storyshell

One day, the elevator paused between floors, and it was just myself and this black-haired, small lady on the phone. She smelled like a half dozen roses. She was talking about some deal she had just sat in on, and, likely, said the right thing to grease the deal. Her boss, Linda, who, according to the lady, normally tries to control everything, raised an eyebrow when she’d made her brilliant comment, and bit her bottom lip. That was a good sign, she said. That’s when the elevator stopped, between floors 50 and 51.

She looked at me, and then she said to her invisible buddy “Wait a minute, I think something’s wrong.”

“The elevator stopped,” I said.

“Stopped?” she said.

“Yep,” I said.

“I’ll call you back,” she told her friend.

She hung up.

We looked at the numbers above the elevator doors. She wrapped her arms around herself.

We were quiet for a moment. I could hear her foot tapping. I had to kill the silence. I do not silence between two people standing so close. It’s as if we were trying to ignore each other.

“I have a friend who builds elevators,” I told her. “In cases like this, you have to stimulate it. You going to the bottom floor too?”

She looked at the numbers, then back at me.

“Yes,” she said.

I punched 1.

“Let’s see what happens,” I said.

“So, what did you say to seal the deal?” I said.

She frowned, then looked at her phone.

“You told your friend that you said something really cool. It sounded like you rocked the building,” I said.

She swallowed. “Um. I said that bicycles supplant, on average, five SUV’s a day. I was helping to get a client. A bike merchant.”

I nodded. “Nice.”

“You were listening?” she said.

“I couldn’t help it,” I said.

She put her phone in her purse.

“So,” I said, “are you in marketing?”

She nodded. “Yeah. The elevator isn’t moving.”

I punched 1 a few more times.

“Nope. Maybe in a few more minutes,” I said. “So, that was quite a line. Is it true?”

She frowned again. “Yes. Pretty true.”

“Do you ride a bike?” I said.

She flattened her lips and looked at her watch. “I live way out. I can’t ride every day. Weekends, with my husband. I ride with my husband,” she said.

“You cancel out about ten SUV’s a week then,” I said, smiling.

She nodded and looked at the floor buttons. “Yeah,” she said.

“Do you take the bus?” I said.

She shook her head. “I live way out. No buses come on time for me. I’ve got to get home to fix dinner. I hope this thing gets going soon.”

“Well,” I said, “if you climb down the shaft, you supplant one elevator, maybe four, if the others aren’t working too.”

She gave a smile that looked like a spasm.

I punched the 1 button a few more times. “I actually have a jet pack that I use to get to work,” I said. “It’s broken now. So, I have to run home, flapping my arms.”

She gave that spasmic smile again.

The elevator lurched then, and started to descend.

I could hear air escaping her.

“There it goes,” I said.

We stared at the numbers counting down above the elevator doors.

Her phone rang at about the 10th floor. The tone was the same sound that a pot of boiling water makes.

She didn’t answer.