Larson waited in the back of the elevator tapping her hand on the hand bar as she waited for it to rise to her floor. She was exhausted and she knew she looked liked it. Larson had been at the Special Education Conference all day checking out different booths and poster presentations. Tomorrow was her talk on Autism vs. Asperger’s Syndrome, the whole reason she was here at the conference. She pulled out her index cards that held her talk and began reviewing them, making notes here and there.
The elevator ride seemed to be taking forever. She looked up at the numbers and realized that she was going down.
“What the heck?” She asked out loud to herself and pushed her floor button again. It didn’t have any effect. “Well shit.” She muttered and shook her head figuring it’d get to her floor eventually. She went back to her notes reading the again. She hated giving speeches. She’d rather stab her arm with a fork, so she tried to be as prepared as she possibly could. The elevator stopped and the doors opened. Larson didn’t pay any attention since she knew it wasn’t her floor.
“I didn’t know anyone was on here.” A male voice said and she didn’t look up,
“It’s an elevator, nine times out of ten there’s bound to be a people on it.” She retorted.
“Oh, it’s just I,” he paused, “Larson?” She looked up quickly wondering who would know her name.
“Excuse me?” She looked at the man; he was wearing dark sunglasses and a baseball cap shoved down on his head. Larson for the life of her couldn’t place him, “Do I know you?” The guy looked at her name tag.
“Oh sorry, Dr. Cathleen Smith, I thought you were someone else.” The man shrugged and turned towards the door as the elevator began to rise. She put her cards back into her bag,
“How did you know my name?” She asked and he turned,
“It was on your name tag.” Larson still couldn’t place him and she crossed her arms,
“Not Larson, how did you know my name was Larson?” She said and brushed her curly platinum blond hair off her shoulder and onto her back.
“Larson?” The man asked again and she sighed,
“Yes! I’m Larson! How the hell do you know my name?” She said placing her hands on her hips and he pulled off his sunglasses,
“I’m JC, we met at the Lakers game a month and a half ago.” Realization hit her,
“Oh gosh yeah JC. Bye, bye, bye man.” She laughed,
“Yeah that’s me. How’s Sam?”
“He’s really good. I haven’t seen him in a little while and it’s driving me crazy but the last time I-” She stopped suddenly as the elevator jerked around and the lights went out. “Shit.” She said grabbing the side rail.
“Crap.” JC spat out doing the same and waited for the elevator to stop.
It paused and the emergency red lights came on. Both of them stayed where they were, unsure of what to do. They both glanced at each other for a moment and then JC spoke,
“You okay?”
“Yeah I think so. Except for the fact that my blood pressure just rose eighty points, I’m fine.” She joked, “You?” He chuckled,
“Yeah, I’m good. Think we can let go of the walls?”
“I’m thinking we can. Wanna do it together?”
“Okay, on the count of three.”
“Okay, one,”
“Two, three.” They said together and let go of the railing. Slowly but surely they sunk to the floor.
JC pulled out his cell phone and turned it on,
“Damn, no reception. What about you?”
“Dead, I forgot to bring my recharger.” She laughed,
“Well there should be a phone under the buttons.” He said moving towards the controls slowly. He opened the emergency phone box and pulled out the phone, “Shit.”
“What no dial tone?” He held out the phone to her and saw that the wire had been chewed through,
“Not exactly.”
“Shit, guess that means we’re stuck in here for a while.” She sighed and kicked off her shoes, leaning against the wall.
“Make yourself at home.” He teased,
“Hey, I’ve been in those heels all morning long. I’ve been dying to get them off.”
“Point taken.” He said as he eased himself over next to her. “So what brings you to Orlando? You don’t exactly look like you’re on vacation.”
“What? You mean normal people don’t wear business suits to the beach?” She joked,
“Not exactly.”
“Maybe I’m starting a new trend. You know bringing business casual to a whole new level.” They both started laughing and then she said, “I’m here for the National Primary Special Education Services Conference.”
“That’s a mouthful.”
“More than you know. What about you? What are you here for?”
“Challenge for the Children Charity basketball event this weekend.”
“That sounds like a lot of fun. A lot more fun that this conference.” She sighed and stretched out her legs,
“Yeah I guess, you don’t want to be here?”
“I’m a guest speaker and I just hate giving speeches. I’d rather just talk to people one on one. Unfortunately that would take forever.”
“Stage fright?”
“Not really, it’s just a little too impersonal and stiff for my tastes. I love interacting with people and getting their views. It’s hard when you’re stuck behind a podium with a slide show.” She rolled her eyes making him laugh.
“So don’t stay behind the podium, go out into the crowd and talk from there.”
“Oh my God, I think the conference people would flip. Hey that might be an idea.” She smiled devilishly and rubbed her hands together,
“Whoa, are they that strict?”
“They just want everything to be as professional as possible.”
“So being a boring stiff behind a podium with a slide show as a backdrop is being a professional?”
“Apparently, why they wanted me to speak, I’ll never know.”
“What do you have to talk about?”
“Autism vs. Asperger’s Syndrome, whether they’re different disorders or just different levels of the same disorder.” JC yawned at that time, “See you’re already falling asleep.” She joked,
“No, no, I’m not. I just had an early flight.”
“Okay, so you’re just in town to see a basketball game?”
“I’m playing in it. It’s to raise money for our charities.”
“Whose charities?” Larson said slightly confused,
“Nsync? The music group I’m in?”
“Oh yes. Bye, bye, bye.” She laughed making the arm movements and he smirked,
“Yeah, that’s us.”
“You’ll have to forgive me. I spend most of my time with kids ages six and below. I’m not up on my music. Though you want wheels on the bus, I’m your girl.” She joked and JC laughed, “Ooo, before I forget, can I get your autograph?” She said reaching into her briefcase and pulling out a pen and a spare sheet of paper. “My roommate seriously freaked when she found out that I met you and didn’t get your autograph. And if she knew I met you again and didn’t get your autograph, she might do bodily damage.” Larson joked and he chuckled,
“Yeah sure no problem.” JC said and Larson handed him the paper and pen, “Who do I make it out to?” He asked looked up at her,
“My dearest Mel.” She said dramatically,
“Okay.” He said slowly and began to write,
“I was kidding!” She laughed stopping his hand with hers,
“I’ve been asked to write weirder things, trust me. So, my dearest Mel..” Larson leaned over his shoulder to watch him write, “What’s next?”
“Hmm, which one of you is she obsessed about?” She said more to herself than to him, “God, I should know this.”
“Justin?” JC offered,
“No it’s not a J-name, it’s, it’s…”
“Chris?” He suggested,
“No…”
“Lance.” They both said at the same time and then laughed again. Larson suddenly smiled like she got a bright idea,
“Ooo, lets mess with her a bit. Write this, ‘Sorry I’m not the one you want, but to make up for it here’s Lance’s cell phone number.” She smiled at JC who frowned a bit,
“I’m not writing Lance’s cell phone number down.”
“Well of course not. I would never expect you too. Just make something up. She’ll flip when she reads it. God I can’t wait to see her face.”
“Oh, so when she tries to call him and gets some random person she’ll hate me and think that I’m an asshole.” JC said frowning even more,
“Nah, she’ll totally know this is me. I’ve done it before, she’s completely gullible.” She said with her eyes twinkling with mischief.
“Do you even LIKE your roommate?”
“Oh, I love her, she’s my best friend.”
“You ARE evil.”
“Hey, I never claimed to be an angel.” She protested and he laughed again writing down the message and signing the bottom.
“There, I hold no claim to what happens with that.” He said as he folded it and handed it to her. She put it in her briefcase,
“No problem, I’ll take the blame. Heck it’s so good, I WANT to take the blame.” She giggled.
“This is behavior I would never expect from a doctor.” Larson rolled her eyes,
“Please, you don’t have to be a dried up stiff to have a Ph.D. after your name.” She leaned in and whispered to him, “Though between you and me, I think I accidentally slipped through the cracks. Either that or the thesis committee just wanted me to get out of their school.” She laughed again.
“So you live near LA?”
“Ten minutes north in Glendale. What about you?”
“I live in Beverly Hills. I just bought a house out there this year.”
“Where did you live before that?”
“Here in Orlando actually. It’s where Nsync started.”
“That’s cool, so you grew up in Orlando?”
“No I lived in a town right outside Washington DC.”
“Where?”
“Bowie.”
“Shut up! I have a shit load of friends who live in Silver Springs.”
“Really?”
“Yeah after undergrad a whole bunch of them moved down there and lived together. I visit there all the time, we go to Bowie for this little bakery place that had the best sugar cookies with chocolate frosting-”
“Irene’s kitchen?”
“Oh my God, yes! Oh boy, we used to get like three dozen and eat them till we couldn’t move.” She laughed grabbing her stomach. “They were so good!” JC laughed with her at her actions,
“I remember the cookies being good.”
“Good? Honey, they were a bite of heaven.”
“So did you grow up near Maryland?”
“Nope, Albany, NY.”
“Ah the capital of New York, did you like it?”
“It was okay, I love California much more. It’s warmer and the weather’s more stable.”
“True, but I do miss the snow.”
“I miss the snow for a day and then I get over it when realize that I don’t have to shovel it.”
“Well now you have earthquakes to deal with.”
“I lived where it snowed ten months out of the year. Trust me, I’ve had my share of it. What possessed you to move to California from Orlando?” She asked,
“I realized that I spent more time on this coast so it just made sense. What about you? LA’s a long way form Albany.”
“A dart.” She shrugged and he looked at her as she laughed, “My best friend Mel and I have known each other forever, we grew up together, went to undergrad and then got our masters together too. So one night, months before graduation I asked Mel where we should move to. She didn’t know and neither did I, well we were playing darts and happened to have a map of the US on our wall. She said throw a dart at it and where ever it hits we’ll go. I threw the dart aiming for Hawaii but hit California. So we graduated packed up and moved out there. That was two years ago.”
“Wow, so you just picked up everything and moved out to California?”
“Yep, I had my masters and she had an MBA. If we couldn’t find a job with that, then we both had retail experience to fall back on. And if all else failed we could always move back home. We figured we had nothing to lose, nothing to hold us back, why not?”
“That’s cool. So you got your doctorate out in California?”
“Yeah, I got a job as a special ed teacher with elementary autistic kids and worked on my doctorate at night. We’re you ever able to go to college?”
“I wanted to, I wanted to be an architect or do something with accounting but I decided to take a shot on Nsync and it turned out pretty well.”
“Guess I’m not the only one who’s not scared to take a chance.” She smiled,
“Guess not.” He smiled back and they kept chatting between them. It was one of those great conversations that you don’t want to end and lasts hours but only feels like minutes have passed.
They were finally interrupted when the elevator shifted. Larson instantly grabbed onto JC’s arm.
“What’s going on?” She gasped,
“I don’t know.” He whispered back and her hand slid down intertwining with his.
“I think I’m going to take the stairs from now on.” She whispered closing her eyes tight. JC squeezed her hand,
“I think I’m with you on that one.” He said back. Larson opened her eyes and looked at him.
“At least I’m not alone.” She smiled up at him.
“Yeah.” He said smiling down at her. The elevator jerked again and then began moving slowly upward. Larson let out a deep breath.
“Looks like they fixed it.” The regular lights flickered on.
“Yeah, I would say that’s a good bet.” He agreed.
They watched the floor numbers slowly rise as neither of them moved from where they were sitting.
“Should we trust it?” She asked,
“I don’t know, looks like its working.” He said and she sighed,
“Okay, I’m gonna stand up.”
“Kay, me too.” He agreed, “Together?”
“Sure on the count of three?”
“Kay, one,”
“Two, three.” They finished together and stood up.
“This must be the slowest elevator I’ve ever been on.” She said and finally let go of his hand.
“I’d have to agree with you on that one.” He laughed. Larson placed a hand on his shoulder for balance and slipped on her shoes. She picked up her bag as the elevator opened the doors to her floor. She turned back to JC,
“Well, it was nice to see you again, JC. Thanks for the company.”
“Thank you, it was actually fun except for those few moments where I thought we were going to die.” He joked and she walked off the elevator.
“So true, JC. Bye.” She waved and began to walk away. JC stood there for a few second deciding whether or not to chase after her and ask her out.
“Aw, crap.” He muttered to himself and walked off in the direction Larson went. He was already late for his meeting, what was another five minutes? “Larson!” He called after her trying to get her attention. She stopped in her tracks and went back a few steps to see JC coming up the hallway.
“Hey what’s up?”
“I just wanted to know if you wanted to come to our basketball game tomorrow?”
“What time?”
“Around 1.”
“Ooo, my talk is from 1 to 3. I’m sorry.”
“That’s okay, we have two other things you could go to. I mean it’s the least I could do considering you put up with me in a confined space for a long time.” He joked and she laughed,
“It wasn’t that bad, but lay them on me.”
“Well, it’s a little guest party after the game tomorrow night, from like ten to whenever.”
“Hmm, I have late dinner plans with a colleague and I should go to bed because I have an early, early meeting on Sunday.”
“Okay, well we’re going to have another game in Sunday at three.” Larson looked up at the ceiling, mentally going through her schedule.
“That, I think, yes I can do that. I won’t be able to make it exactly at three, but a little later I can make it.” She smiled and he returned it.
“Great, I’ll have your name on the list and you can just show up at the arena.”
“Okay, great.” She said and then grabbed her forehead, “Oh, are they gonna make me show ID?”
“Yeah, probably, why?”
“Just make sure you put Cathleen Smith down and not Larson Smith.”
“Oh, okay, um, why do you go by Larson and not Cathleen?”
“It’s my middle name and there are way too many Cats, Cathys, and Cathleens in my family. So I’ve always gone by my middle name. Plus, I like Larson way better than Cathy.” She said wrinkling her nose and he smiled,
“Alright, Cathleen Smith it is. See you on Sunday then.”
“See you Sunday, JC.”