Romance Briefs

Romance Briefs: Timing is Everything

The Man in the Elevator

She saw the man every day in the elevator, getting in, getting off; it was uncanny; if she didn't see him in the morning, she'd see him going to lunch or coming back from lunch. If she didn't see him then, she would surly catch sight of him when she was going home; every single day for two months since she had taken the job on the 6th floor of the office building.

Every sports jacket he wore, every shirt and every pair of shoes... she like them all. His choices were impeccable, as if he were dressed by a wife or girlfriend, but she didn't notice any ring on his figure, so at least the wife part was pretty much ruled out. She liked his style, his clothes and she liked the business-like charm he exuded – not to mention, he was handsome.

They always exchanged a word or two each time they saw each other, but nothing more than 'nice day' or 'have a good one'. He always smiled at her and she always smiled at him as if waiting for the other to take the lead and... she always made sure that he could see her ringless left hand.

Today was a new week; she was going to do something about it. She had been ignoring invitations that trickled in from the dating site because she just wasn't interested anymore. When she did saw him, she would be the one to introduce herself and at start the ball rolling...or at least find out if there was a place to roll it.

That morning, he wasn't in the lobby, so she waited a few minutes (she was a bit earlier than usual). Yes, she was eager, but after a few minutes, she rang for the elevator and when the doors opened, she hoped he would magically appear, but instead she got in and went about her day.

At lunch, she decided to go to the elevator at her usual time to assure some semblance of normalcy, but still nothing...as well as when she came back from lunch. The afternoon crawled at a snail's pace as she was eager to make her final shot pay off. At precisely 5pm, she boarded the elevator on the 6th floor and felt a weighty defeat. Just to give it a last effort, she rode the elevator to the lobby floor and then pretended that she forgot something and rode it back up to the top and then back down. Feeling slightly foolish and with a foreboding sense of loss, she sighed, exited at the lobby and was greeted by the smell of roses. There were red petals scattered on the lobby floor leading to the exit. 'Was this a trail for her to follow?' she thought. 'No, this can't be for me'. But, she quickly followed the trail of petals to the sidewalk and found the source of to be an old woman, her arms wrapped around a large bunch of discarded roses. The old woman noticed her at once and said "Lovely, aren't they?"

"Yes, they are" she replied, even though they were wilted and losing their petals "and you've got quite a bundle."

"The man at the flower stand gave them to me. Here's a stem for you", the old woman handed her a rose.

Thank you," she said accepting the gift.

"Now you are the luckiest woman in the world" the old woman said with a wink.

She didn't feel lucky. She had failed in her mission today and all she could think of as she walked to her car holding the wilted, dying rose, was that the elevator man had taken another job and moved out of her life...forever. As she laid the rose on the passenger seat and started her car, she took one last look at the flower...5 petals remaining.

That night, four more dating site requests appeared on her phone. She looked at the first one, but it was nothing but a blur. Nothing in the picture or message registered; it was as if she hadn't looked at it at all.

She went to bed without attempting to read further. The emotional elevator ride of the day had taken its toll.

On Tuesday, she met the day with stoic resolve. She was not surprised when her elevator man didn't show in the morning or any of the other three times they had left to chance for two months. That night, deciding that 'life will go on'. She logged on to the dating site, clear eyed, but less than optimistic. The number of requests to connect had reached 12 by then. She dutifully started checking the pictures and reading the messages. Then she got to the ninth one and she felt that she had entered another dimension; elevator man had left her a message.