It was 2 a.m., the end of an inhumanly long Friday night shift at the large newspaper where I'd worked for two years, and Calvin and I trudged to the elevator. Calvin had only been hired on six months before, but we'd forged a fast, deep friendship based on shared quirky personality traits and a fanatical love of hip-hop.
We were literally the last souls to leave the newsroom before the skeleton shift began at 5. As usual, we'd spent the whole time talking music and grousing about diva reporters and impossible editors. The only difference was, this was my last day here. I'd accepted another job and would soon be Chicago-bound. That knowledge peppered our conversation with moments of nostalgia all night.
I was sad to see our last day draw to a close, and Calvin's reluctant steps into the old service elevator told me he was, too.
"So, what are you doing this weekend?" he asked as the doors closed.
"Road trip, a couple hours up the coast."
"That should be fun. The northern beaches are nicer than here." He leaned his lanky frame against the side wall and slid his black eyes from my head to my feet.
He often did this, and I could never tell if it was his way of checking me out or if it was just some sort of tic he had, so I ignored it. Besides, at barely 21, he was just a kid. A six-foot-two kid with mile-wide shoulders and a sexy goatee, but a kid nonetheless.
"What about you? Got any plans?" I asked.
Just then, a metallic screech ground out from somewhere above the car, and the elevator whined to a stop.
"Shit!" Calvin exclaimed. We waited a few minutes, but we weren't moving. "I knew one day this thing would break down. Try the control panel."
I punched several worn buttons while he braced himself and tried to pry open the doors, but we were stuck between the third and fourth floors and the doors wouldn't budge. The emergency call button yielded only dead air--recent cutbacks meant no one was on duty after 5 p.m. anyway.
Calvin flipped out his phone, but the back elevator had notoriously bad reception, and I saw it for the desperate hope it was. Nope.
The building's 70-year-old night watchman, Diego, was well-liked, but he often snoozed the entire shift in his first-floor office. We yelled and banged on the walls on the off chance he might hear us, but after ten minutes it was clear he wasn't coming. No one else would be back in the building for 3 hours. Mad as hell, I kicked the doors.
"We'll be fine till morning," Calvin said, trying to calm me down.
"Brilliant," I spat. "One last going-away present from this piece of shit job."
The corners of Calvin's mouth twitched, and I glared at him. The twitch only grew worse. Finally he dropped all pretense and chuckled.
"Only you would get stuck in an elevator on your last day of work." He shook his head. "This is gonna make a great story."
I rolled my eyes, but his mirth was cracking me. "Yeah, I can see the headline now: Disgruntled ex-employee strangles coworker in elevator."
We cracked up. "See, it's not so bad," he said. "Besides, you could be stuck on an elevator with somebody a lot more annoying than me." He gave a shy smile, making my stomach do a tiny flip.
"You've got a point, there," I replied. "And this is the last time we'll be hanging out."
"What do you mean? You're not moving to Chicago for a couple of weeks, right?" He still smiled, but his voice held a note of concern. "
"I'm just saying, this is our last night as coworkers, and could be the last time we see each other for a very long time."
"Geez, thanks for bringing me down."
We were quiet for a bit. Three hours. I may as well get comfortable. I sat down Indian-style in the corner, spreading the skirt of my denim dress over my knees. It had a wide, tempting neckline that showed off my charms perfectly. Even I couldn't resist glancing down sometimes.
"So tell me how you get a great elevator story," I said. "Seems like a whole lot of nothing to me. We're just sitting here until someone rescues us."
"You have to make it interesting. We could play a game," he suggested, dropping to his knees beside me. "Let's play Questions."
"Like in junior high?" I laughed. "I haven't played that in forever! How does it go again?"
"You just answer questions, and if you don't want to answer it, you have to do a dare."
"That's dangerous. How do I know you'll keep your mouth shut after I'm gone?"
He got a sly grin. "What happens in the elevator stays in the elevator, right?"
"OK," I agreed.
"Question 1: What's in your bag? Girls carry these huge-ass purses--what the hell are you all lugging around?"
I pulled out my makeup bag, my cellphone, a writing pad, 3 pens, my wallet, a lighter and a rubber ball. Swimming around at the bottom of the bag were the joint and an engraved flask of vodka one of my work buddies had slipped me earlier to "grease the wheels "of my last late shift.
Calvin's eyes lit up like a Christmas tree. "Oooohhh! Mrs. Glenn, this is a drug-free workplace. I'm afraid I'll have to confiscate those items immediately."
"Or we could make the game more interesting," I said. "If the other person answers the question right away, the asker has to take a hit. It'll keep us asking the hard questions."
"Okay, it's your turn."
"When you lost your virginity," I began, and Calvin groaned. "Hey! When you lost your virginity, what were you worried about the most?"
"I...Uh." Calvin's face turned red as a beet, and he appeared stumped. "Ummm...."
"Ten seconds, you have to drink!" I crowed.
He took a swig good-naturedly. "I was worried about my size."
Poor baby. "Size doesn't matter," I said magnaminously. There goes my fantasy. "It's what you do with it."
He gave a secretive chuckle. "Yeah, well I did learn what to do with it."
An hour later, we had finished the flask and the joint and were feeling more much comfortable.
"Have you ever had sex in public?" Calvin asked, leering playfully and waggling his eyebrows. He was adorable drunk.
"Err, define public."
"Public! People around, chance of getting caught. That shit."
I considered telling him one of my more intense secrets, but changed my mind. "I did it on one of the conference tables at UM's Department of Africana Studies."