Page 83

“Do you take walk-ins?”

She clicks her tongue and looks down at her watch. “Usually, we are booked at least a month in advance. But today, my party is late. You are in luck. I’m Cecilia.”

“Lanie.”

She holds out a harness to me. “Are you ready?”

I hesitate for a moment and then step into the harness, let Cecilia tug and tighten a dozen different straps. I summon the hang-gliding scene inFifty Ways, the commitment the characters make as they leap into the abyss.

They can’t see where they’re going, but it doesn’t stop them. They have each other and the wings of love to lift them.

I look down at the wooden ramp under my feet. To call it rudimentary would be a compliment. Ten feet long, it starts in mud and ends in clouds. This is what we’ll run off the edge of together.

Vertigo grips me, and I have to look away. It seems suddenly, urgently mad that anyone runs off this cliff with only a thin yellow sail between them and death.

“What do you think?” Cecilia asks me, bringing me back to the cliff. “Do you really want to do this?”

“ ‘Life’s greatest mystery,’ ” I say, “ ‘is whether we shall die bravely.’ ”

“I love that scene,” Cecilia says, securing my harness tightly at my hips. She hands me a helmet, makes sure I thread the strap through tightly. “I love all of Noa Callaway’s books.”

“Me too,” I say. “I’m...”In love with him!“I’m Noa’s editor in New York.”

“No!” Cecilia squeals. “I would say I’m her biggest fan,but my boyfriend is even more crazy for her books. Tell me what she’s like in person?”

I’m relieved to know the op-ed hasn’t made its way to every corner of the world yet. I think about how to answer Cecilia’s question, and the words that come first feel right.

“One of my favorite people in the world,” I say. I give myself goose bumps, but Cecilia doesn’t notice.

“I’m in town for the launch of Noa’s new book,” I say. “It’s tonight in Positano, at the Bacio hotel. You should come. Bring your boyfriend. I’ll put you on the list.”

“We will come!” she says, and tugs the last ropes tighter.

She takes my arm, leading me to the cliff’s edge. Now she attaches both our harnesses to the metal inner frame of the glider.

“On the count of three, we will run together. All you have to do is not stop running. When you think you’ve reached the end, get braver,” she explains.

“You make it sound easy.”

“I don’t know if it’s easy,” she says, “but it’s worth it.”

“How far is it to the bottom?”

“I’m not sure. Two thousand meters?”

There’s a metal bar in front of us that Cecilia explains she’ll use to steer. There’s a triangular sail the color of the sun over our heads. There’s ten feet of flat plank before us, and an unseen expanse of adventure beyond. Through the drape of clouds, there are mountains, villages, and sea. And the rest of my life. I can’t see it yet, and I know it won’t be easy, but I need to make it worth it.

I cry out as we start running, but the sound isn’t terror; it’striumph. My feet pound against the wood for ten paces and then, though I feel nothing beneath me, I’m still running. On air. On faith.

A gust of wind catches our glider, and I feel both of my legs buoyed upward until my full body is parallel to the earth, like a bird’s. We puncture the clouds and the glory of the coastline comes into view. A panoply of green and gold earth spreads beneath us, pastel villages and glittering blue water as far as I can see. We’re flying. I have felt nothing so exhilarating in my life.

Mom, I think,I did it. I can feel you.

And now... I know what I have to do once my feet are back on the ground. I have to tell Noah. He’s the one I really, really love.

“For you, Lanie,” Cecilia says, turning the glider to the right with a pivot of the metal bar, “I present a special tour, of our most romantic allusions. Look to the right, and you will see Li Galli islands off the coast of Positano. This is where Odysseus resisted the sirens.”

I turn to see the rocky shoreline in the distance, the waves crashing on it. It’s breathtaking—and easy to imagine the sirens singing there. I think about Odysseus resisting the irresistible, lashing himself to his ship to keep from crashing, to live more life and have more joy. To make it to the place his epic meant to take him all along.