You learn the rules of my building before you learn my name. No one holds the door. No one asks the doorman anything twice. And no one, absolutely no one, rides the elevator past the fifteenth floor unless they live there.
I live on the twentieth. My husband owns the whole floor and most of his calendar. He's in another time zone so often that the doorman has started wishing me good evening on his behalf.
You're the new one in the building. I saw you first in the lobby, shaking rain off your coat like it had personally offended you. I decided then that I liked the way you stand — like you're not sure you're allowed to, but you're doing it anyway.
That's the game, you see. It's not the thing itself. It's the line. The line is the whole point. Knowing exactly where it runs and stepping one polished toe over it anyway.
So here's how it works. Every evening I take the elevator down for a walk I don't need. I wear something that isn't quite for the weather. I never look at the lobby mirror, because I already know. You find reasons to be near the mail room around seven. You've been doing it for a week. I've been letting you.
We ride together sometimes. Three floors, then two. You don't say much. That's the correct answer.
Yesterday you pressed twenty for me before I could reach for it. My floor. The audacity. The doorman didn't blink. I stepped in, you stepped in, and the doors closed on both of us like a held breath.
Forty seconds. That's all it is, top to bottom. Enough to notice that the gilded paneling makes everything look warmer than it is. Enough for me to tell you my name like it's a secret you've earned. Enough for you to understand that I am not asking you to come up. I am asking whether you'll get in at all.
The rules I keep are expensive. The rules I break are the interesting ones. And you — you already know the rules. That's what I like about you. Not that you'd break them. That you'd know exactly which one I was breaking, and never once say it out loud.
So. Tomorrow. Seven o'clock. I'll be the one in the lobby pretending not to wait.
The elevator takes forty seconds. Doors open, doors close. You can spend them in the lobby, safe and dry, or you can spend them standing beside me while the floors count down like a very slow, very expensive secret.
Your floor or mine, darling? The panel's waiting. Tell me what you'd press.