The Elevator Effect

Chapter 3

Jane Archer had been a quiet child. Throughout her peaceful childhood, a cloud of slurry silence seemed to stalk after her, wherever she went. She didn't like making new friends and talking to adults. Her family lived on a horse farm in Swedan, in a little forgotten town up in the mountains.

She had spent her whole life up until now, living in that town; a brief clarification of why the big city seemed so daunting to her.

Back at home the church was the highest building around, and it had two towers with a bell and a cross, and a remarkably high ceiling. Everyone used to say that towers were meant for locking up all the loud children. No one really believed that, but being panically frightened of heights, Jane always kept her mouth shut.

Here, those church towers would get trampled on by all the modern smooth-glassiness of seventy-floor sky scrapers.

Jane woke up to the sound of the rain and the soft purring of Morgan's cat, which had clearly picked her as its new sleeping buddy.

As the obscure, colorless room sharpened before her eyes, the purring seemed to have become something else. Something more monotone and frustrating. The ringing of a phone. On a Sunday morning.

She stretched out her hand to pick it up from the table.

A miniature wave of lightning electricity shot through her as she saw the caller's ID. Her hand grew limp around her phone and it dropped onto the carpet, still ringing. What was he calling her for and why at this time of morning? Did something happen?

Maybe he re-read her résumé and decided that the three years she worked as a coffee shop waitress didn't show up good on her job application.

She stared blankly at her cell as it buzzed restlessly around the floor. It was infuriated by being ignored. Right it's still ringing, Jane gasped springing out of bed to answer it.

"Yes?" She made an effort to sound like she's been awake for just a bit longer than twenty seconds.

"Miss Janet Archer?" Mr Kingston's voice radiated toxically from the speaker of her phone.

"Mr Kingston- everything is alright isn't it?" She faltered, suddenly short on breath.

An eternity of cliffhanger silence was her answer. "..I think that we should meet again to talk about your employment. Would you like to go to the Italian restaurant, on the corner of your block?"

"My block?" Jane looked out the window at the street below. Yes, a big italic-lettered 'Ristorante Bella-Italia' banner, in the colours of the Italian flag, stretched above a quaintly decorated cafeteria. It looked kindly inviting but something else made her straighten up in shock when the thought of it struck her.

How did he know this? She'd never included her address in her job application.

"So what do you say?" He asked. "It's 2 in the afternoon, but we can go for breakfast since you've just woken up - with all due respect to your sleeping patterns, they will have to change once you're on the job."

Jane frowned. Had her voice really sounded that sleepy? She felt a little shudder; she was 'getting involved' with a man who was seemingly all knowing and all seeing. Acquaintances like that were never very convenient.

With a sigh, she looked up towards the daunting point that cast the shadow, which made Henderson Avenue always seem so gloom.

"So can I count on you there in ten minutes?"

She took a deep breath. "Yes boss."