B
etween the first floor and the eighth, my
mother lived out her dreams with another
man. Those twenty seconds of elevator time
stretched into an entire lifespan as I watched her
look into the eyes of her silver-haired, white-linen-
wearing would-be lover and imagine what would be
different if he was hers, or if the two of them strode
off the elevator and down the endless shoreline just
outside the hotel.
It was odd to see her disarmed in such a way, odd to
see her unfurl under the warm gaze and witty remarks
of a good-looking stranger. When the doors opened
to our floor, she and I got off silently and back into
our life outside the elevator shaft. We walked into our
hotel room and sat on the balcony overlooking that
same endless shoreline. With her chin resting on her
hand and a playful look in her eyes, she turned to me
and said “He was a nice man.” I nodded. “He was.”
We said nothing more about it and didn’t see him
on the few other elevator rides we took. But at that
moment when my mom turned her head to me after
our encounter with him, I saw an entirely different
world flash in her eyes. In it were a past and a future
where she and the elevator man lived happily: her
perpetually making good jokes, him perpetually
laughing at them in his white linen, the two of them
perpetually loving one another as happy, funny, well-
dressed people should be loved.
There were no woes or flaws, and any difficulties
were solved by the both of them, bound together in
passionate, affectionate devotion. Elevator Man could
fix my mom’s car, darn a sock and cook a tasty meal.
He could hike just as long and just as far as she could,
and he loved going to see live music. He dressed well
— even when he didn’t wear white linen — and he kept
himself well-groomed.
Elevator Man kissed my mother on the cheek when
she got home from work and never had crumbs stuck
in the corners of his mouth. He did her laundry and
told her how beautiful she looked in that one dress
as he folded it — and he really meant it. Elevator Man
told my mom how he liked her crow’s feet, liked how
her eyes switched from green to blue to hazel, liked
her high Irish cheekbones and her loud Irish laugh.
Elevator Man could still get it on, even though he
was nearing sixty. He could hold my mom close and
they would reminisce about when they were twenty-
one, thirty-seven, forty-two. They’d giggle about him
visiting her as she worked at the burger joint in their
college town. They’d thank God they made it through
her mother’s death fifteen years before. They’d poke
fun at how his dad always politely refused my mother’s
cooking. And they’d look forward to growing older
still: to retiring, to walking slowly down the sidewalk
together and to the small cabin they hoped to buy
with their savings.
That life existed only inside the elevator — inside
my mother’s eyes for a moment after she’d chatted
with a friendly stranger. The longer she and I sat there
on the balcony, the more we sunk back into ourselves,
and bit by bit, Elevator Man just became another
passerby going about his own little life somewhere.
My mother took her hand out from under her chin,
squeezed my arm and smiled. I watched the side of
her face as she stared off the balcony, her cheekbones
proud and her crow’s feet delicate.
It is strange how quickly we can imagine other
lifetimes, strange how quickly we can serve up
alternatives to whatever day-to-day realities we
live. It’s possible my mother never envisioned this
elevator world — possible it’s just a figment of my
own imagination. But even if she didn’t, or even if
the world she created for herself and her lover looked
different than the one I created, it wouldn’t matter.
We create entire worlds for strangers in the blink of
an eye, briefly fall in love with the man in the elevator
with us, construct different versions of ourselves in a
split second.
It seems natural enough, writing a little fiction
here and there to take the edge off some of the
harsher realities of our lives. For my mother, it is the
harshness of being an aging woman in this world —
the world without Elevator Man. It is the sunspots
on the backs of hands, the thinning strands of hair,
the almighty maxims that beauty is for youth, that
love is for youth, that sexuality is for youth. For those
twenty seconds in the elevator there exists a place for
my mother to be all those things at fifty-seven. For
those twenty seconds in the elevator, there exists a
man who loves the lines of her smile and the curves of
her softened arms as much as I do.
Quickly, the seconds stretch into a long, magical
lifetime: one where a
woman can be loved in
her age the same way
she was loved in her
youth — one where a
woman can love herself
in her age the same
way she did in youth.
There, the witches, old
maids
and
spinsters
become
goddesses;
Lady
Godiva
rides
through England with
her white hair cropped
close to her head and
her open breasts worn
by
the
wariness
of
womanhood; old wives’
tales hold the same
weight as Bible verses.
This is the world of
Elevator Man — in full
color and just at the
end
of
my
mother’s
fingertips.
One
day
my
own
Elevator
Man
may
come and sweep me off
my feet too. Maybe he
will replace someone
I’ve lost, or make up
for someone I’ve yet to
find — it’s hard to say.
Perhaps he will run
his fingers through my
graying hair or chop
the onions for me when
my knuckles curl up too
tight. Maybe he will just
be a handsome stranger
to imagine a name for
as I wait for the ding to
sound and the doors to
open.
Whatever it is, it will last no more than a few
minutes and never leave the confines of the elevator
shaft. Then I will walk out and back into reality. Real
sunlight will flood back in, real sounds will replace
the elevator music and real people — for whom there
is not enough time to imagine a name, a life or a love
— will walk past me. I will re-enter life as I know it,
and Elevator Man will re-enter his, too. But there
will always exist that impossible world which I or
whoever else briefly imagined inside the elevator;
there will always exist that small space where fantasy
supersedes the reality we face when the doors slide
open.
Just as it is a comfort to imagine these worlds for
a moment, it is a comfort, too, to save them only for
rides from the first floor to the eighth. Outside of
those bounds — on flights of stairs, on balconies —
there may be a daughter who loves the way your big
teeth shine as your head tilts back in laughter. There
may be a man — a real one — who, despite a crumb or
two stuck in the corner of his mouth, will help you
carry your boundless, aging beauty through the rest
of your days as the two of you remember the palpable,
messy, full life you’ve shared.
3B
Wednesday, January 15, 2020 // The Statement
3B
BY ELLIE KATZ, STATEMENT COLUMNIST
Elevator pitch
ILLUSTRATION BY CHRISTINE JEGARL
I thought I’d aged out of this years ago. I’m sitting criss-cross-applesauce in my apartment while my roommate
straightens my hair. The brush catches my hair knots and pulls my head back like the boys in my elementary
school used to do, though it wasn’t because they liked me.
The hair situation isn’t going as planned. My curls are beginning to spring back from stress sweat, either caused
by the fact that I’m going to a dance with a stranger or the fear that I won’t fit in with the crowd. I have less than
20 minutes to figure out how I can turn my curly hair, acne and glasses into something remotely resembling a