The Ledge (Short Story)

The Ledge

Annmarie Park had been compulsively rubbing the backs of her arms and feeling miserably cold when she saw him. It was an oppressive, humid day outside, but inside the McDonald’s Play Place, the air conditioning was blasting relentlessly, and she had been thinking how ridiculous it was that she should have brought a sweater with her, in July, to compensate for the frigid indoor weather. She found herself at a fast food play area because her two children had been acting out all morning—punching each other, spilling things, whining persistently. She had to get her six-year-old daughter and her three-year-old son out of the house and didn’t have the energy to force them to eat anything other than French fries and chicken nuggets. Here they would weave in and out of tunnels and go up and down the neon-colored slides and play with other little children of their same age. They would still punch each other, of course, but the noise of 10-15 other children would drown out their yelling. They would run in circles until exhausted, and, mercifully, they would fall asleep in the van on the ride home.

She had been listening to her children play and scream, more or less, while also reading the novel in her lap, when he walked from the main dining area into the play area with a toolbox. Annmarie could sense an adult presence, so she looked up from The Grapes of Wrath. He was wearing black all over—black pants, black work shoes, and a black collared work shirt with little golden arches embroidered onto the right front breast. His hair, also black, was considerably longer than Annmarie’s and was pulled into a ponytail at the base of his neck that extended to the middle of his back. He was Native, maybe, with skin the color of terra-cotta. And he was youngish, probably in his mid twenties, Annmarie surmised. He gave her a quick, closed-mouth smile, and then looked away. It was the kind of awkward smile strangers give to acknowledge each other when their eyes happen to meet. He walked over to the play structure, where he set his tools on a nearby table with a clank, and he began to examine the foam barriers that kept rowdy children from busting their faces on the frame of the structure while running and climbing like maniacs.

She looked back down at her book and tried to go back to reading. Her eyes were mechanically processing the words, and she had systematically scanned a full two pages before realizing that there was some disconnect between her eyes and her brain. She couldn’t remember anything that she had just read; something about the man in black had broken her concentration. She put the McDonald’s receipt in between the pages to mark her place, realizing too late the receipt had been greasy, and some of that grease had transferred to the pages of the library book. She winced, and put the book in her purse, then angled her chair slightly so that she could watch the man work. That was the direction she had to face to properly watch her children, after all, so he would not suspect.

He began to pull plastic zip ties, one by one, from the toolbox. As he did, the muscles in his forearms jumped to the surface of his skin. The muscles of his upper arm were so well defined that she could visually separate the deltoid from the biceps and the biceps from the triceps as if she were labeling an anatomy and physiology workbook. She began to feel uncomfortable, hot even, but couldn't stop watching him. He checked for areas where the foam padding had pulled loose from the enameled metal frame of the play structure, and he zip tied them down into place, clipping the excess plastic. Once he had secured everything that was in his wide reach, he began to climb outside of the structure to get to places he couldn’t while standing on the ground. Hanging from the frame by his arms, feet dangling off of the ground, his shirt lifted and Annmarie could see a glimpse of the small of his back. Her stomach seized, and she had to look away.

What is the matter with me? She glanced at the bubbly group of United Pentecostal women in skirts who she occasionally ran into at this particular McDonald’s. What if they saw through her? They, always smiling and absent-mindedly stroking their gleaming wedding rings, would gently reprove their children. “Tommy, now was that a good choice you just made? You’re right; no it wasn’t. Please make good choices, okay?” Annmarie was the type of mother who screamed at her children when she lost her cool. She looked down at her flip-flops and worn jean capris. She would never be like those mothers; goodness knows she had tried. Surely these women would never lust after the beautiful maintenance man at McDonald’s.

“My toy! I dropped my toy!” wailed a small freckled boy. Annmarie jerked out of her trance. The boy was at the top of the stairs, and his blue monster Happy Meal toy had bounced down the plastic steps and rolled to a stop on the rubber foam landing. She looked around, trying to find out who this boy belonged to, but all of the other moms were engrossed in conversation. She was the only mom who had come without a friend. The boy wouldn’t budge, and his crying increased in pitch, volume, and urgency. Annmarie stood up to retrieve the toy and return it to the boy, but she knocked her purse off the table, spilling the contents of her purse on the sticky tile floor: her iPhone, a few Pull-ups, berry-shaded lipstick, a silver compact, and her book. She bent to pick up her things and watched as the man in black let go of the frame and dropped to the ground with a thud. He picked up the toy and stretched his hand up and out in front of him, offering it to the boy.

“Here you go, buddy,” he smiled widely, which made Annemarie’s heart hurt. The boy grabbed the toy and immediately flipped the switch on his crying. He wiped the waterfall of snot from his nose with the back of his hand and crawled into a nearby tunnel with his toy.

The man turned and grinned at Annmarie, a slanted smile—as if to say, “Kids, huh?” She smiled back, then flushed and looked down. She removed the elastic band from her blonde hair and tilted her chin towards the floor, letting the hair fall around her face to cover her hot cheeks. She picked up her book once again and pretended to read.

The man returned to repairing the foam barriers. Occasionally he would look back briefly at Annmarie, smile, and go back to what he was doing. She stared down at the page, but instead of focusing on the plight of the Joad family, she imagined the man backing her against the wall of the play area behind the slide, pressing up against her and rubbing his lower lip across hers and sliding his strong fingers across her collarbone and over her shoulder and...

Gah! What the hell am I thinking? Annmarie felt panicky. As a sort of exorcism, she quickly thought about what life might be like with this maintenance man, permanently, probably living in a lower-end apartment complex or making frantic love in a trailer in a room covered in hideous wooden paneling. Where were her children in this fantasy? Nowhere. She probably had abandoned them with her long-suffering husband and signed away her custody rights, like the disgusting villainess that she was.

She looked around, checking to see if those around her had seen the episode played out on a thought bubble above her head. The man in black gave her the same alarmed-but-curious feeling that had gripped her when she and her family had visited the Grand Canyon just a few months earlier. She had stood at the very rim of the canyon, staring down into the vast expanse of pink and orange and brown, entertaining the thought of hurling herself over the edge. What would it feel like? What kind of rush would it be to have the sensation of falling thousands of feet, knowing that you would hit the ground in a glorious splat and your existence would be extinguished in a matter of seconds? It was a terrifying, beautiful thought. She had backed away from the edge before she acted on the impulse.

And she backed away now, calling for her children to come down and put their shoes on, before she introduced herself and flirted and slipped the man her phone number. She thought about her husband, dutifully writing code at his office, then coming home for dinner and reading to the children in Korean from the books his mother had sent from overseas. She thought of his thick, square, black glasses and cute goofy smile. Stability. Consistency. Dependability. And love, too.

Annmarie dragged her unwilling children out of the McDonald’s and across the parking lot. As she buckled the writhing kids into their seatbelts, she stole one last wistful glance at the man in black through the sunroom windows of the Play Place. She got into the driver’s seat of the van and turned the ignition.