Echoing Concerns before a Work Event

Sitting in front of the large mirror in my coworkers’ apartment, I lean close trying to keep my makeup as precise as I can. Fortunately, sitting still doesn’t cause too much trouble. The barrel that is my body I emptied in the hall, as I trailed behind Quinn. Well, mostly emptied. After the collapse, I’ve been trying to teach myself a bit better endurance. Not sure it’d help at the bottom of an elevator shaft, but it might delay things. And for the most part that just means a constant feeling of my bones, shaking and shifting as the force echoes through me. Getting up, I step out of the bathroom. “Thanks once again for letting me do this, Quinn,” I tell my coworker, “I’m not sure I could have managed to get ready quite so well in the convertible.”

As he exits his room, dressed to the nines as well, Quinn shrugs. “No big deal. I don’t want you embarrassing us at this fancy people shindig.”

“Any idea what this is about, anyways?” I ask.

“They obviously want to see you in person outside of work, to figure out whether or not to promote you,” he states, “See if you can interact with the rest of the company as well as you do the contractors.”

I nod. Which also explains his invite, though I won’t admit it. If they are thinking about moving on from or promoting our boss, we are the two real candidates to take over telemarketing. I just didn’t expect it so soon. “That sounds stressful,” I joke, trying to lighten the mood.

“I’m sure they know you’re a no fun robot by now,” he jokes back, “They just want to make sure you won’t go ruining their fun.”

I chuckle. It is a fair point. I’m sure my personnel file includes my lack of regular socializing with coworkers. “But I do love ruining people’s fun,” I say with a smile.

Quinn laughs. “Speakng of, when you do get this promotion, please find yourself a new apartment. You’ll be going to a few more of these, and I don’t know if you know this, but I sometimes like my apartment to not have weird coworkers in it.”

“Hey,” I counter, “It’s not my fault they haven’t finished rebuilding my old building yet. They signed an agreement to give us all a discounted year after they finish reconstruction. Signing a new lease now would basically be throwing away money.”

Quinn shrugs. “Money you could definitely afford if you get the promotion,” He counters my counter. He is right. I could probably afford it now. But as much as I will claim some principled stand, I am well aware this is a form of self punishment. After all, I caused the building to fall. Not that Quinn knows that. No one should know that, save the strange man in the balaclava who appeared out of nowhere, assured her it would be okay, took her hand, and somehow moved her in an instant to the parking garage. As far as the world was concerned, she had been getting out of her car when the collapse occurred. Her relative lack of injuries, at least serious ones, backed up that fact. No, the few people that know I still live out of my car all basically assume either stinginess or laziness. My coworkers basically all assume the former.

Shaking my head, I muse, “Careful, you might be the one stuck with the promotion.” I try to make it sound like a joke.

Quinn laughs. “We both know I’m going to accidentally get too friendly with the wrong person and blow my chances.” He’s mostly joking. I’m pretty sure he doesn’t think he’s actually up for the promotion. He’s also not entirely wrong. Given how well his team has been doing lately, almost as good as my own, that is basically his only chance of not getting the promotion. That, or me somehow dazzling them.

I shake my head at him. “Come on, you live so far from the office, we ought to get going.”

He gives me a look. “You used to live just as far,” he shoots back as he does one last comb-through of his hair. He moves to put the comb down, then decides against it, sliding the comb into his jacket’s inside pocket.

“Yeah, but I know how to drive,” I jab as we leave his apartment. He locks the door behind him and we head to the elevator.

I know he can tell, they all can. After the building collapse, elevators sort of terrify me. I know what can go wrong. So, as we step in the elevator, I hold my breath. I risk the echoing growing louder and stronger inside me rather than letting any vibration leak from myself. And I don’t loose my grip on the reins until the elevator doors open at the ground level and I step out onto the marbled floor. Even then, marble floors like this can only take a slight amount of vibration without making a racket. And so I tune my outflow just so, opening the spigot by a fraction of a hair. I can feel the ripples, but I doubt anyone else woudl be able to.

The doorman nods at Quinn. “Looking good,” he says, “Some kind of special event.”

Quinn laughs. “Something like that,” he replies, “Bigwigs asked us to go to some party.”

“Can’t say no to that,” his doorman says with a shrug.

I add with a smirk, “Especially since they’re paying us for it.”

The doorman chuckles as we go outside. I open the spigot a bit more, letting the concrete absorb the vibrations as we head around the corner and across the street to the small parking lot in which Quinn parks his car.

To call Quinn’s car a sedan would be an understatement. The thing is practically as large as an SUV. Living out of it would be loads easier than my convertible. He gets in first, and I slide into the passenger seat. As he starts the engine, I match the vibrations of the car, just at the other time, to flatten it. Make the vibrations dampen one another, so I can let more out than usual. We’re heading to a party that will be on the thirteenth floor. I’ll need to keep things in check the entire time I’m up there, so I want the barrel that is me to be fully empty before we arrive. And hopefully I can keep the vibrations inside through the duration of the party. So long as I don’t have to deal with too much contact, that should be manageable.

The drive is just as long as I predicted it would be, and we pull into the parking lot, into the space beside my car, about five minutes before the event is supposed to start. I shake my head at Quinn as we exit the car. “Told you we should have left sooner.”

“Shut up,” he spits back, smiling. He knows I’m right, we’ll be cutting it a bit close. Fortunately for us, but unfortunately for me, we enter the building with a group of people, most of whom I don’t recognize. I recognize Hector from, I want to say accounting. He generally shows up around the same time as me. And one person I swear I’ve seen on TV ads, but I can’t place where. I give a nod to Mitch. Mitch, who’s here but not checking badges or invites, doesn’t do more to acknowledge me than a simple smile while looking at his magazine. He’s clearly been told not to pay attention to the guests as they enter. At least, not openly. I suspect there’s some kind of screening that is happening somewhere along the line, but, based on my limited interaction with any of them, the folks up in the upper levels don’t really like things being too obvious. Which probably means cameras and some poor sot in charge of matching faces to invites.

The elevator is a bit crowded as we head up. I suspect it’s a bit of a power move as well, forcing these people to be slightly uncomfortable before the party. I hold my breath as the elevator rises. Someone bumps into me, and I can feel the echoes starting. Then another. And again. And then the elevator jerks to a stop, heightening all those vibrations’ volumes inside me. But I keep it closed. I wait, and let everyone file out of the elevator before I exit as well. The entry is elegantly decorated, with all the decor leading one’s eyes naturally to the large room with the catering tables and mingling space, as well as the tables around the edges of said room for those who do not wish to stand and mingle. Quinn looks at me. “I’m just going to powder my nose,” I tell him, “I’ll see you inside.”

He looks at himself in the elevator’s closing doors, then nods. “Grooming seems like the thing to do,” he says, clearly having decided that his lastminute combing was not enough. We head away from the eyelines and decor towards the bathrooms. He rushes into the men’s room, pulling out his comb as he does. I step slower into the ladies, opening the spigot a bit at a time. No one is inside, so I let it rumble slightly. Without anyone in the room with me, the building should absorb it before anyone can feel anything. Too many people rammed into me in that elevator. I can feel footsteps outside, so I dial things down. There is still an echoing there, but it’s far more manageable. I look at myself in the mirror, readjusting my own hair. A woman enters, and smiles before heading over to a stall. I smile thinly back before leaving.

The party itself is boring enough. What did the bosses expect? I got some food and sat. Ate it. Some people stopped by my table a few times, but nothing really happened. Quinn was out on the floor either successfully getting that promotion or screwing himself out of it. I might have been more relaxed, except the entire time, I felt like I was being watched. Probably just whichever executive invited me, but their focus did nothing to keep me calm. And I needed either calm or focus to avoid letting any of the vibrations within spill into the world around me. The longest conversation I ended up having was with some boyfriend of some congressional staffer who felt sorry for me eating alone. When they were spirited away pleasantly by someone’s assistant, the staffer seemed happy enough to engage with the lobbying team, so maybe that went well. An assistant to the Chief Operating Officer came over to have a chat about our department, but I couldn’t read how she felt about the conversation when she left. And an escort who used to live in my building stopped by, checking in on me. Evidently one of the congress people here felt it would be inappropriate to show up without a plus one. Anna was nice enough the few times we met, but the fact that two of the three people to interact with me for the longest were plus ones probably isn’t doing much if they wanted someone to show initiative with the bigwigs.

As the party wrapped up, I started helping with the clean up. Less to be helpful or show off, and more because it puts fewer and fewer people in the elevator when I’m leaving. One of the organizers from the company, I want to say Norm, approaches me. “Are you doing alright?” he asks. His voice is calm, tempered.

“Yeah,” I say, before admitting, “Events like this aren’t really my speed.”

He shrugs. “Far as I could tell, Miss Wise, you did a solid, albeit limited, job.” I look confused, so he elaborates, “You befriended multiple people’s plus ones without directly involving yourself in the affairs of our department. Admittedly, if you had done so with more than two individuals it would be better, but you did okay.” Then, with a tilt of the head, he adds, “And the COO was probably looking for you to interact with any other executives, but we will see.”

“Were you watching me the whole time?” I ask.

He grins. “Of course not. I was watching everyone the whole time. You and your boyfriend just happen to be the only two here, and I’ll be talking to him next.”

“Not my boyfriend,” I say with a chuckle.

“I know,” he says, “The office of Ms. Pryor knows all.” and with that, he leaves, heading over to Quinn. I can’t help but think his voice sounds more familiar than just the one or two times we’ve been on the elevator together in the last few years, but I don’t know where from. There’s just something about it.