Okay, ladies and gentlemen, this way to the observation deck, please.
I had stopped running several minutes previously, but still felt breathless as I made my way across the plaza. I pushed at the smoked-glass door and noted with relief that the queue for tickets was short. I had checked on TripAdvisor the night before and been warned that queues could be lengthy but felt somehow too superstitious to buy one in advance. So I waited my turn, checking my reflection in my compact, glancing around me surreptitiously on the off-chance he had turned up early, then bought a ticket that gave me access between the hours of six fifty and seven ten, followed the velvet rope and waited while I was shepherded with a group of tourists towards a lift.
Sixty-seven floors, they said. So high that the ride up was meant to make your ears pop.
He would come. Of course he would come.
What if he didn’t?
This was the thought that had crossed my mind ever since his one-line response to my email. ‘Okay. I hear you.’ Which really could have meant anything. I waited to see if he wanted to ask questions about my plan, or say anything else that hinted at his decision. I reread my own email, wondering if perhaps I had sounded off-putting, too bold, too assertive, whether I had conveyed my own strength of feeling. I loved Sam. I wanted him with me. Did he understand how much? But having issued the most enormous of ultimata it seemed weird to start double-checking that it had been understood properly, so I simply waited.
Six fifty-five p.m. The lift doors opened. I held out my ticket and stepped in. Sixty-seven floors. My stomach tightened.
The lift began to move upwards slowly and I felt a sudden panic. What if he didn’t come? What if he’d got it, but changed his mind? What would I do? Surely he wouldn’t do that to me, not after all this. I found myself taking an audible gulp of air, and pressed my hand to my chest, trying to steady my nerves.
‘It’s the height, isn’t it?’ A kindly woman next to me reached out and touched my arm. ‘Sixty-seven floors up is quite a distance.’
I tried to smile. ‘Something like that.’
If you can’t leave your work and your house and all the things that make you happy I will understand. I’ll be sad, but I’ll get it.
You’ll always be with me one way or the other.
I lied. Of course I lied. Oh, Sam, please say yes. Please be waiting when the doors open again. And then the lift stopped.
‘Well, that wasn’t sixty-seven floors,’ someone said, and a couple of people laughed awkwardly. A baby in a pram gazed at me with wide brown eyes. We all stood for a moment, then someone stepped out.
‘Oh. That wasn’t the main elevator,’ said the woman beside me, pointing. ‘That’s the main elevator.’
And there it was. At the far end of an endless snaking horseshoe of people.
I stared at it in horror. There must have been a hundred visitors, two hundred even, milling quietly, staring up at the museum exhibits, the laminated histories on the wall. I looked at my watch. It was already one minute to seven. I texted Sam, watching in horror as the message refused to send. I started to push my way through the crowd, muttering, ‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry,’ as people tutted loudly and yelled, ‘Hey lady, we’re all waiting here.’ Head down, I made my way past the wallboards that told the story of the Rockefeller building, of its Christmas trees, the video exhibit of NBC, bobbing and weaving, muttering my apologies. There are few grumpier people than overheated tourists who have found themselves waiting in an unexpected queue. One grabbed at my sleeve. ‘Hey! You! We’re all waiting!’
‘I’m meeting someone,’ I said. ‘I’m so sorry. I’m English. We’re normally very good at queuing. But if I’m any later I’m going to miss him.’
‘You can wait like the rest of us!’
‘Let her go, baby,’ said the woman beside him, and I mouthed my thanks, pushing on through the morass of sunburnt shoulders, of shifting bodies and querulous children and ‘I HEART NY’ T-shirts, the lift doors coming slowly closer. But less than twenty feet away the queue came to a solid stop. I hopped, trying to see over the top of people’s heads, and came face to face with a fake iron girder. It rested against a huge black and white photographic backdrop of the New York skyline. Visitors were seating themselves in groups on the structure, mimicking the iconic photograph of workmen eating their lunch during the tower’s construction, while a young woman behind a camera yelled at them: ‘Put your hands in the air, that’s it, now thumbs up for New York, that’s it, now pretend to push each other off, now kiss. Okay. Pictures available when you leave. Next!’ Time after time she repeated her four phrases as we shifted gradually closer. The only way to get past would mean ruining someone’s possibly once-in-a-lifetime 30 Rock novelty photograph. It was four minutes past seven. I made to push through, to see if I could edge behind her, but found myself blocked by a group of teenagers with rucksacks. Someone shoved my back and we were moving.
‘On the girder, please. Ma’am?’ The way through was blocked by an immovable wall of people. The photographer beckoned. I was going to do whatever would make this move fastest. Obediently I hoisted myself up onto the girder, muttering under my breath, ‘Come on, come on, I need to move.’
‘Put your hands in the air, that’s it, now thumbs up for New York!’ I put my hands in the air, forced my thumbs up. ‘Now pretend to push each other off, that’s it … Now kiss.’ A teenage boy with glasses turned to me, surprised, and then delighted.
I shook my head. ‘Not this one, bud. Sorry.’ I leapt off the girder, pushed past him and ran to the final queue waiting in front of the lift.
It was nine minutes past seven.
It was at this point that I wanted to cry. I stood, squashed in the hot, grumbling queue, shifting from foot to foot and watching as the other lift disgorged people, cursing myself for not doing my research. This was the problem with grand gestures, I realized. They tended to backfire in spectacular fashion. The guards observed my agitation with the indifference of service workers who have seen every kind of human behaviour. And then, finally, at twelve minutes past, the elevator door opened and a guard herded people towards it, counting our heads. When he got to me, he pulled the rope across. ‘Next elevator.’
‘Oh, come on.’
‘It’s the rules, lady.’
‘Please. I have to meet someone. I’m so, so late. Just let me squeeze in? Please. I’m begging you.’
‘Can’t. Strict on numbers.’
But as I let out a small moan of anguish, a woman a few yards away beckoned to me. ‘Here,’ she said, stepping out of the lift. ‘Take my place. I’ll get the next one.’
‘Seriously?’
‘Gotta love a romantic meeting.’
‘Oh, thank you, thank you!’ I said, as I slid past. I didn’t like to tell her that the chance of it being romantic, or even a meeting, was growing slimmer by the second. I wedged myself into the lift, conscious of the curious glances of the other passengers, and clenched my fists as the lift started to move.
This time the lift flew upwards at warp speed, causing children to giggle and point as the glass ceiling betrayed how fast we were going. Lights flashed overhead. My stomach turned somersaults. An elderly woman beside me in a floral hat nudged me. ‘Want a breath mint?’ she said, and winked. ‘For when you finally see him?’
I took one and smiled nervously.
‘I wanna know how this goes,’ she said, and tucked the packet back into her bag. ‘You come find me.’ And then, as my ears popped, the lift began to slow and we were stopping.
Once upon a time there was a small-town girl who lived in a small world. She was perfectly happy, or at least she told herself she was. Like many girls, she loved to try different looks, to be someone she wasn’t. But, like too many girls, life had chipped away at her until, instead of finding what truly suited her, she camouflaged herself, hid the bits that made her different. For a while she let the world bruise her until she decided it was safer not to be herself at all.
There are so many versions of ourselves we can choose to be. Once, my life was destined to be measured out in the most ordinary of steps. I learnt differently from a man who refused to accept the version of himself he’d been left with, and an old lady who saw, conversely, that she could transform herself, right up to a point when many people would have said there was nothing left to be done.
I had stopped running several minutes previously, but still felt breathless as I made my way across the plaza. I pushed at the smoked-glass door and noted with relief that the queue for tickets was short. I had checked on TripAdvisor the night before and been warned that queues could be lengthy but felt somehow too superstitious to buy one in advance. So I waited my turn, checking my reflection in my compact, glancing around me surreptitiously on the off-chance he had turned up early, then bought a ticket that gave me access between the hours of six fifty and seven ten, followed the velvet rope and waited while I was shepherded with a group of tourists towards a lift.
Sixty-seven floors, they said. So high that the ride up was meant to make your ears pop.
He would come. Of course he would come.
What if he didn’t?
This was the thought that had crossed my mind ever since his one-line response to my email. ‘Okay. I hear you.’ Which really could have meant anything. I waited to see if he wanted to ask questions about my plan, or say anything else that hinted at his decision. I reread my own email, wondering if perhaps I had sounded off-putting, too bold, too assertive, whether I had conveyed my own strength of feeling. I loved Sam. I wanted him with me. Did he understand how much? But having issued the most enormous of ultimata it seemed weird to start double-checking that it had been understood properly, so I simply waited.
Six fifty-five p.m. The lift doors opened. I held out my ticket and stepped in. Sixty-seven floors. My stomach tightened.
The lift began to move upwards slowly and I felt a sudden panic. What if he didn’t come? What if he’d got it, but changed his mind? What would I do? Surely he wouldn’t do that to me, not after all this. I found myself taking an audible gulp of air, and pressed my hand to my chest, trying to steady my nerves.
‘It’s the height, isn’t it?’ A kindly woman next to me reached out and touched my arm. ‘Sixty-seven floors up is quite a distance.’
I tried to smile. ‘Something like that.’
If you can’t leave your work and your house and all the things that make you happy I will understand. I’ll be sad, but I’ll get it.
You’ll always be with me one way or the other.
I lied. Of course I lied. Oh, Sam, please say yes. Please be waiting when the doors open again. And then the lift stopped.
‘Well, that wasn’t sixty-seven floors,’ someone said, and a couple of people laughed awkwardly. A baby in a pram gazed at me with wide brown eyes. We all stood for a moment, then someone stepped out.
‘Oh. That wasn’t the main elevator,’ said the woman beside me, pointing. ‘That’s the main elevator.’
And there it was. At the far end of an endless snaking horseshoe of people.
I stared at it in horror. There must have been a hundred visitors, two hundred even, milling quietly, staring up at the museum exhibits, the laminated histories on the wall. I looked at my watch. It was already one minute to seven. I texted Sam, watching in horror as the message refused to send. I started to push my way through the crowd, muttering, ‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry,’ as people tutted loudly and yelled, ‘Hey lady, we’re all waiting here.’ Head down, I made my way past the wallboards that told the story of the Rockefeller building, of its Christmas trees, the video exhibit of NBC, bobbing and weaving, muttering my apologies. There are few grumpier people than overheated tourists who have found themselves waiting in an unexpected queue. One grabbed at my sleeve. ‘Hey! You! We’re all waiting!’
‘I’m meeting someone,’ I said. ‘I’m so sorry. I’m English. We’re normally very good at queuing. But if I’m any later I’m going to miss him.’
‘You can wait like the rest of us!’
‘Let her go, baby,’ said the woman beside him, and I mouthed my thanks, pushing on through the morass of sunburnt shoulders, of shifting bodies and querulous children and ‘I HEART NY’ T-shirts, the lift doors coming slowly closer. But less than twenty feet away the queue came to a solid stop. I hopped, trying to see over the top of people’s heads, and came face to face with a fake iron girder. It rested against a huge black and white photographic backdrop of the New York skyline. Visitors were seating themselves in groups on the structure, mimicking the iconic photograph of workmen eating their lunch during the tower’s construction, while a young woman behind a camera yelled at them: ‘Put your hands in the air, that’s it, now thumbs up for New York, that’s it, now pretend to push each other off, now kiss. Okay. Pictures available when you leave. Next!’ Time after time she repeated her four phrases as we shifted gradually closer. The only way to get past would mean ruining someone’s possibly once-in-a-lifetime 30 Rock novelty photograph. It was four minutes past seven. I made to push through, to see if I could edge behind her, but found myself blocked by a group of teenagers with rucksacks. Someone shoved my back and we were moving.
‘On the girder, please. Ma’am?’ The way through was blocked by an immovable wall of people. The photographer beckoned. I was going to do whatever would make this move fastest. Obediently I hoisted myself up onto the girder, muttering under my breath, ‘Come on, come on, I need to move.’
‘Put your hands in the air, that’s it, now thumbs up for New York!’ I put my hands in the air, forced my thumbs up. ‘Now pretend to push each other off, that’s it … Now kiss.’ A teenage boy with glasses turned to me, surprised, and then delighted.
I shook my head. ‘Not this one, bud. Sorry.’ I leapt off the girder, pushed past him and ran to the final queue waiting in front of the lift.
It was nine minutes past seven.
It was at this point that I wanted to cry. I stood, squashed in the hot, grumbling queue, shifting from foot to foot and watching as the other lift disgorged people, cursing myself for not doing my research. This was the problem with grand gestures, I realized. They tended to backfire in spectacular fashion. The guards observed my agitation with the indifference of service workers who have seen every kind of human behaviour. And then, finally, at twelve minutes past, the elevator door opened and a guard herded people towards it, counting our heads. When he got to me, he pulled the rope across. ‘Next elevator.’
‘Oh, come on.’
‘It’s the rules, lady.’
‘Please. I have to meet someone. I’m so, so late. Just let me squeeze in? Please. I’m begging you.’
‘Can’t. Strict on numbers.’
But as I let out a small moan of anguish, a woman a few yards away beckoned to me. ‘Here,’ she said, stepping out of the lift. ‘Take my place. I’ll get the next one.’
‘Seriously?’
‘Gotta love a romantic meeting.’
‘Oh, thank you, thank you!’ I said, as I slid past. I didn’t like to tell her that the chance of it being romantic, or even a meeting, was growing slimmer by the second. I wedged myself into the lift, conscious of the curious glances of the other passengers, and clenched my fists as the lift started to move.
This time the lift flew upwards at warp speed, causing children to giggle and point as the glass ceiling betrayed how fast we were going. Lights flashed overhead. My stomach turned somersaults. An elderly woman beside me in a floral hat nudged me. ‘Want a breath mint?’ she said, and winked. ‘For when you finally see him?’
I took one and smiled nervously.
‘I wanna know how this goes,’ she said, and tucked the packet back into her bag. ‘You come find me.’ And then, as my ears popped, the lift began to slow and we were stopping.
Once upon a time there was a small-town girl who lived in a small world. She was perfectly happy, or at least she told herself she was. Like many girls, she loved to try different looks, to be someone she wasn’t. But, like too many girls, life had chipped away at her until, instead of finding what truly suited her, she camouflaged herself, hid the bits that made her different. For a while she let the world bruise her until she decided it was safer not to be herself at all.
There are so many versions of ourselves we can choose to be. Once, my life was destined to be measured out in the most ordinary of steps. I learnt differently from a man who refused to accept the version of himself he’d been left with, and an old lady who saw, conversely, that she could transform herself, right up to a point when many people would have said there was nothing left to be done.
