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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

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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.