Love in an elevator

Love In An Elevator - Aerosmith

I am staying in today. It’s time to conquer the proofread that has been staring at me all week. Nonetheless, procrastination demands that laundry be done first. For the second time this morning I flip-flop into the elevator and push the button for sub-ground level C1 – off to collect a first round of clean clothes in the laundry room. There’s a boy and a girl already inside, going down. I give them a nod of neighborly recognition and settle into the far corner.

As the door closes, the boy says: ‘It just grosses me out to see two people all over each other like that in public.’ Me, too! I think. Nothing worse than having to endure a couple of outdoor smoochers – it’s the kind of thing you really can’t tolerate unless you’re the one actually doing it. The girl isn’t pleased. She snorts at him and says: ‘Hmph. You know, some people like to see other people happy.’ There is something in the girl’s tone of voice that isn’t as mild as it could have been. The boy seems oblivious to the undertow in her comment. He flounders on: ‘Yeah, well it grossed me right out of the room.’
They both fall silent for a bit after that. Ten, nine, eight… The boy moves his lips as he helps the elevator count down the floors. But the girl is brooding. When we pass the fifth floor, she has reached a decision. ‘I am giving you a two week warning,’ she announces. ‘After that, if you’re still the same person, I’m gonna start seeing other people.’

A two week warning? Fortunately, the boy knows the idiom. ‘You mean you’re gonna see that other guy again?’ Oh boy, I think, here it comes. ‘No, it’s not the guy you know about. It’s someone else,’ the girl says matter-of-factly. The boy nods. And that’s the end of it. Four, three, two… I guess there is really nothing more to say. But shouldn’t some kind of further explanation be required? Where are the hot tears of misinterpretation? They both seem to understand perfectly what turn their love affair is taking from here. I, on the other hand, am left struggling. I speak the language, I hear the words, but I have no idea what just happened. Did they break up just now or didn't they? Is he planning to be a changed man in two weeks? Will he start seeing other people, too? Not as of now, mind you! Not for another fourteen days. And then what? She won’t mind him being the same guy he always was as long as they’re not exclusive? He won’t mind her dating other guys as long as it’s been properly announced?

The elevator touches ground level. The boy gestures for me to step out first, but no, I am going further down. ‘Oh, right, you’re just hanging,’ the boy states as they dart past me, into the lobby. The door closes again, and I’m off to a decidedly flooded laundry room with a superintendant shaking his head in dismay at a machine filled with my still dripping delicates. Why would I be hanging out in an elevator? I wonder. Is that something people do around here? Or was the boy trying to tell me something else? Was he in fact including me in yet another coded message, well understood by the locals, but completely lost on me? And if so, how will I ever know what it all means?