With Death in Autumn

by Sonia Bosetti

  Her hand was trembling when they hung up. They had to break up. She couldn’t treat him like this. Or… could she open her heart to him, make it happen? It wasn’t like she hadn’t tried. She wanted to love him. Maybe this is as good as it gets.

  She sighed. It was definitely time to have a chat with a girlfriend.

  ***

  Stuart felt his breath catch. The woman he hadn’t stopped thinking about was walking towards him, almost just as he’d seen her in his vision. This had to mean something. Was it destiny?

  Hold it right there. Down that road lies madness.

  “Hi.” She stopped in front of him. Stuart tripped to a stop then paused the podcast.

  “Um. You’re wearing a sundress.” Is this real?

  “Ah... yes? So, there’s this guy following me, I think… Can you pretend to be meeting me?” He nodded, stunned. She leaned in and kissed him on the cheek - her hair smelled like cinnamon and cloves - then they were walking side by side. just like that. No big deal. Stuart again reminded himself to breathe and put his headphones in his pocket. He felt a surge of something that made him feel a little high… Adrenaline? Hormones?

  “He’s just up here,” she said under her breath. “Would you mind walking with me to where I’m meeting a friend? It’s just around the block.”

  “Sure,” he said, still not sure this was happening. “You were at Alabaster last night, weren’t you?”

  “Yes,” she answered. Her hair caught red highlights from the midday sun. The smell of pavement warmed by sun and rubber was heightened in his senses. He even thought the smell of trash as they passed an alley seemed perfect in the moment. Am I high? “I was just about to ask if you were my waiter.” My waiter, not our. Why did that feel like a big thing?

  Because you are desperate.

  Stuart struggled for a moment, trying to think of something to say. “Did you have a nice time?” At the same time, she said, “It’s a nice place.” They laughed awkwardly.

  The light was shining brighter, right around her head. He pictured something falling on her, or someone hitting her over the head. “Does your head feel okay?” He blurted without thinking.

  She grimaced. “Oh, god, was it that obvious that I drank a lot?”

  He shook his head, furious with himself. “No, not at all, I’m sorry, it’s just-”

  “Oh, it’s okay, I feel fine, just a little headache today.”

  “Shit.” She’s going to have an aneurysm. I’m going to have to watch her die. Fuck that.

  She looked at him with surprise. “What’s wrong?”

  “I just - I forgot I have to be somewhere.”

  “No! I mean, not yet?” She took his hand, like they’d known each other forever and she was going to pull him along with her. “It’s just there. Please?”

  Stuart felt himself tense up. As much as he wanted to go with her - and she was asking him to - he didn’t want to watch her die.

  Stop it. You’re here now, and maybe it is destiny or maybe not, but you’re here. And she’s here, and she wants to be with you. Dumbass. “Okay, sure.” He willed his muscles to relax. Maybe it was even possible to save her.

  She looked relieved.

  “That guy must have really freaked you out, huh?”

  She was still holding his hand as they crossed the street. “Something like that.” They went into the building, and onto an elevator. What is happening? “It’s on the top floor, this coffee place,” she said apologetically.

  As the elevator went up, he watched his mystery woman with her eyes cast to the red digital numbers ticking up, up, up…. She had the death light around her, brighter than ever. He couldn’t look anymore so he turned his gaze to the floor. With a shock, he saw the light surrounded him, too. She said, “So, I have a boyfriend, but-”

  And just then, the elevator stopped.

  Chapter 3

  Allison caught sight of him from a block away. When she saw the light surrounding his head, it clicked. The waiter.

  Before she knew what she was doing - or better yet, why - she was walking up and fabricating a story. As they walked and chatted, she thought how sad it was that he was about to die. And also… about how it would be possible to make bad decisions with someone who was about to die, without consequences. Maybe if he’s with me he won’t die.

  It was a reckless thought, a potent drug. In the moments that she considered possibilities, she felt alive in a way she hadn’t in years. Life didn’t seem full of possibility lately.

  When the elevator stopped, she froze, as if standing very still would keep anything bad from happening.

  “Another stopped elevator, must be New York on a day of the week, huh?” She looked over at her companion, thinking he might be the last person she talked to. He just grinned. His smile was hesitant, so different from David’s. David had a wide, engaging smile that took up his whole face. Charming. But the waiter’s was… genuine.

  Allison shook her head and gripped the wall. Would that help her if the elevator plummeted them to their death? Probably not, but she couldn’t make herself stop. “This has never happened to me.” Her voice sounded distant in her own ears. “I’ve only been in New York a year.”

  He nodded. “It can be scary, but it happens all the time. You were about to say?”

  What had she been about to say? Something about her boyfriend? To a stranger? (A cute stranger…)

  “Oh, um… I don’t remember. It’s been a weird day. I’m supposed to meet a friend who I haven’t seen since college, and I am really nervous, and my whole life was…” What are you doing? Stop talking! “Um, are we supposed to do something?”

  “If it doesn’t start back up in a few minutes, we can use the call button. But it usually calls 911, so it’s better not to do it right away.”

  Allison eyed the button next to the speaker, wanting to press it, but not wanting to seem a newbie New Yorker. What kind of crazy people get used to elevators stopping? She forced herself to look down and took a few deep breaths, realizing that more than the stopped elevator was wrong. She held her hand before her face. No. “What the hell?”

  The waiter reached toward her, but without touching. His voice was a whisper. “You can see it?”

  Allison stared back at him, meeting his wide eyes with equal shock. “You can see it?” Their eyes locked, and she felt like she was falling. She pressed tighter to the wall, but the vertigo was all her own… The elevator was locked in place. For now.

  The speaker crackled. “Is anyone on this elevator? Repeat, is anyone on this elevator?”

  Allison tore her eyes from the waiter’s, pressed the red button next to the speaker, and said, keeping her voice as steady as she could. “Yes, there are two passengers."

  After a pause: “Be advised there is a report of fire in the building. We have responders on the way, but we advise you try to exit the elevator and make your way to the nearest staircase.”

  Allison and the waiter stared at each other, mutually aware of impending death. “Well,” sighed the waiter, “this doesn’t look good.”

  ***

  She looked genuinely scared.

  Somehow he could barely feel anything but interest in her right now. Here he was, facing almost certain, imminent death, and all he could think about was a woman.

  Okay, maybe not so weird for a man.

  “Hey, it will be okay,” he said. He sat down with his back against the wall. She stared a moment, then shook her head and sat beside him.

  “How can you be so calm?”

  How honest should he be? He shrugged to himself. If he was about to die, no point lying. “Life hasn’t been that great… Death hasn’t looked scary in a long time. I hope someone takes care of my cat, though.”

  He heard her take a deep breath. “I guess I haven’t been scared in a long time, either. She’s always around, but I don’t understand…. I don’t know how people can be okay with it all the time. Acting like everything is normal.”

  “It is
normal, though, isn’t it? Is there anything more normal than death?”

  “So you’re okay with it? How do people get anything done? How do they love, or have kids, or start anything, knowing it could be over any minute?”

  I could love you. He felt this on a soul level, and for once in his life he didn’t second-guess his thought or think he was stupid for thinking it. He could see them walking together, loving easily, and that image brought a pang to live that he didn’t know still existed in him.

  Speaking past a lump in his throat, he murmured, “Don’t ask me. I‘ve never planned past the next paycheck, and I’m not sure I’ve ever loved anyone.”

  “Me, neither,” she said. She moved to sit closer to him, so their shoulders were almost touching. She was shivering. He took off his jacket and wrapped it around her shoulders.

  “Thank you,” she said, pulling it close. “It was dumb, wearing a dress like this in October.”

  “No. It was warm and you look… wonderful.” She met his eyes, and he saw a question there, though he wasn’t sure what it was.

  “This is weird,” she said, tilting her head a little as she spoke, like she was studying him. “I’ve met people like us before, but we had nothing to say to each other.”

  “You probably weren’t about to die together.” They hadn’t stopped making eye contact. He was expecting her to argue or laugh at him, but instead she gave him a sad smile. She laid one hand over his on his knee, and whispered, “Do you think we will die?”

  “Maybe. I think I can smell the smoke.”

  She broke eye contact, turning her gaze to the door. “Me, too. We should try to get out.”

  “Yeah.” In spite of the common-sense agreement, they sat for a few moments in silence. Neither moved. “You said, ‘she’, when you were talking about death.”

  She nodded. “Have you ever seen her?”

  “No, just the ... light. It’s a her?”

  “I don’t know. I’m not sure what I saw was real. It might have been a dream, and I was just a kid. But I thought she was an angel, and we spoke for a while. I don’t remember what she said... It was probably just a dream.”

  “Hmm…” He wondered if it could be a being, Death, like in mythology. It seemed like a nice idea, someone to guide you, like an angel…

  “So, what’s your name? Seems like we should know each other’s names, if we’re going to...” Her voice trailed off.

  “Stuart.”

  “Nice to meet you, Stuart. Sorry for dragging you here.”

  He knew, I’m glad I’m here, would be a weird thing to say, about to die or not. “So, if we get out of here-” He hesitated. Talking about the future - hoping for any kind of future worth looking forward to - was dangerous.

  She squeezed his hand. A whisper: “Yes?”

  “You should get rid of that dress from last night. It’s pretty, but it’s not right for you.”

  She said nothing and he wondered if he had gone too far. Allison stood up, and moved to the door, touching it with the back of her hand. He saw her wipe her eye with her other hand.

  “I’m sorry, I -”

  “No, it’s okay, you’re right. I might have smoke in my eye… Let’s try to get this door open. It’s not hot. I hope that rule counts for elevators, too.”

  He stood next to her, and they tried to pry the doors open, but they wouldn’t give. “They make it look easy in movies,” she said.

  “They also climb out through the tops of elevators a lot. I don’t think we’re getting out of that ceiling.” It was one solid block of mirrors.

  “This is insane!” Allison kicked the door. “There has to be an emergency hatch. Isn’t that code or something?”

  “You would think… though it wouldn’t be the first time a building wasn’t up to code. Especially in this neighborhood. It used to be under mafia control.”

  “Really?” Allison was pressing the red button again.

  “Yeah, they would just pay off so they could avoid fines. Or something like that… I’m not an expert on the mob. My manager said something-”

  The speaker crackled to life. “Is this elevator 319?”

  “Um, yes, I think so. We haven’t been able to get out. Is someone on the way?”

  “Yes, they are on the way to you. The fire is contained.”

  “Wow, cool, thanks.” Allison sagged against the wall. The speaker crackled to silence

  “‘Wow, cool, thanks’?” He couldn’t help smiling. “I guess you are a seen-it-all New Yorker now. Jaded in the face of rescue from certain death.”

  “I don’t know what I feel. I just…” Her voice drifted off, and she looked at him, a question in her eyes.

  “What?”

  “Am I still surrounded by it… by … Death?”

  He took a deep breath. “Yeah.”

  “So are you.”

  The doors opened and a firefighter ducked his head in. “Can I give you kids a hand?”

  When they had clambered out of the elevator and not fallen to their doom, and (besides the firefighters and a faint scent of smoke) found no fire, they turned to each other. “What now?” Allison asked.

  He knew she meant what now as in, “We’ve escaped an elevator in a burning building and we’re still going to die,” but he wanted to say, Now we exchange phone numbers and take to the highway and spend whatever remaining time we have singing with the car radio and walking in golden fields. We must get a dog on the way, too.

  EMS nudged them out the door, wrapping blankets around them and directing them to a holding area. A large group of evacuees was being screened.

  He needed to see her again. It wouldn’t be weird to ask for her phone number, would it? They had just been in a life-or-death situation (though he supposed not as dire as it had seemed at the time) and they had a strong interest in common. Not everyone could see Death. Also, it seemed, they had the common interest of still being about to die in common.

  “Hey, listen, I-”

  “Allison! Allison!” The desperate voice cut through the ambient noise of the crowd and the normal noise of a city street. A lanky young man in a posh suit pushed through the crowd and ran toward them. Stuart recognized him, with a strong sense of resentment. He was about as right for her as the velvet dress.

  “God, I was so worried, I couldn’t find you and they said-”

  “It’s okay, I’m fine,” Allison said as the man took her in his arms. Stuart knew this was the time to walk away, to let them be, but he still wanted a way to see her again. He knew he would regret it for the rest of his life if he didn’t try.

  The man dropped to one knee, and pulled a box out of his pocket. Stuart wished something heavy would drop on them all, right now. He didn’t want to see this. He backed up. Surely she wouldn’t say yes? She wasn’t happy with him. She had said so.

  ... Hadn’t she said so?

  The man was speaking with tears in his eyes. “I’ve been wanting to find the right moment for weeks, but I can’t wait anymore. I can’t imagine life without you, Allison. Will you marry me?”

  Allison stammered, staring at the ring. She looked over at Stuart, and he thought this would be the moment in the movie where the heroine turned away from the staid, boring suit man, and ran into the arms of the man she had fallen in love with on the elevator. Their eyes met, and he could once again picture a lifetime in the beat of a heart.

  But she swallowed and looked around at the crowd that waited breathlessly. She looked back at Stuart, only a second, and he could swear her gaze said I’m sorry before she turned her attention back to her boyfriend. “Yes,” she answered.

  The crowd cheered. People took pictures - those who hadn’t already been taking video.

  Stuart turned and walked away.

  Chapter 4

  Allison was furious. How could he do that to her? How was she supposed to answer “no” in the middle of all of that, with all those people looking at them?

  But she wasn’t acting furious. She smile
d and laughed as she sat on the ambulance. She did breathing tests even though she insisted she hadn’t been exposed to smoke. “We need to treat for shock just as a precaution, otherwise you seem fine.”

  Great, now tell this man not to propose to someone who is in shock? Surely that isn’t binding!

  “Thank God” David took her hand. The one with the ring. He had been about to propose last night. So why hadn’t he?

  “David, I don’t feel okay about this.” Okay, so no more of the happy act. Let’s do this.

  His face crumpled. “About being engaged?”

  She shook her head. “About being together.”

  “Let’s get you home and rest, you’ll feel better after that, it’s not a good time to make big decisions.”

  “Oh, really! You don’t say! You mean, like deciding whether to get married? In front of a crowd after thinking I was going to die?” She smacked the edge of the blanket against him, punctuating her anger.

  He held his hands up. “You’re right, you’re right, please stop hitting me!” He laughed. “With that blanket, you might leave a terrible bruise.”

  She scowled. How dare he be cute when she was trying to break up with him?

  But maybe he was right. “Okay. Let’s go home.”

  ***

  David was the most attentive human being possible for the rest of the afternoon. He called into the office, and he made her chicken noodle soup and tucked her in on the couch with blankets, pillows, tea and Netflix. In between episodes, he gently asked her about the experience, what had happened and listened without interrupting.

  She felt safe and warm and comforted in a way that seemed like… it could be enough. This could be enough.

  How many people in the world would kill for this? To not only have someone loving, attentive, intelligent…. But to feel safe. She thought about Stuart… She couldn’t stop thinking about Stuart, and it seemed like jumping off a cliff.

  No one wanted to jump off a cliff. That was how you broke your neck. That was how you lost all the safety and security you had worked for.