The Geography of You and Me

“I have an idea,” he said, and Lucy let her head fall to one side so she could look at him, her eyes dark and searching. He reached into his pocket and held out the keys to the roof. “It’ll be a hike,” he told her. “But I think it’ll be worth it.”


They loaded a backpack with water and snacks, candles and a blanket, and then Owen led them back toward the stairwell, flashlight held before him like a sword. The hallway was still quiet, and he wondered what he’d be doing now if his father were home. He would probably just be waiting while he went door-to-door through the building, pretending as best he could at this new role of caretaker, as Owen sat alone in the basement, pretending not to notice that he could hardly even take care of himself these days.

They started up the stairs at a brisk pace, but their footsteps soon slowed, and by the time they passed the thirty-fifth floor, they were walking side by side, hauling themselves up on opposite railings, one sweaty hand at a time. When they finally reached the metal door at the top, Owen gave it a push, but it didn’t budge.

“A lot of the time, they leave it unlocked,” he explained. “Which is why I don’t feel too bad about the key.”

“Aha,” she said. “So you’re not as much of a badass as you would first appear.”

He laughed. “I’m not a badass at all. I’m just a guy with a key.”

When he unlocked the door, they stumbled out onto the darkened roof, their eyes focused on the ground as they picked their way across the tar-covered surface.

“Over there,” Owen said, pointing at the southwest corner, and Lucy walked over to the ledge that ran along the perimeter, where she stood looking out.

“Wow,” she breathed, rising onto her tiptoes. Owen dropped the backpack before joining her, positioning himself a few inches away. The wind lifted her hair from her shoulders, and he caught the scent of something sweet; it smelled like flowers, like springtime, and it made him a little dizzy.

They were quiet as they took in the unfamiliar view, the island that was usually lit up like a Christmas tree now nothing but shadows. The skyscrapers were silhouettes against a sky the color of a bruise, and only the spotlight from a single helicopter swung back and forth like a pendulum as it drifted across the skyline.

Together, they leaned against the granite wall, invisible souls in an invisible city, peering down over forty-two stories of sheer height and breathless altitude.

“I can’t believe I’ve never been up here,” she murmured without taking her eyes off the ghostly buildings. “I always say the best way to see the city is from the ground up, but this place is amazing. It’s—”

“A million miles above the rest of the world,” he said, shifting to face her more fully.

“A million miles away from the world,” she said. “Which is even better.”

“You’re definitely living in the wrong city then.”

“Not really,” she said, shaking her head. “There are so many ways to be alone here, even when you’re surrounded by so many people.”

Owen frowned. “Sounds lonely.”

She turned to him with a smile, but there was something steely about it. “There’s a difference between loneliness and solitude.”

He was about to say more but was reminded of the postcards just downstairs, dozens of monuments to one or the other—loneliness or solitude—depending on how you looked at them.

“Then I guess you’ve come to the right place,” he said, watching her fingers drum an unconscious rhythm on the rough stone of the ledge. “Even though you’re not technically alone at the moment.”

“No, that’s true,” she said, fixing her gaze on him again, and this time the smile was real.

They spread the picnic blanket on the uneven surface of the roof, then spilled out the contents of the backpack. The sun was long gone, but it was still warm out, even up here, where the wind made it difficult to light the candles. After a while, they gave up and dined in the dark instead, sharing an assortment of cookies and crackers and fruit, and Lucy’s eyes kept straying back up to the sky between bites, as if she couldn’t trust the unfamiliar stars to stay put.

When they were full, they dragged the blanket over to the wall so that they could lean against it, sitting side by side, their heads tilted back, their shoulders nearly touching.

“If you could go anywhere in the world, where would it be?” Lucy asked, and Owen felt a flash of recognition; it was a question that was always on his mind, and the first thing he usually wondered about other people, even if he never got around to asking.

“Everywhere,” he said, and she laughed, the sound light and musical.

“That’s not an answer.”