Jennifer Smith - The Geography of You and Me

“Wow,” he said. “Have you been to all these places?”

Lucy laughed. “Do you think I’m sending myself postcards?”

“No,” he said, his face burning. “I just figured—”

“They’re from my parents. They go to amazing places, and I get a piece of cardboard,” she explained with a shrug. “They always bring one of my brothers a magnet and the other a snow globe. It’s kind of a tradition. Apparently I asked for a postcard once when I was little, and I guess it sort of stuck.”

He scooted closer to the refrigerator, holding the flashlight in his fist. “So where are they now?”

“Paris,” she said. “They go there all the time.”

“They don’t ever take you?” he asked without turning around, and her voice behind him was quiet when she answered.

“No.”

“Oh,” he said, sitting back on his heels. “Well, who needs Paris when you live in New York, right?”

This made her smile. “I guess so,” she said, then pointed at the fridge. “I haven’t gotten one from this trip yet. That’s actually why I was downstairs before. I was checking the mail.”

There was a note of sadness in the words, and Owen cast around for something to say in response, something to fill the quiet of the kitchen. He glanced again at the mosaic of photographs. “Postcards are overrated anyway.”

“Oh yeah?” she asked, raising her eyebrows.

“Yeah, I mean, what’s the worst thing you can say to someone who isn’t on some beautiful beach with you?”

Lucy shrugged.

“ ‘Wish you were here.’ ” He rapped his knuckles against a scene from Greece, which was hanging near the bottom. “I mean, come on. If they really wished you were there, they’d have invited you in the first place, right? It’s kind of mean, if you really think about it. It should say: ‘Greece: Where nobody’s all that upset you’re not here.’ ”

There was a long pause, and as the silence lengthened, he realized his mistake. He’d only been joking, but it had come out sounding harsh and somehow too specific, and he was gripped now with a sudden fear that he’d managed to make things worse.

But to his relief, she began to laugh. “ ‘Rome: Where it’s so beautiful, we’ve pretty much forgotten about you,’ ” she said, sitting up. Her arms were looped around her bare legs, and her mouth was twisted with the humor of it. “ ‘Sydney: Where you’re really missing out.’ ”

“Exactly,” Owen said. “That’s a lot more honest anyway.”

“I guess you’re right,” she said, her face growing serious again.

“But I bet your parents really do wish you were there.”

“Yeah,” she said, but her voice was hollow. “I bet.”

He switched off the flashlight, then pivoted so that his back was against the refrigerator, the postcards fluttering above his head, and he thought of the notes his mother used to leave for him around the house, little yellow Post-its scrawled with blue ink, reminders to clean his room or to heat up the casserole she’d made. Sometimes she left them before running out to do errands, or going to dinner with Dad, but other times she wouldn’t be far, just out in the backyard, weeding the garden. It didn’t matter whether she’d see him again in two minutes or two hours or two days; the notes always ended the same way: Thinking of you.

“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.