‘Oh. That wasn’t the main elevator,’ said the woman beside me, pointing. ‘That’s the main elevator.’
And there it was. At the far end of an endless snaking horseshoe of people.
I stared at it in horror. There must have been a hundred visitors, two hundred even, milling quietly, staring up at the museum exhibits, the laminated histories on the wall. I looked at my watch. It was already one minute to seven. I texted Sam, watching in horror as the message refused to send. I started to push my way through the crowd, muttering, ‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry,’ as people tutted loudly and yelled, ‘Hey lady, we’re all waiting here.’ Head down, I made my way past the wallboards that told the story of the Rockefeller building, of its Christmas trees, the video exhibit of NBC, bobbing and weaving, muttering my apologies. There are few grumpier people than overheated tourists who have found themselves waiting in an unexpected queue. One grabbed at my sleeve. ‘Hey! You! We’re all waiting!’
‘I’m meeting someone,’ I said. ‘I’m so sorry. I’m English. We’re normally very good at queuing. But if I’m any later I’m going to miss him.’
‘You can wait like the rest of us!’
‘Let her go, baby,’ said the woman beside him, and I mouthed my thanks, pushing on through the morass of sunburnt shoulders, of shifting bodies and querulous children and ‘I HEART NY’ T-shirts, the lift doors coming slowly closer. But less than twenty feet away the queue came to a solid stop. I hopped, trying to see over the top of people’s heads, and came face to face with a fake iron girder. It rested against a huge black and white photographic backdrop of the New York skyline. Visitors were seating themselves in groups on the structure, mimicking the iconic photograph of workmen eating their lunch during the tower’s construction, while a young woman behind a camera yelled at them: ‘Put your hands in the air, that’s it, now thumbs up for New York, that’s it, now pretend to push each other off, now kiss. Okay. Pictures available when you leave. Next!’ Time after time she repeated her four phrases as we shifted gradually closer. The only way to get past would mean ruining someone’s possibly once-in-a-lifetime 30 Rock novelty photograph. It was four minutes past seven. I made to push through, to see if I could edge behind her, but found myself blocked by a group of teenagers with rucksacks. Someone shoved my back and we were moving.
‘On the girder, please. Ma’am?’ The way through was blocked by an immovable wall of people. The photographer beckoned. I was going to do whatever would make this move fastest. Obediently I hoisted myself up onto the girder, muttering under my breath, ‘Come on, come on, I need to move.’
‘Put your hands in the air, that’s it, now thumbs up for New York!’ I put my hands in the air, forced my thumbs up. ‘Now pretend to push each other off, that’s it … Now kiss.’ A teenage boy with glasses turned to me, surprised, and then delighted.
I shook my head. ‘Not this one, bud. Sorry.’ I leapt off the girder, pushed past him and ran to the final queue waiting in front of the lift.
It was nine minutes past seven.
It was at this point that I wanted to cry. I stood, squashed in the hot, grumbling queue, shifting from foot to foot and watching as the other lift disgorged people, cursing myself for not doing my research. This was the problem with grand gestures, I realized. They tended to backfire in spectacular fashion. The guards observed my agitation with the indifference of service workers who have seen every kind of human behaviour. And then, finally, at twelve minutes past, the elevator door opened and a guard herded people towards it, counting our heads. When he got to me, he pulled the rope across. ‘Next elevator.’
‘Oh, come on.’
‘It’s the rules, lady.’
‘Please. I have to meet someone. I’m so, so late. Just let me squeeze in? Please. I’m begging you.’
‘Can’t. Strict on numbers.’
But as I let out a small moan of anguish, a woman a few yards away beckoned to me. ‘Here,’ she said, stepping out of the lift. ‘Take my place. I’ll get the next one.’
‘Seriously?’
‘Gotta love a romantic meeting.’
‘Oh, thank you, thank you!’ I said, as I slid past. I didn’t like to tell her that the chance of it being romantic, or even a meeting, was growing slimmer by the second. I wedged myself into the lift, conscious of the curious glances of the other passengers, and clenched my fists as the lift started to move.
This time the lift flew upwards at warp speed, causing children to giggle and point as the glass ceiling betrayed how fast we were going. Lights flashed overhead. My stomach turned somersaults. An elderly woman beside me in a floral hat nudged me. ‘Want a breath mint?’ she said, and winked. ‘For when you finally see him?’
I took one and smiled nervously.
‘I wanna know how this goes,’ she said, and tucked the packet back into her bag. ‘You come find me.’ And then, as my ears popped, the lift began to slow and we were stopping.
Once upon a time there was a small-town girl who lived in a small world. She was perfectly happy, or at least she told herself she was. Like many girls, she loved to try different looks, to be someone she wasn’t. But, like too many girls, life had chipped away at her until, instead of finding what truly suited her, she camouflaged herself, hid the bits that made her different. For a while she let the world bruise her until she decided it was safer not to be herself at all.
There are so many versions of ourselves we can choose to be. Once, my life was destined to be measured out in the most ordinary of steps. I learnt differently from a man who refused to accept the version of himself he’d been left with, and an old lady who saw, conversely, that she could transform herself, right up to a point when many people would have said there was nothing left to be done.
I had a choice. I was Louisa Clark from New York or Louisa Clark from Stortfold. Or there might be a whole other Louisa I hadn’t yet met. The key was making sure that anyone you allowed to walk beside you didn’t get to decide which you were, and pin you down like a butterfly in a case. The key was to know that you could always somehow find a way to reinvent yourself again.
I would survive if he wasn’t there, I reassured myself. After all, I had survived worse. It would just be another reinvention. I told myself this several times as I waited for the lift doors to open. It was seventeen minutes past seven.
I walked swiftly to the glass doors, telling myself that surely if he’d come this far he would wait twenty minutes. Then I ran across the deck, spinning and weaving my way through the sightseers, the chatting tourists and selfie-takers to see if he was there. I ran back through the glass door and across the vast internal lobby until I came to a second deck. He must be on this side. I moved swiftly, in and out, turning to peer into the faces of strangers, eyes trained for one man, slightly taller than everyone around him, his hair dark, his shoulders square. I criss-crossed the tiled floor, the evening sun beating down on my head, sweat starting to bloom across my back as I looked, and looked, and observed, with a sick feeling, that he wasn’t there.
‘Did you find him?’ said the elderly woman, grabbing my arm.
I shook my head.
‘Go upstairs, honey.’ She pointed towards the side of the building.
‘Upstairs? There’s an upstairs?’