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She gestured around us. “New Yorkers are the meanest people on the planet. I’m merely demonstrating that they can’t get to me.”
Wow. From my five long minutes of knowing Janet, I was already aware that there’d be no arguing with her. I wouldn’t have any success in persuading her to a less weird course of action. But I could appeal to her self-interest. “Let’s get going. The longer we take to get to the Empire State Building, the longer the line will be.” I didn’t know if that was actually true—we had tickets for a specific tour time—but it felt true.
It seemed to work on Janet, anyway. Her brow cleared a bit, and she turned around and elbowed two people to edge back into the crowd headed to the subway.
Shrugging, I followed her and tried to make my face look open and friendly to balance out whatever face she was making.
We arrived at the Empire State Building about twenty minutes before our tour time. Lindsay had already purchased our tickets online, which was nice. With her organizational skills and obsessive attention to detail, she would’ve made an excellent maid of honor for herself.
Janet and I waited for the elevator that would take us to the line of other tourists. My gaze was all over the place—walls, ceiling, floor—admiring the art deco design of the classic building. I started making notes in my head about some similar décor for the living room in my apartment back home. I was snapping pictures when Janet started talking to a man who’d come up to wait for the elevator too.
“You ever think about it?” she asked, eyeing him up and down in a slow scan. Oh, no. Was this her awkward way of hitting on someone?
The man’s eyebrows pulled together, and he took a big step back. “Think about what?”
She raised her gaze to the numbers over the elevator. “What it would be like to jump from that high?”
His face filled with horror. The elevator doors opened in front of us with a ding.
“I’m going to wait for the next one,” he said as he shuffled backward, eyes glued to Janet.
She gave him a puzzled look. “There’s plenty of room on this one.”
He put a hand up. “No. No, I’m good.”
She shrugged it off, and we both got on alone.
“What was that about?” I asked as soon as the doors closed.
She turned a blank gaze on me. “What was what about?”
Without answering, I gestured to the closed elevator door and the floor we’d just left.
Her usual frown grew more pronounced. “I don’t know. I guess he just wasn’t in the mood to chat.”
I cocked my head to the side. I’d meant what was up withher, not him, but I didn’t pursue it.
When we reached our floor, we found a giant line waiting for us. We queued up, and I glanced at my phone. Twelve minutes to go of standing in line with Janet and counting. I might as well try to make pleasant conversation with her. She was kind of going to be family at the end of the week. “Are you enjoying New York? Have you been here before?”
She scrunched up her nose and crossed her arms so vehemently that her lank hair swung in front of her face. She pushed it out of the way and recrossed her arms with a glare. “I’ve never been here before and, no, it’s impossible to enjoy this travesty.”
Uh-oh. “The city or the wedding?”
She glanced at my face, but obviously decided against sparing my feelings. “Both.”
“Oh. Not a fan of Lindsay?”
Her mouth tightened, and she gave me a look, but she swiveled and turned to face the wall instead of answering. Apparently she was going to spare the rest of my feelings after all.
To my surprise, she tapped the shoulder of the older woman in front of us. “Do you know that more people commit suicide by jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge than the Empire State Building? You should be pretty safe up there.”
“Uh?” the woman said as her mouth fell open. She gave Janet a disbelieving look before turning an accusatory gaze on both of us. I held my hands up in defense. I couldn’t explain the toxic oddity that was Janet any more than she could. She turned around and stared fixedly ahead, probably writing Janet off as some kind of NYC eccentric.
“Janet,” I stage-whispered out of the side of my mouth. “You’ve got to quit doing that.”
“Doing what?” she said in her usual monotone, plenty loud enough for the woman in front of us to hear.
“Saying things that freak people out.”
