The groundskeeper climbs into his truck.
I say, “I was afraid to ride the elevator.”
“What do you mean?”
“It was before you got here. On my way to the store. I was about to ride the elevator down but then I was afraid that I’d get stuck and no one would know. You would have gotten here and I wouldn’t have had any reception.”
“Do the elevators here get stuck?”
“I don’t know.”
“Have you heard of them getting stuck?”
“No. But they’re old.”
She walks away from me, toward the elevator. I follow her.
“It’s so fancy,” she says.
Like so much of this building, every detail is ornate. Etched brass with leaf motifs and plaster swirls above the door. Places aren’t this old in California. I’m used to simple lines. I’m used to being closer to the ground. Mabel presses the button and the doors open like they’ve been waiting for us. I pull the metal gates apart and we step inside where the walls are wood paneled, lit by a chandelier. The doors close and we’re in the space for the third time today but, for the first time, we are in the moment together.
Until, mid-descent, when Mabel reaches toward the control panel and presses a button that makes us jolt to a stop.
“What are you doing?”
“Let’s just see how it feels,” she says. “It might be good for you.”
I shake my head. This isn’t funny. The groundskeeper saw that we were fine. He drove away. We could be stuck here for days before he’d begin to worry. I search the control panel for a button that will get us moving again, but Mabel says, “It’s right here. We can press it whenever we want to.”
“I want to press it now.”
“Really?”
She isn’t taunting me. It’s a real question. Do I really want us to move again so soon. Do I really want to be back on the third floor with her, nowhere to go but back to my room, nothing waiting there for us that wasn’t there before, no newfound ease or understanding.
“Okay,” I say. “Maybe not.”
“I’ve been thinking about your grandpa a lot,” Mabel says.
We’ve been sitting on the elevator floor, each leaning against a separate wall, for a few minutes now. We’ve discussed the details of the buttons, the refracted light from the crystals on the chandelier. We’ve searched our vocabularies for the name of the wood and settled on mahogany. And now, I guess, Mabel thinks it’s time to move on to topics of greater importance.
“God, he was cute.”
“Cute? No.”
“Okay, I’m sorry. That sounds patronizing. I just mean those glasses! Those sweaters with the elbow patches! Real ones that he sewed on himself because the sleeves wore through. He was the real deal.”
“I know what you’re saying,” I tell her. “And I’m telling you that it isn’t right.”
The edge in my voice is impossible to miss, but I’m not sorry. Every time I think about him, a black pit blooms in my stomach and breathing becomes a struggle.
“Okay.” Her voice has become quieter. “I’m doing this wrong. That’s not even what I meant to say. I was trying to say that I loved him. I miss him. I know it’s only a fraction of how you must feel, but I miss him and I thought you might want to know that someone else is thinking about him.”
I nod. I don’t know what else to do. I want to get him out of my head.
“I wish there had been a memorial,” she says. “My parents and I kept expecting to hear about it. I was just waiting for the dates to book my ticket.” And now the edge is in her voice, because I didn’t respond the way I should have, I guess, and because he and I were each other’s only family. Mabel’s parents offered to help me plan a service, but I didn’t call them back. Sister Josephine called, too, but I ignored her. Jones left me voice mails that I never picked up. Because instead of grieving like a normal person, I ran away to New York even though the dorms wouldn’t be open for another two weeks. I stayed in a motel and kept the television on all day. I ate all my meals in the same twenty-four-hour diner and I kept no semblance of a schedule. Every time my phone rang the sound rattled my bones. But when I turned it off I was entirely alone, and I kept waiting for him to call, to tell me everything was fine.
And I was afraid of his ghost.
And I was sick with myself.
I slept with my head under blankets and each time I stepped outside in the daylight I thought I’d go blind.
“Marin,” Mabel says. “I came all the way here so that when I talked, you’d be forced to talk back.”
The television played soap operas. Commercials for car dealerships, paper towels, dish soap. Judge Judy and Geraldo. Always, Dove, Swiffer. Laugh tracks. Close-ups of tear-stained faces. Shirts unbuttoning, laughter. Objection, your honor. Sustained.
“I started to think you must have lost your phone. Or that you hadn’t taken it with you. I felt like a stalker. All of those calls and emails and text messages. Do you have any idea how many times I tried to reach you?” Her eyes tear up. A bitter laugh escapes her. “What a stupid question,” she says. “Of course you do. Because you got them all and just decided not to respond.”
“I didn’t know what to say,” I whisper. It sounds so inadequate, even to me.
“Maybe you could tell me how you came to that decision. I’ve been wondering what exactly I did to bring about that specific strategy.”