Signed,
Your Admiring Employer
Friday night had been, for lack of a better word, a complete orgy of tomato sauce, bubbling cheese, and Italian sausage, washed down with an equally abundant amount of beer. They’d come home too delightfully overfed to even think about making love.
Until morning, that was.
“We’ve got a big day ahead,” Jon had whispered in her ear before kissing his way down her neck, stopping briefly at her breasts, and continuing on toward her open legs . . .
“Oh my god!” Jessica yelped as the TILT device emitted a hydraulic hiss and they cantilevered thirty degrees out. It was, she imagined, exactly what someone would feel in their first moment of falling off a building.
“Attagirl,” Jon said with a laugh, just like he had during their brief but entirely satisfying morning sex session. “Don’t forget to enjoy the view.”
Jessica closed her eyes for a few harrowing seconds and then willed herself to open them. Still too fearful to stare one thousand feet straight down, she instead looked out at the nighttime skyline. The city—which she already knew to be equal parts charming, crowded, beautiful, gritty, world-class, and thoroughly Midwestern depending on the day or even the moment—was spectacular. Illumination streamed from tens of thousands of windows, and a cheery holiday glow rose from Michigan Avenue, making Chicago more than rival Paris as a city of lights. Just east of Lake Shore Drive, a golden moon glowed on the black surface of Lake Michigan, whose calm emptiness providing a stunning juxtaposition to the pulsing grid spreading out in every other direction.
“Let me guess, you got the idea for the Revelate by looking out at this city and envisioning making the impossible, possible,” she said.
“Not a bad line,” he said. “I just may use that.”
“Feel free,” she said, forgetting to be afraid as he gave her a quick lesson in Chicago geography, pointing out notable buildings, streets, and expressways, digressing to explain the engineering feats that had allowed a primitive settlement in a marshy area to become a towering metropolis. Jessica was always amazed at how much more knowledge he took in than was necessary—her Jon was truly a renaissance man.
He grinned ruefully, abruptly breaking off his lecture. “Sorry about that. Sometimes I don’t know when to quit.”
“I like it,” she said. “What an amazing city. What an amazing day.”
And it had been, as they rode the hop-on, hop-off double-decker all around the downtown area, often the only riders on top of the bus as they snuggled beneath a fuzzy wool blanket Jon had the foresight to bring along. They climbed off whenever Jon deemed something unmissable, giving Jessica plenty of opportunities to warm her numb nose and ears. His enthusiasm for things he’d surely seen dozens of times—he gushed like a kid as they viewed the dinosaur bones at the Field Museum, downright dawdled in front of the Macy’s window displays, and even asked a German tourist to take their picture in front of the silvery Cloud Gate, or “Bean”—was massively endearing. Best of all was the sheer amount of unhurried time they had together. Just the two of them.
“I can’t imagine how today could be better,” Jon said.
If she were being entirely honest, however, she could. Shortly after they’d finished scarfing down a late-afternoon snack of Chicago-style hot dogs with all the trimmings, Jon got a text.
He’d looked irritated as he began tapping away on his phone.
“What is it?” she’d asked.
“Nothing,” he’d said.
She could tell by the furrow between his eyes that it was definitely something. “Let me guess: Annie Wilkes is on a weekend hobbling jag?”
“Directed at Ava—at least, according to Ava,” he’d said with an annoyed sigh he quickly covered with a smile. “But I’m pretty sure I already have it under control, so let’s get rolling. We should at least walk through the new exhibit at the Museum of Contemporary Art. Then, as soon as it’s dark,” he added, pointing up at the John Hancock, “we’re headed straight up there.”
Now, as they leaned over the city, she could see the very spot where he’d pointed upward. Then there was another hydraulic hiss as they were once again levered upright.
Jon’s phone pinged as they climbed off the platform and onto the observation deck proper.
“I’m ignoring it,” he said, putting an arm around her as they headed toward the bank of elevators. “Let’s get a drink upstairs.”
Lark had been so sure of herself when she’d booked her ticket. And during the four-hour flight, she’d been so excited she’d hardly been able to sit still, her attention wandering between a podcast, a paperback, and a few episodes of a show she’d been streaming. This was exactly the kind of grand gesture Trip loved to make—what could be more delicious than turning the tables on him?
She’d come up with the idea in bed, the morning after she’d told Trip she loved him and he’d said the same three words with a look of wonder and relief. She’d bugged him about visiting each time he left for the airport, and he’d made a variety of excuses, but what it came down to, she was sure, was some kind of weird embarrassment about his rental apartment. Maybe it was as boring as he claimed, or maybe it was actually filled with boxes. Or perhaps it was messy and just didn’t fit with the cultivated image he preferred to project.
Whatever the reason, she didn’t care. In fact, she secretly hoped his place would be a little bit of a dump, just to make him a little less perfect. Shortly after returning to LA from Minneapolis, where she had tortured herself with the idea that she was practically next door to Chicago (even though she knew it wasn’t quite that close), she pulled the trigger and bought a ticket, planning to deliver herself as an early Christmas present.
Trip would be spending Christmas Eve through
