The Elevator

He noticed her smile first.

Everyone else who rode to the 109th floor resembled the panes of clear, elevator glass: aloof and bulletproof. She, however, was a glowing orb, crackling with energy in her lavender dress. He could burst into flames standing too close.

She hummed a slow and soulful tune most days while the others stayed silent. He thought of asking what it was. But no. She had no reason to notice him, a lowly elevator attendant. That was best.

Sometimes, she slipped through the lobby elevator doors right as they were closing, green eyes wide, hair flying, whirling dress almost catching between the doors as the yells of angry protestors echoed behind her. She always looked up at him, a wordless laugh escaping as though the two of them shared a secret joke. He wished things were different.

Questions about the top floor were forbidden. He needed this particular job for the family, so he kept quiet. But every day that she slipped through the doors at the 109th floor with its scanners and intense security, he wanted to ask her how she spent her time.

The head of the top floor could have been anyone. They all wore dark suits and misery. She slipped in and out like any of the other secretaries, pastel purpose in a dreary landscape. He wondered sometimes if she was like him, a quiet soul creating a new world. How did she survive the brutality upstairs and the constant din of rebellion below?

For months, he endured the unanswered questions. Then one day, he arrived at the 109th floor earlier than usual, the elevator doors blinking open silently as planned. No one noticed him.

She was at the front desk, keeping busy with a slight smile on her red lips. One of the dark suits gave her a slight bow. “Mademoiselle.”

His heart caught.

“Make sure they have those protestors cleared by 6:30.” Her voice was a bullet. “Don’t make me repeat myself.”

“Of course, Mademoiselle.”

She slipped off a bracelet loaded with keys into a drawer, an elegant flash of silver and bare skin. Papers were passed to suits and secretaries. He averted his gaze. The elevator dinged, as though only just arriving.

He ferried all of them down, shutting the door before she could slip through the gap. When he returned to fetch her, she gave him that look of breathless excitement, as though she’d been waiting for him. He felt his heart thud against the key and the 3-d printed gun in his breast pocket. His courage nearly bled out of him. The family was waiting.

She noticed his hands first.

Limp handed suits accompanied her everywhere. Secretaries took her orders dressed in delicate pastel. Her world was everything that was soft and refined and cruel, silk shrouding verbal swords. Calluses were non-existent.

But his hands were strong, lined by life. She glanced through his file more than once that first week. She had it memorized within two days: the blue collar jobs, the military service, the degree from a forgettable university.

The hint of a tattoo poked out of his suit collar. While her suits and secretaries argued over company presentations and the latest downstairs protests, she doodled what she imagined the rest of it looked like. One day it was a snake wrapped around an anchor (a nod to his naval career). Another day it was a gun sprouting flowers (he seemed the sort to garden). At the end of the month, (while she listened to a boring talk on the possibility of terrorism), it was a cat.

Sometimes she waited until everyone else had left before getting on the elevator. The suits advised against this, saying it would tip off protestors to her identity. Other CEOs leave first, she assured them. This is good cover.

She could stand alone in the elevator and look at his shoulders. Could they hold the weight of everything she never found the words to say?

Maybe it was the twenty-fifth day of protestors throwing rotten fruit at her. Maybe it was when the suits told her the truth about the fudged numbers and the realities of the warehouses. Maybe it was when she imagined him going home to an ordinary life.

Whenever it was, she wanted out.

Escape planning took two days. At the end of the second, as she sent everyone home, pulled out her resignation letter, slipped that annoying set of keys off her wrist for the last time, and waited for the elevator.

She’d seen him look at her. It would be no trouble at all to get him to take her secretly from this building. She hummed as they descended, the crowds dispersing below them exactly as she had planned.

In a flash of silver and tattooed skin, the elevator stopped at floor 76., the abandoned floor. She looked up, surprised.

“You are coming with me, Mademoiselle.” His voice was calm, even soothing. “My family has some questions for you.”

The elevator shut behind them.