Paper Towns — Chapter no 6

6.

Tourists never go to downtown Orlando, because there’s nothing there but

a few skyscrapers owned by banks and insurance companies. It’s the kind of

downtown that becomes absolutely deserted at night and on the weekends,

except for a few nightclubs half-filled with the desperate and the

desperately lame. As I followed Margo’s directions through the maze of

one-way streets, we saw a few people sleeping on the sidewalk or sitting on

benches, but nobody was moving. Margo rolled down the window, and I felt

the thick air blow across my face, warmer than night ought to be. I glanced

over and saw strands of hair blowing all around her face. Even though I

could see her there, I felt entirely alone among these big and empty

buildings, like I’d survived the apocalypse and the world had been given to

me, this whole and amazing and endless world, mine for the exploring.

“You just giving me the tour?” I asked.

“No,” she said. “I’m trying to get to the SunTrust Building. It’s right

next to the Asparagus.”

“Oh,” I said, because for once on this night I had useful information.

“That’s on South.” I drove down a few blocks and then turned. Margo

pointed happily, and yes, there, before us, was the Asparagus.

The Asparagus is not, technically, an asparagus spear, nor is it derived

from asparagus parts. It is just a sculpture that bears an uncanny

resemblance to a thirty-foot-tall piece of asparagus— although I’ve also

heard it likened to:

1. A green-glass beanstalk

2. An abstract representation of a tree

3. A greener, glassier, uglier Washington Monument

4. The Jolly Green Giant’s gigantic jolly green phallus

At any rate, it certainly does not look like a Tower of Light, which is the

actual name of the sculpture. I pulled in front of a parking meter and looked

over at Margo. I caught her staring into the middle distance just for a

moment, her eyes blank, looking not at the Asparagus, but past it. It was the

first time I thought something might be wrong—not my-boyfriend-is-an-ass

wrong, but really wrong. And I should have said something. Of course. I

should have said thing after thing after thing after thing. But I only said,

“May I ask why you have taken me to the Asparagus?”

She turned her head to me and shot me a smile. Margo was so beautiful

that even her fake smiles were convincing. “We gotta check on our

progress. And the best place to do that is from the top of the SunTrust

Building.”

I rolled my eyes. “Nope. No. No way. You said no breaking and

entering.”

“This isn’t breaking and entering. It’s just entering, because there’s an

unlocked door.”

“Margo, that’s ridiculous. Of c—”

“I will acknowledge that over the course of the evening there has been

both breaking and entering. There was entering at Becca’s house. There was

breaking at Jase’s house. And there will be entering here. But there has

never been simultaneous breaking and entering. Theoretically, the cops

could charge us with breaking, and they could charge us with entering, but

they could not charge us with breaking and entering. So I’ve kept my

promise.”

“Surely the SunTrust Building has, like, a security guard or whatever,” I

said.

“They do,” she said, unbuckling her seat belt. “Of course they do. His

name is Gus.”

We walked in through the front door. Sitting behind a broad, semicircular

desk sat a young guy with a struggling goatee wearing a Regents Security

uniform. “What’s up, Margo?” he said.

“Hey, Gus,” she answered.

“Who’s the kid?”

WE ARE THE SAME AGE! I wanted to shout, but I let Margo talk for

me. “This is my colleague, Q. Q, this is Gus.”

“What’s up, Q?” asked Gus.

Oh, we’re just scattering some dead fish about town, breaking some

windows, photographing naked guys, hanging out in skyscraper lobbies at

three-fifteen in the morning, that kind of thing. “Not much,” I answered.

“Elevators are down for the night,” Gus said. “Had to shut ’em off at

three. You’re welcome to take the stairs, though.”

“Cool. See ya, Gus.”

“See ya, Margo.”

“How the hell do you know the security guard at the SunTrust Building?” I

asked once we were safely in the stairwell.

“He was a senior when we were freshmen,” she answered. “We gotta

hustle, okay? Time’s a-wastin’.” Margo started taking the stairs two at a

time, flying up, one arm on the rail, and I tried to keep pace with her, but

couldn’t. Margo didn’t play any sports, but she liked to run—I sometimes

saw her running by herself listening to music in Jefferson Park. I, however,

did not like to run. Or, for that matter, engage in any kind of physical

exertion. But now I tried to keep up a steady pace, wiping the sweat off my

forehead and ignoring the burning in my legs. When I got to the twenty-

fifth floor, Margo was standing on the landing, waiting for me.

“Check it out,” she said. She opened the stairwell door and we were

inside a huge room with an oak table as long as two cars, and a long bank of

floor-to-ceiling windows. “Conference room,” she said. “It’s got the best

view in the whole building.” I followed her as she walked along the

windows. “Okay, so there,” she said pointing, “is Jefferson Park. See our

houses? Lights still off, so that’s good.” She moved over a few panes.

“Jase’s house. Lights off, no more cop cars. Excellent, although it might

mean he’s made it home, which is unfortunate.” Becca’s house was too far

away to see, even from up here.

She was quiet for a moment, and then she walked right up to the glass

and leaned her forehead against it. I hung back, but then she grabbed my T-

shirt and pulled me forward. I didn’t want our collective weight against a

single pane of glass, but she kept pulling me forward, and I could feel her

balled fist in my side, and finally I put my head against the glass as gently

as possible and looked around.

From above, Orlando was pretty well lit. Beneath us I could see the

flashing DON’T WALK signs at intersections, and the streetlights running

up and down the city in a perfect grid until downtown ended and the

winding streets and cul-de-sacs of Orlando’s infinite suburb started.

“It’s beautiful,” I said.

Margo scoffed. “Really? You seriously think so?”

“I mean, well, maybe not,” I said, although it was. When I saw Orlando

from an airplane, it looked like a LEGO set sunk into an ocean of green.

Here, at night, it looked like a real place—but for the first time a place I

could see. As I walked around the conference room, and then through the

other offices on the floor, I could see it all: there was school. There was

Jefferson Park. There, in the distance, Disney World. There was Wet ’n

Wild. There, the 7-Eleven where Margo painted her nails and I fought for

breath. It was all here—my whole world, and I could see it just by walking

around a building. “It’s more impressive,” I said out loud. “From a distance,

I mean. You can’t see the wear on things, you know? You can’t see the rust

or the weeds or the paint cracking. You see the place as someone once

imagined it.”

“Everything’s uglier close up,” she said.

“Not you,” I answered before thinking better of it.

Her forehead still against the glass, she turned to me and smiled. “Here’s

a tip: you’re cute when you’re confident. And less when you’re not.” Before

I had a chance to say anything, her eyes went back to the view and she

started talking. “Here’s what’s not beautiful about it: from here, you can’t

see the rust or the cracked paint or whatever, but you can tell what the place

really is. You see how fake it all is. It’s not even hard enough to be made

out of plastic. It’s a paper town. I mean look at it, Q: look at all those cul-

de-sacs, those streets that turn in on themselves, all the houses that were

built to fall apart. All those paper people living in their paper houses,

burning the future to stay warm. All the paper kids drinking beer some bum

bought for them at the paper convenience store. Everyone demented with

the mania of owning things. All the things paper-thin and paper-frail. And

all the people, too. I’ve lived here for eighteen years and I have never once

in my life come across anyone who cares about anything that matters.”

“I’ll try not to take that personally,” I said. We were both staring into the

inky distance, the cul-de-sacs and quarter-acre lots. But her shoulder was

against my arm, and the backs of our hands were touching, and although I

was not looking at Margo, pressing myself against the glass felt almost like

pressing myself against her.

“Sorry,” she said. “Maybe things would have been different for me if I’d

been hanging out with you the whole time instead of—ugh. Just, God. I just

hate myself so much for even caring about my, quote, friends. I mean, just

so you know, it’s not that I am oh-so-upset about Jason. Or Becca. Or even

Lacey, although I actually liked her. But it was the last string. It was a lame

string, for sure, but it was the one I had left, and every paper girl needs at

least one string, right?”

And here is what I said. I said, “You would be welcome at our lunch

table tomorrow.”

“That’s sweet,” she answered, her voice trailing off. She turned to me

and nodded softly. I smiled. She smiled. I believed the smile. We walked to

the stairs and then ran down them. At the bottom of each flight, I jumped

off the bottom step and clicked my heels to make her laugh, and she

laughed. I thought I was cheering her up. I thought she was cheerable. I

thought maybe if I could be confident, something might happen between us.

I was wrong.