Waiting for the elevator is like playing musical chairs. I chose one and camped out near it, which is in fact illegal in musical chairs, hoping that the music would stop, and my lift would carry me to my job, late as usual. She happened to be waiting at the same doors I was. We were the only two in the lobby; that’s what happens when you show up to work forty-five minutes late. We guessed wrong and turned around to face the elevator behind us. The first thing I noticed was that she was courteous.
My family members have always been sticklers about unspoken social norms. On the moving walk-way at the airport you stood to the right so that others could pass you on the left. At restaurants we would all bunch up in the vestibule like sardines making sure that the outer doors were closed before entering the interior doors so as to not let in a draft. At elevators we stood to the sides so those getting off could walk out unhindered and without having to participate in the do-si-do of the elevator exit square dance. This woman waited, as social norms dictate, to the side and entered the elevator once it had emptied. I quickly followed after her.
She pushed the button for the 26th floor-- one floor below my own. Push, however, is such a harsh word. It implies that she forcefully gouged the button making the harsh sound of sculpted fingernails against plastic. She did not push the button. She caressed the button. Her middle and index fingers pressed softly until her fingers seemed to be spouting the light shining from the button. She had long and slender hands; un-calloused but capable of great control. The hand that touched the button was free and her other hand clutched a portfolio tightly.
The elevator’s floor was tiled in black granite with mirrors surrounding the occupants on all sides. The reflections in the mirrors went on for eternity. The ones in front of me were the future, my posterity I suppose, and the reflections behind my ancestors. All of my relations, both future and past, had gathered and placed myself and this woman, with all of her family, in a brief space of eternity. I stared at her vividly, but not at the physical being that stood three feet from me. I stared at the second reflection in the mirror. If I were to get busted staring at her, the object, I would be considered rude. If I were caught staring at the first reflection of her I would just be considered creepy. So, I stared at the reflection that represented her granddaughter, where I was safe from being caught.
She was wearing a grey skirt suit that came just past the knee; very professional yet very modern. She wore a white button-up blouse that had a modest neckline; the kind that you had to be rather daring and creative to get a glimpse of her cleavage. Both the suit and the blouse were perfectly pressed. The suit was so free from wrinkles that I determined two things, first that she rode the bus. Traffic in the city did not allow a well-made suit like hers to go unwrinkled in a car. I determined she had been standing on the bus, towards the back where people didn’t have to shuffle past her. I envisioned many young men giving up their seats to let this grey-suited beauty sit down and her graciously declining with the hint of a smile.
Secondly, I determined the suit was new. Having worn a suit and shirt everyday for four years, I knew the ins and outs of ironing and dry-cleaning. No matter how good your cleaner is, the perfect creases down the sleeves fade, the little strings of a future fray protrude from the cuffs or the bottom of the jacket in the same way that middle-age wear creeps up. But hers was immaculate. This was the suit’s maiden voyage.
Unlike the suit, the portfolio had made the rounds. It had scratches and nicks the same way a baseball glove does. Years of travel to coffee shops and libraries had faded the black leather, and the oils of her hands had made it soft and smooth. Inside her portfolio she surely had a masterpiece to present to her interviewer, some sort of architectural drawing equivalent to Chartes Cathedral or Wright’s Falling Water house, something that would change the destinies’ of her generations in the mirror in front of her. Whatever her portfolio contained, it had to be ambitious. Not just anyone waltzed into Ferris, Ferris, and Adams on the 26th floor with a portfolio.
After a thorough search of her person in the second reflection, I determined that the only hint of individuality radiating from her were her shoes. She wore black sling-back heels that invited the viewer to ogle at her perfectly formed calves, obviously the result of extensive yoga and/or kick boxing. The shoes were bold, drawing attention away from her slim hour glass shape to her legs and feet, as if to say, “Yes Mr. Ferris, I am the full package” which she most certainly was.
Pulling away from my reverie I looked at my own shape in the mirror, as if to size up my odds of successfully sitting with this goddess at a coffee shop discussing how her interview went. The odds were against me. I had stopped caring about my job immediately after it had been offered, and as a result, I had started showing up to work more disheveled and tardy with each passing year. I was wearing a brown suit I had picked up at a second-hand shop. It fit me well but it screamed 1970’s complete with flared trousers and suit-coat sleeves. My shirt was no improvement. It was the same white shirt I wore to my interview, now, with the passage of time, dingy off-white like a wedding dress of an overly aggressive bride. My tie was wide with a paisley pattern of brown and green - I bought it in conjunction with the suit; unfortunately the tie had suffered a maple syrup attack at breakfast the day before. I wore the tie loosely and askew around my shirt collar with the top button left open to imply that I was better than the job, which I most certainly was not.
Realizing there was nothing I could do to improve my appearance, or the appearance of my progenitors for that matter, I attempted to stand up a little taller as the elevator crept towards its destination. I turned my attention back to the reflection of the gray-suited beauty. Gathering data is the most important part of striking up a conversation with a stranger so I went back to the little details that were so enthralling. She was nervous. Her free hand hung limply at her side, but her other clutched the portfolio white-knuckled and her fingers drummed quietly against the faded black leather. Her soft brown eyes looked distantly into eternity contemplating the much rehearsed interview she was about to enter.
After a small sigh of nervousness, possibly due to the “fine specimen of a man” she shared an elevator car with, she flipped her hair. A faint hint of jasmine wafted from the chestnut brown hair as it fell back into place over her shoulder. But, more tantalizing than her sweet aroma, was the almost imperceptible tattoo I glimpsed on the back of her neck. Right at her hairline she had three very small asterisk looking marks. They were not gaudy as many tattoos are, or at least many of the tattoos of the skeezes I had dated; rather, they were simple and revealing. Beneath the beauty and the hours working on her drawings, this woman had a hint of rebellion, enough to make her irresistible. I knew then that she was the most magnificent creature I had seen.
She was the embodiment of everything I wanted to be. She stuck it to the man but with confidence and brilliance rather than tardiness and sloppiness. She was passionate about her art, fierce and unyielding, but also delicate as a flower petal. Despite my attire and general lack of color coordination, I knew if we just spoke the reflections in front of us would be forever merged, never to part, and the reflections behind us would applaud our union. She was the type of woman I could proudly take home to my family. Not only would they be proud that I had acquired a siren, but she would be the type of girl that followed the social norms so vital to my way of life. She would put her napkin on her lap, give cars enough room at red lights so they could squeeze by to turn right, and she would not read over other peoples’ shoulders on the subway. She was the one. The eternities had lined us up to be together forever.
I thought of how I could begin a conversation, possible routes the conversation would take, and how I would eventually mold it into a coffee date proposal. But, before I could mold the words, the bell in the elevator dinged signaling her departure. In my observations I had failed to notice what floor we were on. In a panic I stuttered, “I-I love you.” To which she responded, “Excuse me?” but it was not the, are you talking to me? excuse me, or the I didn’t hear you excuse me. It was the you can’t be serious you pathetic wastoid excuse me. Before I could say another word, the doors shut cutting me off from my future and the elevator lifted me through the loneliness of eternity.
