Elevator

Yanking her worn black leather satchel from the front seat, Ellen Bittner hooked her elbow on the door frame, as if under a wing, and shoved the door closed. Taking a giant step toward the courthouse, she squeezed the remote, the door thunked and the lock chirped. Pitching the keys into her bag, she tugged the purse strap over her head and across her chest. Divorce court loomed.

Her ferocious push to the revolving door resulted in her own spat, “shit” as the following door nudged her heel.  Six steps. Spilling into the lobby, she spied the man who was about to rob her of her Mrs. strolling into the men's room. She darted left, cleared security, swept into an empty elevator and pirouetted flat footed to face the front. Breath. Square buttons framed the sides of the elevator door. Above the buttons on the right, a glass frame held an official letter about elevator inspections, and on the left, a matching frame with a list of the day’s cases. James S. Bittner v. Ellen G. Bittner, 12 H.

Ellen stabbed twelve and steamed enough self-hatred from her nostrils to power the old time Otis up the twelve floors. Twelve floors. Twelve years of marriage and twelve months she dreaded this date. The door closed ascending to judgment day.  Would there be twelve jurors, twelve apostles? She knew only that Judas, her nearly ex-husband would be there, once he left the bathroom.

Twice the elevator stopped and no one entered. A phantom of the courthouse, she surmised, to ride with her, maybe Charon, on her vertical River Styx.

Mrs. Bittner and her ghost rose again and stopped – dead. No movement of the door. She pressed Door Open. Nothing budged. She pressed 12 again, reminding the elevator where to go. She inhaled, her breath sounding like the rush of a truck passing at twice highway speed.

Gingerly she pressed again, then hammered the call button so hard, so fast it sounded like a      basketball dribbling on a - gym floor. No answer. She poked the button and said “Hello?” in a voice    mingling fear and hope,  like entering a dark, unlocked house and hoping no intruder lurks. Mrs. Bittner      bent to look into the round disk just above the call button, the holes aligned like a Chinese Checkers         board. Was it a microphone or speaker?  Should she speak or should she listen?

A thought crossed her mind… a revelation. The year before Jim left, the year they tried all the things couples try before they say, “we grew apart”, she often spoke when she should have listened, and listened when she should have commented.

“Hello!” Ellen shouted into the speaker. This time it was the call of a mother, commanding a child to listen. With the same results… no one responded. She screamed, “Help!” and pounded the door. No one came to her rescue. She grabbed for her cell phone, “No Service.” Stranded, stuck between Hell and Heaven - frustrated. The heels of her hands hurt from pounding. As Ellen pulled them down, skin moisture evaporated clearing the mirror-like brass wall. She was the reflection.

Ellen Bittner stared hard. Her eyes focused. She willed the rows of her forehead and brow to relax. Ellen stared softer and saw a tired woman staring back. She sighed and her shoulders slumped. She watched her breathing as her chest heaved, her repertoire of emotions spent. In a stage whisper, she exhaled the feelings: “Weary, panic, giddiness, gloom.”  She inhaled the whole scene: a middle-aged woman, about to be set free, surrounded by head-to-toe mirrors that washed her sallow. Nothing to do but stare and take stock. She exhaled.

For the last year, Ellen barely washed her hair, let alone began a new life. She lived like the moon; her husband’s reflection. Everything she did, every action she took reacted to his leaving.

A voice with a bit of an Irish brogue came through the Chinese Checkers speaker.

“Good afternoon in there. We’re very sorry. We’ve a bit of a problem, but we’ve lads coming from another building. They say it will take thirty minutes to get you moving again. We’re sorry for the delay. You’re perfectly safe.”

“It will take a lot more than 30 minutes to get me moving again”, she muttered to herself. “I’m okay,” she said so the disembodied voice could hear. “I’m Ellen Bittner and supposed to be in Courtroom 12 H.”

“No worries, mam. I’ll alert the judge. You’ll be fine.”

Ellen heaved her chest again. “How did he know?” she wondered to herself, hoping he didn’t hear her.

Staring into the never-ending mirror, she held her head still as her eyes swooped to her nose, then fixed on her chin, where she spied stubble. Minute black bamboo sticks, outlined a permanent wrinkle along a second chin. Without dropping her gaze, she reached into her purse feeling for the make-up kit long abandoned at the bottom and pulled out tweezers. She plucked five hairs without flinching and returned the tweezers like a gunslinger holstering her gun. Her lips took shape in faint approval.

Ellen’s focus slid to the purse strap draped from her left shoulder to her right hip. Her mind conjured a crossing guard, safely guarding the womanhood sequestered twelve months earlier. Hooking the strap with her thumb and lifting it over her head, she dropped the bag to the floor. Pulling her shoulders back, her head went with them. She lost five pounds and a chin in that single move.  Ellen high-fived her new companion. She let her lips rest.  For the first time, she blinked. Her eyes wandered for a moment but came back to stare at themselves. The lids drooped, sad. She tried a smile. The edges of her eyes rose in tandem. In that moment, Ellen Bittner decided to look happy. Her eyes widened, she saw lost sparkle, an unforced smile emerged.

Veering away from her reflection, she squatted, retrieved her bag and the makeup kit. After searching through pockets, she found an oval handled eyeliner and examined it as she righted herself; no expiration date.

There was a time she didn’t worry that her makeup could be too old, but the system she once employed, no longer worked. Each month when she picked up her birth control pills from the pharmacy, she bought new eye liner. Sex pretty much stopped six months before Jim left. She stopped wasting her money on the pills and never replaced her liner. Ellen decided to risk it. She took a step closer to her reflection and watched her breath come and go as she drew the lash line on the top of each eye, then the bottom. The woman in the bronze mirror looked more familiar. She reached into her bag again and found a long abandoned lipstick. The soon-to-be ex-Mrs. Bittner gained dimension.

Ellen focused on her shoulder length hair. It fell flat, side-to-side from a part above the middle of her left brow. If she’d hooked in a school bus-yellow barrette to hold back the right side, she would be looking at her fourth grade photo. Ellen thanked God for not allowing her to regress that far. Taking a step back, Ellen bowed, whipped her hair over her head. Her hair now a mane—she flipped it back and whinnied aloud for emphasis. She looked directly in the mirror again, combed and lifted her hair with her fingers.   She giggled as she struck a vein of silliness. Ellen jerked her head to the right and struck a pouty model’s pose. She swiveled her head back toward the door. She smiled… a real smile. She stepped back, away from the door, assessing the woman she saw. There, in the reflection, stood a somewhat attractive, middle aged woman, in a black, shapeless pantsuit with a pretty pink, jewel-neck blouse, popular in the days when women thought working was liberation.

Ellen took off her jacket and tossed it over her bag. With both arms, she reached to the nape of her neck, unbuttoned the top three buttons on the back of her blouse, tugged it from the her slacks, and pulled her arms from the sleeves. She hesitated, found no evidence of a video camera and continued pulling it over her shoulders. Amazed at her own pluck—she turned the blouse around, put her arms back into the sleeves, and tucked it deep into her waistband. Ellen Bittner chose not to re-button.

For the last year Ellen buttoned down. She shopped only for essentials, and only after carefully scouring sales and coupon pages. Her colleagues at work suggested classes and cruises. Her sister pushed manicures and massage. She stood still in the wash of ideas, a rock in the swirling tide. She stayed home except for work and the kid’s activities. She cleaned the house and rented movies.

As mother and father this past year, Ellen Bittner’s priorities swung back and forth from nurture to survival. With one child in second grade and the other about to enter junior high, Ellen organized chores, activities and homework. Her resolve required additional hours at work. Her resolve gained her a promotion. Three weeks ago, when the papers were signed and this day, only a formality, she resolved that they would have the best vacation. Tomorrow morning, with the decree behind her, the soon-to-be former Mrs. Bittner would be on the road to the town with four water parks, two hundred miles away. Survival was wrestling with pride. In that instant, she spied confidence in her face.

Last weekend, her mother told her she needed color and gave her jelly bean-pink nail polish that Ellen never applied. She fished the polish from the zippered compartment of her satchel and began to shake it.

Pumping the bottle up and down, she was startled that fatigue set in from that meager effort. She shook the bottle with the other arm. In the past year, she had not taken a walk, let alone worked out. Inspecting herself from all directions, she decided to find a class to bring her back into shape.

Ellen slipped her arms into her jacket sleeves before she applied the polish. She fished a pink and yellow striped scarf from her purse and draped it around the collar of her coat. Her reflection allowed a woman standing taller… stronger, lighter than she felt in years. Nail-by-nail she painted away her humiliation, she covered her desolation, she brightened her outlook. As the polish hardened, so did her determination to find joy in the freedom.   

The elevator jerked and began to rise as if never stopped. The doors spread wide on twelve. Her nearly ex husband stood a few feet away, gazing beyond the smiling woman who emerged. Ignoring his ignorance, she stepped out, checked her watch, twelve minutes flown. Ellen Bittner’s attorney also waiting expectantly by the door, swooped in, clutched her arm and guided Ellen to the courtroom. In a vertical twelve-story ride, she’d found a new direction.

Mary Longe 2/16/13
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