.”



We took the Blue Line to the Clark/Lake station, then walked over to Wacker, passing in front of the Leo Burnett building.

“That’s where I work,” I said.

April looked up. “That’s a very tall building. Does your company use the whole building?”

“We have sixteen floors.”

“Wow,” she said. “What floor do you work on?”

“The twenty-seventh.”

She grimaced. “That’s too high.”

We walked about eight blocks to the Sears building. The Sears Tower is the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere and the eighth-tallest in the world. From its top floors you can see four states: Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin and Indiana.

We had been warned by Justyna, one of the cooks at the diner, to expect long lines for the Skydeck but, being winter, there wasn’t much of one. I bought our tickets and we got onto the express elevator in less than a half hour, crowded in with about twenty other 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.”