Civilization's going to pieces... {Jenna}

[JENNA GRAY]

The first order of business traditionally drew Jenna and her guest to the wild and anarchic main concourse, where Jenna would recline quietly in the corner while the visitor was immersed in the reckless and violent anonymity of New York City night life. But something about this woman’s contemplative nature told Jenna that she would indeed prefer a quieter look at the 40/40. Mentally listing the quieter areas of the club, Jenna began to stroll decisively towards the staircase on the left, motioning for Elle to follow.“This’ll take you straight up to the roof,” she said, and she could hear the bass thumps of music and murmur of the raucous pit below her fade as they began to ascend. “It’s a nice night. You’ll have a view of the city up here. And the stars.” She smiled in what she hoped was a warm and inviting manner. The City and the Stars. And one of the only places in which the two weren’t mutually exclusive.

“I should think it would be, looking at this fine establishment,” Elle noted. “It already seems rather refined in demeanor, I appreciate that especially.”

Refined. Jenna had to suppress a grin. Refined it certainly was. If only this woman knew how much Jenna had agonized over that demeanor, month upon month upon long and fervid month. ”Well, I’m glad. And flattered. I’ll be happy to accommodate any requests, as well as any questions you may have.”

Demeanor. What an inane and subjective concept, for one so prioritized by establishments like these and their critics. Jenna could’ve given the woman a twelve-hour lecture on image, on self-image, on illusion, and on the correlations. But that was a lecture she would never give outside of herself and Jay. Because if this city had one central priority, it was image. And who was Jenna to question that?

Nobody. That was who.

“Honestly, not particularly,” Elle noted sheepishly at the suggesting of her acquaintance with college night life. “And I should hope that I don’t find any of my colleagues here, I’m horribly awkward around people I’ve already met.”

Not particularly? In all honesty, Jenna wasn’t surprised. Though she could never have pinpointed a specific reason, something about this woman screamed “subdued”. Perhaps it was something about the way her eyes roved from side to side constantly, settling on their targets as if analyzing them briefly before taking off to roam again. There were very few things Jenna Gray was truly good at, but interpreting people was one of them. And Jenna could tell that what this woman articulated was infinitesimal compared to what raged through her head.

And yet she was controlled. Beautiful, controlled, and eloquent. She spoke with a precision that Jenna envied, envied to the point that she almost…

No. Of course not. She’d known this woman for less than two hours. Jenna shook her head as if to clear it of a haze, refocusing on the stairs before her.

“Me, a native? Oh, God, no, I’m not nearly exciting enough to come from a place like this.” Her smile was honest, but also slightly cheeky. “No, I’m from the Midwest. Chicago suburbs. I suppose I came here for the same reason you did: opportunity. I figured I needed to do something with my fancy English degree from Yale, and New York seemed like the place to do it.”

Jenna chuckled slightly. ”Afraid the same is true for me. I’ll never be a New Yorker. I’ve never found…that I belong here.” That I belong anywhere? ”I’m from Lanagan, Missouri. Three digit population matched approximately by the number of cows.” She shrugged, the memories of cornfields and trickling brooks permeating her mind for a moment. ”But there’s something about New York City, isn’t it?”

Reaching the top of the staircase she pulled open the heavy door before them and stepped out onto the roof of the club. ”Ambition. And…the American Dream. Strange, isn't it? How they’re just…they’re intertwined somehow.” Nobody had assigned it, nobody had made it that way. Like gender designations, the fact just was.

["ELLE" FAIRCHILD]

There was something fascinating and boundless about the sky that just gave Elle the chills, but only at night, and only when she was paying attention. Something about the daytime sky seemed shrouded, restrained, the refraction of light through the atmosphere hiding the true nature of the Great Beyond. At night, that shawl of light was gone, and you could see everything – the great, sprawling black, reaching on for millennia, tiny pinpoints of great suns blazing billions of miles away. It made her feel so very small, so very breathless, to stand before that great gaping expanse of space and think of how little she would ever see of the universe, how insignificant her little human life was in the history of time, how limited.

But somehow, she liked that feeling.

“This’ll take you straight up to the roof. It’s a nice night. You’ll have a view of the city up here. And the stars.”

Elle’s eyes were already glittering with the starlight.

“Fantastic,” she said, starting to climb the stairs. She hoped Jenna would follow, and felt a prick of relief to see that she was. As much confidence as Elle kept in her bearing, as much self-assurance as she seemed to possess, to be alone in a club was a lonely thing for anyone. Elle enjoyed time alone, but not always in places where being alone was the last thing you were supposed to be.

Of course, she tended to feel alone wherever she went, but that was a different story entirely, one that she didn’t intend for Jenna to hear. Jenna, so full of poise and grace, and yet such a curious filling; convincing, utterly convincing, and yet...

Maybe she was looking too hard. She did that.

”Well, I’m glad. And flattered. I’ll be happy to accommodate any requests, as well as any questions you may have.”

So very polite. Well, what was to be expected of her? Still, it was refreshing – Elle held a deep resentment towards many people in the world, but the discourteous in particular. It seemed somehow inhuman to her, to be particularly cruel to another human being; probably an idea that had come of her father’s teachings, the man who had taught her to hold her tongue when there was something nasty on the tip of it. If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all. Oh, how she wished her father had not instilled that in her sometimes.

She let her mind drift away from her father and back to Jenna as they continued to ascend the stairs. Beautiful. She was beautiful. Elle would be the first to acknowledge it. But...hm. There was something about that beauty, something forced, something that implied an unseen depth. A shell, a cover. A dazzling mask that kept probing eyes from the truth.

Or maybe she was just being a writer again. Blowing everything out of proportion and writing stories in her head. She had a bad habit of doing that.

Still, Jenna Gray fascinated her. She wanted to know...everything.

”Afraid the same is true for me. I’ll never be a New Yorker. I’ve never found…that I belong here. I’m from Lanagan, Missouri. Three digit population matched approximately by the number of cows. But there’s something about New York City, isn’t it?”

Elle raised her eyebrows in honest surprise. “I wouldn’t take you for a country girl,” she noted with the curl of a smile. “But I suppose that makes your success all the more impressive. It doesn’t often happen that a girl from Missouri hits the big time like you.” The expression on her face remained mirthful, but acquired a note of respect. “I’m afraid I’ll probably never make it as far as I want to in my business...”

...why had she said that? That wasn’t a public thought.

She cleared her throat slightly and continued, repressing the urge to blush and look sheepish for letting slip something that bordered on personal.

“Ah, but, yes, there is something about New York City...something Chicago didn’t have. Well. The fact that it’s not freezing all the time helps.” She chuckled at her exaggeration, albeit Chicago’s reputation as ‘the windy city’ certainly held up. “As much as I like the city...the activity, the motion, the vivacity and life...sometimes it moves a bit quickly for me. I feel like everyone’s just running about for no reason, trying to get somewhere to which they’ll never actually get. It’s sad and exhausting.” She looked up at Jenna and quirked her lips.

Stepping lightly out onto the roof of the club, Elle smiled, taking a deep breath of the night air. It was not often that city air smelled clean, but here, it seemed fresh, like the visibility of the stars themselves had somehow purified the air quality. A small laugh escaped her, like a giddy child, and she took a few quick steps to the edge, resisting the urge to spin in the moonlight like a child. Those urges were private. In public, Elle was restrained, as comfortable as she appeared.

Her eyes lifted to the sky, studying the stars, picking out constellations from memory. The moon was shining just enough to light the world in that silvery sheen, but not enough to obscure its compatriots, those shining little points, like the sky was a big piece of black velvet with so many tiny holes in it, lit from behind with some great glow. It was inspiring.

She looked back over her shoulder at Jenna.

”Ambition. And…the American Dream. Strange, isn't it? How they’re just…they’re intertwined somehow.”

“They are indeed,” she mused, putting her hands in the pocket of her coat. “But I feel as if...somehow...they’re not related the way they used to be. It used to be that everyone in the world wanted the American Dream, a nice colonial and a car and a spouse and 2.5 kids and maybe a dog. Steady job, etcetera. But now, it’s...well, it’s so easy to fall into that lifestyle. Like it’s what’s expected of us.” She turned her eyes back to the sky, leaning against the railing that was currently preventing her from falling off the roof. “These days, I think it takes ambition to pursue anything but the American Dream. Plenty of people say they won’t, say they’ll do this or do that or become rich and famous and glamorous or live some alternate lifestyle, but they’ll never succeed. They’ll fail, and then they’ll fall back onto what’s expected of them.” Closing her eyes, she exhaled through her nose, then reopened her eyes. “It’s a bit sad. As if the American Dream is inconquerable.”

[JENNA GRAY]

Jenna followed Elle onto the roof, her lips curling into a smile as she inhaled the fresh night air. She could remember when this area had been filled with customers, voices gathering in a harmonic murmur as drinks and finger foods were passed through the crowd. She missed the age of rooftop bars, she thought, before the fire department had begun to crack down on regulations. It wasn’t too often that Jenna was given the opportunity to emerge onto the roof now, with the remnants of its former glamour strewn across the concrete. But she supposed that made it all that more unique, this feeling of, in the midst of a hustling and bustling metropolis, of quiet serenity.

Was closer to the stars closer to God? Jenna had never believed in a God, but she knew that being closer to the stars was closer to something, something bigger than this city, bigger than the world, and bigger than the universe. And anyone who denied that fact had clearly never stood where she stood right now.

“I wouldn’t take you for a country girl,” she noted with the curl of a smile. “But I suppose that makes your success all the more impressive. It doesn’t often happen that a girl from Missouri hits the big time like you.”

Jenna laughed quietly. ”Well, thank you. It’s certainly been a long road.” She scoured her mind for a non-generic, non-interview response, but what could she say? How could the English language have any words to describe the frustration silence and biting loneliness of a tiny town buried in the grasses and trees of the rural Midwest, those endless frigid nights in a tenth-avenue apartment with hour upon hour upon hour of wind biting through the holes in the wall, or those filthy late afternoons beneath cracked street lamps, beckoning and contorting as the sun went down? There was no way to describe the thousand-mile path that Jenna had taken from Lanagan to this rooftop, the biting and scratching and clawing that had pulled her to the top. ”I’m certainly grateful to…” Grateful to whom? ”Well, it was in the stars, I suppose.” Another sheepish laugh. A testament, she thought resentfully to herself, to how little she really understood about this world she lived in.

“I’m afraid I’ll probably never make it as far as I want to in my business...”

Jenna shook her head. ”Nonesense. You seem…” like the kind of woman who could do anything, her mind finished, but she scrambled madly for other words. ”Like a woman who will be very successful in any field, regardless of manner or setting. Leadership positions take competence, obviously, but also a certain kind of…” She thought a moment, visualizing the faces of the most empowering leaders she’d ever worked with. ”Combination of valor and willingness. Or restraint, I should say. And I see that in you.”

I see that in you. She sounded like a sensei preaching to a karate pupil. This woman couldn’t have been any younger than she, Jenna, was. So what could possibly explain this sense of…mentor-ish-ness that she felt? Jesus, that wasn’t even a word.

“As much as I like the city...the activity, the motion, the vivacity and life...sometimes it moves a bit quickly for me. I feel like everyone’s just running about for no reason, trying to get somewhere to which they’ll never actually get. It’s sad and exhausting.”

”Ah, is it?” Jenna leaned against the railing, sipping her drink and glancing at the lights of the city sprawled out before her. ”See, for me, it’s exhilarating. The knowledge that…that something is happening around me. The knowledge that something bigger than I am is pulling me along, that this massive exodus is constantly moving, and that…I’m a part of it.” She shrugged. ”Walking down the sidewalk and knowing that no matter the time or place, the city’s eight million other inhabitants and I are all one and the same. No matter the destination, we’re all part of the same journey.”

“These days, I think it takes ambition to pursue anything but the American Dream. Plenty of people say they won’t, say they’ll do this or do that or become rich and famous and glamorous or live some alternate lifestyle, but they’ll never succeed. They’ll fail, and then they’ll fall back onto what’s expected of them.” Closing her eyes, she exhaled through her nose, then reopened her eyes. “It’s a bit sad. As if the American Dream is inconquerable.”

Jenna ran over what the woman had just said in her mind, not sure that she entirely understood it. ”If I’m honest with myself,” she said quietly, not certain what exactly was driving her to formulate these deep expressions to a woman she’d just met, ”I know that this club is going to end. Just as the supermodeling did. And I’m sure that I’ll go on to lead an average, mediocre life, you know, when this young glamour loses its flair. But when I think about it, I’m not sure that I’ll mind that. Because our perceptions of success change as we grow. I mean, I never would have thought that I’d want to be anywhere but the spotlight and the catwalk, all those years ago. But when I stepped down to live behind the door of an office, I found that…it was what I wanted. And needed.”

She was probably wrong. This woman was a writer, and she was an ex-supermodel, a businesswoman. How could she ever hope to compare to Elle’s intellect? But she plowed on, regardless. ”And I wonder if it’s not so much that people fail as that…they change. And the American Dream changes with them. And maybe it takes them a few years, or decades, to figure out what it is that they truly want. You know?”

["ELLE" FAIRCHILD]

There was something about the sky that Elle had always felt drawn to. And that, in and of itself, was unusual – she was a very down-to-earth person, fairly logical, reasonable, practical. She didn’t waste her time dreaming about flying or wondering if she was alone in the universe on her little blue marble. On the contrary, she tried to keep her eyes on the ground, on what was in front of her, what was solid, what was real, because that was logical, because that made sense.

But she’d always felt such a draw to the stars. Not even the clouds, but the stars. Perhaps because they were so incomprehensible that it drove her mad. She needed to understand the world around her, needed to get it, needed to know how and why things worked and where and what and when. But the stars…they were so painfully out of reach, so incredibly far away and yet shining so brightly, probably already dead but still shining, still shining to her because the speed of light just couldn’t keep up with the destruction. And how mad it was, to think that billions of lightyears away, the very stars she was looking at were collapsing into oblivion…

It made her feel so very, very, unfathomably tiny, and very, very naïve.

She hated that feeling. But it was different with the stars – she had to feel it. There was no way to fix it, no way to learn how to make it right. They would always be incomprehensible. They would always be too vast for even her quick mind to understand. It drove her so mad, and at the same time, she wondered at it. She was in awe of these burning balls of gas lifetimes out of her way that shone down at her now from beyond the grave.

No-one would have seen them die. They would die alone, and even if they weren’t conscious, even if she knew that stars didn’t and couldn’t have feelings, it was still…sad. The idea that those beautiful smoldering orbs would blink out of existence unnoticed.

Her eyes were a bit wet.

”You’re welcome,” she managed, glancing over at Jenna and offering a little smile. How she wanted to pick this woman’s brain. She noted the way she hesitated, waiting for her response. Probably trying to sound more genuine. She’d undoubtedly heard remarks like the one Elle just made a thousand times.

That made her feel a bit small, too.

”Funny expression, ‘in the stars,’” she mused, almost to herself. ”After all…what’s in the stars? How can it be in the stars? The insides of stars are…well, usually thousands and thousands of degrees…it’s just a funny turn of phrase. From astrology, I’m sure, but…” A slight blush came to her cheeks. ”Shit, I’m rambling. Sorry. I talk too much about idioms and euphemisms, I think they’re simultaneously interesting and infuriating…from a linguistic perspective. Um.” She forced a slightly nervous laugh and reverted her attention to the sky.

Jenna shook her head. ”Nonesense. You seem…” like the kind of woman who could do anything, her mind finished, but she scrambled madly for other words. ”Like a woman who will be very successful in any field, regardless of manner or setting. Leadership positions take competence, obviously, but also a certain kind of…” She thought a moment, visualizing the faces of the most empowering leaders she’d ever worked with. ”Combination of valor and willingness. Or restraint, I should say. And I see that in you.”

Of course, her attention was drawn once again to Jenna as the woman spoke…no, complimented her, encouraged her. She felt her cheeks burning – she wasn’t good at taking compliments. ”Thank you,” she said quietly, smiling one of her little half-smiles. ”That means a lot, I should think, coming from you…considering how successful you are. But I don’t need to be famous. I’d just like to be able to subsist on my writing…” She sighed softly, eyes on the stars again.

”Ah, is it?” Jenna leaned against the railing, sipping her drink and glancing at the lights of the city sprawled out before her. ”See, for me, it’s exhilarating. The knowledge that…that something is happening around me. The knowledge that something bigger than I am is pulling me along, that this massive exodus is constantly moving, and that…I’m a part of it.” She shrugged. ”Walking down the sidewalk and knowing that no matter the time or place, the city’s eight million other inhabitants and I are all one and the same. No matter the destination, we’re all part of the same journey.”

Elle chuckled, almost to herself. ”That’s a very poetic way to put it, Ms. Gray. You could be a writer yet.” She sighed softly, glancing down at the street below, bustling with cars, people, light. ”I’ve always been quiet. I’m not quite myself around a lot of people. I feel…I don’t know, awkward, I suppose, trying to be part of a system, because I’ve always felt like I don’t fit. I’m not…I don’t know.” She pursed her lips together and laughed nervously. ”I—God, I’m sorry, I don’t know why I’m telling you this. Just ignore me. I get a little nostalgic at night sometimes.” Partially a clever lie. She honestly didn’t know why she was saying all these things to Jenna Gray. She felt…like she’d known her before, somehow. Loved her, even.

But that couldn’t be true, of course. They’d only just met.

”If I’m honest with myself,” she said quietly, not certain what exactly was driving her to formulate these deep expressions to a woman she’d just met, ”I know that this club is going to end. Just as the supermodeling did. And I’m sure that I’ll go on to lead an average, mediocre life, you know, when this young glamour loses its flair. But when I think about it, I’m not sure that I’ll mind that. Because our perceptions of success change as we grow. I mean, I never would have thought that I’d want to be anywhere but the spotlight and the catwalk, all those years ago. But when I stepped down to live behind the door of an office, I found that…it was what I wanted. And needed. And I wonder if it’s not so much that people fail as that…they change. And the American Dream changes with them. And maybe it takes them a few years, or decades, to figure out what it is that they truly want. You know?”

”Mmm…” Elle hummed thoughtfully in response, smiling slightly as she identified a recognizable constellation. Cassiopeia. ”Well, you have a good deal more life experience than me, and you make a good point…” She sighed softly. ”Still, I feel like there’s just…not enough freedom in the world. People should be able to do what they want, and if they want the American Dream, fine, but…” She shook her head. ”I just think people…I just think the world should be able to respect that.” Her voice was a little sad at that. ”I think people should be…allowed to be who they are, do what they want, and no-one should be the wiser, because what’s the point in hiding? What’s the point in all trying to be the same when we’re not? We’re all different. I…” Stopping herself, she rubbed at her temples and groaned. ”Sorry, I’m doing it again.”

[JENNA GRAY]

God, there was something about the rooftops tonight. Maybe it was the sheer dizzying heights of the trees in the concrete forest around her, and the blending of car headlights and horns on the streets below as they blurred together like the hues of a painting flushed with water. Maybe it was the manner in which she was forced to crane her neck to glimpse buildings’ full extents, the way that they stretched up, up, into whatever oblivion lay beyond her spectrum of vision. Or maybe…maybe it was this feeling of inconsequentiality that she just couldn’t shake. Because the spotlight didn’t matter, did it? What was a single flash of a camera in the midst of this sea of neon and blazing lights at every hour of the night? What was a torn, faded ex-supermodel and her wagging tail of paparazzi in this sea of pedestrians that constantly inundated this city?

Eight million New Yorkers. A million and a half in Manhattan alone. And two on this Midtown rooftop, watching over it all, like dignitaries on the balcony of a grandiose ballroom. What were they, really? What was anyone?

It was a feeling that should have upset Jenna. But for some inexplicable reason, acknowledgement of the fact gave her stomach that ringing feeling of pleasure. It was as if something, deep within her, knew that this was what she wanted. And by “she” she meant “ze”, Jay. Because when you were only one in eight million, a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a percent of the dynamic and temperamental being that was this city that never slept, nobody put you in arbitrary boxes. Nobody had time to look at your chest when you were nothing but a speck of dust in the wind. Nothing but anonymity lay between the cracks of menial worth. But within that anonymity, Jenna knew that she could be who she truly was.

”Funny expression, ‘in the stars,’” she mused, almost to herself. ”After all…what’s in the stars? How can it be in the stars? The insides of stars are…well, usually thousands and thousands of degrees…it’s just a funny turn of phrase. From astrology, I’m sure, but…” A slight blush came to her cheeks.”Shit, I’m rambling. Sorry. I talk too much about idioms and euphemisms, I think they’re simultaneously interesting and infuriating…from a linguistic perspective. Um.”

”A single star,” she whispered softly to herself, placing both hands on the balcony and allowing the soft breeze to whip lightly against her cheeks. She cleared her throat then, processing the woman’s, Elle’s, remarks. ”There’s a quote from somewhere,” she said, relinquishing control of her voice and allowing herself to meander aimlessly through words and ideas. ”Walt Whitman, I believe. I had to read some works of his in college.” Jenna had never been one for poetry, but resisted the urge to roll her eyes. Public relations were still a key factor here, her businesswoman’s mind reminded her, regardless of the illusion of security the rest of her had apparently constructed. She closed her eyes, trying to bring the text back into her mind. God, so much had changed in her life since that musty classroom eight years ago. ”He went to visit an astronomer, and the astronomer taught him mathematical equations to measure the stars, calculate their distances, and he came to hate the stars. But one day…” She shrugged. ”One day he went outside and just…just looked up at them, in perfect silence. And he realized that…they were still beautiful.” Another shrug. Jenna had absolutely no idea what she’d been going for there. But she’d had a thread, somewhere, she knew.

”Thank you,” she said quietly, smiling one of her little half-smiles. ”That means a lot, I should think, coming from you…considering how successful you are. But I don’t need to be famous. I’d just like to be able to subsist on my writing…”

”It’s hard, isn’t it? Not knowing…” The words came out before Jenna could even register them in her mind. The images flashed through her head: the one room apartment, sticky air, the mattress on the floor that reeked of the underworld, streetlights street corners and fake eyelashes, a black and grimy palm across her cheek, dusty bottles, bills stuffed haphazardly into bras, tears laced with traces of blue eyeshadow, sighs, grunts, and men, men men…”Never having certainty, you know? Always having to believe that something is going to come, something better, something that may never come, something that may…well, may not exist.” Parts of her ached to share, ached to slip through the cracks of her façade and spill her story, show how much she understood what this woman was talking about, how much she felt her own life narrated in the words that Elle said. But the glimmering wine glass in her hand and the sequins on her dress screamed to the contrary. So she merely nodded in acknowledgement, sipping serenely and gazing forward at nothing.

”I’ve always been quiet. I’m not quite myself around a lot of people. I feel…I don’t know, awkward, I suppose, trying to be part of a system, because I’ve always felt like I don’t fit. I’m not…I don’t know.” She pursed her lips together and laughed nervously. ”I—God, I’m sorry, I don’t know why I’m telling you this. Just ignore me. I get a little nostalgic at night sometimes.”

Jenna felt her heart swell with a longing like a mother’s for a long departed child. A longing for…for what? A longing to reach out to this woman, to reach out and touch her, to brush her fingers across the woman’s slender shoulders and just…feel the connection running between the membranes of their skin. Jesus Christ. She knew nothing about this woman. She’d shared her company for literally a few hours at this point. So why did she feel like she knew Elle so well…like Elle was some deep fragment of Jenna herself? ”You know what I think, dear?” she asked, shocked once again by her inadvertent use of such an address to a woman who couldn’t be more than a few years younger than Jenna was. But there was no remedying that now.

”I think that systems are bullshit.” And once the words began to flow, she could no longer bring herself to hold them back. ”When that astronomer put those stars into a system, he’d gained the mathematics, the proof, the knowledge, you know. But he’d lost…he’d lost their beauty. He’d lost their magic. And…well, I’m not sure which is worth more. But I do think...well, I know, that even with all of the systems in the world…I’m so sorry.” Jenna wiped several tears from her cheeks, feeling her face heat up with embarrassment. Oh goodness, and now she was crying. Here, in front of a woman she barely knew, Jenna Gray was going to cry like a teenage girl after a breakup. Shaking her head, she tried to shove the images from her mind again: those two hideous tumors on her chest that she hated, hated, hated, feeling the eyes on her like firing squads from both sides that she was constantly dodging, the hisses of ‘Ms. Gray’, the atrocious name ‘Jenna’ in the newspapers, in the magazines, on the television, everywhere in the fucking city. The dresses, the shirts, the makeup…Jenna shook her head, clearing her throat. ”Things are more beautiful when you don’t shove them into boxes, don’t you think? When you don’t…” Oh God, her words were leaving her. ” When you just…look at them straight on. For what they are. Like…like you, Ms. Fairchild.”

Like you, Ms. Fairchild. What on Earth had come over her?

”I think people should be…allowed to be who they are, do what they want, and no-one should be the wiser, because what’s the point in hiding? What’s the point in all trying to be the same when we’re not? We’re all different. I…” Stopping herself, she rubbed at her temples and groaned.”Sorry, I’m doing it again.”

”No, no, don’t apologize, dear. I’m sorry, I am so, so…” Jenna was slowly beginning to pull herself together again. ”If only the world were like that. If only…well…if only we didn’t feel the need to understand. And if only we weren’t willing to…to simplify things and, well, butcher their complexit, really…simply to understand them. I feel like the world would…”

The tears were coming again. Trying to dispel the panic rising within her, Jenna pulled out her phone and flicked it on, though the time on the display barely registered in her mind. ”I suppose I should go soon. I…I’m sure you want to see the rest of the club for your...review...” She wiped her eyes again, wondering what this woman could possibly be thinking of her now. The great Jenna Gray, crying on a New York City rooftop over a little poem and some buildings.

OOC: Holy shit novel post I'm so sorry

walt whitman poem here

["ELLE" FAIRCHILD]

There was so much more to this woman than Elle had ever originally anticipated. The way she spoke and moved and the subjects about which she chose to speak, they were all so... unlike the impression Elle had expected to receive. Of course, she had learned long ago that first impressions were not always the best judge of character -- from her father, who had supported the idea more than Elle ever had.

Either way, Jenna was... mysterious.

Especially with the Walt Whitman.

She seemed to perk up immediately, grinning. "I love Walt Whitman. And Allen Ginsburg. Is it Allen? Ginsburg. You know who I mean." She shrugged. "Either way, there's a great legitimacy in that... understanding goes beyond mathematical calculation. I'm a seeker of knowledge and comprehension, so learning the breadth as well as the depth was a skill I had to learn long ago." And now she was talking about herself. Great.

"Either way, the stars certainly are beautiful..."

She smiled and just tilted her head back for a moment, admiring.

A bitter laugh escaped her at Jenna's words on waiting. "I'm a bit of a cynic by nature," she noted. "I tend to assume the worst... no matter how prepared I am for a situation, I try not to get my hopes up. That way, there's no risk of disappointment, only pleasant surprise or grim acceptance. I mean, I don't... really think I'm good enough to get by on my writing. It's nice to think about, though." Elle sighed softly, shrugged, continued.

The informal address was a bit startling, unexpected from a businesswoman, but that wasn't a bad thing, necessarily. That Jenna was getting comfortable with her was nice. Somehow.

Anyway, she liked the way that she talked, the way she took things. Had anyone ever told Jenna how clever she was?

"That's... Yeah, I know what you mean. I mean, understanding something is important, though. Maybe that's just me. I don't like unsolved mysteries." She laughed nervously again for a moment, as if fearing judgment. Then, at the comparison, she couldn't help but blush.

"Me? What do you mean by that?" she asked, the laugh that escaped her being more nervous than humorous. "I'm not anything special. I'm just me. Plain old Elle. Just an observer in the city that never sleeps..." She shrugged her shoulders, leaned over the railing, gazed down at the streets below. ""Really..."

She glanced up at Jenna, eyes faintly twinkling. "Besides, I look at you head-on and God knows what I see, but there's something elegant about that..."

The tears were curious. Tears. Crying. Jenna. Businesswoman. Why? Because of her? A memory? What?

Elle couldn't figure it out.

"Don't...you don't need to apologize," she said in a soft voice. "It's...it's all okay."

[JENNA GRAY]

Jenna stared out at the lights of the city and the streetlamps and the headlights a dizzying drop below, through the blurry foam of tears that swathed her eyes. It made the colors blur together, like those of a watercolor painting in the rain, and even as she tried to calm herself into breathing and watching and thinking the way she normally did around sophisticated company, she could think of nothing but how the tears actually made the urban world around her look that much more beautiful.

"I love Walt Whitman. And Allen Ginsburg. Is it Allen? Ginsburg. You know who I mean." She shrugged. "Either way, there's a great legitimacy in that... understanding goes beyond mathematical calculation. I'm a seeker of knowledge and comprehension, so learning the breadth as well as the depth was a skill I had to learn long ago."

”Beat poet? Allen…Ginsberg, yes.” She tried not to gasp between her words, not to blur them together as she focused on stemming the flow of tears. None of the aforementioned ventures were successful. She hadn’t read much Allen Ginsberg during her brief excursion with college, but there was one line she’d heard once, when she’d tuned in her radio to a station that was commemorating the Beat Generation, in an apartment smaller than the walk-in closet in her guest room now, with peeling walls and a cracked window that only the tall, pale man in the leather coat who smelled like cigarettes and car oil who came in more nights than she could bear was strong enough to open. It was that line that had hung in her head as she’d clambered through her life. He’d been talking about teenagers, she remembered, and he’d said, “Who loned it through the streets of Idaho seeking visionary indian angels who were visionary indian angels, who thought they were only mad when Baltimore gleamed in supernatural ecstasy, who jumped in limousines with the Chinaman of Oklahoma on the impulse of winter midnight streetlight smalltown rain.” She whispered the words to herself, as she had many times before, letting them sink into the silence around her. ”It’s the people who think they understand,” she said quietly, limousines and visionary Indian angels racing in circles through her head, ”who seem to know the least. I think…there’s a genius in admitting that you don’t know. Because, well, then you can question. And questioning is…what drives things.”

”But the stars really are…beautiful, aren’t they?” She smiled weakly.

"I'm a bit of a cynic by nature," she noted. "I tend to assume the worst... no matter how prepared I am for a situation, I try not to get my hopes up. That way, there's no risk of disappointment, only pleasant surprise or grim acceptance. I mean, I don't... really think I'm good enough to get by on my writing. It's nice to think about, though."

Elle had no idea how close to home that sentence was. ”And you should never stop thinking about it,” she finished. ”Because…as long as you remember a dream exists, there’s always a chance.” She smiled back at Elle. ”I mean, look at me. There was a time in my life when I had resigned myself to accepting…what I had. But there was just that night, every so often, when I’d glance out at the city, and think that maybe I could be…something more, someday. And look,” she gestured to her sequined dress, ”here we are. It’s a one in a million shot, but,” She shrugged. ”Lots of millions in this world. And who knows who those ones are going to be?”

"Besides, I look at you head-on and God knows what I see, but there's something elegant about that..."

Jenna wasn’t sure how to tell her that she’d felt exactly the same way the first time she’d seen this woman, in her office just a few hours ago. There was something…something she wanted to know. Something she felt like she belonged to. ”I…thank you,” she responded, smiling modestly.