On the Edge

"You're the one who fell down the stairs?!" I laughed. My head fell back against the smoke-stained brick wall. "I thought those guys from 808 were mattress surfing again!"

Her cackle burst somewhere above me. It bounced down the fire escape stairs, resonating between the chipped plaster window panes, filling the small balcony outside my apartment with sound. It was startling, but not unpleasant. I continued to laugh too, remembering Sunday night. The crashes and bangs that had woken me up at 2:36am. I had been annoyed then, moaning and tugging my blanket over my face. Now it was somehow fine. Even funny.

"Now that I think about it," I continued, "those guys probably would have been quieter. Their mattress buffers for them."

"Girl," from the balcony above mine, her voice gasped, "I was so drunk. You should be grateful I only fell down the one flight!"

We laughed more. Her snorts echoed off of the cold bricks and their nasty yellow color brightened just a little.

Eventually we were able to breath again, and finally fell quiet. I sat and grinned for a minute. Then the sirens and car horns and wind blustering in their usual angry way started to fill the space between our balconies, started to fill my ears. I felt a familiar pinch in my stomach and glanced at the cracked sliding glass door to my left, but to my surprise, I didn't budge.

"So what do you do?" I blurted out, pushing my voice back into the fray. It was louder than I meant it.

For a second, she didn't answer, and I thought she had gone inside. Then a little splash of water pinged off of my balcony railing. I heard a small swear from above and grinned, feeling my insides unclench.

"Don't worry! It's just tea!" she called down. "Be grateful it wasn't the mug!"

"Are you leaning over the railing?"

"Yeah. It's easier to hear you that way."

"Oh. Sorry, I know I mumble a lot."

"No no, I can understand you. Nothing wrong with a quieter voice; we can't all shout at everyone and everything. Only a select few of us are that obnoxious."

I grinned and tried again, easier this time. "So, what do you do?"

I thought I could hear her slurp from her mug, now that I was listening for it. "Oh, you know, indentured servitude," she called back casually.

"What?"

"I pick up more important people's coffee and bow to them and call it journalism for the sake of my resume."

"Sorry... what?"

"I'm an intern," she groaned. "Tribune Publishing."

"Ooooh," I nodded. "You don't like it?"

"I'm hoping I will, if I can ever not be an intern."

"What would you rather be?"

"A journalist." She answered almost before I had finished the question. "The annoying kind that everyone hates and that gets all the best stories. Like the nitty-gritty no one wants to tell and freaking everyone wants to read."

I laughed again. "I bet you'd be good at that."

"What're you saying?"

My smile disintegrated. "O-Oh. Nothing, sorry, I--"

She cackled again. I looked up at the concrete slab and metal supports of her balcony, as though I would see her through them.

"Girl, I'm just messing with you! Of course I'd be good at it. There are few things in this world at which I'm gifted, but bossy snooping is definitely one of my blessings."

"Oh," I let the corners of my mouth slip into a nervous smile again. My tight stomach relaxed a little. "Yeah... Sorry, I couldn't tell if you..."

"Hon, why are you apologizing so much? You're good!"

"Yeah, sorry! I mean--" I instinctively put my hand over my mouth.

She laughed again. "What'd I just say? You are something else, lady. Is that all you know how to say? 'I'm sorry'?"

I was quiet now, and her laughter drifted slowly away into the evening light pollution. "Kinda," I said finally.

She didn't say anything for a moment. Finally, she asked, "What'd you say your name was?"

I sighed. "Stephanie."

"Steph, come out to your railing so I can actually see you!"

I shook my head frantically, even though she couldn't see it. "Nope."

"What? Come on, girl! I'm not that scary!"

A short, bark of a laugh pushed its way out of me. "Not you, the heights."

"The heights?!" She sounded indignant. "Steph, you live in a 7th floor apartment with a balcony over Chicago, and you aren't even going to come out here because of the heights?!"

I nodded this time, eyes closed. "Yep."

I could hear her scoff even at a distance.

"Look, I asked for a main floor place, but this was all that was available. I didn't even want a balcony." I felt the heat rising in my face.

"Well good thing you ended up here anyway. We wouldn't be talking if you were on the first floor."

I didn't say anything.

"You've just gotta make it nice. Get yourself a plant out here or something," she stated.

"Do you have plants?"

"Oh, honey. This place is a garden. I can't stop having plants up here."

"That sounds nice."

"Come out here and I'll show you one."

"Nope."

She was quiet again. Then a few drops of water dripped from somewhere up there and plinked off my railing. Then at least a cup of water splashed onto the metal and the concrete.

"Hey!" I pulled my feet towards me, out of soggy harm's way.

"Whoops," her voice sighed dramatically down, following her wasted tea. "Spilled."

"Sure."

"Come to the railing."

"No."

There was another pause. My stomach began tying knots again and I wrapped my arms around my knees, glaring across the five feet between me and the rusty metal railing. I thought I could hear it creaking in the wind. A siren wailed on the next block. A car horn blared. Then another one. Another one. I glanced to my left at the sliding glass door, which I had left slightly open. I closed my eyes.

"Steph?"

I opened them again. "Yeah?"

She was still up there. "What do you do?"

"Ummmm..." I let my legs slide back out a little ways. "I just tutor online."

"At home?"

"Yeah."

A pause. "So... then what do you do for fun?" she asked.

I thought for a minute. "Well... I like baking," I said slowly.

"So you're where that brownie smell comes from!!" she shouted. "Do you know how many late-night snack runs you've cost me?!"

I giggled. "Brownies are my favorite! Sorry!"

"Hey, what'd I say?"

"Oh yeah. Not sorry."

Another pause. "Actually, you can be a little sorry for that one. I've gained five pounds since I moved here."

I laughed. "Ok. I'm sorry."

"I'll tell you what. For every pan of brownies you bake me, I'll trade you a plant for your balcony."

"Perfect."

We chuckled for a moment together, and I felt the stomach knots begin to loosen again.

"Steph?"

"Yeah?"

"If you hate it out here, why'd you come outside?"

I didn't say anything for a few minutes. Instead I looked back up at the underside of her balcony, willing myself to see the soles of her shoes through the concrete. I wondered what she looked like.

"Steph?"

"Yeah, I heard you..." I paused, "I, um... I heard you singing. Earlier."

"You braved the fearsome wilds of mid-air Chicago for that?!" she laughed. "Well honey, I'm sorry! Along with some plants, I guess I gotta give you some earplugs too!"

I leaned back against the wall and laughed up into the air, towards her. "No! You sounded... nice!"

She chuckled again, and then slowly fell quiet. I imagined she was grinning out at the city, like I was grinning up at her.

"You sound nice too, Steph."

I laughed and rested the back of my head against the wall. "Yeah?"

"Yeah."

The evening sky had turned velvety violet, but not cold. We stared up at it, I imagined, and pretended we could see stars.

"Steph?"

"Yeah?"

"Will you come to the railing? Please?"

I stared at it. Five feet away. Five feet out. Rusty and rickety and whining in the wind. Seven stories above a the cacophony of millions of people I didn't know.

One story below a person that I did.

I pushed myself up, slowly scratching my back along the bricks until I was on my feet. My shoulders pressed into the wall and my fingers clung into the rough spaces between bricks, but my stomach, strangely, was not tight. "Hang on," I called. "It might take a few minutes."

"No worries!" I could hear her grinning, imagined she was running her finger around the rim of her empty mug. "I'll wait."