Page 64 of My Boss

“You are hopeless.” I shake my head. “Can you call for help already, instead of harassing this goddamn button?”

“I can’t.”

“Why not?!”

“Because I left my phone on the desk.”

Oh, that’s just great! We’ll sit here until someone realizes that the elevator isn’t working. Let’s hope it’s just a temporary power outage, and that the security guard is not too thick-headed to figure out who recently got on the elevator. Yes, he will definitely figure it out, he will call for help and soon someone will get us out of here.

What if he doesn’t? What if there’s electricity in the whole building, and only the elevator’s power supply went down? I glance at the camera in the upper corner. There is always a green LED on it. Now the LED is not lit anymore. Great, we are cut off from the world.

It’s getting stuffy. I can’t hear the hum of the air conditioner.

What if we run out of air? What if we suffocate before anyone even knows we’re here?

Out of nowhere, a jolt of panic comes over me. A wave of heat flushes my face, my heart pounds deafeningly, my chest feels tight.

I have to get out of here. Right now.

I get to the door and start banging it hard, calling for help.

“What are you doing?” Jan’s voice is calm.

“I have to get out of here.” I keep banging on the door, yelling, “Help!”

“And what you are doing now is supposed to help?” His voice is still so calm it only increases my panic.

“The guard will hear me and call for help.”

“We are around the thirtieth floor, Maria. Even if you started yelling through a loudspeaker, he wouldn’t hear you.”

“Aw, shut up. At least I’m doing something.” I grasp the gap between the sliding doors, but it’s too narrow to hook my fingers in.

“And now what are you doing?” Another annoying question.

“Can’t you see? I’m trying to open the door.”

“I see. To open the door. For what purpose?”

“What do you mean, what purpose? To save us.”

“Save.” His voice sounds different somehow, less stiff, as if…

Wait, is he laughing at me? I turn around and can’t believe my eyes. My panic disappears as quickly as it appeared, and my heart turns into a vanilla pudding. Jan’s broad smile is worth millions. It’s called an effective distraction.

“Maria, what you’re doing is absurd and doesn’t make the slightest sense.” He looks at me with indulgence as if I were a small child standing on tiptoes to get a piece of candy from the shelf.

The spell of a nice Jan is broken.

“You are absurd yourself,” I retort. “I at least try to save our lives, while you stand idly like a bump on a log and dry those flawless, even fangs of yours. You freaking oh-so-brilliant Mr. Manager,” I snort. “Anyone else would try to be a real man. Use those muscles of yours and open the door, so we could leave.”

Jan shakes his head.

“It doesn’t matter what you have here,” he grasps his biceps, “but here.” He taps his finger on his temple.

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“All you have to do is use your head first. Elevators are designed like safety rooms.”

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