The Family Game by Catherine Steadman (33)

Lila’s focus turns to me, an eyebrow raised. “Of course. I know they are very sensitive about it. The whole family. You didn’t know?” she asks, interested by this new information.

I shake my head, and after a moment’s thought she pats my arm in sympathy.

“Well, Stuart talks a lot. I blame AA. He’s an open book. But Edward, he’s different. More like Robert, I think. A tougher nut to crack. I think you’re a good match, though. Me, on the other hand,” she adds with an impish smile, “my nutcracking days are over. I like to keep it simple.”

The market complete, Lila flags us a taxi downtown. In the sheltered warmth of the cab, she turns to me excitedly with a question. “Are you scared of heights?”

I only fully understand the question when we’re deposited outside One Vanderbilt and I look up at the jutting steel and glass towering skyward above us. I’ve read about it. It’s been closed most of this year while they changed the internal exhibits.

Lila pulls two lanyards from her bag and they jostle in the wind. “It officially reopens on Friday night; social posts are embargoed till then, but we can get content anytime. VIP passes.” She slips one over my head and for the second time today I remember she’s a celebrity. It’s odd to think how one can forget that so quickly in the context of the Holbecks. Even fame like Lila’s seems to fade in significance beside the reach of that family.

We’re fast-tracked up to the ninety-first floor, our ears popping at the speed of the elevator’s ascent as a guide straps an electrical bracelet to our wrists.

When the doors open, I see the relevance of Lila’s question. The entire cavernous ninety-first floor of Summit Vanderbilt is made of glass and mirrors suspended a thousand feet over Madison Avenue, reflecting everything in it back ad infinitum. Lila steps out of the elevator first, her wristband light blinking as the sounds of birds and the ocean fill the space.

“The bracelets map each wearer’s vital signs,” the guide tells me, gesturing for me to step out of the elevator too. “The space responds to the people that fill it. Think of the building as a massive mood ring. Different types of stimuli, reflecting you back to you.”

A sensory hall of mirrors. The idea is a terrifying one for a person like me, who fears truly being seen, but I have little choice but to follow Lila as our guide disappears.

I feel my wrist vibrate gently, and the sound of fire crackles to life around us. Lila spins to face me, a Cheshire-cat grin blossoming. The sounds I am unwittingly producing are so unexpectedly telling that it sends a hot flush of fear up my throat and into my cheeks.

“Harry, that’s you. The sound of you. It’s beautiful,” she says, beaming. I feel my pulse beat faster at the intensity of her focus but force myself to stay calm, to center. I cannot let the sound, or the memories associated with it, overwhelm me.

As the fire’s roar settles into the low crackle of a campfire, I follow Lila across the building’s glass floor to the full-height windows and the panoramic view of the city beyond.

I watch, strangely disconnected, as Lila takes the shots she needs for her social content before finally returning to my side.

“Look down,” she says. And when I do I see that where we are standing a thick sheet of glass is all that holds us both suspended a thousand feet above Madison Avenue. I feel my heart rise an inch higher in my chest at the realization. Lila holds my gaze playfully and starts to crack her high heel against the glass beneath us, grinning the whole time.

I am not scared of heights, but my limbic system, millions of years old and incapable of understanding the modern world, causes my blood pressure to drop ever so slightly. I feel the woozy vertiginous rush I am supposed to.

Lila must feel it too, because the reactive sounds around us seamlessly mellow, soften, to the slow, pulsing beat of rain drumming on a roof. Through the glass, New York City is laid out in lines and blocks. So tidy and easy to understand from up here.

The Empire State Building, Top of the Rock, and the Chrysler Building. Model skyscrapers made by men like Robert Holbeck—the building we’re standing in now just the same.

“This is a good test,” Lila says with a chuckle.

“Of what?”

“All sorts of things. But it’s good to know,” she answers simply. “You don’t scare easily.”





16


Krampus Is Coming


MONDAY, DECEMBER 12



On my way back to the apartment, my phone rings in my bag. It’s an unknown number. It’s too early to be hearing back from my publisher about the book; I only sent it last night. Curiosity piqued, I answer.

It’s a female voice I don’t immediately recognize. “Oh, hi, Harriet. Is this a bad time? Are you still working? I wasn’t sure if you would be. Sorry, it’s Fiona here. Fiona Holbeck.”

“Fiona? Oh, hi.” Weird that Fiona is calling me, I think, given I have just left Lila. For a second I wonder if they’re all in constant contact on some kind of family WhatsApp group, but then realize the thought of Robert Holbeck on WhatsApp is ridiculous. Plus Fiona has been trying to get hold of me for a few days now. “No, I’m free, now is fine,” I tell her, slipping into a shop doorway to better hear her. “What’s up?”

“Wonderful. I’ll cut to the chase,” she says conspiratorially. “It’s a madhouse here,” she adds. “The boys are taking part in the end-of-term show at their school and it’s like wrangling cats trying to get them to practice.”