by Ellen Datlow
Judy sampled her drink. “Wow. How much was this thing?”
“Fourteen dollars.”
“We’ll go broke.”
“We can afford it.”
They could. Stockton had worked in construction his entire life, framing houses as a teenager and later subbing out his own crew. He’d been twenty-five by the time he’d saved enough to take on a project of his own, building a spec house in an upscale development. He’d put everything on the line to cobble together the construction loan, a not inconsiderable risk for a young man two years married, with a baby on the way.
He sold the house and reinvested the profits. He had a steady hand in a crisis. He didn’t mind taking chances. One thing had led to another. He had his own firm by the time he was thirty. Long after other men his age would have retired to the comforts of an air-conditioned office, Stockton still ran most of his business out of a battered Ford F-150. He wasn’t averse to picking up a hammer himself. He took pride in the fact that he had the callused hands of the kid who’d framed houses to keep himself in beer money. He was rich. Two weeks of drinking fourteen-dollar cocktails in an oceanfront resort posed no financial challenge; he could have afforded six.
Stockton sipped his own drink. The bartender had been generous with the tonic. He didn’t mind. Moderation in all things the doctor had said. This had not proved as difficult as Stockton had thought it would be. His appetites had waned since the heart attack. Food, drink, sex—he just wasn’t as interested. Laurie, his daughter, attributed this to anxiety. She attributed everything to anxiety. The modern condition. Who wasn’t anxious? Laurie was a therapist. Stockton didn’t have much use for therapy, but he supposed she was right. So he was doing everything the doctor had told him to do. Even exercising. He was walking three miles a day now, increasing his pace and distance every week. He’d done his time on the treadmill that morning in the resort’s fitness center.
“Don’t push yourself,” Judy was always telling him.
But it was his nature to push himself. He hated the anxiety. What was the point in living if you weren’t living? He resolved to moderate his moderation. A steak now and then wouldn’t hurt. Or another gin and tonic, for that matter. He went to the tiki bar and fetched another round of drinks.
Judy put her hand on his thigh. “I swear this is all rum,” she said. “You’ll get me drunk.”
Stockton forced a smile. “If I’m lucky.”
They had another drink before dinner. They ate in the resort restaurant. Judy got the chicken Caesar salad. Stockton ordered the filet. They both had wine. After that, he felt looser, more like his old self. He held Judy’s hand on the way back to the suite. Next week they would celebrate their thirtieth anniversary.
The elevator doors opened on the fifteenth floor.
Stockton was suddenly short of breath. His immediate thought was that he was having another heart attack. But that wasn’t it. He was afraid. The alcohol seemed to have eroded some internal dike. That obscure impulse was clearer now. He felt himself drawn to the parapet. He clung to the wall of the gallery instead.
Inside the suite, Judy pulled the shades, blocking out the sky and the lights glowing in the neighboring towers. He felt better then. Judy lifted her face to kiss him. She tasted of wine. He could feel the length of her body against his. He let himself be drawn into the bedroom.
It was no good, though. A disaster.
“Too much booze,” he said.
Judy smiled. She pillowed her head on his shoulder. “We have tomorrow night,” she said. “It doesn’t matter, anyway. As long as we’re together.”
• • •
“Has anybody ever jumped from one of those balconies?” he asked the bartender at the tiki bar.
The bartender opened a fresh bottle of tonic water and poured tonic on top of Stockton’s gin. He wore shorts and a T-shirt that said Gym, Beach, Repeat. He was a big guy, but he had the kind of muscles you got in the weight room. He probably wouldn’t last a day pouring footers in the hot sun. It was two o’clock. Judy had driven over to the outlet mall after lunch. The heat was oppressive.
Stockton slid onto a stool.
The bartender dropped a wedge of lime into the drink, a red swizzle stick.
The air smelled of chlorine and salt. A blue-uniformed maintenance man stood nearby, spraying down the decking where someone had spilled a drink.
“What kind of question is that?” the bartender asked.
“Just a question.”
The bartender shrugged. “Not in my time,” he said. “I’ve been here for five years. I suppose I would have heard about it.”
“I suppose,” Stockton said. “Sometimes you wonder about things like that. Has anyone ever died in your room, that kind of thing.”
“I don’t know of anybody dying, either. Like I said, I would have heard.”
“But you wouldn’t say even if you had heard, would you?”
The bartender grinned. “Not if I wanted to keep my job, boss.”
Which meant what exactly?
Stockton turned away, nodding at the maintenance man as he passed. He sat at a table with an umbrella, nursing his drink. The girl in the pink bikini was sunbathing by the pool below the North Tower. Stockton watched her from behind his sunglasses. She was easy to pick out. The clientele of the resort tended to run older. Most people her age gravitated to the hotels along the boardwalk. Or they were still getting their feet under them and couldn’t afford OceanView. She reached into her bag for sunscreen and applied it with lazy efficiency. Stockton tried to generate some prurient interest in her. Maybe he would think of her when he made love to Judy that night. Maybe that would help.
He finished his drink, and thought about having another one.
He went up to the room instead. He had a bad moment on the gallery. As he stood fumbling in his wallet for his keycard, he felt himself drawn once again to the parapet. The impulse was irresistible. He gazed down at the crowns of the palm trees in the garden below. He saw himself falling. He felt the wind rushing up to meet him. Vertiginous relief seized him, a wild exhilaration. He lurched to the door and let it slam behind him. Inside he drew the curtains and stood panting in the gloom.
• • •
He called Laurie and got routed to voicemail, hung up, called again.
This time she answered. “I only have a minute,” she said. “Is something wrong?”
Stockton sighed. “Yes,” he said. It was the wrong answer, he realized. She would think he’d had another heart attack. He said, “It’s nothing, really. Nothing you need to worry about, anyway.”
“You’re not making any sense,” she said.
“I shouldn’t have—”
“Dad. Just tell me what it is.”
He took a deep breath. He felt unmanned, like their roles had somehow been reversed, parent and child. “It’s nothing,” he said. “Really. It’s just a little thing. I wanted to run it by you.”
“Okay.”
Another deep breath. “I’m feeling these impulses.”
She was silent for a moment. “What kind of impulses?”
“Have you talked to your mother?”
“Dad—”
“Have you?”
“Yes.”
“Did she tell you about the room?”
“She told me the view was incredible,” Laurie said.
“Sure,” Stockton said. “Fifteen stories. But here’s the thing. Every time I get close to the balcony, I have this crazy impulse to jump.”
To his surprise, Laurie laughed. “That’s all?”
“That’s a hell of thing to say.”
“It’s normal, Dad. Everybody thinks about things like that. You stand in a high place, you think about jumping. You’ve just gotten fixated on it.”
“I’m going to ask for another room,” he said.
“Don’t do that.”
“Why not?”
“Running from it gives it power. It’s like fear of flying,” she said. “
I have a client. I really do have to go. Don’t worry about this, okay?”
“Okay,” he said. “But listen, Laurie, don’t tell your mother, okay?”
“Just between us,” she said, ending the call.
Stockton put his phone away, thinking about Laurie’s words. He forced himself to the windows and drew back the curtains. The sea ran on forever, glittering in the afternoon light. He touched the handle of the door to the balcony and tugged it open. A DJ had set up shop at the pool below the North Tower. He could hear the throb of the bass. He saw the young woman down there, or thought he did: bronze and pink, infinitely remote. She stood to pack up her stuff as he watched. Shouldering her bag, she looked up toward the South Tower, as though she’d caught him staring. He stood at the edge of the balcony, his hands clenched white-knuckled on the railing, until the girl disappeared in the shadows of the palms below him. He pushed himself away. Inside the suite, he fumbled for the phone on the end table, punched zero, and listened to it ring.
“Front desk. This is Tiffany. How can I help you?”
Stockton said, “I need another room.”
“Is there something wrong with your room, sir?” Distant keys tapping. “Mr. Stockton?”
“Yes,” he said. He said, “I’m—”
He bit back the word. Afraid. I’m afraid.
“Mr. Stockton?”
“It’s nothing,” he said.
“If there’s a problem, I could send maintenance—”
“It’s nothing,” he said. “It’s okay. Really.”
• • •
Judy didn’t get back until after five.
She called him from the car to ask him to meet her in the lot below the building. “I lost track of time,” she said as they fetched her shopping bags upstairs. “Have you eaten?”
He had not.
After Judy showed him her purchases, they went down to the restaurant. By the time they started back to the room, Stockton was feeling the wine. The elevator door slid back and the young woman from the pool stepped out. Up close, she was even more striking. She had a thick mass of auburn hair and high cheekbones, peppered with freckles. Her hazel eyes were cool and appraising. She wore a sleeveless white dress that fell to her thighs. Stockton let his gaze follow her as she slipped by.
There was something—
“Your tongue’s hanging out,” Judy whispered, not unkindly, as the doors closed.
“Too young for me,” he said, kissing her behind the ear. “I like the vintage model.”
She laughed and squeezed his hand.
He watched the floors light up as they went past: eleven, twelve, fourteen—
“Huh,” he said as the elevator rocked to a stop on fifteen. The doors rolled back. “There’s no thirteenth floor.”
“Nobody wants to stay on thirteen.”
“The people on fourteen are screwed, I guess.”
“I hope they’re not the only ones,” Judy said, drawing him out onto the gallery.
The air was clammy with humidity.
Stockton glanced into the void beyond the parapet. “Do you ever think about—”
“Do you have the keycard, Frank?”
Stockton put his back to the parapet. He dug the card out of his wallet and they went inside and closed the door and that dizzying abyss was behind them.
“Would you pour me a glass of wine?” Judy asked. She was pulling the drapes closed, shutting out the night—the lights of the towers and the pools below them and the black, heaving pelt of the sea.
Stockton took two glasses down from the cabinet. He retrieved a half-empty bottle of chardonnay from the refrigerator, worked the cork lose, and poured. He was putting the bottle away when Judy came around the counter. He leaned against the stove.
“Toast?” she said.
“What are we toasting?”
“Thirty years next week,” she said.
They clinked glasses, and drank. The wine was cool and bright, silky on his tongue. Stockton felt something ease inside him. He sighed. “Thirty years,” he said, and suddenly Judy was serious. “You scared the hell out of me, Frank,” she said.
“I scared you? When?”
“When you were sick,” she said.
Stockton didn’t want to talk about it. He hadn’t been sick. When you were sick they didn’t crack your chest open and rewire your heart. They gave you chicken soup and Tylenol and told you to get some rest. He should be dead. If Ed had not been so quick to make the call, if traffic had slowed the ambulance even a minute or two longer, he would be dead. You’re a lucky man, the doctor had told him. You beat the odds.
“Let’s not talk about it.”
“We don’t have to talk about it. It scared me, that’s all. I couldn’t stand to lose you.”
“Me neither,” he said, but the joke fell flat.
They were silent for a moment.
“Come on,” Judy said.
Stockton switched off the light and followed her into the living area on the other side of the counter. They sat on the sofa in the dark and drank wine. He tried not to think about the windows at his back, but he couldn’t help running the numbers in his head. He’d been in construction too long. It was natural. Say eleven feet per floor and multiply that by fourteen floors, because the builders had omitted lucky thirteen, and what you came up with was—what?—a hundred and fifty feet, give or take. 154. Half a football field. A long way down. He closed his eyes. Laurie had given him some tips to fight the anxiety. Tools, she called them. Use your tools. He deepened his breathing. In through the mouth, out through the nostrils, counting breaths. He felt marginally better.
“You okay?” Judy asked. She was always asking him if he was okay.
“I’m fine.”
“What are you thinking about?”
“You,” he said.
She elbowed him. “You’re thinking about that woman in the elevator. I saw you looking at her the other day at the pool.”
“No,” Stockton said, but now he was thinking of her. Try not to think of something. He saw her exiting the elevator, her filmy dress white against her bronze thighs. So he was thinking of her, then—her high cheekbones, her hazel eyes. And later, as he made love to Judy, he found himself thinking of her again. He was thinking of her when he finished, and afterwards, as he lay sweating in the dark, feeling his heart thunder inside his chest and wondering when something was going to give way in there, some weakened artery, some inadequate repair, he was still thinking of her. Her eyes mainly. Those hazel eyes, taking his measure.
Judy ran her finger up the narrow scar that split his chest. “Frank,” she said.
“Yeah?”
“Outside, when we were coming home from dinner. You were going to ask me something. What was it?”
“I don’t know,” he said. But he did.
He’d said, Do you ever think about—
And then she’d interrupted him, looking for the keycard. But now the phrase completed itself in his mind.
Jumping.
Do you ever think about jumping?
The question chased him down the rabbit hole into sleep.
• • •
Stockton woke from a dream of falling. He sat up abruptly, covers pooling in his lap. He was damp with sweat. He picked up his phone. Three o’clock. Late, then, or early. In either case, sleep was out of the question. He felt jittery in his bones. He supposed he could read for a while, or watch television, but what he really needed was a walk, something to shake out the nerves. He dressed in the darkness and let himself out of the apartment.
He stood at the parapet, helpless to resist. What would it be like to jump? How long before the fatal impact? Three seconds? Four? Not much time to think. And then a single excruciating instant of pain followed by . . . what? Where had he been after the heart attack? He remembered nothing but Ed telling him he looked a little green, then the nurse—
—you should be dead—
—staring down at him in the recovery room. An
d the interval between? No light, no tunnel, no relatives waiting to receive him. Not even black or void, because black or void implied an awareness to perceive them. These fragmentary thoughts and then he’d blipped out again. The next time he was awake, he was in a private room at the hospital. The face staring down at him had been Judy’s.
You’re going to be okay, she said.
What happened?
Your heart, she said. You’re lucky to be alive.
Lucky. Stockton wrenched himself back from the parapet. Made his way to the elevator. Downstairs, a briny wind swept in off the ocean. In the moonlight, the maintenance man from the bar was hosing sand off the wooden bridge over the dunes. Stockton nodded as he passed. On the ocean side, he kicked off his sandals and pushed them under the stairs. He crossed the sand and moved out along the edge of the water, the tide washing over his feet. He walked a quarter mile or so beyond the resort before he turned back. A figure stood on the beach, gazing out at the sea.
As he drew closer, Stockton recognized—or thought he recognized—the young woman from the elevator. It was hard to be sure, but the white dress looked familiar. The wind sculpted it to the curves of her body. Was it her?
She turned and started in his direction, striding with purpose.
Stockton angled across the sand to avoid her. The woman, too, changed course. Stockton walked faster. Anxiety pulsed in his chest. It didn’t seem like a good idea, a chance encounter with a woman half his age out here on the beach in the middle of the night. Bad enough that he’d been staring at her for the last two days. She probably thought he was stalking her. He retrieved his shoes from their hiding place and climbed the stairs barefooted. On the bridge over the dunes, he glanced back, half afraid that she would be coming up the steps behind him.
He didn’t see her. Not on the steps, not on the beach.
Stockton stood there, puzzled.
“You should be more careful, sir. Nothing good happens on the beach after midnight.”
It was the maintenance man—Keyes, according to the name tag pinned on his coveralls. Up close, he was gaunt and stubbled, pale. He’d put aside his hose to stand on the damp slats and stare out at the surf.
“Did you see her?”
Keyes had taken out a cigarette. He lit it and took a long drag. “Sure,” he said.