Veronika patted Winter’s elbow. “It’s nothing.” She pointed across the room. “I need to go talk to Eric. Excuse me.”
And suddenly they were alone.
“So, how are you?” Winter asked.
“Pretty good. Working. Playing my lute. Working on my defensive-driving skills.”
Winter burst out laughing, went on laughing perhaps a bit too long, and then fell silent.
“Listen,” Rob said, “I think I gave you the wrong impression the last time we were together. The only expectation I had was that we might stay friends. There’s nothing more to it.” It was a lie that came easily, because Rob would never ask for more. What he felt inside was irrelevant.
Winter looked out at the faux-blue sky, the clouds drifting by. She sighed heavily, looked at Rob. “Do you want to take a walk?”
“Absolutely.”
They headed for the door, which was the only break in the cloud-festooned illusion.
Outside, Winter turned left. Rob was barely aware of the vehicles whirring by, the people. So much of his attention was focused on Winter, right there beside him, a vague half smile on her lips.
She glanced down at her pistachio-and-white High Town shoes, gliding on the pavement. “I’m not sure I’ll ever get used to these shoes.”
“I know.” He didn’t want to talk about shoes; he doubted they were going to get much time alone before Winter felt she had to return to the party.
At the corner of Chan, they turned left.
“Remember early on, when you asked if I had any visitors besides you, and I said I did, but I never got to be myself with them?” Winter asked.
Rob nodded. He remembered pretty much every word either of them spoke during those visits. Not that there had been many.
“I wasn’t being myself with you at first, either,” Winter said. “I hated you at first, but I couldn’t say it because I was afraid if I did, you wouldn’t come back. And I resented having to rely on you—on you, the person who killed me.” She looked toward the sky, clearly trying to keep powerful emotions in check. “I tried to stay angry, but little by little, it became so painfully obvious you were a good person who had made one incredibly stupid mistake.” She was walking quickly, so quickly Rob had to make an effort to keep up. “No, not a good person, you’re a fucking saint. When you came to visit, the pain you felt was all over your face.” Winter wiped her nose with the back of her hand. Rob pulled a tissue from his pocket and offered it to her. Winter laughed as she accepted it. “See? How could anyone hate you?”
“You have every right to hate me.” Rob wasn’t sure where Winter was going with this, but he suspected she was letting him down gently, again.
To Rob’s surprise, Winter led him onto the elevator to Low Town. They rode in silence, admiring the lights below. There were millions of lights in the city; they grew fewer and fewer stretching toward the horizons.
“Where are we going?” Rob asked.
Winter gave him a hooded glance. “You’ll see.”
They stepped out into Jefferson Park, along the Harlem River. Winter pointed toward a black six-sided tower set beside the river, a few hundred yards away. “That way.” She picked up her pace again, their shoes clicking on the pavement now, no longer gliding.
“I didn’t realize you had a destination in mind.”
“I didn’t either, until we started walking.”
The tower turned out to be a forty-story mausoleum. They entered a wide, arched doorway to the hollow center. Winter led him onto the elevator.
“Twenty-two,” she said. The elevator shot up, intensifying the butterflies in Rob’s stomach.
On the twenty-second-floor landing, Winter led him through a short tunnel, out to the railed catwalk overlooking the river. Instead of admiring the view, she turned toward the wall, which was divided into rows and rows of brass plates, marking the cremated remains set inside the honeycomb of spaces that comprised this vertical graveyard. It reminded Rob of the bridesicle place in miniature.
“There.” Winter pointed at a plate about eight feet up the wall, which was illuminated by the lights of Low Town, reflecting off the river. It read WINTER WEST, 2103–2133. “My friends chipped in and bought it before Cryomed swooped in.”
Rob stared at her name. How close she’d been to being ashes in a wall. “That must be chilling, seeing your name there.”
Winter laughed. “I spent two years dead in a box, with only my face working.” She raised her eyebrows. “You want a chill? That’ll give you a chill.”
Rob nodded, but Winter had already turned back to look at the plaque, so she probably didn’t see.
“You know, the first time you came to visit, you were twenty-five, and I was thirty.” Winter smiled, as if reminiscing about a fond memory. “Now you’re, what, twenty-seven?”
“Almost twenty-eight.”
“And I’m still thirty.” She turned toward the river, took a deep breath of the cool air. Her sleeves were flapping in a mild breeze. “I know I can trust you when you say you only want to be friends. You’re a fucking saint, after all. You would never go back on your word, you would never manipulate me.” Still gazing out at the water, set in the shadow of High Town, she closed her eyes. “The problem is, I’m not a saint.” She opened her eyes, looked at Rob. “I can’t be just friends with you, and”—she shrugged—“I can’t be more. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
A lump filled Rob’s throat. He nodded, lifted her hand from the railing, held it in both of his.
She studied their hands for a moment, then gently shifted hers. He loosened his fingers to let her withdraw it, but she surprised him by lacing her fingers between his and closed her hand.
It was cool. It fit perfectly in his.
“There were so many times when you came to visit that I wanted you to hold my hand,” she said. “Then you finally did.”
“I reached out to take your hand one other time, then remembered they’d kick me out if I did it.”
She tilted her head. “When was that?”
“The third or fourth visit. The last few seconds were ticking down, and you were so scared. You said you didn’t think you’d ever get used to dying.”
“I remember that. I didn’t see you reaching. One’s field of vision is so limited—it was always the same circle, mostly of the ceiling and someone’s face.” She squeezed Rob’s hand. The pressure sent a thrill through him. “Except for the day you brought the mirror. You have no idea what that meant to me. Not just getting to see the sky, but the kindness of that act.” She blinked back more tears. “It made me feel I had someone on my side. I wasn’t all alone in that box. It’s horrible, being in that place. You can’t imagine.”
Rob was so aware of her hand in his. He wanted to wrap his arms around her, to pull her close and kiss her and tell her he’d always be there for her. She was right there, so close, so alive, her bright eyes on him.
Her face moved closer, and for a moment he thought it was a trick of the light. Then her lips touched his—lightly, not much more than a soft brush—and for an instant, everything was perfect, the world was perfect.
Winter pulled away, looked at her hands. “I shouldn’t have done that.”
“I’m glad you did. Even if it never happens again.”
Winter pressed her fist to her mouth, her face twisting. Again, Rob resisted a screaming urge to hold her in his arms. He was afraid he might scare her away.
“I get lost in these fantasies, of how things might have turned out if we’d met under different circumstances,” Winter said.
“Tell me.”
She looked down, toward the sidewalk that ran along the river, lined with benches.