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She narrowed her eyes on me, and my pulse stuttered like I’d just made a powerful enemy. “I’m merely making conversation,” she said.
That was a conversation? I didn’t know what to say. I settled on, “Oh.”
The line moved up, and we shuffled forward. A few silent, awkward minutes later we were in the final elevator headed to the top. I glanced from the floor number display to Janet’s face. Maybe all this talk about jumping was because she had a real fear of heights. But if so, why would she want to do this tour of all things? To my utter surprise, a small smile was curving Janet’s lips upward. On her, it seemed to be equivalent to beaming with the brightness of a thousand suns.
She caught me staring and scowled. “What?”
I shrugged. “You just looked really happy.”
The corners of her mouth crept up again. “I guess I am. I’ve always wanted to go to the top of the Empire State Building.”
“Oh? Well, that’s great. I’m so glad we’re doing this then.” I gave her a friendly smile.
“I, of course, still hate New York, though,” she said quickly. “One thing has nothing to do with the other.”
I nodded. “Of course.”
The doors opened onto the observation deck, and we filed out. With Janet’s questions to strangers, I wondered if I needed to be concerned about anyone trying to jump over the edge and if I’d have to physically keep them from doing so—especially after talking to Janet—but I needn’t have worried.
Large metal poles held up chain-link fencing well past anyone’s height. Even if someone were to climb up on the ledge or the fencing itself, I doubted they could get over it. The poles angled at a slant overhead, stretching the fencing like a half-cage over our heads, really keeping everyone in. I exhaled slowly, and my chest loosened with relief.
“Excuse me, do you know that in Japan, seventy-five percent of all suicides are committed by jumping from high-rise buildings such as this one?” Janet said to a man in a black baseball cap who looked to be in his early thirties. “It makes you glad to be an American, doesn’t it?” she said, almost smiling at the guy.
He didn’t answer and lost no time in shaking his head and going around her to turn the corner and escape.
She shoved her hands in her coat pockets. “See? New Yorkers are so rude. People in the South are so much friendlier.”
I doubted anyone in the South—or any other region, really—would find her theme of conversation any more palatable than New Yorkers, but before I could form a response, she was off to accost someone else.
She approached a woman carrying a tiny, black backpack as a purse who appeared to be in her twenties. The woman was close to the fence, close to the edge, and attempting to look down. Janet leaned in front of her and said, “Did you know that a body falls at around one hundred twenty miles per hour? That’s if you’re flying out flat on your belly and horizontal when you hit the concrete. If you dive headfirst, it’s much faster. More like one eighty or one ninety. You know—less wind resistance.”
I grabbed Janet by the arm and pulled her away from the now visibly stricken woman.
“Oh my gosh!” I said to her. “What are you doing? I thought you wanted to come here. Isn’t this your dream or something?”
“Oh, yes. I’m having a blast.” Her exuberant words were at odds with her monotone delivery, but her face was the happiest I’d seen it.
“Then why are you going around asking people these depressing questions?”
“Oh.” She clasped her hands together and glanced at a cluster of nearby tourists crowded around a set of viewing binoculars. “You would see it that way, but no, the questions are anything but depressing. I seek to remind people of life’s fragility.”
I bit my lip and stared at her. “Life’s fragility?”
“Yes. It’s a priority of mine. Especially when I travel. Only when we are forced to see how fragile, how breakable, how completely temporary life is, can we truly enjoy the fleeting time remaining to us. I’m a bit of a philanthropist with what I do, really.” Her smile resurfaced.
My brow furrowed, and I felt a bit ill. “I’m not sure everyone would see your questions that way.”
She huffed with frustration. “That’s why they must be forced to face them, Margot. Confront their mortality for themselves. It’s my favorite thing to do on vacation. I’m headed to Hawaii in May.”
“Hawaii?” I scanned my memory but couldn’t recall seeing anything about Hawaii being famous for their high-rise buildings with observation decks.
“The Big Island,” she clarified. “The lava’s still hot there, you know. Close to the volcano the ground melts the bottom of your shoes. It would be horrible to die in a volcano.”
“It really would. You know what, Janet? I’ll meet you down in the gift shop. I’m just dying to get one of those little Empire State Building statues. So I’ll always remember this visit. With you.”
“Okay,” she said, turning away and already looking for her next victim for forced life appreciation.
I returned to the elevator and felt appreciation for my life and the fact that Janet wasn’t on the fast track to becomingmysister-in-law. Poor Lindsay.
