ARSÈNE
“It’s not safe,” I clip out through clenched jaws. This may very well be the understatement of the century. Winnie and I are standing on the top of the roof of the Corbin mansion. The very same one I sold to Archie Caldwell as a consolation prize for not getting Calypso Hall. I’m glad to get rid of this concrete box of bad memories. Bonus points: the juju in this place is so bad it’s not even like I’m doing him a favor.
“Humor me!” Winnie steadies herself on the edge of the rooftop, stretching her arms horizontally.
“It’s a little hard when every bone in my body tells me to pounce on you and yank you back to safety,” I murmur bitterly. “Just get down from there. We can still make it to the six o’clock show if we leave now.”
“I don’t want to go to the movies.” Winnie makes an adorable face. The one that disarms me to submission. “I want to play a game of tightrope one last time before you evacuate this place. For old times’ sake.”
“The old times sucked,” I remind her.
“Well, let’s make one great memory here before we leave.”
I see what she is trying to do, and I appreciate it, I do, but if she hurts herself, I will goddamn lose it.
“Are you timing me?” Winnie whips her head around, watching to see if I’m taking the time. The woman is nuts. Fortunately, she is my nutcase.
I’m contemplating my next move when an idea pops into my head.
“I’ll time you. But I want to go first.”
She tsks. “Ladies first.”
I look around myself. “No ladies I can see from here. Let’s set the rules: if you win, if you finish before me, I’ll give you whatever you want.”
She hesitates, then relents. “Fine.”
She makes her way across the ledge and props herself against the chimney, then pops her phone out of her pocket. “Ready? I’m timing you.”
Placing myself at the center of the edge, I swing my arms in the air, stare ahead, and take a breath. “Ready when you are.”
“Go.”
I take a lazy step forward. Then, after a few seconds, another one. I’m going to finish walking this tightrope in ten minutes if I can, just to make sure she doesn’t rush it. This one, I can’t afford to lose.
“Are you kidding me right now?” Winnie laughs behind my back, delighted. “I thought you said you guys were competitive! You’re moving at a turtle’s pace.”
“Time is relative, Bumpkin.”
“Don’t Bumpkin me! Are you deliberately being slow?”
“Is that how you know me?” I bark out. “I never play to lose.”
“Hmm,” is all she says, when I’m not even a quarter through my journey to the other chimney. She will have a lifetime to cross her way to safety. A whole goddamn hour, if that’s what she needs.
Because there is one thing Winnifred doesn’t know about me. Doesn’t need to know.
And that is that I will always let her win.
The End