Chapter 2
“I want to help you,” Jay says from across the table at a café that we stopped into to get coffee. I also grabbed myself a small pastry because, in times of need, I’ve always found sugar to be my best comforter.
“Help me?” I question. “With what?”
“With your fear of heights,” he says.
“Are you a professional?” Good hell, that would totally be my luck to run into a shrink at the Empire State Building. Although who am I to complain about free mental health care, if that’s what he’s offering?
“Well, no. I’m an IT consultant, actually,” he says.
So not a therapist, then. Is it sad that I’m a little disappointed? I could use some brain-picking right now.
“Thanks, Jay, but there’s really no help for me,” I say and then take a sip of the hot coffee, feeling its warmth as it moves down my throat.
“Not according to Google,” he says with a quick lift of his brow.
“Google doesn’t have a degree in psychology,” I say. “And I think that’s what I need here.”
He chuckles at that. “But people that post on Google have degrees. Or they could be a bunch of posers.”
“Posers. That’s a good way to describe the internet.”
“Regardless, I have a plan,” he says with a twinkle in his eye. Or maybe that’s mischief. I wouldn’t know since I’ve only known Jay for like an hour.
“I don’t know,” I say, and then chew on the insides of my cheeks. A habit I’ve been trying desperately to quit. “Aren’t you here to see the sights? Do the tourist thing and all that? You only have one day. Why would you want to spend it trying to help me with my fear of heights?”
“I just do,” he says. “Anyway, I do have a list of things I want to see today. Touristy stuff. We can combine it. I promise no dark alleys,” he says, holding up his hands, palms facing me.
“I think you might be crazy,” I say, picking at a corner of my pastry.
“Maybe. But here’s how I see it. I’m all alone visiting a big city by myself, and you”—he gestures to me with is hand—“you look like you could be a good tour guide. Plus, I have so many more cheesy jokes I could tell you along the way.”
“You have more?”
“Loads of them,” he says, the overhead lights sparkling in his eyes.
I squint at him. I don’t know this guy. At all.
Even having coffee with him right now is so not me that I’m starting to wonder if the altitude from the Empire State Building did something to my brain.
But I also feel an odd connection to him.
Like I’ve met him before. We did just share a very traumatic moment of my life.
I wonder if experiencing trauma with someone brings you together.
“I don’t know,” I say again.
“How about in the name of taking chances?” Jay says, obviously seeing my thought process playing out on my face.
Take a chance on chance . Elena’s words immediately run through my mind. Now why would he even say that? Is her ghost here? Elena promised to haunt me after she died, but I didn’t really think she meant it.
“What’s your last name?” I ask, still mulling this “plan” over in my head and also keeping an eye out for a possible ghost sighting.
“Sanders. What’s yours?”
“Parker.”
“Liza Parker,” he says and then reaches a hand across the table. “Nice to meet you, officially.”
“Jay Sanders,” I say as I grab a hold of his hand and shake it—this time my hand is not so sweaty. “It’s nice to officially meet you as well.”
“So, Liza Parker, what’s your elevator pitch?” he asks, and I cough on the drink I just took. “Sorry, bad choice of words. Tell me about yourself in thirty seconds. You know, like what you would say to someone if you spent an elevator ride telling them about yourself.”
“As opposed to totally freaking out?”
“Well, I did learn a lot about you,” he says, a small smirk on his face.
“Yes, all good things,” I say, oozing sarcasm.
“You’re definitely cute when you’re freaking out,” he says, grinning.
I feel myself blush instantly. “Well, at least I have that going for me.”
He studies my face with his eyes, smiling. “So give me your real pitch, then,” he says.
“Uh,” I say, looking around the room. I don’t think I’ve ever had to explain myself in thirty seconds. Of course, I’ve never gone to the top of a building, met a stranger on an elevator, and then had coffee with said stranger. So there are a lot of firsts for me today.
“Do you want me to go first?” he asks.
I motion with my hand, giving him the go-ahead.
“Okay, here goes.” He rubs his hands together. “Jay Sanders—which we’ve already established—I’m from Riverside, California—”
“California?” I cut him off. I would not have pegged him for a Californian.
He gives me a stern but mostly joking look. At least I think he’s joking. “The point of an elevator pitch is that there are no interruptions.”
“Right. Sorry. Go on.” I motion with my hand again.
“Okay, so Jay Sanders, from Riverside, California. I’m twenty-seven, and I come from one of those blended California-style families that are all the rage right now.
Six siblings, two sets of parents. I own my own IT consulting firm, which has just started to take off and is the reason I’m traveling this weekend.
For fun I like the odd comic book, and you can still sometimes find me on my skateboard—I do some of my best thinking there,” he adds as an aside.
“I don’t particularly like talking about politics or religion, even though I have thoughts and beliefs in both.
If another guy asks me my favorite movie, I’ll tell him it’s Star Wars , which I do like, but my honest favorite is Mean Girls . ”
“ Mean Girls ? Really?” I scrunch my face. “Like with Lindsay Lohan? Oh, sorry,” I say, realizing I just interrupted him again. But how could I not. Mean Girls ?
“Yes,” he says with a half smile, “ Mean Girls . I don’t admit that often. You should feel privileged.”
“I’m not sure you should admit it at all,” I say.
He laughs, a nice, hearty laugh. One that makes his fantastic smile seem to reach beyond his eyes.
“You’re funny,” he says, and I blush again. Dang it. “Okay, now you go.” He gestures a hand toward me.
“Um, okay,” I say, feeling uneasiness quiver in my stomach.
“I’m Liza Parker—actually Eliza, but only my mom calls me that, and only when she’s mad at me.
I’m twenty-four, and I have one sister and two parents.
I’m temporarily working at a paper mill where my dad is floor manager while I look for a job that I actually like.
” He chuckles at that. “For fun I like to read books.”
Wow, my pitch was totally boring. And short. I’ve led the most pathetic life. I couldn’t even add to my list that I’d been to the top of the Empire State Building and looked over. Which most would consider a pretty uneventful thing.
“You forgot to say where you live,” Jay says.
“I already told you where I live. Three hours north of here,” I say.
“Yes, but you never said what city.”
“Glens Falls. Have you heard of it?”
“No,” he says.
“That’s why I didn’t say the name of my town. No one ever has.”
He studies my face. Those eyes have the strangest effect on me.
“Okay, so now that we know each other better, what do you think about my plan?” he asks, tapping his finger on the table, anticipating my answer.
“I don’t know,” I say once more. “I mean, how do we know it’ll even work?”
“We don’t. It’s all about taking chances and just .
.. seeing.” There he goes with the taking chances thing.
Elena would probably really like Jay since they seem to have the same line of thinking, especially when it comes to me.
Of course, Elena had years to know my neurosis.
Jay is only newly privy to my brand of crazy.
“Come on, Liza,” he chides.
“Well, you did promise that you weren’t a serial killer,” I say.
Jay smiles at me like he knows I’m going to say yes to his silly idea.
I roll my eyes and shake my head, my lips curling up into a small smile. “Okay,” I say, not believing any of this is happening.
But I’m stepping out of my comfort zone, right? First this, then maybe next I’ll be bungee jumping. I seriously doubt that. But who knows. At least I’m taking chances. That’s got to count for something.
Plus, I like Jay, despite not really knowing him. There’s something about him that I find interesting—not just his good looks. Also, on the off chance he is some sort of psycho, I do have a brand-new can of pepper spray in my purse.
“Great,” Jay says, smiling and rubbing his hands together again. “Just give me a minute to figure out how we should do this.”
Jay goes to work on his phone, typing with his thumbs.
“Okay, I think I’ve got it,” he says after about ten minutes of him typing and me sitting here trying not to freak out.
There were a couple of moments that I almost made a run for it, or at least thought about excusing myself to the bathroom and never coming back.
But I couldn’t do it. Something is keeping me here with him.
Maybe it’s my interest in what Jay has planned.
Yeah, that’s what it is. Definitely that.
Not some stupid straight-out-of-a-romantic-movie notion that my hormones are cooking up. Stupid hormones.
Jay stands up from the chair he’s sitting on, and I follow suit. But instead of going to leave like I thought we were, he pulls the chair I was sitting on next to his. With one swift movement, he stands on the chair. He offers a hand to me to help me up on the chair next to him.
“What are you doing?” I ask, looking around at the people in the café, who are now focusing on Jay.
“We’re starting small,” he says.
“Jay,” I say, looking up at the absurdity in front of me. “I’m not scared of standing on a chair.”
“Prove it,” he says, hand still out.
“This is embarrassing,” I say, still not giving him my hand.
“Come on.” He thrusts his hand out farther.
I roll my eyes and give him my hand. He helps pull me up to the chair next to him, and now we’re standing next to each other on chairs in the middle of a café. This is utterly ridiculous.