Over the horizon

The phone rings in my purse late Tuesday night and it's Chloe. "Have you been missing me" she asks, I'm on my way home somewhere on 5th and the air seems lighter somehow, the streets less crowded. "Go up the Empire State Building and look west, I'm waving" she says and I believe her.

She tells me about Los Angeles, about drunken Saturdays without me and a growing void in her heart since I left. And she tells me about Carl. It's been close to two months since I last heard his voice, more since I saw him through a window, holding her little porcelain hand in his. "Is he there" I ask but she says he isn't and the irregular heartbeat passes.

"I want to see you" she says, "we can get a room at the Waldorf and stay there forever". "Let's do that" I say and we're quiet for a while, traffic in my background, silence in hers. I tell her I love her and she's crying but tries to hide it. When we hang up I've walked too far and I want to turn around but lack the energy so I sit down alone on the cold pavement, the Empire State Building glowing like a beacon in the corner of my eye. I imagine her still waving from across the wasteland and it looks so pretty.