The doors are sliders, and he opens them and then holds his arm out for me to step onto the terrace.
It’s cool out, from way up here, the wind is blowing, and I hug my arms to my chest as I look out over the city.
“I used to think LA was just a place I saw in movies,” Jake says. “I thought it was devoid of any character—how could somewhere so beautiful also be interesting? It wasn’t until I had been living here for a few years that I realized it’s not all Technicolor. There’sa lot that makes this place artistic and cultural and relevant, I think.”
“It’s all I know,” I tell him. “I’ve never lived anywhere else for more than a few months.”
But I do understand what he means. When I was growing up, LA was full of phonies, or at least that’s how it often felt to me. A city of people who drove Ferraris and then went home to dilapidated apartments in Burbank. Everything was for show. But Los Angeles has changed, or maybe I’ve just grown up. I see now it’s not one specific thing. There really is no unified narrative. Los Angeles is many things. Full of life and nature and a myriad of experiences, just like everywhere else. The thing that differentiates it, maybe, is the surplus of hope—the dreams both tightly held and scattered.
“In high school it definitely felt like you just had to be rich and thin to be important,” I say. “But I think that’s changing. There’s a really amazing art scene, downtown is having a renaissance.” I point eastward. “There’s a lot to love about it here that doesn’t include the weather or ‘the industry’ or a plastic surgeon’s office.”
Jake touches down to the railing beside me. “But the weather is also pretty great.”
We are silent for a moment—taking in the surrounding sounds, the low drum of traffic below, the feeling of the open-air breeze.
“This was the first place I lived in alone,” Jake says. “Or, the first place I picked on my own, I should say. I think that’s part of what attracted me to the place. I never feel alone here. There’s always something going on.” He jerks up from the railing. “Shit! Be right back.”
From the balcony I see him dash into the kitchen and open the oven. I turn back out toward the city.
When I was young I used to want to live in New York in a building just like this one. I wanted to be high in the sky, way above ordinary life. Somewhere I could get some perspective, where problems would seem small and petty and pocket-size. Somewhere untouchable.
The closest I ever got was that night in Stuart’s apartment.
Jake returns. “Question for you,” he says. “You prefer rice to be hard and also gummy at the same time, right?”
I walk in toward him. “Let me see,” I say. “Rice happens to be my specialty.”
The rice gets salvaged, and Jake makes a truly impressive Moroccan chicken and Greek salad. It’s all delicious. The tomatoes are ripe and juicy, and the chicken is crisped to perfection. Jake sets down a plate of olives, too, and we spit out their stone centers into a small ceramic bowl.
Afterward we leave the dishes piled high in the sink, refill our wineglasses, and take them back out onto the balcony. The city is lit now. The whole view plays out in a string of colored lights. Sparkling high-rises, the glittered snake of traffic. Palm trees dot the industrial horizon.
Jake turns to me, putting his wineglass down on the table below us. I feel the spark of energy between us, the same pull that was present at Pace nearly a week ago now. I get the feeling that he’s taking it slow for a reason—that the more intentional this is, the sturdier. But I also feel impatient.
“Hey,” he says. He touches my elbow. “I want to kiss you.”
My fingers tighten around my wineglass.
“Is that OK?” he asks me.
I look at him. Even in the darkness I can tell his cheeks are rosy from the wine—not because of the color but because his whole face has a moonlike quality now. Round and lit.
“Do it,” I say.
He takes my wineglass out of my hand and sets it down next to his. I hear the clink of glass on glass.
Then he takes both my elbows in his palms. He runs his hands up to my shoulders, and then he leans his face closer—and kisses me. We are pretty much eye to eye at this height, especially because I still have on heels. His lips land softly on mine, and I feel that familiar hovering sensation, the millisecond of stillness before a fall.
And then his hand reaches tentatively for my waist. It’s timid—no, it’s seeking. It’s asking:Is this OK? Here? Now? Me?
He pulls back after a moment. His face is so honest I think I can see the words scrolled there before he says them.
“We should do this again,” he says. He’s smiling. Even in the surrounding darkness, I can see it.
We’re moving toward something softly—like a cat, whisper quiet. I want to call it graceful.
I nod. I reach back up for his face in answer.
Chapter Seventeen
