Elevator, The (9 page)

Michelle grits her teeth. “What?”

“First, you have to sit calmly and wait for me to arrive. No messin’ around in the car, okay? And when I get you out, you have to leave the building. Nobody hangs around to watch Felix roll in. I’m not going to risk my neck rescuing you twice.”

Michelle immediately thinks of Parker, who has surely given up on her by now. He’s probably on the road, racing home to be with his kids. If he’s not, well, how’s this elevator guy going to stop her from checking on him?

“Agreed,” she says, without looking at the others.

“One more thing—you know a seven-letter word for
free?
”

Michelle blinks in exasperation. “What?”

“I was thinking
vacant,
but that’s only six letters.”

“Just hurry up, will you?”

For some odd reason, he whistles, then she hears a slamming door. “I’m already at my truck, lady. I’ll be there as soon as I can get across the bay.”

Michelle swallows hard. So—he’s been getting ready the entire time. “Thanks. Eddie.”

After another series of murmurs and assorted clunks, Ginger’s voice blasts over the speaker again. “That do it for you?”

“Yes. Unless you think it’d be useful to alert the Tampa police or our fire department.”

The woman laughs. “I’ll call ’em, but it sounds like you’d get better results if you rang up a superhero. Good luck, then.”

“Wait—Ginger?”

“Yeah?”

“We might call you back.”

For an instant Michelle’s afraid the woman will say she can’t be bothered, but the operator’s response is surprisingly gentle. “Call if you need me, hon. I’ll be here all day.”

After Ginger disconnects, Michelle leans against the wall and looks out from the corner she’s begun to consider her own. “I think,” she says, sinking into a cross-legged position on the floor, “we might as well settle in and get comfortable. Any way you look at it, we’re going to be here a while.”

The housekeeper wipes her nose with a tissue, then, after a couple of awkward attempts at modest maneuvering, sinks to the floor and tucks her short dress around her thighs. The redhead remains standing for a long moment, then she slides down the wall until she’s sitting across from Michelle.

Discomfited by the woman’s hollow-eyed stare, Michelle pulls her cell phone from her purse and punches in 911. No response, no service. Nothing.

She drops the phone back into her bag and tries not to let her frustration show. She glances at the cleaning woman, who has stopped crying and seems calmer. The redhead sits with her legs crossed and her head lowered, one wrist balanced on each knee.

The housekeeper is the first to speak. “
Discúlpeme
—excuse me?”

Michelle looks toward the barely lit back of the car. The cleaning woman’s mouth purses up into a rosette, then un-puckers enough to ask, “Help is coming, no?”

“That’s what the man said.”

“And we will all go together? We will go down and leave?”

Michelle shrugs. “Might as well.”

“Thank you.” When the housekeeper nods, Michelle realizes the woman is younger than she’d first thought. Her dark hair has come loose from her ponytail and floats around eyes that are large and smooth, their corners unlined.

No wonder she’s upset. She’s only a kid.

Michelle shifts her weight onto one hip and leans toward the cleaning woman. “I’m Michelle. And you are?”

The girl’s shy smile temporarily banishes the shadows on her face. “Isabel.”

Michelle plants an elbow on her knee, then rests her chin on her cupped hand. “Forgive me for being nosy, but have you worked here long?”

The housekeeper’s eyes widen. “Long? No, no, not long.”

Could the girl really be that shy? Michelle gives her a reassuring smile. “How old are you, Isabel?”

A deep flush rises from the girl’s collar, marring her complexion with dusky blotches.
“Diecinueve.”

“That’s what…nineteen?”

“Sí.”

Michelle nods in answer, then looks away. For some reason her questions seem to alarm the girl, so maybe Isabel would prefer to be left alone.

Michelle understands. At nineteen, she didn’t trust anyone.

“S
helly? When you’re done sweeping up, we have some boxes in the back needin’ to be unpacked.” Mr. Morris, head of Maxim’s custodial department, pulled a white envelope from his shirt pocket. “Before you start the unpacking, will you run this up to Ms. Calvino?”

Shelly leaned the broom against a shelf, then pushed at her sweaty bangs. The custodial job wasn’t exactly a dream come true, but it provided enough to live on and had given her an excuse to leave home. Charleston, West Virginia, wasn’t New York City, but it was a sight more cosmopolitan than Bald Knob.

She wiped her damp hand on her jeans, then accepted the envelope. “Ms. Calvino? She’s…where?”

“Career Women, third floor. She’s a tall lady, elegant lookin’, blond hair. You can’t miss her.”

Shelly slipped the envelope into her back pocket as Morris walked away. She couldn’t imagine what the head custodian would have to say to an elegant woman on one of the posh upper floors, but she’d only been working at Maxim’s three weeks. A couple of the other girls had warned her that Morris was a single guy with fast hands, but he hadn’t stepped out of bounds with her.

Apparently he liked more sophisticated women.

A wry smile twisted Shelly’s mouth as she swept a heap of paper, dirt and assorted trash into an industrial-size dustpan. Maybe Morris had gone up to the third floor to change a lightbulb and liked Ms. Calvino’s looks. Maybe the envelope contained a dinner invitation, or a suggestion that the lady break another bulb.

Shelly snorted, dumped the dirt into a garbage bin and paused, spying a battered copy of
How to Win Friends and Influence People
among the Styrofoam peanuts and discarded packing materials. That book would be right at home in her collection. She’d read about the Carnegie title in the bibliographies of other books, particularly those on finding success in the career marketplace.

With her thumb and index finger, she pulled the book from the trash, then grabbed the spine and shook the dust from its interior. A quick riffle of the pages convinced her she’d found a decent copy, so into her back pocket it went.

After returning the broom and dustpan to the supply closet, she checked her reflection in the mirror behind the door. A copy of
How to Increase Your Word Power
peeked from the front pocket of her overalls, giving her an odd, bumpy look. Frowning, she pulled the book from its place and slipped it into the back pocket with Ms. Calvino’s envelope. She now had a pair of lumpy hips, but no one at Maxim’s would look twice at a cleaning girl’s backside.

The Maxim’s handbook categorically stated that no on-duty employee was to appear on the sales floor in jeans, overalls or soiled clothing, but no one seemed to notice her as she walked through small appliances and made her way toward the escalator. Morris must have known no one would care about a skinny nineteen-year-old in braids, dungarees and a faded Mariah Carey T-shirt.

She took the escalator from the basement to the first-floor landing, where dozens of oversize Christmas presents had been piled into a pyramid. A cutesy version of “I’m Getting Nuttin’ for Christmas” played on the intercom, a not-so-subtle reminder to the frantic mothers and fathers who were scouring the aisles for perfect gifts.

Shelly couldn’t remember the last time she got a Christmas present from her mother. Her dad had always managed to bring her crayons or a new coloring book, but he died in a mining accident the year she turned ten. After that, people from the nearby Pentecostal church brought bags of groceries every Christmas Eve, but after setting the food on the porch they stood in a semicircle and sang carols loud enough to alert the entire park. Shelly appreciated the food—if not for those people, she’d never have known that people ate more than a chicken’s wings or that fruit didn’t have to come in a can—but the presentation so embarrassed her she vowed she’d celebrate her grownup Christmases with TV dinners.

She bypassed Toyland on the second floor, then rode the escalator up to A Woman’s World. The meandering rose-colored tiles led her past Better Sportswear and Lingerie, where she stepped off the tile pathway and wandered into the section reserved for Career Women. She didn’t see any tall blondes, elegant or otherwise.

She stood in a gap between two racks of gaudy holiday sweaters and pulled the envelope from her back pocket. With every passing moment she risked attracting notice from one of the wandering supervisors, so maybe she should leave Morris’s message where Ms. Calvino would be sure to find it.

She walked behind the counter, set the sealed envelope next to the cash register and backed away, feeling awkward and out of place. Not an inch of denim lay within a hundred yards of this register; apparently career women favored wools and linens and silk. She moved away from the desk, letting her fingers trail over the exquisite natural fabrics on the racks. No wonder things were more expensive up here. The clothing even felt different.

She was about to head for the escalator when a mannequin caught her eye. The faceless dummy wore a designer outfit—a halter top of light blue satin and a soft leather skirt in the same shade. Between her plastic fingers, she carried a matching jacket.

Shelly caressed the jacket sleeve and tried to imagine that softness caressing her arms. In an outfit like that, she’d look like a completely different girl. She’d feel like a million bucks.

Forgetting about the supervisors, she searched for the pieces on a nearby rack, pulled out the items in her size, and ducked into the hallway that led to the changing rooms. A glance beneath the doors assured her that Ms. Calvino had not sneaked to the dressing rooms for a cigarette. Morris’s girlfriend was probably in the hall with the vending machines, munching on M&M’s or downing a cup of coffee.

Shelly kicked off her sneakers, then unbuckled her overalls and pulled her T-shirt over her head. Ignoring the reflection of her tattered underwear in the long mirror, she slipped into the new clothing and breathed deeply as a transformation took place.

The skirt fit like a second skin. The satin halter top accented the boniness of her shoulders, but the jacket disguised that shortcoming. She spun in the full-length mirror, then tugged her braids to the back of her head. In this outfit, with her hair up and eyeliner around her eyes, she could pass for twenty-five, maybe twenty-six. Of course, there was no way she could afford this getup, not even if she saved for months and used her employee discount.

So switch the price tags.

The thought whipped into her brain so unexpectedly that she glanced behind her to make sure she wasn’t hearing the voice of an imp. Change the price tags? Easy enough to manage because Maxim’s Department Store still did things the old-fashioned way; price tags were either pinned to garment sleeves or attached with ribbons and safety pins. She could gather these pieces in her arms, take the escalator downstairs to juniors’ and replace these prices with tags from inexpensive cotton shirts and skirts. She could wait until after four, when the part-time help came in, to pay in the junior department. The harried housewife or young girl working there wouldn’t recognize the outfit, or she’d be too tired, bored or distracted to care.

Shelly studied her image in the mirror. Was she crazy for even thinking about such a stunt? Could she and her bony shoulders pull off an outfit like this, or would people laugh as soon as she passed by? If she couldn’t carry it off, she’d look like a little girl playing dress up. Everyone would know she was only Shelly Tills from Bald Knob, the girl who spent her days pushing a broom because she couldn’t afford college and couldn’t spend another day in her drunken mother’s trailer—

So become someone else.

This time she recognized the voice in her head—the cultured tones belonged to the woman Shelly had always imagined but never dared emulate.

Pinocchio had Jiminy Cricket as his guide; she had Michelle Tilson—the polished, professional career woman she had always dreamed of becoming. Was Michelle only a dream…or a possibility?

Shelly bit her lip and stared into the mirror. From shoulder to hem she looked like a fashion model, but the illusion faded at her bare knees and vanished at her dingy socks. Her feet couldn’t be helped, but she could work on what remained.

She unwound her braids, then pulled a wide barrette from the pocket of the overalls on the floor. After twisting her hair at the back of her head, she slid the barrette into the winding cord and clipped it into place. The look was more funky than chic, but it could work.

She pulled a container of lip gloss from another pocket and smoothed it over her mouth, then fished an almost-empty tube of mascara from the same pocket. Quick swipes of the left and right lower lashes left her eyes adequately smudged. She had no blush with her, but Momma used to pinch her cheeks just below the far corners of her eyes—there and there—and…done.

In the rectangular mirror Shelly saw Michelle L. Tilson, a sophisticated career woman who had never in her life received Christmas charity. Michelle knew how to win friends and influence people; she had a vocabulary so refined folks automatically assumed she’d attended all the best schools. Michelle didn’t work in retail; she worked in an office. She didn’t have a secretary; she had an administrative assistant and a staff.

Shelly caught her breath when she heard rustling from beyond the door. Someone moved in the hallway—another customer, or Ms. Calvino?

An unexpected knock sent a thrill of panic shooting through her. “Yeah? Yes?”

“How are you doing? Can I bring you anything?”

“No,” Shelly managed to answer. Then, taking comfort from the locked door, in Michelle Tilson’s voice she added, “Thank you, I’m fine.”

“Ring the bell if you need me.”

Shelly held her breath until the departing swish of the salesclerk’s panty hose faded into silence. Ms. Calvino was probably returning to her post outside the entrance to the dressing rooms.

Exhaling in a slow and steady stream, Shelly pulled one arm free of the luscious jacket, then let it fall from her shoulders. She wriggled out of the skirt and unfastened the halter top. Her overalls still lay on the floor, so she put her T-shirt on, then stepped back into the familiar denim.

She sank to the edge of a bench and tied on her sneakers, then clasped her hands. What was the word she’d learned yesterday?
Audacity
—the willingness to tackle a dangerous or difficult undertaking.

If she were going to make something of herself, audacity would have to carry her through the next five minutes. The clock was already approaching four, so Ms. Calvino was probably busy at the register, getting ready to go home. Shelly could tuck the outfit under her arm and hurry past. By the time she made it down to juniors’ and completed the switch, the downstairs register would be manned by a part-timer.

She replaced the designer garments on their hangers, then dropped one hand to the doorknob and bowed her head. What would happen if she were caught? She might be arrested. What would Momma say? The chorus of I-told-you-so would last as long as the mountains.

If the store manager didn’t have her arrested, he’d certainly fire her. Without a job, how would she support herself? Her one-room Charleston apartment wasn’t fancy, but it beat sleeping on the street. The macaroni and hot dogs she’d been eating weren’t gourmet meals, but they were a lot more filling than empty dreams.

She closed her eyes as her thoughts drifted toward her mother, whose world these days revolved around a bottle. Her mother did nothing and produced nothing, yet somehow she managed to survive on Daddy’s monthly benefit check. Shelly could always go home and live like Momma, but she wanted something better.

She wanted to be more than Eunice Tills’s daughter. She wanted to be Michelle Tilson.

Michelle wouldn’t sit in a trailer and watch the world go by; she’d take risks with her life. Michelle might not have money, but she had class, an excellent vocabulary, and knowledge derived from years of reading and people-watching. With those qualifications, enthusiasm and a designer outfit, she could get an office job that would take her a lot further than the custodial department at Maxim’s.

Nothing in the quiet cubicle told her she was standing at a crossroad, but she knew it as certainly as she knew the sound of her mother’s voice. The decision she made in the next five minutes could change the course of her entire life.

After a long hesitation, Shelly lifted her head and stepped out of the dressing room with three of the store’s most expensive items tucked under her left arm. She strode straight toward the escalator, but her heart nearly stopped when Ms. Calvino called, “Did you find anything you liked?”

Shelly hesitated, but she didn’t turn around. Instead, Michelle Tilson twiddled her fingers over her shoulder and said she’d try again another day.

Without a backward look, she rode the escalator down to the juniors’ department, then ducked behind a tall display. A table had been covered with stacks of clearance items, mostly sleeveless tops and cotton skirts, so she took those tags and pinned them onto the designer pieces.

Nervousness gripped her as she approached the cash register. As she hoped, a part-time girl was working the floor, but talkative Ashley Stock wasn’t the clerk Shelly would have chosen. She hesitated, then decided to plunge ahead with outrageous audacity.