I show him the small package that I’ve addressed to Malcolm Blackberg. This morning I put a red “registered mail” sticker on it, and then I added a blank sticker, where I wrote “restricted delivery” and “addressee only” in bold black ink.
Restricted delivery mail is to be delivered to the addressee only, though it can also be delivered to an addressee’s authorized agent. I’m hoping they’re not too familiar with that part of the rule.
He walks me to the elevator, opens it with his card, and gives me a smile with nary a whiff of recognition.
“Thank you,” I say, clutching my bag. I examine the buttons and hit floor six.
“Excuse me,” A pretty woman in an elegant red suit shows a card to the guard. “I’m from Bexley Partners. I have a ten o’clock on six that I’m running late for and they said to check in with you.”
“Yup, they just called.” The guard slaps his hand over the closing doors and pushes them open. “Go on.”
“Thanks,” she says, walking in with a tentative smile for me. She has short blonde hair and wonderful red and white heels
I nod and adjust my bag. My pulse races as the door closes and the elevator begins its ascent.
We ride in silence.
The secretaries and assistants will probably try to sign for it, but I’m planning on saying it has to go to Mr. Blackberg personally. I’ll just insist and I won’t stop insisting. The uniform carries a lot of weight, and I’m counting on that.
The elevator seems to be slowing, buttons lighting sluggishly from floor one to floor two to three. Just before it reaches the fourth floor, there’s a loud crack above us. I clutch the rail as the car shakes violently.
It tilts and grinds to a halt. The whole car goes dark, then another light blinks on—some kind of emergency light from the corner.
“Oh, my god,” the woman says, clinging to the rail on her side.
My heart whooshes in my ears. It’s all I hear in the total silence. “Okay,” I say, “it’s not crashing.”
“Yet,” she says.
“They have a lot of safeties on these things,” I say.
There’s another creak.
“There should be an emergency call, right?” she says.
She’s looking at me like I should know. I’m a New York City letter carrier. She thinks I should know things about elevators. She’d be surprised to learn that I rode an elevator for the first time in my life just two years ago.
I go over to the panel and squint in the dim light. The top button—a red one—has a raised image of a phone and some Braille next to it. I push it once. “Hello?”
Nothing.
The woman pulls out her phone and makes a call. She’s saying she’s going to be late to whoever is on the other end just about when a crackly voice comes through the panel. “Hey, this is engineering. Everyone okay in there?”
“Yeah,” I say. “It’s two of us, and we’re fine. What’s going on?”
“Nothing to worry about,” the voice says. “Just electrical. You’re in no danger. We’ve got a team on it. It’ll be a few minutes. Are you good in there?”
I look over at the woman. “How long?” she asks the unseen person on the other end of the intercom.
“A bit.”
She heaves a worried breath.
The guy asks for our names and we tell him. “Okay, Noelle and Stella, sit tight. We’re working on this issue. Buzz if anything changes in there, okay?” With that he’s off.
“If anything changes,” she says. “What is he thinking might change in here? Like if we run out of air?”
“That won’t happen,” I say with more confidence than I feel. “He probably means in case one of us needs medical attention or something.”
“Not exactly comforting.” Stella slides to the floor and hugs her knees.
Clanking noises ring out above us. Stella winces with each clank, terrified gaze fixed on the elevator ceiling.
“Or in case of werewolf transformation,” I add.
She turns a shocked gaze to me.
I give her a sassy little smile. “Appearance of vampire fangs?”
She laughs, relieved. “Oh my god, I thought you were serious for a sec,” she says. “Sorry. Not my day. And I don’t love elevators.”
I get the feeling that this is an understatement. “We’ll be fine,” I say. I set down my bag and sit. “They really do have safeties.”
The clanking stops. A drill begins to whir.
“Though I have a feeling ‘a bit’ is more than a few minutes,” I add.
She sighs. “Actually, I’d rather be stuck in here than go to the meeting I’m supposed to be at. I’d prefer ice picks in my ears. Leeches sucking my blood. Kid Rock on endless loop.”
“No,” I whisper. “Not that.”
She tips her head back on the panel. “You have a route to get to. Is this going to put you behind?”
I shrug. “I’ll be okay. So, do you work here?”
“No,” she says dolefully. “Or, I’m starting a month-long assignment here, so I guess.”
“Sounds like you’re not looking forward to it,” I say.
“Understatement of the year,” she sighs. “Don’t say anything.”
“Of course not,” I say.
She nods. People tend to trust the uniform. “And so begins the first day of many long days. Many long and excruciating days.”
“That bad?”
“Worse,” she says. “Six hours it took in traffic to get here this morning and now this. And the hell hasn’t even started.”
I give her a sympathetic wince. “Does your job always suck?”
“Kind of,” she says. “You’d think it wouldn’t. I’m an executive coach, which is technically a super cool profession.”
“Executive coach?”
“We help executives build their skills. My area is soft skills, like emotional intelligence, building positive relationships, leading through inspiration, you know. The skills that enable a leader to aggressively build a business are not the same skills that allow them to be a good manager of people. Business-building is a transactional skill; management is more of a leadership skill. So we help them with that.”
“That sounds like it would be really fulfilling,” I say, though I’m surprised such a young woman would be teaching leadership to executives. She’s a few years younger than I am for sure—twenty-six at the most.
“You’d think, right? And I’m with a really good boutique agency in Trenton. Very well respected.” She hugs her knees harder to her chest. “Okay. I’m ready for the elevator to start. Now I’m dreading it even more, just sitting here. My first meeting would be underway by now. And afterwards I’d be out, walking into freedom. In the sunshine.”
“Yikes,” I say.
“No, I’m being negative. I love the material.”
A drill whirs above us.
“So what’s the problem? If you don’t mind my asking.”
“Here’s the thing,” she says. “There are two kinds of executives who get executive coaching from our company. There are the kinds that are excited to improve their skills, successful businesspeople who are fired up to be more effective leaders. They want to learn and grow. Unfortunately, I don’t get to work with those kinds. My bosses take those jobs.”
“What jobs do you get?”
“I’m the person they send when the executive has been on the losing end of a lawsuit and the person is” —here she makes quote fingers— “mandated by a court of law to undergo a program to be designed by an accredited executive coach to improve emotional intelligence skills.” She sighs. “And guess who that lucky coach is?”
“Ouch.”
“It’s the worst,” she says. “Like when some ragey guy gets into a fight and the court sends him to anger management. You think he wants to be there? You think he loves the material?”
“Uhh, no?”
“Right? The people who I coach don’t want me. By the time I’m walking in, some
body on the leadership team has shown problematic behavior, and a mediator or judge has gotten involved. The training I do, it lets the company say they’re addressing the issue, but they usually don’t care if there’s change. So yeah, I’m the punishment. I’m where they focus their resentment.”
“Oh,” I say.
“Oh my god, you seriously can’t say anything. Not that I’d care if they fired me at this point,” she says, checking her phone.
“Cone of silence,” I say. “Everything stays in this elevator…except us. Hopefully.”
There’s more banging and whirring above us. Voices yelling back and forth.
“Like the people I work with—the dudes I work with, because let’s face it, it’s dudes we’re talking about—they could not be more disdainful of the material. Basically I just try to do the minimum so that we both can say it happened. My firm gets paid…I don’t know why I’m venting. It’s just…not the job I envisioned when I did my training. I thought I’d help people, not be their hated punishment.”
I nod sympathetically. Did somebody on Mr. Blackberg’s leadership team get out of line?
“When they first sent me to do one-on-one coaching with a bigwig exec, I was so shocked. I mean, I have a psych degree and tons of coaching training, but no experience, and they’re sending me to coach this C-suite guy? They put me right in on the A-list? Turns out I was on the grunt list.”
“Is there nothing you enjoy about it?” I ask. “Maybe one nice thing?”
“No. You kind of have to be a self-starter, too. I think I picked the wrong job.” She sighs. “Do you like being a mailperson?”
“Yeah,” I say. “I love it.”
“That must feel so good,” she says. “To love what you do.”
“It does,” I say. “Having a job you love is amazing. And when life gets hard, having this one little area where you feel like you’re making a positive difference means everything.”
She looks at me longingly. “I wish I was making a positive difference.”
“Aren’t there other jobs you can get?” I ask.
“I feel like it’s too late.”
“Are you kidding? It’s never too late to change. I don’t care if you’re thirty or fifty or seventy,” I say. “What are you, twenty-six?”
“Twenty-seven.”
“Puh-lease.” I tell her my story—how long I spent stuck in a rural town I hated, dreaming so hard of a different life, a better life, and never making it happen. Maybe it’s just because she’s a stranger in an elevator, but I even confess how my specific dream of having a clan of girlfriends in the Big Apple was inspired by reruns of Sex and the City.
I tell her how I’d look on Craigslist at roommate-wanted ads in New York and Brooklyn and dream of answering one of them. I’d even google the addresses and stare at the buildings, but I was so scared to make the move because I didn’t know anybody, and also I had an on-again off-again boyfriend and a mother back in Mapleton. Then my mom got cancer. I tell her how hard I’d fought the insurance companies to get the care that Mom deserved, this special treatment that I wanted her to have, but they refused. And she died.
“And your dad?” she asks.
“Sperm bank. My mom was super independent—she was amazing. There was nothing she couldn’t do. Until, you know…”
“I’m sorry,” she says.
“Thanks,” I say. “The point is, it made me aware of how short life is. And even though I was scared, I went home after that funeral and I looked at the Craigslist ads. And there was this roommate-wanted ad. The ad mentioned gourmet popcorn and watching Bachelorette with women from down the hall, and I went for it. After all those years I spent looking at Craigslist roommate ads and never answering them, wasting all this time in a place I wanted to leave, it took my mother dying for me to make the leap. And I’m so glad I did.”
“I don’t know if I’m gutsy like that.”
“I’m not, either. Not at all! You just have to do it. Life is short, Stella.”
“I don’t think I can leave my job after investing so much time.”
“But you hate it,” I say. “And you said even if you get the good jobs, you don’t think you’re good at it.”
“True.” She picks at a sticker on her briefcase. “And I hate my bosses for sending me to coach these assholes. And I don’t even get insurance.”
“Seriously?” I scowl. “No insurance? You work full-time with no insurance?”
“I’m technically a contractor. A way for them to get out of paying benefits. God, it’s not a very good job, is it?”
“Tell me, Stella, if you could do anything, what would you want to do?”
“Quit. Give them the big FU and blow my entire paycheck on shoes. Or maybe a new outfit. No—a diamond fucking tiara, and I’d wear it to the Plaza Hotel and drink an entire bottle of their best champagne all by myself and then pick up a hot guy.”
“I meant a job. Think of what you’d do for work. Tomorrow. If you could wake up and have any career.”
“I don’t know.”
“Think big,” I say. “Pie in the sky.”
“Wellllll…There is one thing I could do,” she says.
“What?”
“My friend Jaycee is going to Estonia to teach English. She’s leaving this week. She invited me, like they need teachers. I guess that’s kind of my Craigslist ad, because she’s invited me before, and I always turn her down, but I like working with kids, and I think it would be really fun. It’s this girls school. I even looked it up on Google maps. It’s this sweet little school. And I do enjoy teaching…”
“Hold the phone,” I say. “You’re telling me that you have an actual opportunity to do this cool thing instead of coaching some guy who’s going to be a jerk to you, and you’re choosing the jerk?”
“Well, I have a lease. Bills to pay.”
“Hold out your hands,” I say.
She regards me warily. “Why?”
“Hold out your hands. Show me your hands.”
She holds them out.
“That’s funny,” I say. “I don’t see any handcuffs there, do you? I don’t see a leash around your neck. Looks to me like you’re a free operator with your own freaking life.”
She tucks her hands back in her lap, but I have her attention.
“Life is short,” I say. “I know that’s a cliché, but it’s a cliché for a reason.”
She turns and stares into the middle distance, blinking.
“I’m serious, Stella.” I feel myself getting riled up. Sometimes I get overly passionate, but things with Stella seem so clear cut. “When this elevator starts up, you could choose to not get off at the sixth floor. You could hit that lobby button and get out down at the lobby instead. Wouldn’t that be nice?”
“Yesssss,” she says.
“Well?”
She looks longingly at the button marked L. “I couldn’t.”
“Stella, you have an actual job offer. You have an apartment? Fine. Go put your stuff in storage. Get a subletter, or just eat the deposit. Get a standby flight with your friend. Pay the bills from Estonia. I mean, there’s actually a job for you doing this cool thing? And instead you’re gonna spend these next how many beautiful days of your life with some jerk jerking you around? And you’re not even getting health insurance?”
She’s watching me, eyes wide. “And he really will jerk me around.”
I shake my head. “You deserve better.”
She blinks. “I could get a subletter. My asshole ex needs a place.”
“There you go,” I say.
She sniffs. “The overseas gig pay would be shit, but you get free room and board.” She looks at me. “I would feel happy.”
“Well?” I say.
“Shit,” she laughs. “I can’t.”
“You’d rather go up there and coach the asshole?”
“No,” she whispers, clutching her briefcase, blinking some more. “Oh my god, Noelle, am I going to do this?”
“Yes!” I practically scream.
“Yes!” She reaches out and grabs my hand. “Because, why not?”
“Right?” I say.
“I could leave this whole nightmare behind,” she says.
I stand up and point to the lobby button. “This could be your next stop.”
“Let me see if there’s still room.” She pulls out her phone and calls her friend and tells her she’s thinking about going along. I’m trembling with excitement for her. Because her job sounds like it seriously sucks. Her friend’s squealing—I can hear it through the phone.
She hangs up and tells me that her friend is gonna make some calls. There’s still a need for teachers and there might even be empty seats on her connecting flight to Amsterdam. The friend is checking.
“I can’t believe I’m stuck in this elevator with a letter carrier and you’re telling me to quit my job.”
“Why can’t a letter carrier tell you to quit your job?” I ask.
Her phone rings. It’s her friend, and it sounds like good news. “Okay, then, I’m in.”
She puts away her phone. “Oh my god, I’m gonna do it. I am—I’m just doing it.”
“Yay!” I say.
“And I’m going to quit with no notice. I’m just going to walk out and never look back as punishment for them sending me on the jerk missions.”
“Are you sure you shouldn’t let them know?” I try.
“No,” she says gleefully. “Let them figure it out when I don’t show up.”
Inwardly I wince—I’m a total rule follower; I would never dream of walking off a job without giving some kind of notice.
We’re stuck for a good twenty minutes more. In that time she looks up a storage unit place and calls some people to help get her stuff into storage. The overseas-English-teacher people are working on an expedited visa.
The engineers tell us they’re finishing up.
She turns to me. “Thank you. I’m like, happy again.”
“You’re welcome. But you made the plan. You’re taking the leap.”
“But you gave me the push.” She digs a business card out of her briefcase and hands it to me. “That email address won’t work as soon as they figure out I’m AWOL, but the mobile’s good. If you ever need anything, you got it. If you ever go to Estonia, you have a place to crash, sister.”
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