Stuck with a Stranger

I clench my fists for a few seconds, letting go only when I hear someone’s honking behind me. 

Sorry, I mouth as I drive forward, doing another loop around the block. I quickly find a parking spot that isn’t too far away from the building, keeping a mental note that I am wearing stiletto heals instead of my worn-out sneakers (that have become my second skin). 

My mom had told me on the phone earlier in the day to wear something I normally wouldn’t wear. I didn’t know whether I should’ve been offended or not, considering that I happen to like my style. She was right, though. 

I wouldn’t wear a pencil skirt, blouse, and blazer on a regular day. Hell, I don’t even wear that to any of my formal gatherings. But I knew an opportunity like this only came once, and if I showed up in jeans and a T-shirt I would be devoured alive as soon as I stepped foot in the office. I had to look my best, which was the opposite of my actual self. 

I turned off the engine, letting go of the steering wheel as I rubbed my clammy hands back and forth against my skirt. I look at myself in the rearview mirror to make sure I hadn’t accidentally rubbed my eyes, smudging my mascara, or had any lipstick on my teeth.

Or food. 

Scratch that.

I’m too nervous to even attempt to pass down a bite of anything. I woke up in the morning with a throbbing headache, nauseous and unable to even have a sip of water. That usually happens a few hours before something important, it’s become a ritual that I’ve never quite grown used to. I choke down some pills for the headache and nausea and try to keep my mind distracted from the fact that my heart is threatening to beat out of my chest.

Thankfully, no trembling today. 

I blow out some air, take deep breathes as I step out of the vehicle, balancing myself on the gravel floor. These heels are not helping with the uneasiness that I feel, but I have to make sure I look the most put together. It’s just for a few minutes, I remind myself. 

Just for a few minutes. 

I attempt to walk to the entrance, keeping my face neutral, as if I’ve actually worn heels before. As if I’m not new to this, as if I was made for this. 

I pull the steel handle, catching one final glimpse of the glass building before being engulfed by the crowd inside. 

I weave my way through the groups of people, bumping Into shoulders of strangers and occasionally mumbling a quick sorry. Standing in the middle of the lobby, trying to figure out where I am and what I’m looking for. I clutch my phone tightly, my eyes searching for the two shiny doors that’ll take me to the place I’ve been dreading for the past two weeks. 

Aha! 

It’s on the other side, opposite to where I’m standing, jogging my way up to it quickly and recognizing the ding as it reaches LOBBY. 

I look at my watch and realize there’s still a solid 20 minutes before my interview. 

As the people flow out of the elevator, I wait till the last person is off before getting on and pressing on the FLOOR 7 button. The doors are about to close as I hear a “wait!” coming from the other side.

I can't catch a glimpse of him because he’s already right in front of me, grabbing the edge of the elevator door. He stumbles in as he grabs on the side handle and composes himself. Pulling his tie, running his fingers through his hair, gulping for air even though he only had to run for a few seconds. 

He catches a glance of me and gives me a tight smile, saying something that sounds like a “sorry” or “good morning” or both.

I just shift from one foot to the other, looking away, trying to seem unfazed.  

He realizes he’s been standing there for a few seconds without actually having put the floor he’s going to, and I realize he didn’t have to because he’s going the same floor as me.

The elevator doors finally shut, and he looks up at me and catches me staring just as we both look away. I fidget with my bracelet, he shifts from one foot to the other.

“So, uh, you’re new here? Never seen you around, erm.”

There’s a few seconds of awkward silence that sets in before I finally clear my throat. 

“Oh, yeah. I’m just going in for an interview,” I chuckle, but that turns into a choking sound as I cough instead. 

He looks at me, examines me. Looks at my phone, back at my face, then looks away. I don’t know if that was supposed to be reassuring, but it made me feel out of place. 

Like I wasn’t supposed to be here. 

I dig through my mind, reminding myself that I don’t have to belong here. I just have to fake it until It feels like I do belong here. 

Though I wish I didn’t have to. 

“Are you new to town?” he asks, raising his brows In question.

“Yeah, just moved here a few weeks ago,” I say with a final tone, desperately trying to end this conversation because I could feel my voice trembling. 

I clench and unclench my fists, blowing out air. 

“What’s taking so long? It’s not even that far up,” I mutter before catching myself, realizing that wasn’t meant to be spoken out loud. 

“You think this is long, you should try coming here during the holidays,” he laughs, not forced or anything. 

I find myself slowly relaxing my shoulders, reminding myself I only have to be here for a few minutes. 

I realize I haven’t responded to his statement before, it’s too awkward now. 

So we just stand in silence. And we wait.

Until suddenly I realize we’re not moving. It’s stuck in LEVEL 3. I reach for the LEVEL 7 button, realizing it’s not registering it anymore. 

Then it all goes dark. 

“Uh, pretty sure that’s not normal,” I say, desperately looking back at him as I turn on the flash on my phone. He crosses over from the other side of the elevator and looks over my shoulder. 

“Not really? I mean, I know it can take a few seconds to go up but...”

Uh oh. 

I can’t believe it. 

We’re stuck in an elevator.

I have an interview in 20 minutes.

Immediately I can start to feel the air get heavier, clenching the sidebar and trying to stay calm.

The power is out, and we don’t know when it might come back. 

I’m stuck with a complete stranger, in this ridiculous outfit with these obnoxious heels on. 

Suddenly, everything seems wrong. My shirt is clinging to my back, the sweat building up. My hair starts to cling to my face, as I swipe it away there goes my makeup.

I close my eyes, sending out a prayer, hoping that any second now the light will go back on. But it doesn’t, and I feel my panic slowly rising again. 

“Shouldn’t we call someone?” I squeak out, clearing my dry throat. 

“Not really? It’s happened a few times before, it usually goes back on after, like, 30 minutes.”

“30 minutes?” I yell, looking up at him as his neutral face turns into one that looks more of concern.

By 30 minutes, I’ll look like a mess. I grab one heel at a time and take them off, sitting down on the dirty floor and resting my head on my knees. 

He watches me again, then sets his briefcase aside and sits next to me, a few feet away. 

“I think they’ll understand if you’re a few minutes late. It’s not like you could help it, you know?” he says, looking over at me with a sympathetic look. 

I nod, agreeing with what he said, knowing deep down it’s not what's actually bothering me.

After a few minutes of silence, he finally clears his throat. I only see the shadows of his face illuminated by my phones flash but he doesn’t look that much older than me. He has a boyish look to him, his hair now a little messier than when he stepped on the elevator. His tie is now loosened up, his blazer unbuttoned. 

Right now is the time when I regret not wearing something I’m comfortable with. Maybe a loose dress, or even a skirt that didn’t fit so tightly around my body. 

I try to shift my body so I’m facing him, to the point where we’re both looking at each other. 

Seeing this, he leans forward a little and if facing me now, too.

“So, where did you work before?” he asks, and I try to hide the shock on my face. Out of everything he could’ve asked, this was the question I had been dreading answering. 

I debate whether I should make up a lie, tell him it was a similar job to the one I’m applying to. Maybe he’s someone important, this might be my first impression. 

But it’s been a long time since someone’s asked me that and I answered truthfully, and something tells me that there’s no point in lying to a stranger who’s clearly just bored and trying to make conversation. 

“Well, I actually worked as an editor for a publishing company in San Francisco. The job was actually a perfect fit for me, but I realized It wasn’t what I wanted to do, career-wise.”

“What did you want to do?”

“I wanted to be a writer. I wanted to write books, rather,” I sight, looking away quickly, trying to hide the clear disappointment on my face.

“'Wanted'? You don’t want to write books anymore?”

“Well, I tried writing a book but nothing ever led to anything. So, I just decided it wasn’t for me,” I chuckle lightly, even though the words sting when they leave my mouth. 

“What books did you write? Or did you want to write?” He asks, with quizzical eyes.

“Dystopian novels.”

He looks at me, smiles a little, then clears his throat.

“That's a really interesting genre, if you ask me. I think that if you really want to do something, nothing should stop you from doing it. Otherwise, you’ll regret it when you don't have the opportunity to do it anymore,” he says. But now it’s his turn to sight and looks away like those words were meant for him rather than for me. 

He’s right though. I’m trying to get a job that’ll pay well, but would I be happy? Would I truly look back and be satisfied with the effort I put in to make my dream come true? 

No, I don’t think I would. 

“Yeah, that’s true. What about you? Are you happy here?”

He’s still looking away, then he catches my eyes with his and barely says “Uh, not really. “

“Why?” 

“That’s a pretty general question, there’s a lot of answers to that."

“Well,” I trail off, “what would you rather be doing?”

He thinks, actually looks like no one asked him that in a really long time. He thinks, his brows drawn together, he shifts his legs so they’re crossed now. 

“Well, I wanna open up my own jazz club.” 

I laugh without meaning to, and he looks away, blushing.

“Sorry, that sounds really awesome. It’s just, I didn’t expect that. Like a jazz club, I’ve never heard of one, never been to one,”

“Exactly, that’s why I wanna open one. Music is a universal language, it makes us feel things sometimes not knowing why. It just does,” he says, eager to let me in on the secret that it seems he’s been hiding for a long time. 

“No spoken words and it still makes us feel, maybe even more so than actual lyrics,” he says, pulling his legs so his chin is resting on his knees that are drawn together. 

“Why haven’t you done it?” I ask, truly curious as to why he hasn’t done it yet. The rent isn’t necessarily expensive in this city, and the work here pays pretty generously. 

“I don’t know. I’m scared that I’ll fail and that’ll be that.”

“You won’t know until you actually try it, you know. “

I realize how hypocritical I sound because I know deep down I didn’t even give my dream a fair chance. I didn’t set up an actual schedule, no outline for my ideas, no actual story. 

Just staring at the screen for hours on end, the keyboard keys untouched for months straight. 

As I looked at my clock, I noticed it had already been twenty minutes. I realized that I wasn’t in a rush for the power to go back on because sitting here right now felt comfortable. 

Just as I’m about to speak again the lights turn on and I yelp, the lights blind me for a few seconds. I squint slowly until I finally feel my eyes adjusting to the sudden brightness, the elevator shaking and finally, I feel it going up. 

We look at each other and smile, a silent understanding and agreement between us. 

The elevator dings and the doors open, the air rushing in as I gasp and realize just how dense it had gotten. 

We both stand in the elevator awkwardly, until we both speak at the same time “You go first.”

I shake my head, and he immediately understands that I’m not going to the interview. 

We both stay on though, waiting for the doors to close again. 

“Can I have your phone number?” he asks, glancing between my eyes and lips. 

“Yeah,” I say, as I type in my phone number into his phone. 

“Cool,” I say, just as the doors finally open up again and I’m back in the lobby. 

“Okay, well...I guess this is goodbye,” I chuckle nervously, looking away and catching his eyes again. 

“No, just a ‘see you soon’.” 

The question stands in the air, and I finally nod. Smiling, I turn away and walk towards the exit.

“Wait!” he says as he catches up to me, out of breathing, heels in hand. 

“Oh God, I really was gonna walk out barefoot, huh?” I say as I feel my cheeks warming up. 

I grab them from his hand, and I struggle trying to put them on, shifting from one side to the other and still failing. I laugh, trying to hide the obvious weirdness of it all as people are starting to stare, too.

He puts his hand out, and at first, I look at him in question. 

“Ah, right,” I say quickly, grabbing his hand as I stabilize myself and finally manage to put my heels on. 

My hand stays on his for a second too long, and as I pull away his touch lingers there. 

“Thanks, I, uh, don’t usually wear heels,” I nervously say, resting my hand on my other arm, trying to forget his touch. 

“Yeah, those look terrifying,” he says, looking back at the elevator, clearly late for work. 

“Sorry, don’t want to keep them waiting. You should probably go,” I say, trying to hide the disappointment in my voice. 

“Yeah, I probably should.”

“Okay,” I trail off, looking away and shifting from one foot to the other. 

He smiles then nods, as he turns around and slowly walks back to the elevator. I notice he clenches then unclenches his hand. The hand that I held. 

The elevator doors close, and I can see his smile just as I turn away, not suppressing mine at all. 

Once I’m back home, as I’m outlining an idea that popped into my head, I get a text from an unknown number. 

“Guess what?”

“What?”

“I quit. I’m gonna do it.” 

I don’t even have to ask because I already know. A silent agreement between us, I press on the dial button and hear it ring for a few seconds before he picks up. 

“So,”