Chapter Fifty-Eight
Caleb and his family were the first to go. His girls were restless and they had a long drive home. Hollis and Ruby found a spot at the bar, where they watched in silence as the tram went up and down the cliffside.
So that left me and Eli, who was wringing his napkin until his knuckles turned white.
“What’d that napkin ever do to you?” I asked.
He gave a dry chuckle. “I just realized that I have to go back down the mountain. I was so concerned about getting up here that I just . . . forgot I had to go back down.”
“How did you get up here, anyway? You could have waited for us to get here so we could all go up together.”
“I wanted to be here for you,” he reminded me. “That didn’t involve you coaching me through a panic attack.”
“You made it up here, though,” I said.
“Yeah, well, I had to close my eyes and stand in the dead center of the car while I recited the Hippocratic Oath under my breath over and over again.”
“The Hippocratic Oath?”
“It was the only thing I could think of that didn’t involve singing. But maybe that would have been better. The family riding up with me probably thought I was a serial killer.”
“Do you want to get it over with?” I asked. “Going back down?”
His fist closed around the napkin once more and he nodded.
We went by the bar to say goodbye to Ruby and Hollis.
As I hugged my grandmother, I bent down and whispered, “Michael Douglas?”
The only answer I got was her eating the olive out of Hollis’s martini.
There wasn’t a line to go back down, so Eli and I had the tram car to ourselves.
He immediately stepped into the center, facing the mountainside, and gripped a handrail.
I stood directly in front of him and let my hands cover his.
The tram lurched forward, and his throat bobbed as he clenched his eyes shut.
“Ignore the windows,” I told him. “Just look at me. Listen to me.”
He breathed in through his nostrils and opened his eyes, glancing for a moment at our touching hands.
“I didn’t take the offer from Brody,” I told him. “And before you say anything, it wasn’t only about us. In fact, it was hardly about us.”
“Okay.” His voice was full of trepidation, but his breathing had leveled out.
If I could distract him from the fact that we were suspended in the air and get these words out that had been building inside of me for the last forty days, then this could be a win-win.
“Sometimes I get so sad when I think about all the time we missed and how unfair it is that we can’t pick up where we left off that morning in Vegas.
Did we miss out on an entire life together? It hurts to wonder.”
The quiet devastation on his face made it clear that I wasn’t the only one of us to consider that same thing.
“But we couldn’t have had this back then.
If we hadn’t exploded that morning—if we hadn’t fallen apart—it would have only been a matter of time.
And fuck Leonard for always being right, but maybe this”—I motioned to the space between us—“couldn’t exist if things had been any different.
Maybe the only way for us to have a second chance was for us to fail so miserably the first time. ”
The car jerked and he pulled me to him, and his body hunched over mine so that our foreheads were pressed together.
“Breathe,” I reminded him. “Just breathe and listen to my voice.”
He nodded, and I waited a moment for the rise and fall of his chest to slow down before I continued.
“For years, I’ve thought that my life was only before and after.
That there was this younger version of me who was so much more capable of living the life she wanted.
And then there’s me. Vera in the now, who’s just trying to survive and make up for lost time.
But with you, I’m the Vera I was and I’m the Vera I am.
And you make me feel like I’m the Vera I could be. ”
He allowed himself to let go of the rail completely to slide a strand of hair behind my ear. His lips parted, words on the tip of his tongue.
“Wait,” I said. “I need to say this and I need to say it before you do, because . . . because I’ve been chickenshit. You might be scared of heights—”
“It’s not the heights I’m scared of, love,” he whispered. “It’s the falling.”
I nodded, because I understood. I understood completely.
“Me too, Eli. I used to believe that patience was a virtue. That if I just waited patiently and quietly for someone else to come along and make the first move, I would be rewarded.” I shook my head.
There was no going back now. “Patience isn’t a virtue.
It’s an excuse. Which is why I can’t let myself wait any longer.
I need you to know that I love you and I want to show you all the big and little ways I can love you every day. ”
He exhaled a long, shaky breath, but I’d never seen him look so certain—so determined. If Eli could be up here with me, I could walk right off the edge with him.
“We’re both scared of falling,” I said. “But it’s not the ground that worries me.
It’s you. It’s us. I don’t know if I’ll ever stop being scared, but you’re worth the risk, Eli.
So, I love you. I love you and I’m not scared to say it first—actually, yes, I am scared. But fucking hell, I’m doing it anyway.”
His wide eyes searched mine and then he leaned down so close to me that each of his words brushed against my lips.
“I loved you then, Vera. I didn’t recognize it for what it was at first. But I loved you then and I love you now, and if you’ll let me, I want to love you tomorrow and the next day and the next day after that. ”
“I need you to kiss me,” I told him, my rib cage swelling to accommodate my love for him. “You can’t say something like that and not kiss me.”
I barely got the last syllable out before his fingers were tangled in my hair and he was crushing me against him, our mouths urgent.
All heat and tongues and teeth. His hand snaked around the back of my neck, his kisses marking me and claiming me as though he’d been kept at arm’s length and finally, finally he was allowed to give me the full force of his affection.
I moaned into his mouth as my hands moved from his face to his neck to his shoulders to his chest, as if my fingerprints could soak in this memory.
“Please watch your step as you exit the car,” the automated voice said.
I leaned back and Eli looked me over frantically, his thumb caressing my cheek, like he had to be sure that this was real. That we were real.
“We’re back on solid ground,” I said. “You survived.”
He looked from side to side with amazement. “Do you think they’d let us go again?”
I laughed as the doors opened and I pulled him out onto the platform.
“Where should we go?” he asked.
“Home,” I said without any hesitation. “Let’s pick up Marlon and let’s go home.”
“Home,” he echoed. “Brigid has been on my ass about giving you space, so she’ll be happy to see you when she comes for dinner tomorrow.” Eli took my right hand, his finger twisting the ring on my finger. He tugged on the metal band slightly, and then looked down to me through his dark lashes.
I gave him a nod, and he slid the ring from my right hand and moved it to my left.
The ring was as plain as it had always been, but this somehow felt different from Vegas or even the night in New Orleans when I wore the ring on my left ring finger. This time I wouldn’t have to take it off at the end of the night.
Eli kissed the ring. The ring that had for so long reminded me of an ending was now our new beginning.
Ext. Palm Springs Aerial Tramway Parking Lot—Evening
The perspective pulls out for a bird’s-eye view of the parking lot and then the city, mountains, and endless desert. Vera and Eli are two people—two specks among many—who have found each other. The moon is a disco ball in the sky.
In cursive script, the title curls out across the view and reads: VERA STEIN IS FINE GREAT.
THE END