Tourists never go to downtown Orlando, because there’s nothing there but a few skyscrapers owned by banks and insurance companies. It’s the kind of downtown that becomes absolutely deserted at night and on the weekends, except for a few nightclubs half-filled with the desperate and the desperately lame. As I followed Margo’s directions through the maze of one-way streets, we saw a few people sleeping on the sidewalk or sitting on benches, but nobody was moving. Margo rolled down the window, and I felt the thick air blow across my face, warmer than night ought to be. I glanced over and saw strands of hair blowing all around her face. Even though I could see her there, I felt entirely alone among these big and empty buildings, like I’d survived the apocalypse and the world had been given to me, this whole and amazing and endless world, mine for the exploring.
“You just giving me the tour?” I asked.
“No,” she said. “I’m trying to get to the SunTrust Building. It’s right next to the Asparagus.”
“Oh,” I said, because for once on this night I had useful information. “That’s on South.” I drove down a few blocks and then turned. Margo pointed happily, and yes, there, before us, was the Asparagus.
The Asparagus is not, technically, an asparagus spear, nor is it derived from asparagus parts. It is just a sculpture that bears an uncanny resemblance to a thirty-foot-tall piece of asparagus— although I’ve also heard it likened to:
1. A green-glass beanstalk
2. An abstract representation of a tree
3. A greener, glassier, uglier Washington Monument
4. The Jolly Green Giant’s gigantic jolly green phallus
At any rate, it certainly does not look like a Tower of Light, which is the actual name of the sculpture. I pulled in front of a parking meter and looked over at Margo. I caught her staring into the middle distance just for a moment, her eyes blank, looking not at the Asparagus, but past it. It was the first time I thought something might be wrong—not my-boyfriend-is-an-ass wrong, but really wrong. And I should have said something. Of course. I should have said thing after thing after thing after thing. But I only said, “May I ask why you have taken me to the Asparagus?”
She turned her head to me and shot me a smile. Margo was so beautiful that even her fake smiles were convincing. “We gotta check on our progress. And the best place to do that is from the top of the SunTrust Building.”
I rolled my eyes. “Nope. No. No way. You said no breaking and entering.”
“This isn’t breaking and entering. It’s just entering, because there’s an unlocked door.”
“Margo, that’s ridiculous. Of c—”
“I will acknowledge that over the course of the evening there has been both breaking and entering. There was entering at Becca’s house. There was breaking at Jase’s house. And there will be entering here. But there has never been simultaneous breaking and entering. Theoretically, the cops could charge us with breaking, and they could charge us with entering, but they could not charge us with breaking and entering. So I’ve kept my promise.”
“Surely the SunTrust Building has, like, a security guard or whatever,” I said.
“They do,” she said, unbuckling her seat belt. “Of course they do. His name is Gus.”
We walked in through the front door. Sitting behind a broad, semicircular desk sat a young guy with a struggling goatee wearing a Regents Security uniform. “What’s up, Margo?” he said.
“Hey, Gus,” she answered.
“Who’s the kid?”
WE ARE THE SAME AGE! I wanted to shout, but I let Margo talk for me. “This is my colleague, Q. Q, this is Gus.”
“What’s up, Q?” asked Gus.
Oh, we’re just scattering some dead fish about town, breaking some windows, photographing naked guys, hanging out in skyscraper lobbies at three-fifteen in the morning, that kind of thing.“Not much,” I answered.
“Elevators are down for the night,” Gus said. “Had to shut ’em off at three. You’re welcome to take the stairs, though.”
“Cool. See ya, Gus.”
“See ya, Margo.”
“How the hell do you know the security guard at the SunTrust Building?” I asked once we were safely in the stairwell.
“He was a senior when we were freshmen,” she answered. “We gotta hustle, okay? Time’s a-wastin’.” Margo started taking the stairs two at a time, flying up, one arm on the rail, and I tried to keep pace with her, but couldn’t. Margo didn’t play any sports, but she liked to run—I sometimes saw her running by herself listening to music in Jefferson Park. I, however, did not like to run. Or, for that matter, engage in any kind of physical exertion. But now I tried to keep up a steady pace, wiping the sweat off my forehead and ignoring the burning in my legs. When I got to the twenty-fifth floor, Margo was standing on the landing, waiting for me.
“Check it out,” she said. She opened the stairwell door and we were inside a huge room with an oak table as long as two cars, and a long bank of floor-to-ceiling windows. “Conference room,” she said. “It’s got the best view in the whole building.” I followed her as she walked along the windows. “Okay, so there,” she said pointing, “is Jefferson Park. See our houses? Lights still off, so that’s good.” She moved over a few panes. “Jase’s house. Lights off, no more cop cars. Excellent, although it might mean he’s made it home, which is unfortunate.” Becca’s house was too far away to see, even from up here.
She was quiet for a moment, and then she walked right up to the glass and leaned her forehead against it. I hung back, but then she grabbed my T-shirt and pulled me forward. I didn’t want our collective weight against a single pane of glass, but she kept pulling me forward, and I could feel her balled fist in my side, and finally I put my head against the glass as gently as possible and looked around.
From above, Orlando was pretty well lit. Beneath us I could see the flashing DON’T WALK signs at intersections, and the streetlights running up and down the city in a perfect grid until downtown ended and the winding streets and cul-de-sacs of Orlando’s infinite suburb started.
“It’s beautiful,” I said.
Margo scoffed. “Really? You seriously think so?”
“I mean, well, maybe not,” I said, although it was. When I saw Orlando from an airplane, it looked like a LEGO set sunk into an ocean of green. Here, at night, it looked like a real place—but for the first time a place I could see. As I walked around the conference room, and then through the other offices on the floor, I could see it all: there was school. There was Jefferson Park. There, in the distance, Disney World. There was Wet ’n Wild. There, the 7-Eleven where Margo painted her nails and I fought for breath. It was all here—my whole world, and I could see it just by walking around a building. “It’s more impressive,” I said out loud. “From a distance, I mean. You can’t see the wear on things, you know? You can’t see the rust or the weeds or the paint cracking. You see the place as someone once imagined it.”
“Everything’s uglier close up,” she said.
“Not you,” I answered before thinking better of it.
With her forehead still pressed against the glass, she turned to me and smiled. “Here’s a tip: you’re cute when you’re confident. And not so much when you’re not.” Before I could respond, her gaze returned to the view, and she continued. “Here’s what’s not beautiful: from here, you can’t see the rust or the cracked paint, but you can sense what it really is. You see through the facade. It’s not even strong enough to be made of plastic. It’s a paper town. Look at it, Q—those cul-de-sacs, streets that loop back on themselves, houses built to fall apart. All those paper people living in their paper houses, burning their future to stay warm. Paper kids drinking beer that some bum bought for them at the paper convenience store. Everyone consumed with the mania of owning things, all of them paper-thin and frail. And everyone, too. I’ve lived here for eighteen years and never met anyone who cares about anything that truly matters.”
“I’ll try not to take that personally,” I replied. We both gazed into the dark distance, the winding cul-de-sacs and quarter-acre lots. Her shoulder pressed against my arm, and the backs of our hands brushed lightly. Though I wasn’t looking at her, pressing myself against the glass felt almost like pressing myself against her.
“Sorry,” she said. “Maybe things would have been different if I’d been with you the whole time instead of—ugh. I just hate myself for even caring about my so-called friends. It’s not that I’m devastated over Jason or Becca or even Lacey, though I liked her. It was the last thread I had, and even though it was weak, it was mine. Every paper girl needs at least one thread, right?”
So here’s what I said: “You’d be welcome at our lunch table tomorrow.”
“That’s sweet,” she said, her voice trailing off. She turned to me and gave a soft nod. I smiled, and she returned the smile. I believed it. We walked to the stairs and then raced down them. At the bottom of each flight, I leaped off the last step and clicked my heels to make her laugh, and she did. I thought I was cheering her up. I thought she was cheerable. I hoped that if I could be confident, something might happen between us.
I was wrong.
