The Road to Canada by Kate Christie

Author:Kate Christie [Christie, Kate]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780463972250
Amazon: B07NY8NSPJ
Barnesnoble: B07NY8NSPJ
Goodreads: 44017124
Publisher: Kate Christie
Published: 2019-02-21T03:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eight

“No way am I getting in there,” Angie said, backing away from the tram door.

“Oh, come on.” Maddie grabbed her hand and tugged her forward. “It’s your size, Ange!”

Jamie exchanged a look with Emma, who shrugged in what Jamie read as resignation.

“After you,” Emma said, waving toward the absurdly small elevator car.

“Let’s do it,” Jamie said, and ducked to enter the car.

The doors were only four feet high, according to Emma’s guide book, and the seats inside each tiny elevator car—or “tram” as it was officially called—were also on the small side. They hadn’t been settled long when the door slammed shut automatically and the tram began to climb. Jamie held her breath, expecting the swoop and whoosh of the Empire State Building or Seattle’s Columbia Tower, but it never came. Then she remembered that the guide book had said the cars only moved at 3.7 mph. Doh—that was just cruel. Way to prolong someone’s fear of heights.

And by someone, of course, she meant Emma.

“You okay?” she asked her girlfriend softly, rubbing a thumb over her wrist.

“Yep,” Emma said, lips tight as she gazed at the concrete walls and metal spikes slipping past the tram’s lone window.

Jamie had expected to see St. Louis as they climbed—seriously, why else would there be a window in an elevator?—but the view before them was decidedly interior. Only after they’d arrived at the top (indicated by a sign that read, “You’ve reached the top!”), abandoned their tiny elevator, and maneuvered up a narrow stairway did they finally reach a series of small, rectangular windows that offered a proscribed view of the world below.

After one look at the distant ground, Emma seemed content to share facts from the book while the rest of their group gazed out on the mighty Mississippi River, the city of St. Louis, and the surrounding countryside.

“The Gateway Arch is the world’s tallest arch and the tallest man-made monument in the Western Hemisphere,” Emma read, her eyes fixed on the book. “It stands 630 feet tall—”

“Wait,” Maddie said, glancing between the view and Emma. “How can this be the tallest building? The Sears Tower in Chicago is twice as tall.”

“Not the tallest building,” Emma corrected her. “The tallest monument.”

At that moment, the Arch seemed to sway, and Angie grabbed Maddie’s hand. Emma looked slightly green too, so Jamie edged closer, hoping to provide reassurance without setting off her girlfriend’s sensitive PDA alarm.

“It says here,” Emma added, her voice surprisingly steady, “that the Arch was designed to sway up to eighteen inches in either direction in order to withstand earthquakes and winds in excess of a hundred and fifty miles per hour.”

Angie ran a hand over her carefully coiffed hair. “Good to know.”

Maddie flashed a smile at Emma. “Always pays to bring the nerd squad along.”

“You know it,” Emma said.

Jamie was impressed with how unafraid she appeared, especially since she knew that Emma disliked heights as much as Angie did. The Arch had not been high on Emma’s list of local attractions (ahem), but she’d agreed to go when the coaches gave them the afternoon off.

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