Going Down: The Elevator Series (6 page)

“Do you need medical attention?” the stranger from above yelled. “We heard screaming!”

Oh please let the world end right this very second.

Cole jumped back from me and went for our clothes. “No! No, we’re all right!” He sounded like a little kid who knew he was busted, but was determined to deny it until the end. He grabbed my skirt and top and tossed them at me. I pulled on my clothes in record speed and collected all the trash from the floor. Cole was slipping into his shoes when the elevator lurched upward and the doors were pried open.

A small welcoming committee of three men greeted us. The short, portly one among them was the only one to speak. “Are you sure you’re both okay? There sure was a lot of yelling.”

“We’re fine.” I would’ve rather died than make eye contact. I almost knocked down all three in my haste to push past them. It smelled like sex and granola bars in that elevator, and I had no intention of sticking around while they put the pieces together. Cole was hot on my heels.

“Don’t you guys want a ride down to the lobby?” Our confused rescuer thumbed back to our metal love cave.

“No! We’re taking the stairs!” I didn’t even pause to turn around. We both made it into the stairwell just as we were overcome with laughter. I had to sit down to keep from falling over. “Holy crap, that was insane!” I giggled while holding my stomach.

“No one will ever believe this story.”

“I wish I didn’t have a huge meeting today.” I could barely speak between my fits of laughter. “I could use a few days to recuperate.”

“This has been an adventure. I was so excited about landing a new job yesterday, but now I wish I hadn’t agreed to start today. I wish you could write Ms. Carrington a note and explain that I can’t begin work until I’ve had sufficient time to recover from my sexual entrapment.”

I stopped laughing and stood straighter. “W–what?”

“I said I wish you could write Ms. Carrington a note for me. She’s my new boss at Grantham Media. I haven’t met her yet. The head of HR hired me directly. I normally wouldn’t accept a position sight unseen, but opportunities at Grantham don’t open up every day.”

His voice sounded like it was coming from a mile away. I couldn’t get enough air into my lungs. My vision shrunk down to a pinhole. Karma had a funny way of being my ally.

Nice going, Cici. You just porked your new assistant right in the damn company elevator.

Panic took over, and without so much as a good-bye, I scrambled down the stairs. Cole called after me, but I didn’t dare turn around. I was surprised I didn’t lose a shoe in the process and round out the whole Cinderella scenario. My singular focus was on getting home so I could think. I should’ve snagged a cab, but I really needed the forward momentum running provided. I knocked into several dozen commuters who probably hadn’t just had sex with their subordinates. Though the weather was the same, the morning didn’t seem quite as bright as the one before. The pigeons were back to being rats with wings and the food carts smelled like toilets. I made it back to my building in record time. I didn’t even remember climbing the four flights of stairs.

No divine guidance hit me upon crossing my apartment threshold, so I headed straight to the bathroom. I did my best thinking there anyway.

Leroy was right on my heels to berate me about missing his dinnertime and the first of his two breakfast times.

“I know. I know, Leroy” I grumbled as I pulled off my clothes for the second time this morning. “There was an incident. You’re neutered so you wouldn’t understand. You’re lucky; balls cause nothing but trouble.”

***

The shower offered a momentary respite from my anxiety, although not from Leroy. I fed him before I finished getting ready. As I blow-dried my hair, every possible scenario on how this disaster could play out ran through my head. Scenario Number One was the most unlikely. The board of directors at Grantham suddenly found sexual harassment hilarious and allowed me to keep my job and my sexy new assistant. In Scenario Number Two, Cole and I pinky swore to never tell a soul about our tryst and kept our relationship on a professional level only.
That’s going to work out fine for you, Cici. It’s not as if you were begging him to fill your love oven less than an hour ago or anything.
In the Third Scenario, I got fired in spectacular fashion and never found another job. I made ends meet by robbing banks, which landed me in prison with angry women five times my size. That led to the Fourth Scenario in which I changed my identity, dyed Leroy’s fur, and absconded to the Galapagos Islands.

While I mulled over my options, I decided to text Maggie because I knew she would worry. The last thing I needed was for her to start asking questions I didn’t know how to answer. She tended to have a sixth sense about these things.

I’m running late. There was an incident.

She texted back mere seconds later. Maggie was a champion texter.

Cici, what am I going to do with you? Hurry up! I have a surprise for you.

I tossed my phone back in my bag.

No, I have a surprise for you. In the form of another pending lawsuit.

Sighing, I stood in front of my closet. Barring a run for the southern border, Scenario Number Five would have been my safest bet. But my passport expired last month. Scenario Six, though, was simple: camouflage. If Cole never recognized me then there wouldn’t even be a problem to solve. In an effort to conceal as much skin as possible, I opted for a pantsuit and button-down blouse, with all of the buttons fastened. I pulled my hair into a low ponytail and checked my reflection in the full-length mirror.

I looked different, but not different enough.
His vision isn’t impaired; he’d still recognize me. Why didn’t I own a ski mask? I didn’t ski, but one never knew when you’d fall on hard times and need to knock over a bank.

I went back to my closet, looking for inspiration and struck pay dirt.

You’re a damn genius sometimes, Cici. Move over, Stephen Hawking.

I heaved the beach bag down from its perch on the top shelf, still packed from last summer. I extracted the big Jackie O sunglasses and a gargantuan straw hat.

I ran back to the mirror.
Yes!
You could hardly see my face at all. There was no way this could backfire.

Newly confident, I strutted out of my apartment building. I drew quite a few questioning glances and angry jeers as my hat struck more than one passerby in the face. I took very personal offense when someone dressed in a Tigger costume flipped me off. As if he were in a place to judge.

My confidence started to wane the more I caught my reflection in the windows along the sidewalk. An argument could be made that I looked a little like a deranged school marm in the Witness Protection Program. For the first time ever, I skipped my usual pit stop in Gramercy to see Gene. I’d make it up to him later. Maybe he could teach me to play checkers for money, so I’d have something to fall back on when I lost my job and apartment.

I slowed as I reached my dreaded office building. The ascent to the ninth floor—via the stairs, of course—felt like the Bataan Death March. I might have been a little hasty to dismiss the idea of a transcontinental escape.

I can do this. I just have to wear this disguise until I can get my passport renewed and liquidate my assets. I’ll make a lovely new home in a foreign country. Everything will be fine.

I stuck my head out of the stairwell door like a prairie dog checking to see if the coast was clear. Satisfied I’d arrived undetected thus far, I scampered down the hall to my office. I closed the door softly and leaned against it, releasing a breath.

So far, so good.

Three loud thumps nearly caused me to fall over. “Are you in there? Why is your door closed?” I clutched my chest and tried to calm down. There was no need to ask who it was. Maggie had uncanny strength and diaphragm projection for her size.

“I—um—I’m getting dressed.”
Worst. Liar. Ever.

“Well, zip it up ‘cause I’m coming in!”

With the sudden agility of an Olympic pole-vaulter, I launched myself across the room and over my desk, only knocking off the tape dispenser in the process. I felt like I could conceal my guilt better from behind my desk for no rational reason whatsoever.

Maggie entered my office, Cole following directly behind her. With one horrified look at me she turned and shoved Cole unceremoniously back into the hallway and slammed the door.

“What in the name of Elie Saab are you wearing?” she hissed. She closed the distance to my desk at warp speed.

“What do you mean?” I put forth my most innocent face, still trying to catch my breath. I’d probably done more aerobic activity this morning than I had the past two weeks combined.

“This outfit.” She gestured wildly and then struck her No-nonsense Maggie pose, which consisted of her feet shoulder width apart and both hands on her hips. “You look like the nun on vacation!”

I’m screwed.

“I have no idea what you are talking about.” I picked up a random stack of papers and started sorting them into arbitrary piles. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have work to do.” I tried to sound halfway normal, but Maggie was nothing if not shrewd.

“Do you have a newfound crack habit you’d like to share with me?” Knowing Maggie as well as I did, I’d learned there was a direct correlation between the pitch of her voice and the level of her patience. Her voice was currently so low it was reverberating somewhere in the basement. “I’ve hired you a new assistant, who is standing just on the other side of that door, I might add. He’s a real find and will be a great asset to you, Cici, if you can pull yourself together long enough to be introduced.”

I’d like to tell her how I know all about his assets, but this may be a bad time. Maggie, my best friend, would do cartwheels in honor of my capricious dalliance. Maggie, the HR Director, would murder me and use my femur as a pimp cane. I needed an exit strategy, stat.

“Maggie, I-I don’t really need an assistant. I’m doing fine on my own. Thanks anyway, though.” I doubt I came off as self-assured as I’d like since I was still shuffling papers around my desk, refusing to meet her eyes.

“Cecile Alexis Carrington.” She said each word like it was its own sentence.

Oh shit. She three-named me.

“Are you telling me I interviewed candidates,” her voice reached a frightening crescendo, “spent countless hours of my precious time because I knew you wouldn’t have time to find your own assistant, and you are
not interested
?” She punctuated the last two words with such force I felt them stab my chest.

“No, Maggie, it-it’s not that...” I felt very trapped between her and my credenza. She leered over my desk with a feral look in her eyes like a panther ready to pounce. Searching for an escape and finding none, I lamented not paying more attention to Animal Planet. I might as well have been a hapless lost hiker. Was I supposed to throw a backpack or curl up into a ball? I couldn’t remember.

“This guy graduated with honors from Yale.
Yale
, Cici.” She reiterated it with more force. Résumés like that don’t come across my desk every day. He was willing to be an assistant just to get his foot in the door at Grantham.”

“Yale. A local university in Connecticut,” I muttered to myself, remembering Cole’s words last night. “I’m going to kill him.”

“Don’t think I can’t hear you mumbling under your breath.” Maggie’s voice held a clear warning. She persisted in boring through my skull with her scrutiny, and I withered like the sissy I was. I could hold my own with some of the shrewdest businesspeople on the planet, but I was never a match for the Maggie Vincent stare. And she knew it.

I let out a resigned sigh. “I’d love to meet him, Maggie. I’m just not myself this morning. I didn’t get a lot of sleep last night.”

The angel on my shoulder wanted to tell her right then and there why I didn’t get much sleep last night, but the devil on my other shoulder threw that wench back in her box and told her to keep her trap shut.

“That’s more like it. Now get control of yourself so I can bring him in. And for God’s sake, lose the glasses and sombrero. You look like you’re waiting for a damn fiesta to break out.”

My carefully thought-out plan was quickly going down the tubes. Keeping my job and thus avoiding a life of crime was my top priority.

“Nope. I’m holding onto these. Don’t give me that look, Maggie,” I said before she could interrupt. “I’m wearing them. That’s final.” I pulled my hat a little farther down onto my head.

“Ugh! I don’t know what is going on with you, Cici, but I swear I will cover your office floor with Legos if you screw this up.” She gave me a look that said this conversation was far from over and walked to the door.

I was in full panic mode now and starting to sweat through all my layers of clothing. I mentally flipped through every possible way this could play out, and they were all varying shades of awful. The quickest and most direct method of exodus was to bust through the wall, but when I heard the door open, I knew it was already too late. My head was still bowed—in prayer or shame, I wasn’t sure which—when Cole’s shoes became visible from under the brim of my hat. Oxfords. Slightly elongated toe box. Squared edge. The man appreciated good footwear.

I can make some beautiful babies with this man. We will have 2.4 of them. And a dog. Even our dog will be handsome. Other dogs will be jealous of him.

“Ms. Carrington.” Maggie’s firm voice sliced through my daydream.

How does she inject so much disapproval into two little words?

“This is Mr. Coletrane Danvers, but he prefers to go by Cole.”

“That’s correct, thank you. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Ms. Carrington. I’ve heard nothing but great things about you from Ms. Vincent.” I still refused to look up, but I could see Cole had extended his hand in my peripheral vision. Regretting the decision to not wear gloves, I met his hand in something between a handshake and a high five.

Maggie huffed loudly in the background. “Ci—”