When The Lights Go Out...

Ninth, tenth, eleventh…

The higher she climbed, the worse she felt about Candy’s friend. Now, thinking of him in a state of crisis, or worse, she wished she’d been more receptive to Candy’s idea, had let him take her into his arms, kiss her, let nature take its course, just as Candy had assured her it would.

At least pestered Candy for his “frigging” name!

She frowned. The heat and isolation were getting to her. She hadn’t done anything bad to Candy’s friend yet. She couldn’t have taken him into her arms and let nature take its course because he hadn’t gotten there. She still had time to make things right. Feeling she’d had a narrow escape from a level of guilt she’d never get over, she collapsed on the first step leading up to the twelfth floor, drew her knees up, rested her forehead on them and closed her eyes, reflecting on the true value of certain New York status symbols, the Upper East Side apartment, the higher floor.

The noise from above had increased in volume. She suddenly realized that what she was hearing was not the voices of neighbors but frantic pounding and shouting. It galvanized her into action. She could feel her hair standing on end. Someone was being attacked, maybe killed! What manners, to mug somebody during a crisis! And in such a nice, safe building! Was there no honor among thieves anymore?

She had a whistle and a can of Mace she’d carried around in her handbag for two years without needing them. She hoped they still worked. Where was the shouting coming from? She hated to retrace a single precious step. She’d start on the twelfth floor. Dredging up one last burst of energy, she raced up the steps and encountered a locked door.

Locked for security reasons, of course. She was pretty sure one of the keys she’d been issued when she and Candy moved in unlocked the stairwell doors. As the pounding intensified and the shouts grew louder, she searched the depths of her handbag for the ring of keys, found them and began jabbing them at the keyhole one at a time. At least the guy was still fighting off the mugger. A key fit, turned and she barreled out into the twelfth-floor hallway, shining her flashlight to the left and to the right, yelling, “Hands up! I’ve got you covered!”

The shouting stopped. The hall was silent. Nobody was being mugged that she could see. “Hello?” she said timidly. “Is somebody up here.”

“Yes.”

The voice came from right behind her and several feet above her. Blythe screamed. The flashlight flew out of her hands and the hallway plunged into total darkness.

2

“WHO SAID THAT? Where are you?” On her hands and knees, Blythe scrambled blindly for the flashlight. Her hand closed on it and she clutched it gratefully to her bosom, then remembered why she loved it so much and turned it back on.

“I’m in the elevator. Where did you think I was?”

She shone the light on the bank of elevators. “Which one?” she said. Her voice was shaking. She pounded on the first doors. “In here?” The second. It sent back a hollow sound. “Here?”

She was moving on to the third when she heard, “Stop, damn it. I’m right here in the middle.”

She stepped back. “Are you okay?”

There was a silence, then, “No, I’m not okay. I’m stuck in the elevator.”

“Besides that,” Blythe said.

“That’s enough,” he said.

“How long have you been in there?”

“Since the lights went out! Can we end the quiz? Is there a way to get out of here?”

She was calming down because she knew the answer to this one. “Yes,” she said, speaking slowly as if he were a child. “You pick up the emergency phone and say—”

“It’s not working. Neither are the lights. It’s really, really dark in here.”

Nothing is working, Bart had said. She was beginning to grasp the idea. “We’ve had a major power outage,” she said, “but we’ll get you out of there. Don’t you worry. Dial 9-1-1. Do you have a cell phone? Because I don’t.”

“I can’t get a signal.”

“I’ll go back downstairs,” she said at last, groaning at the very thought, “and see if J.R. or Santiago has something to pry open the doors.”

“No. Don’t leave.”

She paused. The man was admitting he was frightened. Claustrophobic, maybe. Or just a man trapped for hours in an inky-black box with no connection to the outside world until she’d come. He needed her. Some strong, unidentifiable feeling surged up in her heart. He actually needed her. She couldn’t let him down. “Okay, I won’t. Maybe I have something in my bag.”

“Can you see anything?”

“I have a flashlight.”

“Oh. A flashlight. I’d kill for a flashlight.”

Poor guy. She aimed the light at the doors. “Can you see this?”

“What?”

“A ray of light.”

“No.”

Some quality of his voice made her dump the contents of her handbag out on the hall carpet and aim the flashlight at the pile. She had a nail file. Still on the floor, she thrust it through the opening in the doors and wiggled it. “Can you see my nail file?”

“I can’t see anything.”

“Well, can you feel it?”

“Aim it higher. You sound like you’re way below me. The elevator must have stopped between floors.”

She stood and reached as high as she could to wiggle the file in.

“There it is!” He sounded like Columbus spotting land. She felt a tug on the file. “It’s not going to move the doors, though. Got anything bigger? Wait a minute. I’ve got a Swiss Army knife.”

“You have a knife?”

A spurt of air, something like a snort, came from above her head. “Everybody has a Swiss Army knife. Chill, okay? The knife doesn’t belong in the lead paragraph.”

It was an odd coincidence that he’d used a journalistic term—lead paragraph. “Okay. Sorry.” She reached for the nail file and found that a tiny sharp point had emerged from inside the elevator. “Now we’ve got two things through.”

“More, more.”

Blythe was staring down at her comb. It was plastic with a thick, solid handle and long wide-spaced teeth, the kind called an Afro-comb, the only thing Blythe could get through her hair when she’d been out on a windy day. It might work. She grabbed it and began forcing it through the practically nonexistent opening. One tooth took hold. Dizzy with excitement, she pushed harder.

“Ouch.”

She stopped pushing. “What happened?”

“Something hit me in the nose. I crouched down here to see if any air was coming through the doors, and…”

“This is good news,” Blythe assured him. “It’s my comb. Try to grab it and help me get it through.” She instantly felt a tug.