The Weather’s Nice

Photo Provided by BREA BEE on October 1, 2010

Betty wasn’t the only one who stood quietly and uncomfortably at the back of the elevator. She had company. There was Harold, with his sweaty forehead and his sticky shirt. She watched motionless as he pulled the moist cotton away from his body every 4 seconds, just for the material to cling again. She would count with her breath, 1 exhale, 2 exhale, 3 exhale, 4 pudgy soft fingers, pinch, pull, release, stick. Poor Harold she would think, poor Harold.

Betty knew the names of the others who rode the elevator with her. They would talk amongst themselves when the numbers were in their favor . Hi Greg, Hi Lisa, How’s it going? Oh it’s going well, you? And then she would move, just a ¼ inch twist of her hip, the sound of rubber only a whisper of caught air. But it was enough to make them cramp up, stop talking, fidget uncontrollably. These were the moments ripe for taking inventory.

Lisa was a wide-ankled lustful woman. One could tell by the way she held her thighs, swishing them against one another. Lisa’s swish, swish, Harold’s pinch, pull, Greg’s phlegm blocked breath, cough, swallow, swish, swish, pinch, pull, cough. Betty could not control herself; the pinky of her right hand stiffened and popped  erect above its cup in the frenzy of rhythmic sounds. This caused Greg to drop his briefcase and nearly throw up as he scrambled out of the elevator on the 37th floor, bye Greg, see you at 5:07.

When the owner of 20 Forthright Blvd,  Boldegard Vinquist, had died; Betty is who he left in charge.

There would now be a psychiatrist on the 12th floor; open for walk-ins, to maintain the psychological well being of the tenants. Betty knew all of this of course; as it was part of her plan. The Psychiatrist was a Doctor Ginny Taylor of Millweed, IL and she was the daughter of Parsons Taylor, a tight rope walker who died traversing the Sunshine Skyway Twin Bridges due to a freak lightening storm which struck a freighter killing the Captain of the fated vessel.

The doomed Captain was quite a heavy man and when his dead body slumped forward it pushed the massive ship to full speed. Now plunging through the water, the skyscraper of the sea, set out on an unavoidable, intimate course to collide with the concrete structure holding Parsons. When contact was realized in a sonic boom of terror, time stopped. With toes curled and his breath quick but even, Parsons Taylor waited while the moaning of the ship thundered through his head. A month seemed to pass in those 7 seconds before the concrete slumped and fell in silent pirouettes to the churning water below. With the stealth of a frightened whip snake, Parson’s feet slithered along the rope to safety. If all factors remained equal he could get across the bridge before the crumbling reached a place to affect him.

All factors remained equal and he reached the other bridge safely and securely. Parsons, about to thank the heavens for their kindness dropped to his knees and with arms in the air and a broad smile on his face was promptly hit by a car. The ogling gaped mouthed motorist watching the horrific scene of busses and trucks plunging to certain unfortunate deaths across the water had not even had a chance to stop, let alone see the man who had dropped out of the sky, directly in the path of his car.

This said motorist was Boldegard Vinquist. Betty had been in the back seat, as was their customary means of travel.

The fund set up for Ginny was to see her through school; it had some objectives tailored in, what she would study, where she would work, etc. Ginny did not know Betty, but Betty knew every detail about Ginny. It was a simple plan and the 12th floor become 20 Forthright's new water cooler.

After some months passed and Ginny had heard every outlandish fear from every worker in the building she felt she had to confront the woman who was the cause, standing statuesque, at the back of the elevator; tea in hand, every hour of the work day for the last 2 years. Ginny stepped into the elevator and faced Betty. She stared for some time before she spoke.

“What are you gaining from doing this?”
“Do you want help?”
“Do you need attention?”
“45 people have quit their jobs because of you, some with no further employment”.

Betty studied how her lips twitched when there was no response; her brow furrowing, making her plain simple face, ugly. In frustration at the abject silence Ginny even went so far as to pick the skin on her fingers.

‘Keep studying’ thought Betty ‘You’re doing a fine job’.

And then, suddenly, one day between the 14th and the 15th floor, Betty died. Bruce was taking a smoke break and was the first to see. He lifted her limp frail frame from the elevator away from the cup which had spilled and cracked, still rolling slightly with the momentum of its fall. He was gentle with her, shocked and shaking. His urge to remove her mask was overwhelmed and wiped out by the gush of emotion that tidally swept through his body bringing him to his knees and leaving him sobbing over her. Frances heard his wails and ran to see what had happened but was stopped in her tracks by the hot flash of panic and sorrow when she saw Betty’s limp body.

“Oh my god”! The thought, the fear, the trauma, ran like a raging flood through the office, everyone left their posts. Phones dangled, papers fluttered to the floor and soon there was a swarm of people standing around her weeping. They couldn’t help themselves; they’d lost control of their bodies as their hearts shattered at the devastating site of their fallen statue. Not one attempted to remove her mask. Not one knew why they were reacting the way they were.

Someone called psychiatrist and then someone else called the police.

4 months later, Betty’s elevator could only hold 3 people uncomfortably; such was the size of the shrine. Ginny wrote a book which won her national acclaim. The workers once bound by their discomfort found themselves risking more for life; some of them said it was for themselves, some said it was for Betty.

The penthouse at the top of 20 Forthright, where Betty had lived with Boldegard until he was 80 and she was 82, was found plastered floor to ceiling with thousands of notes laden with the tiny details of her days on the elevator.
“Daniel was very nervous today, he moved his heel in and out of his shoe 6 times in 3 floors.”
“Sarah was sad about something, maybe her cat is sick.”
“Harriet had cinnamon in her breakfast and then oranges at lunch, pleasant”
“I wonder if Frank was promoted, he seems taller”

It was these details that kept Betty alive for 2 years after she lost her beloved Boldegard. Her gift back was left in fine script at the bottom of each page. Always variations of the same thought, same emotion: “I love them”.

“I love their discomfort, their small talk, their quirks, joys and sadness. I love their unwashed smells, their cheap perfumes, their boxed lunches and their talk about the weather. I love their anger and their pain and their breathing and their drive and their vigilance. And most, above all, I love their lives, lives that are full of laughter and travel, children and trauma, lives that will explore, find love, build homes and forgive; lives that have more sunrises, sunsets and rainfall. I love their lives unconditionally, in their entirety, because they are lives that are not yet over…… lives that have tomorrows...

As mine once did.”

-Betty Vinquist