The Top of the World

Maggie

The call she got this morning made her uneasy. Can you meet me today?

Be there by ten.

She drops a coin in the meter and turns the knob, and swallows as she looks up at the windows of the apartment. She feels like something is about to change in this moment, like she’s one of those Looney Tunes characters walking through air without realizing they’re about to crash to the ground.

She heads away from the apartment, down the street in the other direction.

She pops into a drugstore and buys a Hershey bar and breaks off one small piece at a time.

She passes a post office, a dry cleaner’s, and a shop that sells fur coats, the glamorous minks and sables looking slightly ridiculous in August.

She should turn around. Her heart is pounding.

As she walks past a music store with saxophones and trumpets and violins on display in the window, she sees a small harmonica off to the side. It’s propped on a velvet pedestal. She smiles and shakes her head.

All along the street are trees planted in memory of loved ones, little plaques on the ground next to them, and she reads the names as she walks back toward the apartment building.

She passes a small café called Sweet Dreams, inside which a waiter pours coffee and scribbles down someone’s order. She takes a breath and wonders if she should pick up a few treats for the visit.

But this person has waited long enough.

Maggie places her hand on the railing, climbs the steps, and rings the bell.