It was a number you didn’t want to celebrate, but of course, I surprised you. A room at the “castle on the hill” with its California bungalows, French-style turrets, and an old school New York Park Avenue vibe. It was the infamous penthouse suite 54. It was famous people undercover. It was too much champagne.
It was the sky turning a morning shade of technicolor blue. The kind you see in filtered photographs. The color of my hangover sunglasses. You were talking about celebrity overdoses. About the last suppers and secret hook-ups that took place here. You were wishing we’d stayed in Bungalow 3. You were longing. I was regret. I knew folklore was your thing. How you loved places that had colorful history. Dark history. This place was its own ghost.
It was a quiet moment. We drank our coffee on the small balcony outside the living room instead of the larger catty-cornered one off the kitchen. You were standing too close to the edge of a sprawling city not yet awake with its sputtering neon and towering palms. The balcony was narrow. The white stucco ledge short. A gust of cold wind.
It was the door shutting behind us. Wrought iron with a grid of small glass panes. A tarnished brass handle. A rusted latch. I felt the balcony getting narrower until my knees were pressed against the ledge, sweat blooming under my arms, dripping down the small of my back.
It was the latch dropping. You heard it, too. We looked at each other. How? Did it lock on its own? You jiggled the handle. I practiced my breathing. Our cell phones mocked us from the coffee table inside the living room. The patio off the kitchen with its French doors wide open, picture-perfect in a Hollywood golden age light.
It was you who looked over the edge at the deserted alleyway down below. It was me who remembered the do not disturb sign on the front door. It was you who suggested you punch out one of the glass panes with your fist. It was me who sat on the floor and suggested we wait a few hours until checkout—because surely someone would come? It was you who looked at the patio balcony just catty-corner from the one we were on and said, maybe I can jump over. It was me who said absolutely not.
It was five long floors up. Sage shrubs, hilly terrain, and a narrow street below. We sat for minutes that felt like hours that felt like days until I finally said, do you think you can make it?
It was you who climbed onto the ledge, my fingers numb as you grabbed the railing to the awning. It was you who swung up and over.
It was me holding my breath until you made the leap.
Karen Crawford lives and writes in the City of Angels. She is a Pushcart Prize nominee and was included in Wigleaf’s Top 50 Longlist 2023. Her work has appeared in Roi Fainéant Literary Press, Maudlin House, Emerge Literary Journal, Cheap Pop, 100 Word Story, and elsewhere. You can find her on X @KarenCrawford_ and BlueSky @karenc.bsky.social.
Image: tripadvisor.co.uk
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Heavy Feather Review 