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  “Sounds good to me, we were just about to call you guys about lunch,” Ben said, and turned around to Stella. “Does that sound good to you, sexy?”

  “Sure. Just give me a few minutes to get ready,” she said, pushing herself up from the bed.

  “Alright then, just give Ivy a call when you guys are ready,” Lee said, returning to his room.

  “What did they say?” Ivy asked as she came out of the bathroom.

  “They’re going to come, they just need a few minutes to get ready,” Lee said, sitting on the bed next to Ivy and pulling out his laptop. He felt like trying out some local pizza, so he searched for restaurants in their vicinity with decent ratings. After a few minutes he found a place called Pizza Suprema that was only a few blocks away.

  “I found a decent-looking pizza place that I want to try for lunch, does that sound good?” he asked Ivy, pushing the computer over to her so she could see it.

  “That seems okay, we can see what everyone is talking about with the whole New York pizza thing,” she said, studying the website.

  There was a knock on the door. “Looks like they’re ready,” Lee said. Stella and Ben were on board with the restaurant choice, Ben saying “It’s about time. I’ve been craving pizza for days now.”

  The foot traffic outside of the train station across the street from the hotel was awful on the short walk to the pizzeria, but they managed to squeeze their way through it. The restaurant was right across from Madison Square Garden, and they gawked at the famous arena for a moment before opening the pizzeria’s door.

  As soon as they were inside, the delicious smell of melted cheese and baking toppings tantalized their senses, prompting Lee’s stomach to give an angry grumble. As they looked at the menus, Ben pulled out his wallet, but Lee waved at him to put it away, saying “I’ve got this for now, we can just get a whole pie. You can get lunch tomorrow.”

  “Sounds good buddy, what are you going to get?” Ben asked, slipping his wallet back into his pocket.

  “I don’t know, what does everyone want?”

  “The vegetarian and the cheese with basil look good to me,” Ivy said.

  “Ugh, I don’t like basil, let’s go with the vegetarian,” Stella said.

  “Fine,” Ivy agreed.

  “So half vegetarian and half… is supreme good for you, Ben?” Lee said

  “Sounds great,” Ben said.

  “Alright, I’ll stay here and order the food and some pop, you guys go grab that booth in the back before someone else does,” Lee said, pointing at a free booth in the rear of the restaurant.

  As they walked away, Lee placed the pizza order with a large Italian man who looked exactly like Lee had always dreamed a New York pizzeria owner would. He followed up the order with a couple of pitchers of pop and brought the drinks to the table for them to sip on while they waited for their order.

  The pizza arrived at their table extremely quickly, brought by one of the workers. Absolutely starving from the aromas wafting about by then, they promptly went to work on it.

  “Well I’m going to say it, this is the best pizza I’ve ever had,” Ben said as he finished his first slice and reached for another.

  “It’s up there for me too,” Lee agreed.

  “It really is good,” Ivy nodded as she chewed.

  “It’s decent,” Stella mused, “but not quite as good as the Veggie Nirvana at Hotlips back in Portland, right Ivy?”

  “Not quite, but it’s close,” Ivy said.

  They easily finished the entire pizza. Ben even ate the slice of vegetarian that the women couldn’t finish. They went to leave, Ben sincerely thanking the man in charge on the way out and promising “I’ll be back at least every other day for the rest of the time I’m in town.” The man laughed and wished them a good day. The experience made up for all of the awfulness that Lee had seen on the walk back from Times Square.

  After looking up the launch for the ferry and finding that it wasn’t anywhere within walking distance, they flagged down a cab and Lee awkwardly told the driver to take them to “The place where the ferry takes people out to the Statue of Liberty.” The driver chuckled, turned the meter on and got on the road, probably knowing what Lee meant better than Lee did. Lee would have bet that the driver got something similar every day from tourists. Towards the end of the drive, while they were stuck in gridlock, the cabbie pointed up ahead and said “There’s the new Trade Center, if you guys haven’t seen it already.”

  They craned their heads up and saw the majestic new tower reaching for the sky, as if in triumph. The sight took Lee’s breath away, and made him start to choke up. He had been a senior in high school when the attacks had occurred, and the memory of that dark day stuck with him vividly.

  Even back home in Seattle, nearly as far away from the attacks as one could get while staying in the contiguous states, he had felt the enormity of the situation. The fear. The chaos. The people jumping out of the burning tower, seemingly suspended for a moment in the air as if angels, only to plummet to the earth below, shattering like porcelain dolls.

  Staring up at the nearly complete tower, Lee felt like he was in the presence of a profoundly powerful force, not only in his own life but in the entire nation’s. From the silence and the looks of awed reverence that had come over Ivy, Stella, and Ben, they felt it too.

  They were still silent and somber when the cabbie drove up as close as he could get to the ferry dock and dropped them off. When he paid the driver, Lee pushed the button on the card scanner to add a 30% tip instead of the usual twenty. The driver thanked him and wished them a great visit before driving off.

  “Man, that’s some powerful shit,” Ben said, still staring at the new World Trade Center as they stood where the cab had dropped them off.

  “It really is,” Lee said, looking back up at the tower as well.

  “It’s making me really sad. Can we just go get our ferry tickets already?” Stella asked, seeming genuinely upset, her eyes misting.

  “Come on Stella, it’s a huge part of our history,” Ivy said.

  “It’s fine,” Lee said. “Let’s go get the tickets.”

  They had to wait for the ferry, but not for long. It pulled up after ten minutes and they were boarded another ten minutes later, after all of the passengers coming back from the statue had disembarked. Once the vessel was loaded up they were off and cruising towards the Statue of Liberty.

  Lee started to have the strange, distant feeling that something was wrong, and started to panic slightly. From his seat next to Ivy and the others, he started looking around manically for the demon. He realized that he was getting a few odd looks from the other tourists, and he tried as best he could to stop. Jesus, and you were doing so well for a while there, he thought.

  “Are you feeling alright?” Ivy whispered to him. “You look nervous.”

  “I’m fine, just excited about the statue,” he lied.

  The ride to Liberty Island was extremely short; a few minutes after that the ferry was dropping them off at a dock at the statue’s base. They filed out of the ship with the rest of the crowd and made their way to the statue by a walkway that went from the dock to the statue’s entrance at the pedestal.

  They bought tickets to go up to the crown. They waited in line for a while, and then were ushered up. It was a long and arduous walk up a long, narrow, spiral staircase to get there, with a clearing so low that Lee only had two inches between his head and the ceiling. It was an extremely claustrophobic ascent.

  When they got to the top it was even worse. The statue’s head was surprisingly small, nothing like he’d imagined it would be. Between the guide and the other half-dozen people in Lee’s group, there was no room to move around. Only three or four people at a time could go up and look out of the windows that comprised Liberty’s crown, so they let the other tourists go first and the four of them went up to look out the windows last.

  “Wow, it’s beautiful! You can see so much of Manhattan!” Ivy said, gapi
ng in awe at the sight.

  Lee was confused. He could see the city, but it was no longer daytime. Studying closer, he saw the buildings didn’t look the same anymore either. They were unnaturally shaped and pointing in strange directions, none of them straight up. Several of them appeared to be on fire. The World Trade Center had been replaced by a massive blood-red obelisk that Lee could barely make out in the darkness. It’s Pandemonium, the demon’s hometown, he thought, and then wondered where the hell the thought had come to him from.

  “It’s… really cool,” Lee said, turning away from the nauseating view.

  “You really get a sense of how big the new trade center is from this far away,” Ben said.

  Lee backed away from the viewing area and walked back down to wait at the top of the stairs; thankfully the others were too distracted to notice him leave. A middle-aged woman took his place on the viewing platform.

  When the woman walked up next to her, Ivy noticed that Lee was gone, and she moved to stand with him. “Didn’t think the view was that exciting?” she asked.

  “No, it was. I’m just feeling a little sick. I think it’s the heat in here,” Lee said.

  “You do look overheated. I read a sign in the stairway that said it can get twenty degrees hotter in here than it is outside,” Ivy said. She fished in her purse pulled out a water bottle. “Take this,” she said, and handed the bottle to him.

  He took a long drink off of the water. “Thanks, I needed that.”

  “I bet. Do you do you need to head back to the hotel?”

  “No, I’m sure I’ll feel better soon.”

  “Alright everybody, time to head back down so that another group can get a chance to see the view,” the guide announced. Ben and Stella rejoined Lee and Ivy, and together with the rest of the group they shuffled back down the steps. The walk down was still awkward in the confined space, but was much easier than the ascent had been.

  When they reached the bottom, they explored the pedestal more closely. They found the statue’s original torch, a small museum about the history of the statue, and a souvenir shop. They lingered for a while to check out the torch and the museum, but avoided the souvenir shop. They didn’t need any tacky tourist New York shirts that would set them apart even more obviously as tourists, back in Manhattan.

  “Why exactly did they replace the torch again? I think I like this one better,” Ben said as they stood around the original.

  “I have no clue, I think I like it better too,” Lee agreed, and the girls nodded.

  “Oh, it says why they replaced it right on this plaque. I feel stupid now,” Ben said, pointing to a plaque by the torch. “It wasn’t bright enough to act as a proper lighthouse, and defects allowed water to get into the statue through it, it says.”

  “Well that makes sense, I really like the style of this one better though,” Lee said. It had an art deco feel to it.

  “Yeah, too bad they couldn’t figure out a way to fix it,” Ivy said.

  “Guys, I like the torch too but can we get going? I’m starting to get bored,” Stella said, yawning for effect.

  “Sounds good to me,” Ben said, turning away from the torch.

  “Yeah, I think we’ve about wrapped it up here,” Lee agreed..

  They made their way through the crowd of tourists back to the ferry dock. “Aw crap,” Lee said when they he looked at the schedule. “We just missed the last ferry by a few minutes. We’re going to have to wait half an hour for the next one.”

  “That works out, I want to try out those pay binoculars to check out the city,” Ben said, pointing to a line of them just off the dock.

  “Oh, I want a go too!” Stella said.

  Lee remembered when he’d seen the demon using the pay binoculars back at Mount Rushmore. “I’ll wait here,” he said.

  “Do you care if I go check it out with them really quick?” Ivy asked, squeezing his hand.

  “I don’t mind. I just want to rest for a bit, don’t let me hold you up,” Lee said, giving her a smile.

  They hurried off to the binoculars while Lee snagged a spot on a bench just as a man was vacating it. As he sat on the bench, wave after wave of nausea and vertigo suddenly started to hit him. Gasping, he grabbed onto the bench to steady himself, concentrating all of his effort on not vomiting. It was like he was on an invisible nightmare of a roller coaster, one with no speed limits or safety regulations.

  Unable to control it any longer, he staggered over to a nearby garbage can, just in time to spew out what was left of the pizza he’d eaten for lunch, holding on to the sides of the can to steady his aim. As he stood spitting out the last of the vomit, a man around Lee’s age walked by and said “Yeah, that 4am last call is awesome, but the hangovers really suck.” Lee laughed despite himself, and then threw up again.

  With the last of the vomit out of him, the nausea and vertigo disappeared as suddenly as it had come. He knew he looked a mess. Luckily, he had some tissues from the hotel stowed away in one of his pockets. He pulled them out and wiped off his face as best he could, throwing the dirty tissues into the garbage can.

  “Are you okay? Ben saw you puking, I came over as soon as he pointed it out,” Ivy said, walking up to him.

  “I’m feeling better now, I guess the pizza just wasn’t sitting right,” Lee said.

  “Hey now, don’t blame the pizza. There is no way something that good could make you sick,” Ben said, showing up behind Ivy with his arm around Stella. “I mean, if you said something about Stella it would be one thing, but I cannot allow you to insult my beloved pizza.”

  “Shut up, jerk!” Stella said. She laughed and playfully slapped Ben in the shoulder.

  “Here comes the ferry,” Ivy said, pointing at it in the distance. “You ready to get some rest back at the hotel, Lee?”

  “No, I’m fine, really. Let’s figure out some more cool touristy stuff to do.”

  “There’s the Empire State Building. I’m pretty sure it’s the tallest building here that you can go into until the trade center opens up,” Ben said.

  “I guess it sounds cool. Though I don’t see how it’s going to be a bigger deal than Sears Tower, or whatever the fuck it’s called now,” Lee said.

  “I think it’ll be pretty cool after seeing it a hundred times on movies and TV,” Ivy said.

  “I don’t want to see another building that much, but I’ll go if we can all party tonight,” Stella said. “I’m really loving the night life here. Last night Ben and I went to like, seven bars, and each one was cooler than the last.”

  “Each one was more expensive, more like. They really were pretty cool though,” Ben said.

  “Sounds like that’s the plan then: Empire State Building, dinner and then we hit the bars?” Lee said. They all agreed.

  16

  On the ferry ride back, Lee nodded off lightly, the drone of the boat’s engine relaxing him. Ivy sat at his side with her head resting on his shoulder, holding his hand. They barely said anything for the entire ride, but it felt like a fleeting perfect moment. As he sat there, half-asleep, he wished that it would last forever.

  Nothing does last forever though, and soon they were back on the docks where they’d started. They got off the boat, made a short walk to the road, and flagged down another cab.

  “Empire State building, please,” Lee told the young Latino driver when they were in.

  “Sure thing boss,” the driver said in an educated western accent, surprising Lee.

  Not being able to hear the others in the back, he chatted with the driver on the way, and found that the man was a former Seattleite who’d moved over a decade previously. The man was a wealth of information about the city, and by the time they got to the building, Lee knew exactly where to go to, as well as having some great tips for places to eat later.

  The lobby level of the building was like a mall, filled with popular stores, restaurants, banks and the like. Following the cabbie’s directions, he led the group to the line to buy observation deck
tickets.

  They bought tickets for both the lower and upper observation decks, and were corralled into the elevators. No one could see much of a reason to go to the lower deck first, so they went directly up to the top floor of the building, the 102nd floor.

  To everyone’s surprise, an older gentleman in an old-fashioned red uniform greeted them as the elevator doors opened. “Welcome to the tallest point in the city!” he said and gestured them onto the deck.

  The deck was surprisingly small. Luckily there were only a dozen other people there; Lee thought that with thirty or so people the place would be uncomfortably cramped.

  “Oh wow,” Ivy said when they looked out the windows at the city below them.

  “It’s an amazing view,” Lee said. He knew that they weren’t as high up as they had been in Sears Tower, but he couldn’t tell, from where he was standing.

  “Look, there’s Macy’s,” Stella said, as excited as Lee had ever heard her.

  “Jesus, you can see everything,” Ben said. He pointed, “Look, there’s a bunch of people lying on blankets in that park over there.”

  Sure enough Lee could see people sprawled out and relaxing in the park. “That’s cool, they’re so tiny looking,” he said. He pointed out over the water. “There’s the Statue of Liberty again.”

  “It looks so much smaller from here. I can’t believe we were just in it a little bit ago,” Ivy said.

  They enjoyed the view for another half an hour, and then got on the elevator to go down to the 86th floor, where the second observation deck was, figuring that they might as well check it out since it was included in their tickets. They found it was a much bigger deck, and though the view was from a lower level, the chain link mesh that covered the windows as opposed to the upper level’s glass made the view seem much more intimate.

  “I think that I actually like this deck better than that first one. It was like being in a terrarium up there,” Ivy said.