Winter Wonderland

twenty-two: the windy city

"This is incredible," Storie says around a mouthful of muffin and egg. "This puts my poached eggs to shame. Oh my god. Is this how rich people eat all the time?"

"If they live in a hotel, sure," I say, polishing off my second glass of fresh fruit juice. The first was orange; this one was grapefruit because I've never tried it before. Too tart for my liking, but kinda refreshing after so much meat. I think we'll have to Uber to the Willis Tower at this rate, after so much food. I can't face a thirty-minute walk.

"I think it'd be pretty cool to live in a hotel. You never have to think about breakfast and someone else does all your cleaning and makes your bed."

"No privacy," I say. "You always have to think about what you're leaving lying around, 'cause you know housekeeping's gonna see it."

She raises an eyebrow at me. "What exactly do you leave lying around that you wouldn't want housekeeping to see? You're hardly the leader of a cartel or a massive cokehead."

"That you know of. What if I'm just really good at hiding my drug paraphernalia?"

"Yeah, somehow I just don't buy it." She takes a sip of her tea that's supposed to taste like an English garden. Neither of us have a clue what an English garden tastes like, but I highly doubt it's lemongrass and yellow fruit. What even is yellow fruit? Like, banana and pineapple? Or is that its own kind of fruit?

Our conversation floats off on a hundred tangents as we finish our breakfast and catch a bus downtown, huddling together in the aisle because there are no seats left. It makes the journey twice as long as if we'd taken a taxi or ordered an Uber but we're in no rush, and it's pretty cool to see Magnificent Mile in the daylight. Our hotel is right off Michigan Avenue, right in the heart of the shopping district, and while neither of us are that into shopping, we'll probably walk it later. Once we've digested our mammoth breakfast.

In my efforts not to look like a clueless tourist, I've memorized the directions again: take the bus all the way to Michigan and Huron and walk around the block to the tower, right on the river. Easy enough. All the roads seem pretty straight and all the blocks are pretty square, more like Manhattan than Cleveland's funky triangles.

That's where I want to go next with Storie. I've been there before, but she spent nineteen years in New York City: I want to see the city through her eyes. I want to see where she lived; I want to walk her home turf. But that's for another day. Today, it's Chicago, and the city is living up to its name. The wind is not messing around, whipping our cheeks the minute we step off the bus. It's a popular spot, several other tourists clambering off to get up to the viewing deck, and I needn't remember my directions because we just follow the crowd and soon we're sheltered from the icy breeze.

Storie holds my hand in the elevator. We're bunched close together with ten other people, warm and cramped, and I can feel her flicker of anxiety in the way she's gripping my fingers. It takes a full minute to reach the Skydeck, a hundred and three floors up, where we let out a collective breath to be freed from the small space.

And then we suck in a collective breath when we come face to face with the view. Floor to ceiling windows all around, offering a vista of every aspect of the city for miles around. An infographic informs us that on a clear day, we can see Wisconsin to the north; Michigan to the east, and Indiana to the south. It's pretty clear today. I wouldn't be surprised.

It's surprisingly busy for a February day but we find a bit of unoccupied window space facing Lake Michigan, and I can't believe it's a lake. It looks like an ocean. I've flown over it before, and I like on Lake Erie, but the Great Lakes still blow my mind, so unfathomably huge.

"This is incredible," Storie says, tentatively placing her hands against the window before her forehead touches the glass too. I stand next to her and do the same, one arm draped around her waist. The lake is a dull gray, nothing like the green-blue under a summer sky, but it's still magnificent. This would be a good place to propose, too. I can see it now. The view taking her breath away, distracting her while I get down on one knee.