Stuck Together

Eli had never been in a building like this before – all glass, everything was shiny and bright. A serious-looking security guard was standing by the door and a dark-haired girl sat behind a reception desk taking call after call. Beige sofas and large plants filled the lobby behind her.

Huge plants in huge pots had always been a sign that someone was really rich, at least in Eli’s mind. He’d once gone to a garden centre with his mum and seen the palm trees in ginormous pots costing over 600 dollars. The idea of paying that much for a plant sounded insane to Eli.

In the checkout line in front of them had been a couple with two of those palm trees. The lady wore a light blue pantsuit and white heels, and had one of those hairstyles that was all fluffed up but somehow always stayed in place, never moving. That’s when Eli made the connection in his head: big plants equals rich-rich. Eli wasn’t even halfway done counting the plants in the lobby when the reception girl asked where he was headed.

"Vanderbilt & Lyon," Eli said quickly and quietly.

Talking to strangers had always been intimidating—more specifically, beautiful girls. The fear of saying the wrong thing could easily overtake a person. Eli knew that feeling first-hand, when the brain and mouth wouldn’t cooperate and the words got lost along the way with the mouth only producing a squeak or a stuttering half-sentence. Everyone else—fine, but talking to girls close to his own age made his brain-to-mouth connection malfunction. He suspected a virus that activated when a girl entered his wireless connection area. An unproven working theory, but it seemed as good as any other.

"And what’s your name?" asked the girl, turning her head toward Eli, but keeping her gaze fixed on the computer screen.

"Eli," answered Eli quickly, and felt his cheeks warming up. He was sure they were only a couple of shades short of steamed beetroots.

Fidgeting uncomfortably, pressing his hands into his jeans pockets, his eyes jumping all around the room, trying to find a safe spot to concentrate on, Eli waited for an answer.

"Floor twenty-two. The elevators are around the corner to the right," said the girl, her eyes locked on the computer screen, motioning an automatic gesture in the direction of the elevators.

"Thanks," muttered Eli turning toward the indicated direction.

"Coming through! Out of my way! Out of my way!" a loud, screeching woman’s voice made Eli jump. In a grand room where mellow music was playing and everyone spoke more quietly than usual, her voice sounded like an alarm going off. Eli stepped aside at the last possible moment before the collision.

She sprinted straight to the elevators, repeatedly clicking the button and scanning the doors, ready to leap as soon as one opened. The bell dinged just as Eli reached the doors. The woman jumped in, pressing number twenty-two with the same intensity she had used to harass the button outside.

The doors still wide open, Eli stepped in as well.

"Come on, move now!" grunted the woman as she continued clicking the button.

"It won’t make it faster," said Eli looking at the number panel next to the elevator doors.

"What?"

"The continuous clicking. It won’t make it faster," said Eli pointing at the number twenty-two, which was currently under relentless attack by the irritated lady—Sloane, her golden name tag read.

She left the button alone with an eye roll, directing her irritation now to her phone, clicking almost as fast as Eli when coding.

"The system registers the first click and reacts to that one. What you do after doesn’t matter. A second click won’t make it twice as fast. In fact, there’s even a chance that vigorous clicking can slow the system down. Also, if you happen to click with just the right rhythm it can glitch the system."

"Well, I don’t know the magic Morse code to break the elevator. And as you can see, the doors closed, so we’re good."

The woman held one phone to her ear with her shoulder while still furiously tapping away on a second one, looking like she was trying to launch a rocket—her eyes flicking from her phone screen to the display above the doors.

Eli, with a smug look on his face, quickly texted to his friend Ryan, "I have a fun story for you later."

"Yeah, you probably can’t make a phone call now either. We're still too close to the ground," mumbled Eli under his nose.

With a sigh, the woman raised her head so the phone dropped into her hand that was ready to catch it.

"What are you, a walking tech manual?" asked Sloane, breaking a twenty-second uncomfortable silence.

"Eh, I’ll take it. I’ve been called wors--"

Eli glanced at the display, which showed the number seventeen for just a second before the lights flickered and the display went black. "That’s not good."

"What just hap--"

A metallic screech accompanied a sudden drop, and the floor disappeared from under their feet. The lights flickered again, and everything began to shake. Eli’s phone flew out of his hand as he stumbled backward, hitting the wall with his shoulder but managing to grab the railing at the last moment. In his stumble, he backed away just enough to avoid getting hit by Sloane’s purse’s contents and both her phones. She screamed as she bounced off the wall, getting thrown to the floor.

Then everything went black. The silence was broken by a mechanical buzzing sound as the green emergency light turned on. Eli looked around—papers scattered everywhere, phones on the floor, and Sloane in the middle of it all.

"No-no-no-no! Not today! This can’t be happening!" muttered Sloane under her breath, kicking her shoes off to the opposite corner and started to harass the number twenty-two again.

"Are you alive?" was the only thing Eli could come up with.

"Yep, not dying today. I have too much to do!" said Sloane, reaching for her phone, while still clicking the elevator button.

Eli couldn’t help but roll his eyes at her. "Seriously?"

She sent him a sharp look. "You and your elevator knowledge. Do you have something in that tech brain of yours to fix it? A secret Morse code to get it working, perhaps?"

Eli walked over to the button panel and pressed the emergency bell button. A deafening blare filled the tiny steel box they were trapped in.

"High-tech..." mumbled Sloane.

Both their ears still ringing, a quiet beep from under the pile of papers caught their attention. Eli pushed the papers aside and saw Ryan’s name on the screen.

"Can’t wait," it said.

Eli started typing when Sloane, with the same loud, echoing voice as she’d had downstairs, asked, "Excuse me!? You said there’s no reception here!"

"There wasn’t before, when we were so close to the ground. The last I saw, we were on the 17th floor. That’s high enough to get some signal through," explained Eli, with the tone of a math teacher who’s explaining the same thing for the fifty-ninth time.

Her phone rang, confirming Eli’s words.

"Hi, Mr. Wilkins. I was just about to call you. I’m so sorry, I’m late. I’m stuck in an elevator. I don’t know..." A quiet mumbling from the phone cut off Sloane’s monologue, and she exhaled. Clearly, whatever was said on the other side calmed her down.

"Okay. Thank you, Mr. Wilkins. No, there’s some boy in here as well." Sloane focused her stare on Eli’s face. "What’s your name? And where were you going?"

"I’m Eli. I was supposed to go to Vanderbilt & Lyon for a summer internship interview."

"Umm, he says he was supposed to come to our office. For some internship interview."

Her confused look eased as the mumbling on the phone continued. "Ah, tech-support internship. That makes sense." Silence. More mumbling. "Okay, Thank you."

"The whole building is dark. Power went out and nobody knows why. The back-up generators didn’t automatically turn on, and they’re trying to fix it, but they don’t know how long it will take."

A beep from her phone brought an inevitable smile to her face when she read the text from her boyfriend saying he couldn’t wait for the evening. Since the meeting she was late for had been postponed, she now had all the time in the world.

"Oh, and babe, I’ll be wearing that red lace lingerie with the perfect cut-outs you love so much," she texted with a naughty smile. She quickly cleared her throat, fidgeted a little, and forced the smile off her face.

Eli glanced at Sloane, who looked deeply concentrated on something on her screen.

He sat down on the elevator floor and texted Ryan: "Dude, I just survived an elevator crash with a woman who clicks buttons like she’s trying to hack NASA. 10/10 chaos. Also, she thinks I crashed the elevator. LOL, I didn’t even touch it. Help."

Sloane’s earlier hard-to-get-rid-of smile vanished instantly when her phone buzzed and beeped like crazy. Text after text lit up the screen—each one weirder than the last.

"Bro, what? Lace lingerie? Is that part of the fun story you promised?"

"Also, wtf are cut-outs, and do I need to Google it?"

"I did."

"Okay, first of all. Thank you for making me Google it!"

"But also, dude, I do NOT want to see you in this. What are you on?"

At the same time, Eli was reading a new message:

"Who is this? And why do you have my girl’s phone?? And what do you mean you crashed the elevator??"

The confusion hit him and cleared just as fast.His gaze locked with Sloane’s who now had pure horror in her eyes.

"I think I accidentally defiled your friend’s mind," Sloane said quietly, handing Eli his phone.

"And I think you’ve got some explaining to do," said Eli. "Because your husband or boyfriend—your Ryan—wants to know why you’re in an elevator with someone who may or may not have crashed it on purpose."

He gave Sloane back her phone which looked identical to his.

"What? Why did you text my boyfriend? And DID you crash the elevator?!" Panic flickered across her face.

"I thought I was texting my friend Ryan! And as I said in the very unfortunate accidental message to your Ryan: I. DIDN’T. EVEN. TOUCH. THE. ELEVATOR."

Eli checked his own phone, saw the texts his Ryan had got—and burst into laughter.

"You sent that to my friend? Oh my god, I bet he considers this the best day of his life."

Sloane tried to stay serious, but a snort slipped out. Then she laughed. Hard. Eli couldn’t stop laughing either.

"What are the odds we both texted a Ryan, eh?" she said, wiping her eyes, trying to grasp the absurdity of it all.

"Soo... you think there’s a chance your friend will delete the message I sent him?" asked Sloane after typing an explanation text to her boyfriend.

"Not a chance," said Eli, looking up at Sloane. "It’s the closest thing to a girlfriend either of us will ever get," he added, looking back at his phone.

"Why would you say that?" she asked.

"Because I know him. That text is gold. He’ll hold onto it forever."

"No, I meant, why would you think you’ll never get a girlfriend?" asked Sloane, her face now serious.

"I mean... isn’t it obvious? Girls like boys with big muscles, nice hair, and a pretty face—who don’t stutter when they speak to them."

Eli wasn’t even sure Sloane had heard him; she looked deep in thought.

"That’s not true. Well, I mean—it kind of is. But everything you just listed can be worked on. And you’re talking to me right now—completely stutter-free."

Comfort levels were rapidly dropping—and only partly because of her questions. She might have left the elevator buttons alone, but was now angrily tapping her phone’s screen - the one she’d used to call her boss. Had the other phone been this jammed, Eli would have noticed immediately that he had the wrong phone in hand. Each tap on that poor screen felt like a tap on his face.

"Yeah, well, whatever I do with my hair, it’s always like this," he motioned to his hair that was all over the place. "I have acne I can’t get rid of, and look at me—I’m skin and bones." he leaned against the elevator wall. Her irritated tapping continued on that lagging screen.

"And the stutter comes out when talking to girls my own age. I mean, no offense, but you’re kind of... old." He had a sincere apology written all over his face for the last part.

He reached out his hand, asking for the phone. Sloane gave it to him—it was useless anyway.

"Okay, first of all—I’m NOT old! But, yeah, I get it. I remember."

Eli was focused on the phone for a little while, and when he handed it back to her, it worked like new. It was smooth and ran perfectly. She looked at him, then back at the phone, clearly enjoying the lag-free texting.

"As far as the hair goes - you just have to find the right products for your hair type and you’ll be fine. Any hairstylist can help you with that and advise on haircuts to manage the mess. Just so you know, you have the hair that all women dream about – dark and thick. And acne – well... that’s a bitch. Trust me, I know. But I got rid of mine. I can give you the information for the doctor who helped me." Sloane sounded like a businesswoman giving a presentation.

"What do you mean you remember it’?" asked Eli after a momentary silence.

"That’s exactly what I mean. I was you. A girl version of you, anyway." said Sloane, her gaze far from the elevator.

Eli tried to imagine the confident, elegantly dressed, heel-wearing blonde corporate woman as himself.

A phone rang and brought them back to reality.

"Any news? How long will we be here?" asked Sloane, instead of saying 'hello.'

"Perfect!" she ended the call.

"They are about to connect the backup generators, and the elevator will start moving." she recapped the information her boss had just told her.

She grabbed the railing on the left side and the one on the back wall, her knuckles were almost white as she bent down a little, looking like biker accelerating.

"What are you doing? Hoping to launch the elevator to the atmosphere?" Eli couldn’t hold back his laughter.

"It’s going to move soon, and I don’t know which way. I don’t want to fall again."

"Up," said Eli, crossing his arms in the middle of the elevator, "it’s going up. The last command to the system was to go to the 22nd floor, and it was not finished. It’s still in the system."

Sloane tried hard to hide the embarrassment that still caused her to blush.

The lights flickered on, and the elevator quietly started moving as if nothing had happened. Fifteen seconds later, the bell dinged, and doors opened. A maintenance team, Mr. Wilkins, and Sloane’s Ryan were standing outside in the hall.

"Well, good luck," said Eli, searching for the phone number of the guy he was supposed to have the interview with.

"One moment," said Sloane holding her finger up.

She ran to Ryan, gave her a kiss, and exchanged a couple of words. Ryan pointed at Eli, raising his eyebrows asking Sloane something. She motioned for Eli to come over.

"Eli, this is Ryan, who you already texted once. I told him how you were just casually dropping tech knowledge and fixed my work phone. Ryan is one of the founders of ZenithTech—if you’ve heard of it. It’s a techy-techy company. And after you’re done with the interview here, they would like to interview you too, for an intern program and possibly a part-time job, if you’re interested."

"ZenithTech—a techy-techy company. You really don’t know anything about technology, do you? I’m sorry, that was rude," Eli blurted out immediately after hearing her describe one of the top technology companies as techy-techy and quickly apologized.

Ryan burst out laughing and handed Eli his card.

"Well, think about it and if you’re interested, give me a call. Our offices are in this same building."

Eli wanted so badly to pinch himself to make sure he hadn’t died in the elevator crash and this was all really happening. These things only happen in movies—never in real life, definitely not in his life. Someone personally asking for him to come in for an interview, for a ZenithTech interview, no less!

"Thank you," said Eli quickly, shaking Ryan’s hand.

"Oh, and take this as well. Consider it a gift for fixing my phone," Sloane said, handing Eli a card that looked like a credit-card, decorated with pictures of gym equipment. His confused expression asked all the questions his mouth didn’t.

"It’s a gift card for this new gym in town. I worked with their marketing team and the company gave us all gift cards for the gym. It’s good for two years, and you get a personal trainer as well. Take care of yourself, Eli! I have to run—my meeting’s about to start!"

Eli quickly thanked them both and called the man he was supposed to interview with today.

Just as he had ended the call, a text popped up on his screen.

Ryan: "Please tell me you Googled the cut-outs, too!"