Familiar Strangers

This was the harshest storm that New York had seen in well over a year. From midnight onwards it was white noise, all around. Violent gusts of wind screamed through the streets and rain came down so heavily it was as though a glittering veil had been draped over the city. The thunder rolled in some time before dawn, the lightning followed only 4 seconds later and would continue to do so throughout the day. From 12:00am all that could be heard was a shallow hum that enveloped the city and polluted the ears of the nine-to-five workers who sat uneasily at their desks, hoping that the rain would die down before they clock off.

Christine, a young receptionist, fidgeted in her seat with every crack of lightening that split the sky. She wished that she could be back at home, curled up with a mug of hot chocolate and a loud movie to drown out the horrendous bellowing of the wind that seemed to sway the building, in these moments she felt grateful that her position kept her on the ground floor. She wished that she hadn’t slept at her boyfriend James’ house the night before, the skirt and blouse that she had left there a year before were certainly not weather friendly. But how could she anticipate such a day when the weather reports barely could.

She also wished that the internet had not gone down minutes before sending off several important emails to the head of the company. But alas, she had already began printing them off to deliver personally. If only she had sent them as soon as they came through, she wouldn’t be forced to wonder around the arctic tundra they called an office. ‘Who in their right mind needs air conditioning on a day like this anyway?’ She thought, assuming it to be Candice in accounting who seems to have hit the ripe age of 49. Christine snickered to herself and continued to gather her printings ready for delivery.

After a quick glance at the clock, she began to feel excited that her day was slowly coming to an end, only 3 more hours and she would be on her way to her apartment where she would be warm, or at least warm-er given that James still had not fixed her radiator after weeks of promises. But she couldn’t bear the thought of having to stay at his apartment again, not after last night. Christine shook her head intending to knock the intrusive thoughts right out before shuffling out from behind her desk, tucking her blouse in at the back.

As she wondered across the marble floored foyer, she began to wonder whether any of her colleagues were watching her walk. The tightness of her skirt made it impossible to take steps more than 3 inches apart and she wondered if anyone had noticed.

As Christine stood patiently waiting for the elevator, her mind wondered back to the previous night. She envisioned James laying on his side of the bed, peacefully dreaming while she sat up for hours, hundreds of questions running through her mind.

The sudden ding of the elevator brought her back to reality and she realised she had been clenching her jaw for so long her back teeth had begun to ache. She took a few deep breaths to calm her racing heart and stepped into the mirrored cubicle, pressing the button for the 13th floor. As the doors began to close she heard an unfamiliar voice that was so flustered she could barely make out their words. A hand reached between the doors and they bounced back open, allowing a tall man with broad shoulders and dark wavy hair to step into the cubicle. “Level 13, please” he said with a smile and a drawn out breathe. “Oh of course” Christine responded after a short pause, she hadn’t realised she was standing in front of the buttons and turned to press it for the man.

“Oh look at that, you’ve already done it for me” he said gesturing at the lit up number on the wall.

She became noticeably embarrassed and played it off with a quiet laugh. “Who are you looking for?” she asked.

“I was looking for someone to take out to dinner but I think I found her on the first floor” he said, smiling again, this time with much more charm “No, actually I’m here to see Michael, we’re old college buddies and he promised me a drink the next time I was in town”

“Michael? As in Michael Werner the head of the company?” Christine asked purposefully avoiding his original statement, in order to avoid mentioning that she had a boyfriend because she knew that if she mentioned James she would probably throw up and that’s not very polite to do on a stranger’s shoes.

“Yep, that’s the one. He”- The man’s sentence came to a halt as abruptly as the elevator. The lights buzzed and flickered until they went out completely. For a few moments they stood in silence still shaken from the jarring stop until Christine pulled out her phone for light. She searched for the emergency button and pressed it repeatedly.

“If it’s a power outage that probably won’t work” He advised “But most elevators will continue on battery power and should send us to the closest level to get off”

“Well, no offence to your old pal Michael but since he hasn’t had this lift assessed ever, I doubt that will be happening” her words came out much harsher than intended and she immediately apologised before politely knocking on the doors in the hopes someone would hear them.

“No, you’re right” he laughed and she could picture his cheeky smile even in the dark “He’s always been a bit of a tight ass”

Christine smiled to herself but hoped he wouldn’t mention her comment over drinks, she needed this job.

“I’ll give him a call now and let him know to call someone to come and get us”

“That would be excellent”

The man pulled out his phone and flicked through his contacts until he reached a familiar name at the bottom, Christine hadn’t realised that she’d been peering over at his phone screen until she let out a slight chuckle at the sight of the array of female names in his phone. She hoped he didn’t hear but disregarded the thought as quickly as it came. He did come across as the type to get around after all. Not that it really concerned her anyway.

As the man played catch up with Christine’s boss over the phone, she pulled up her own phone to check her battery. Only 15% left. That wouldn’t last very long so she made a mental note not to touch it unless there was an emergency. She wondered if maybe she should let James know of her situation but rolled her eyes and put her phone back on top of the pile of paperwork that she had been cradling.

“He says he’s sorry that you got stuck in here and that we’ll probably be waiting a while, apparently we aren’t the only building to lose power so I guess we’ll have to wait our turn but good old Mikey here is going to pay you overtime, aren’t you?” He says confidently.

“Oh” she laughed “That’s not necessary I’ll just take a raise”

“I like this girl, Mike” he advised “Anyway, I’m going to let you go so I can save battery. Give us a call when they get here”

Christine heard the man shuffle to the floor and supposed that since they’d be there a while she might as well get comfortable and although her skirt felt like it would split with the slightest movement, she managed to get herself to the floor and her skirt remained intact, thank god.

“I’m Adam by the way. I’d shake your hand if I could see it”

“Christine” she laughed “or Chrissy. It’s nice to put a name to the… dark blob”

“The dark blob. Nice”

“I would’ve said ‘face’ if I could remember what it looked like” She lied, she could very clearly picture his green eyes, his lips and the smile that accompanied them. But she thought it inappropriate to mention that.

“Well I couldn’t forget a face like yours so I guess you’re the rude one out of us” he said jokingly with an exaggerated ‘hmph’.

She rolled her eyes and decided to move passed his comment. “So Adam, tell me about yourself”

“Is this a job interview?” He scoffed “Well, I’m 28 and I’m a marketing executive from Syracuse. I play hockey and do a lot of photography in my spare time which is hardly ever”

“If that’s how you advertise yourself you should definitely quit your day job”

“Well it’s a little unnerving knowing that you’re looking at me and I can’t see you at all”

“How about we sit back to back and just go back and forth with random facts about ourselves”

Christine began to shuffle into the middle of the cubicle and Adam promptly followed, they sat so that their backs were pressed against each other. Christine laid her papers down beside her along with her phone and pulled her hair over her shoulder so it wouldn’t tickle his neck.

Adam gently nudged her arm with his elbow. “I’ll let you go first”.

“Well I guess I’ll follow your lead, I’m 24 and you obviously know where I work. I live about 30 minutes away from here. I’m not a very sporty person but I love to swim”

“Do you live alone?”

“Yeah I do, my landlord won’t allow pets”

“So no partner?”

Christine’s smile began to fade. “He lives in Brooklyn”

“Oh sorry I only assumed”

“No it’s fine, he’s great”

“Can’t be that great, you mentioned swimming before him”

Christine sighed “It’s a long story”.

There was a quiet pause which seemed like minutes to both of them until Adam broke the silence with a “Well my favourite movie’s The Goonies. What about you?”

She laughed and thought about it for a minute “Umm it would probably be Poltergeist, I love an 80’s movie especially horror”

“Hey, look at that, both Spielberg movies”

“Yeah” she smiled to herself in the darkness. “Do you have any pets?”

“I have a dog named Munster, he’s a Dalmation, going on about 15 years now so he just sleeps a lot unless he hears me cooking”

“Aw I had a Dalmatian when I was little! Her name was Dorothy or Dot for short”

Adam laughed.

“Are you a good cook?” she asked.

“I’m pretty decent, I watch a lot of cooking shows when I can’t sleep”

“Me too”. Christine was beginning to enjoy herself. It had been a long time since somebody was interested in the things she had to say, however insignificant. It was easy to talk to Adam since she couldn’t see his face and whether or not he was rolling his eyes with every word she spoke.

“Do you see your family often?” he chimed in.

“My parents travel a lot together so I only see them when they come back for Christmases but I see my brother and his wife every few weeks we have dinner together”

“That sounds nice, double date dinners”

Christine felt her stomach drop and she fidgeted at the question. “No it’s usually just the three of us, James isn’t really the social type” She leaned her head back slightly hoping that he wouldn’t try to dig deeper. It was beginning to get harder and harder for Christine to bury her feelings and thoughts about her relationship with James.

“He’ll have to be eventually, what about when you’re married?”

He brought up a very good point but the answer was so much simpler.

“He doesn’t want to get married.”

“Do you?”

“It doesn’t matter”

“It matters Christine. What you want matters too.”

Her stomach began to swarm with what felt like a hundred butterflies and her throat felt as though it were being squeezed so hard she could barely swallow. As she forced in a few sharp breaths Adam turned his head, although he couldn’t see her he knew that something was wrong.

“Are you alright?”

“Yeah, just cold” she responded. Only a half lie.

Adam took off his Jacket and draped it over her shoulders, it was still warm and she wrapped it around her body.

“Let’s keep playing” she said wiping a tear from her cheek with the back of her hand.

“Alright, uh, tell me what you’re thinking at this exact moment”

She briefly considered lying and telling him that she was thinking of what she would be having for dinner but she knew what he was trying to do. He wanted her to confront the emotions she was trying so desperately to hide. Before she could even stop herself, she’d blurted it out.

“I’m thinking about last night.”

“What happened last night?”

She hesitated. “Last night, I got a text from an unknown number. A confession I suppose. They said that they had been ‘seeing’ James on and off for the last 2 months.”

Adam remained silent so she decided to go on.

“I didn’t know whether to believe it so I got in the car and went straight to his apartment. I tried to ask him about it but he just denied it and made me feel horrible for suggesting it. And then he went to bed.”

Christine felt her throat begin to close again but she pushed through and let the tears roll down her face.

“He slept like a baby and I wandered around his apartment finding long blonde hairs in his sink, women’s underwear in the bathroom hamper, hair ties, you name it. I’d seen false lashes and other things before but just assumed that they were mine. I always knew in the back of my head that he was capable of it but I never wanted to believe it.”

“You know what you need to do right?”

“I can’t”

“You can. He doesn’t love you.”

She buried her face in her hands and sobbed.

“I know he doesn’t love me. In 5 years I don’t know if he ever really has.”

“It’s time to leave, Christine.”

She kept her face buried in her hands for a few seconds longer, looked up and saw her boss along with several young fire fighters that were huddled around the doorway.

“It’s time to leave” the voice said again, only this time it was coming from the fire fighter who was holding open the big metal doors.

Christine climbed to her feet and stepped out of the little mirrored room alone. She glanced back and saw only her reflection staring back at her. She saw a woman who was finally ready.

“You must be freezing” Mr Werner said gesturing at her blouse. She shrugged handed the papers to him before looking at her phone. It was 8:00pm. Three hours after closing and not a single missed call.

Christine, a young receptionist, opened her contacts list and found a familiar name. She sent a very short but very life changing two worded text. The only thing he deserved.