A Winter Dream: A Novel

by Richard Paul Evans

She nodded. “I’d never even been in an elevator.”

  I wasn’t sure what to say to that. “That was very brave of you to go all the way up.”

  “I’ve done scarier things.”

  I couldn’t help but wonder what they were. We walked outside of the building onto Jackson Boulevard. “Now where?”

  “Millennium Park,” she said.

  “Is that in walking distance?”

  “Everywhere is in walking distance,” she said. “If you have the time.”

  I laughed. “Do we have the time?”

  “It’s only twelve blocks.”

  Millennium Park ran along Michigan Avenue and we entered along Michigan and Randolph. The park’s centerpiece, the Jay Pritzker Pavilion, rose ahead of us with the bandshell’s sheets of steel bent like a schooner’s sails, reflecting the morning sun.

  We got to the edge of the pavilion and looked down.

  “There was some controversy when they built this,” April said. “The structure was too high for the local ordinances, so they got around it by having it classified as art instead of a building.”

  “Clever,” I said.

  “They have concerts here. The acoustics are really good.”

  “Who have you heard?”

  “I’ve only been here once, but it was the Grant Park Orchestra. They played Rachmaninov’s Symphonic Dances. It was so beautiful I . . .” She stopped.

  “It was so beautiful what?”

  “I cried.”

  “It really made you cry?”

  She nodded. “It was like heaven. I kept thinking, I wish I could be that talented, to leave something that beautiful to the world. But I never will. I’m just a waitress.”

  “I think you have more to offer the world than you think.”

  “Like what?”

  “Beauty.”

  “Stop it,” she said.

  “No. I mean it. Real beauty. Soul beauty. I don’t think you’re like other people.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’ve known you for less than a week and I’ve seen you demonstrate more acts of genuine kindness than I’ve seen in some people I’ve known my entire life.”

  She didn’t say anything.

  “I bet you’ve never intentionally hurt anyone.”

  “Why would you want to hurt someone?”

  “See? That’s my point. It doesn’t even occur to you to hurt others. Yet you’re totally willing to give of yourself to help those around you—like taking the time to show me Chicago. Or going up 103 stories even though you’re terrified of heights, because you thought I would want to see it.”

  “It’s not a big deal,” she said.

  “Yes it is. People just don’t do things like that. Especially for people they don’t really know.”

  She looked uncomfortable. “You’re embarrassing me. I don’t understand why you’re saying this.”

  “Because you called yourself ‘just a waitress,’ when the truth is, you might be an angel.”

  She blushed. “If I’m an angel, where’s my halo?”

  “I think you just leave it at home.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Shall we go?”

  We walked along the length of the pavilion, then cut back near the AT&T Plaza. Ahead of us was a bright silver monument.

  “This is my favorite,” April said. “It’s called Cloud Gate. But the people here just call it ‘The Bean.’ ”

  “It looks like a big silver lima bean,” I said.

  “Or a big drop of mercury,” April said.

  We walked all the way up to the monument, then underneath, the smooth, voluptuous steel capturing and bending our reflections. Below us, on the other side of the monument, was an ice rink.

  “Do you skate?” April asked.

  “I can kind of skate.”

  She took my hand. “Let’s do it.”

  After an hour of ice-skating (and more falls than I care to remember), we ate Chicago dogs with kettle chips at the Park Café, then walked south to the neighboring Art Institute of Chicago.

  The museum was hosting a Roy Lichtenstein exhibit featuring 170 works spanning his almost fifty-year career. Every adman worth his carbon knows Lichtenstein’s work, as he (like Andy Warhol and his tomato soup can) demonstrated that commercial art can be fine art. April’s response to the exhibit was much simpler.

  “How fun!”

  The sun was falling as we left the exhibit. We walked a mile and a half to the Navy Pier, which, in spite of the season and hour, was still crowded with tourists. The Navy Pier is an amusement park with rides and attractions and its crowning feature is a 150-foot-high Ferris wheel patterned after the first Ferris wheel invented by George Washington Gale Ferris, Jr., for the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair.

  In keeping with our Chicago-themed day, we snacked on Cracker Jacks and had an ice-cream cone—both Chicago World Fair inventions. (Back then the cones were called cream-filled cornets.)

  We walked through the funhouse maze and, at April’s coaxing, rode the carousel. Stupidly, I forgot about April’s phobia of heights and bought us tickets for the Ferris wheel as well. When I led her toward the amusement, she stopped, staring at the lit wheel in terror. That’s when I remembered her fear.

  “I’m so sorry,” I said. “I forgot. We can just give the tickets to someone.”

  She stared at the wheel for a moment, then said, “No, I want to do it.”

  “You don’t have to.”

  “I don’t want to let fear run my life.”

  We shared our gondola with three other people, who seemed to enjoy watching April as much as the ride itself. She clung to me the whole time, which, frankly, I enjoyed, and pretty much kept her face buried in my shoulder anytime we were higher than 20 feet.

  As we climbed out of the gondola, our fellow passengers applauded. “Thank you,” she said, bowing. “It was nothing. We’re going skydiving next.”

  By 9 P.M. we were both exhausted. Breaking with all things Chicago, we ended up at a Japanese restaurant.

  “What a day,” I said. “You were running me like a rented racehorse.”

  She laughed. “I’m glad you like Japanese food.”

  “Sushi is one of my favorites,” I said. “Especially eel.”

  “I didn’t discover sushi until I moved to Chicago. Now I can’t get enough. At least when I can afford it, which isn’t too often on a waitress’s budget.” She lifted a gyoza with chopsticks but dropped it. We both laughed.

  “I’m not so good with these,” she said.

  “It takes practice,” I said. “Here.” I lifted the dumpling to her mouth.

  “Thank you,” she said, biting into the dumpling. “You know, these are a lot like pierogies.”

  “I’ve never had a pierogi,” I said.

  “Then you haven’t lived. That will be our next . . .” She stopped midsentence.

  “. . . Next date?” I said.

  “This isn’t a date,” she blurted out.

  I think her reaction surprised both of us, as she looked a little embarrassed. She added softly, “. . . It’s a tour.”

  I wondered if this was her way of telling me she wasn’t interested in a relationship.

  “Okay,” I said, still reeling a little. “On our next ‘tour,’ I would love to try a pierogi.”

  She took a deep breath. “I know this really good Polish restaurant in Logan Square. There are so many good places to eat in Chicago. There are so many different ethnic neighborhoods, you can find anything you want.”

  “I was here about five years ago with a client. We went to a seafood restaurant called Joe’s. Our bill was almost eleven hundred dollars.”

  “You spent a thousand dollars on one meal?”

  “I didn’t, my client did. And there were five of us.”

  “That’s still more than two hundred dollars a person. That’s almost what I spend on groceries for the month.” She looked shocked, or disturbed, as if she were incapable of understanding how someone could
spend so much on a meal.

  “Some people have money to burn,” I said.

  “Or eat,” she said.

  After a moment I said, “You like Chicago, don’t you?”

  She nodded. “Yes. It’s so different from where I’m from.”

  “What brought you here?”

  “Greyhound bus,” she said.

  I laughed. “I mean why?”

  She looked at me for a moment. “My roommate invited me. So how was your first week at your new job?”

  I recognized that she was changing the subject, but there was no point in pursuing something she didn’t want to talk about.

  “My first week was a little surprising.”

  “Surprising good or surprising bad?”

  “Good. I saved a major account and got promoted.”

  “Hello, Superman,” she said. “You’re in advertising?”

  I nodded. “I’m a copywriter at the Leo Burnett agency—that building we saw this morning. Have you ever heard of it?”

  She shook her head. “Not until this morning. Should I have?”

  “No, people outside of advertising never know advertising firms’ names.”

  “You would think they would do a better job of advertising themselves.”

  “They advertise,” I said. “Just not to you. That would be wasted money. Unless you’re secretly the CEO of a big company.”

  “No,” she said. “Just a waitress.”

  “Then, the important thing is that you know our clients.”

  “And who are your clients?”

  “McDonald’s, BankOne, Nintendo, Hallmark, Coca-Cola, Samsung . . . to name a few.”

  “Which of those accounts did you save?” she said, sipping her tea.

  “BankOne. I came up with their new slogan.”

  “Can you tell me what it is? Or is it top secret.”

  “It’s top secret, but I think I can trust you with it.” I lowered my voice for emphasis. “BankOne. Bank on it.” I waited for her reaction. She just looked at me. “What do you think?”

  She shrugged. “It sounds good.”

  “But it doesn’t thrill you?”

  “Should a bank slogan thrill me?”

  “Hopefully.”

  Her brows fell. “Have you ever been thrilled by a bank slogan?”

  “No.”

  “My point,” she said.

  “But it thrilled the client.”

  “That’s what matters,” she said. “Is that why you came to Chicago? To work at that advertising agency?”

  “Sort of . . .” I hesitated briefly, considering whether it was too soon to tell. I decided I didn’t care. “But there’s more to the story.” I looked her in the eyes. “Do you want to know the real story of why I’m here?”

  “That depends.”

  “On what?”

  “On whether or not you’re an outlaw.”

  I grinned. “I’m not. At least not yet.”

  “Good. Because I don’t want to end up in court testifying against you.” She set down her tea. “So tell me the real story of Joseph Jacobson.”

  “I was banished from Denver.”

  “That sounds interesting. Go on.”

  “Remember I told you that my father had thirteen children? Being the youngest, my younger brother and I got more attention than the others, so resentment has been building up with my stepbrothers for years. Last week my stepbrothers found a way to get rid of me. My little brother stole company money. They threatened to send him to prison if I didn’t leave the state. So I’ve been banished to Chicago.”

  “That’s very odd.” Her brow furrowed. “I don’t understand why your brother stole but you got kicked out. Why didn’t they send your brother away?”

  “It’s because he isn’t a threat to them. But they know that I’m close to my little brother, so it was a way to get rid of me.”

  “So you took the bullet for your brother.”

  “You could say that.”

  She thought over my story. “I think it’s beautiful that you would sacrifice yourself for your brother, but I hate that your brothers used your love against you. Love should never be used as a weapon.”

  “Love is a weapon,” I said.

  “No,” she said. “It’s not. Love is love.”

  “I’m just saying that people use others’ love against them all the time,” I said.

  She frowned. “I can’t argue with that.” She finally abandoned her chopsticks and speared a piece of spider roll with her fork. When she’d finished eating it, she said, “That must have been hard on your father. What did he say when you told him you were leaving?”

  I slowly shook my head. “I didn’t. Part of the deal was that I wouldn’t talk to my parents, so my brothers got to spin the story. I’m sure they’ll make it convincing. That’s what admen are good at.”

  “You really were banished.” She thought for a moment, then said in a thoughtful tone, “It’s a hard thing losing your home and the people you’ve loved.”

  She said this as if she truly understood. We went back to eating, and our conversation turned to lighter topics, mostly the experiences of the day: her conquering the Ferris wheel, the number of bruises I’d gotten ice-skating, and the true identity of the woman in the Grant Wood painting American Gothic.

  “I always assumed it was a picture of a farmer and his wife,” I said.

  “No,” April said, “It’s his spinster daughter.”

  “How did you know that?”

  “I study art.”

  Later in the evening, a Beatles song, “Norwegian Wood,” came on over the restaurant’s sound system. About halfway through the song, April said, “I like this song. It’s pretty.”

  “I like it too,” I replied.

  “I wonder who sings it.”

  “It’s the Beatles,” I said. “But it wasn’t one of their bigger songs.”

  “Oh,” she said. “The Beatles.” She took a bite of sushi, then asked, “Are they new?”

  I looked at her to see if she was kidding. She just looked back at me.

  “No. They’ve been around awhile.”

  “I’ll have to find some of their music. They’re pretty good.”

  “Yes,” I replied. “Some people think so.”

  It was nearly eleven when April yawned and checked her watch. “Oh my, it’s late. We better get on home.”

  “It’s been a nice day,” I said. “Thank you for the . . . tour.”

  “It has been nice,” she said. “And it was my pleasure.”

  I paid the bill, then, with our waiter’s help, found the nearest Blue Line station.

  As we neared the Irving Park stop, April said, “This is my stop. Yours is two down. After Montrose.”

  “Should I walk you home?”

  “No. It’s safe.”

  As the train approached the station, I asked, “Can I see you again? For another tour?”

  She reached into her purse and brought out one of the diner’s business cards and scribbled a number on the back of it. “That’s my phone number.”

  The train stopped and the door opened. April hesitated, looking at me, almost as if she wanted a kiss. Then she said, “Call me, please.” She touched my arm, then stepped out onto the platform.

  I watched her out the window. She just stood there, looking at me with a sweet, sad look. She waved as the train pulled out.

  I couldn’t figure her out. She had been most adamant that today hadn’t been a date, but then she wanted me to ask her out.

  The train reached the Jefferson Park station just five minutes later. As I walked home, I realized that even though we’d talked all day, I didn’t really know anything about her—except that she seemed to have a peculiar disconnect with popular culture. She knew Rachmaninov and Grant Wood but had never heard of Hitchcock or the Beatles? How could you not know who the Beatles were?

  There was more to this woman than met the eye. I was looking forward to finding out what that was. />
  CHAPTER

  Fourteen

  Nothing is so predictable as the dominance of the unpredictable.

  Joseph Jacobson’s Diary

  The next Monday morning I had been at my desk for less than an hour when Timothy buzzed my cubicle.

  “Come see me,” he said.

  I walked to the office. He was packing the contents of his desk into a box.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  “Did you get the memo?”

  “What memo?”

  “Leonard’s gone.”

  “That was fast.” I leaned against the back wall of his office. “Potts said he was going to fire him. I didn’t know if he was serious.”

  “Potts is always serious,” he said.

  “Leonard told me he fires people a lot.”

  “Actually, he’s never fired anyone,” Timothy said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “There’s too much red tape in firing people. So he demotes them, then transfers them to some remote hellhole, hoping they’ll quit.”

  “Does it work?”

  “Usually.”

  “Is that what he’s doing to Leonard?”

  “Yes. He’ll send him to some satellite office to languish in obscurity. Writers’ purgatory.”

  “How is Leonard taking this?”

  “Not well. He’s blaming you.”

  “Why would he blame me?”

  “Because Potts told him that you’re now in charge of the creative team. So, presumably, it’s your decision.”

  I sat down in one of the chairs. “He said he was going to put me in charge. I have no idea what that means.”

  “It means you’re my boss,” Timothy said. “Welcome to your new office.”

  I looked at him with surprise. “You’re kidding me.”

  “I wish I were.”

  “I don’t want your office,” I said. “I thought Potts just wanted me to oversee the Bank On It campaign. I wasn’t trying to take your job.”

  “I know. It’s Potts’s way of doing business, divide and conquer.”

  “This doesn’t have to divide us, does it?”

  “No. It’s not like I got a pay cut.”

  He lifted a large box off of the desk. “There you go. It’s all yours.”

  “Wait,” I said. “I’ll just tell Potts I don’t need an office.”