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Paper Plane

Dodi

I smear my lipstick deliberately, slowly around my mouth, overlining by a hair’s breadth, filling the dip in my cupid’s bow for a slightly sloppy, sexed-up look. It’s easier to kiss a mouth that’s already been messed up a bit, and I feel like Jake needs a bit of help. I lean back from the mirror and take a look. I’d fuck me.

I slap my phone and “Goodbye Horses” cuts out. Jake’s waiting for me downstairs in the lobby. I’d peered through the crack in the bathroom door as he’d changed his shirt and tie, folded his dirty clothes just so , lined up his bag next to the bed just so . I bet he has to make the bed and line up the pillows before sex.

It’s handy to keep a litany of reasons to reject someone until you’re certain they’re not going to reject you. But it’s a list I might delete after tonight, even if he is the sort of man to sit next to you for three hours without moving his hand a single centimeter to hold yours. Because Jake is the sort of man who gifts you a stolen trip to Las Vegas, a ticket to Murderers at Work , and a standing offer to dispose of a body. At my point in life, I’m ready for a man who puts in the emotional labor. I slip on my dress and slide my feet into my shoes.

I peer out the window at the writhing city below, and a dark bundle of laundry falls past.

I stare unblinking, ears buzzing. I press myself flat against the glass and try to see down, but I can’t.

The bundle of laundry was wearing shoes. I saw shiny patent leather shoes. It was a man . A man fell past my window.

There’s a distant scream—from inside the hotel or out-, I don’t know—and my heart jackrabbits delightfully in my chest. I crane to look up, and of course I can’t see anything there either. I push off from the glass and I’m out the door in an instant, my heavy purse slapping my hip as I run down to the elevator bank. My finger hovers over the down arrow. An emergency response team will arrive, and I should give a statement—

But where did that man fall from?

How did he fall?

The Murderers at Work jingle plays in my head as my finger trails up to the highest number almost on its own, traces the raised metal ring around it, and presses. Hearts to hearts, diamonds to diamonds, and murder weapons to murder weapons. I don’t belong downstairs giving a statement. I belong upstairs, making friends with someone even worse than me. The elevator clanks and groans, and I’m launched upward, my guts lagging by a second.

When I step out, I can hear the wail of an ambulance and the indistinct voices of a crowd carrying on down below. The rooftop is poorly lit and I can barely see my own feet as I creep to the north wall and peer over. An emergency response is in full swing on the ground. One floor below me, a woman leans over a balcony, hollering.

“He just went over!” she screams over her shoulder into her hotel room. The drink in her hand sloshes as she swings around. “Did you see him fall?”

He fell off the balcony, not the roof. Some drunk idiot partying in a hotel room met his fate over the edge of a penthouse balcony railing.

I step back from the parapet and stalk across the rooftop to the far side, away from the sirens, and I could be walking across a vast field, gravel crunching underfoot. My shoe collides with something metal—cigarette butts scatter from a can left up here by hotel staff—and I catch myself on the parapet before I stumble. The city sparkles and hums beyond the flat black edge of the rooftop wall. Glitz and seediness, a labyrinth of possibility, a machine that converts money into fun, thrills, and hangovers. Dizzying highs and tragic, careless falls.

In my case, a shot at closure, and a chance to feel alive again. I’ve always accepted the limitations of this thing between Jake and me. There’s no room for him in my real life, and he’s made it clear he wouldn’t want that anyway. This thing between us is never going to be real life, but it’s the most life I’ve had in years.

I can’t believe he got me those tickets. He’s really making me face this head-on.

I know exactly how things will play out with Jake tonight. He’s been so patient with me. There are things I need to say to him. And, after, there’s that thing I need to do. That thing he’ll help me do. Something screwed-up, and weird, and definitely not for the faint of heart.

Not everyone is cut out to be an accomplice.

Something scuttles at my feet—and I jump backward when it drags its teeth across the arch of my foot—

I catch my breath when I see it’s not some disgusting American desert roof rodent. It’s a piece of folded paper, glowing oddly in the dim light of this city that never goes dark, twitching across the rooftop ahead of the breeze. A bit of trash left out by the rooftop smokers.

I pick it up and trace my finger along the folds, crisp enough to cause a paper cut. I stare out at the beating, glittering heart of this city of chaos and mayhem and, yes, murder, too. I lift my hand above my head and launch the paper airplane into the night.