70 minutes in heaven

Kristine Atterbury, Contributor

When the elevator came to a sudden, grinding halt, it took a couple of seconds for Gael to notice. Eyes peeled to the screen of her BlackBerry, the thumb of her right hand moving quick as lightning across the buttons, she was so engrossed that, somehow, she completely missed the slight lurch of the cab and the sudden intake of breath behind her. It took a full minute or two for her brain to register that something was amiss.

Still typing, her gaze flicked to the numbers above the elevator doors, paused, dropped back to her BlackBerry, and then flicked up again, widening slightly this time. She blinked at the numbers in bewilderment. Floors eight and nine were both lit, which made no sense.

"I was wondering when you would notice," someone behind her said.

Gael gave a little shriek and spun around. Jon Rodriguez stood behind her, his laptop bag slung over his shoulder, his glasses slightly askew. He nodded at the cell phone she was holding.

"You didn't even know I was in here, did you?" he asked with a wry smile. "You should give the BlackBerry a break and look around you once in a while."

Gael stared at him in disbelief and waved her hands at the elevator doors. "Are we stuck?" she asked, her voice growing shrill.

"Well, since we're not moving and the doors aren't opening ..." He paused and raised his eyebrows.

Panicked, she turned to the button panel and began jabbing at it. Her fingers found the emergency/call button and she pressed it hurriedly. There was a pause, and then a series of clicks before the sound of a busy signal emerged from the tiny speaker beneath the panel.

"Oh my gawd, oh my gawd," she muttered, as she tried again and again, only to be met by the same busy signal. After a few minutes of this, she turned on him.

"So you jus' going stand there? Call somebody nuh!"

"I already tried that," he said, pronouncing his words very slowly, as if he were speaking to a child. He held up his phone and showed her the screen. "No signal."

She squinted at the unfamiliar device in his hand. It was large, square and black. "What is that? Is that ...one of the old Nokias?" Barely concealed disdain crept into her voice.

"Yes, and it works perfectly, so you can wipe that smirk off your face," he replied.

Gael shook her head and began dialling on her own phone, praying the call would go through. Relief flooded through her when the person on the other end picked up.

"Marisa!" I'm stuck in the elevator, send someone to get us out right now."

Marisa was unperturbed. "Yes, yes, we know. Some kinda problem with the circuit, dem say. Two other elevators are stuck so unu going have to wait."

Gael glanced back at Jon and lowered her voice. "Listen, you need to get me out now," she said in an urgent whisper. "I have a meeting with Clark Communications in less than 30 minutes, and ... I'm stuck in here with Jon."

Marisa popped her gum right into Gael's ear. "Which Jon? Jon Brown from marketing?"

Gael lowered her voice even more. "No, the other Jon. From accounting."

"Oh! With the long eyelashes! He's cute. Remember you had the biggest crush on him at first but he was going out with that pretty girl from the bank next door - what she name again? And she had pretty green eyes like ..."

"Marisa!" Gael cut her off with a hiss. "How soon before somebody gets here?"

"Which elevator unu stuck in?"

Gael recited the serial number below the button panel. "Now  please tell them to hurry!"

"They on the way, ma'am." And with a final pop of her gum, Marisa hung up.

Gael punched the disconnect button with vehemence and leaned against the wall, letting out a breath of frustration.

Jon was staring at her, his ridiculously ancient Nokia bulging out of his shirt pocket. They sat in silence while she thought of the million things she could be doing instead of being stuck inside a metal box with a man who was too attractive to look at. She steered her gaze away from his square jaw, sculpted lips and fringed eyelashes. She would stare at his stupid phone and mock him silently. And in just a few minutes, someone would come to rescue them.

At her desk, Marisa slowly tore a piece of paper from her notepad and handed it to the elevator contractor standing before her. "Dat one is the last one that's stuck. But unu don't need to rush," she said, smiling sweetly. "There's nobody in it."

Gael was beginning to sweat. They had been stuck for more than half an hour and Marisa wasn't answering her phone. Jon hadn't said a word since she got off the phone. He just sat there and stared at her.

Finally, she snapped at him. "What are you looking at?"

"I'm looking at you," he responded simply. "What else is there to look at?"

She didn't know how to respond to that, so she switched gears.

"Why you carry that old phone around?"

"Same reason you carry yours around."

Her eyes narrowed at the hint of sarcasm in his voice.

"But nobody uses those anymore."

"I don't really care what other people do. It works, and that's all I need."

Unable to think of a sassy reply, she huffed and rolled her eyes.

Several minutes of silence passed before he spoke again.

"You know," he said slowly, his voice deep and even. "Marisa was wrong. I never went out with that girl with the green eyes."

Gael froze in horror.

When Marisa's phone rang, she glanced at the caller ID before picking up.

"Yes?" she said, popping her gum twice in succession. It was the contractor. "We get the people dem out of the two elevators. Going open up the third one now, so we can check out the problem."

"No man, take a break first. Unu must be hungry. Go buy a patty and a juice and come back."

The contractor needed no encouragement. "Arite den."

She hung up just in time to see another call coming in from Gael's phone. Ignoring it, she unwrapped a new stick of gum, and hummed to herself cheerfully.

Gael was having a hard time breathing, and she was trying to figure out if it was the lack of air in the elevator, or the proximity of one Jon Rodriguez, who had happened to hear every word of her conversation with the loud-mouthed Marisa, and who was still staring at her unrelentingly.

"I never realised how small these elevators are," she said faintly, trying not to look at his Adam's apple or the hint of bare chest behind the loosened buttons of his shirt.

He made no reply. She grasped futilely for something to talk about, anything.

"That phone really is ridiculous. Aren't they obsolete now?"

He grinned and leaned towards her. "You have goose bumps," he said softly. "Should I come closer?"

Fifteen minutes later, Marisa was enjoying a long conversation with the contractor. His eldest child had just got 10 CXC passes and he and his wife were trying to get their visas so they could visit her sister in Florida.

Finally he wound down. "Bwoy, I guess we should go check out di next elevator now."

"Yes, is true." Marisa agreed. "But first, is which subjects you say yuh daughter pass?"

By now, Gael was almost babbling.

"The only priority in my life right now is work. If I want to own my own agency one day, I have to stay focused. You understand that, right?"

They were sitting on the floor now and she no longer had any hope that anyone was coming for them. She was going to die here, in an elevator with her BlackBerry, her gym bag, and a man who smelled like fresh laundry and Calvin Klein cologne. It wasn't the worst way to go.

She forced her eyes to meet his. "So like I was saying, I don't have time for a social life right now."

He leaned closer, his gaze somewhere to the left of her mouth.

"You have a smudge of ink on your face."

"Are you even listening to me?" she demanded.

"Loud and clear," he said, his eyes intent on hers, his hand coming up to touch her chin.

"Hold still."

Marisa followed the contractor and his men to the third elevator. She stood aside serenely while they fiddled with the circuit panel and finally used what looked like a large pair of shears to pry the doors open.

"Oops!" The contractor exclaimed with a look of surprise. "Sorry to interrupt, unu arite?"

Everyone stared at the couple wrapped in each other's arms.

He turned to Marisa. "How you said nobody was in here?"

"Wha?" Gael asked, her lipstick gone and her blouse rumpled.

Marisa shrugged. The workmen stared. Jon tightened his grip around Gael's waist.

"My mistake," Marisa said, with no trace of a smile on her face. She slung her handbag over her shoulder and walked down the hallway toward the stairs unwrapping another piece of gum as she went.

"See unu tomorrow!"