The first thing you have to understand is that I didn’t always live here. In fact, I grew up in a place so rural that the city, this city, only existed as the stories people would bring back with them.
 
The second thing is that she smelled like those summers I’d tried to forget; like sun-drenched magnolias and the clear streams that ran through unmowed meadows.
 
The third thing is the carbonized three month’s paycheck she wore on her left hand.
 
This also happened to be the third thing I noticed about her. The first, of course, being her smell. And the second being the fact that she was probably the most beautiful woman I’d ever laid my eyes on.
 
But once I noticed that third thing, I realized I should stop paying so much attention to her, for my own sake. So I forced my nose to focus on everything else it could pick up: metallic overtones, with undertones of lemon cleaner and subtle notes of body odor. Eau d’Elevator.
 
The doors rolled shut and I tried to stare at my own brassy reflection instead of the million different ways she seemed to scatter the fluorescent lights, as if her own confidence could radiate outwards for her. The lights exploded from every sequin in her dress that matched the sequins on her clutch that complemented the gems in her necklace that paled in comparison to the depth of her eyes.
 
I wasn’t doing very well. Her eyes caught mine and she very quickly, deliberately averted them.
 
I like living in this building. I like living near the top floor because it reminds me of racing to climb trees as a child, how I always wanted to get to the highest branch possible. Living up here is so much more than that child could’ve ever imagined. And I like that.
 
What I don’t like is that there’s no service in the elevators. So you have to awkwardly stare at your phone and pretend it’s useful for the entire duration of the arduous descent.
 
The building is tall enough that it doesn’t even ding on every floor. So there’s nothing but suffocating silence and the faint sensation of movement.
 
A faint sensation that I, in that moment, realized was nonexistent. Not trusting my own sense of proprioception, I looked towards her. She seemed unaffected.
 
I waited. Silence and the smell of magnolias. But we definitely weren’t moving.
 
“Are we... stopped?” She asked, not looking at me. I acted like I hadn’t been waiting for her to speak.
 
“Uh, I think so?”
 
“Shit.” She whispered, her attention on her phone.
 
I hypothesized she must not live in the building for two reasons: firstly, I would have remembered seeing someone that beautiful, and secondly because she seemed to be holding onto a sliver of hope of her phone working.
 
“Fuck.” She said, a bit louder, now that she’d confirmed the uselessness of her phone.
 
“Do you, uh, have somewhere to be?”
 
“Yes.” Dismissive, gesturing to the cocktail dress and the clutch and the makeup.
 
“Where?”
 
Her eyes told me she really did not want to be talking to me in that moment.
 
“An art opening.”
 
“Oh where?”
 
She sighed. I rolled my eyes.
 
“It’s not like you have anything else to do other than talk to me.”
 
She opened her mouth to speak, then stopped herself. She was silent for a moment, inspecting the perfect red polish on her nails. Red that matched her lipstick that matched the poppies in our front garden my mother warned me to stay away from.
 
She sighed again. Defeated.
 
“It’s at the modern art museum. There’s this new acquisition that they’re celebrating.”
 
“Oh, the weird abstract one with the lines and the colors?”
 
Her eyes showed distrust. Whether that was of me or the still-motionless elevator, I wasn’t sure.
 
“Either you’ve seen it or you’re good at guessing.”
 
“No, I’ve seen it. I was there last week.”
 
She looked at me, truly looked at me for the first time since she’d stepped in the elevator. I could tell she was analyzing me, trying to figure out how my faded jeans and oversized hoodie and mop of hair could add up to be the kind of person who frequented art museums.
 
“So why are you going?” I’d decided to interrupt her before she could reduce me to a point where I wasn’t mysterious anymore. Not that I have very much mystery going for me in the first place.
 
“I’m an art critic.” She said it with the tone of someone who doesn’t hold much regard to that opinion. I smiled at her but she rolled her eyes. “And now you’re going to ask me what I thought of the painting.”
 
She had me there. I shrugged, hands in my pockets. She smiled, showing perfectly white teeth that matched the sparkle from her diamonds that matched a life I know I’d never get any closer to.
 
“I’m about to go to this event and everyone is going to ask me that same question. And I’m going to have to tell them the exact same thing, which is the exact same thing I wrote in my column that nobody reads, and then they’ll tell me what they think of it, which is basically the same opinion, but they’ll be sure to use bigger words, just to show me how cultured they are.” She cast her eyes downward, at the marble floor that would be polished tomorrow. “These things are always the same. I hate these people.”
 
I wanted to tell her that she was one of them, she was the exact erudite thing she despised, but that seemed counterproductive. I wasn’t exactly keen on angering someone when I had no escape.
 
Holding my tongue meant I had nothing to contribute, so I stayed quiet. I stared at her reflection pretending its phone wasn’t useless.
 
“Well,” I finally offered. “I guarantee I’m not going to say the exact same things about it.”
 
She raised an eyebrow.
 
“So you hated it?”
 
“I just don’t like art that tries to be what it isn’t.”
 
She laughed. More of a scoff, really, telling me exactly what she thought of how uneducated I am.
 
“So you didn’t understand it, then?”
 
“Well I'm a bit iffy on something that abstract, ‘cause it tends to lean so heavily on viewer interpretation. I mean, there is something aesthetically pleasing about some of the panels, and it shows a clear progression. It definitely means something, and if I don’t get what that something is, is that my fault or the artist’s? It seems like the artist aimed for a deconstruction of something, but I don’t know. I guess it leaves too many questions that don’t fall into any interpretation.”
 
“Questions?”
 
“I don’t know, like, why do the curved lines disappear in the second part and then reappear in the next panels? Or like, uh, why did they add a darker blue on the second panel and a darker grey on the fifth? It seems really random, like maybe it would seem more cohesive if they went with the same colors throughout the whole thing.”
 
I waited for her to respond, either to belittle me for clearly knowing nothing about art, or to calmly explain all the answers to all my dumb questions. I wasn’t sure which would’ve been better.
 
But she didn’t say anything. Her face seemed to suggest that she was actually thinking about what I’d said, holding weight to my words. I didn’t like being under that amount of scrutiny.
 
“Oh and, the first three frames share nothing but the colors, and then the last three all share similarities with the third. That’s kinda an odd break, right?”
 
She smiled in a way that could very easily be a smirk.
 
“You clearly know the painting very well.”
 
“It’s like ten feet tall, dude, there’s a lot to look at.” she chuckled.
 
“Twelve, actually.”
 
I paused again, giving her room to speak. She didn’t.
 
“What, aren’t you going to explain it to me? C’mon, I know you get all that artsy bullshit.”
 
She shrugged, leaned against the wall, shifted her clutch from one hand to the other.
 
“I could. I could sit here and lecture you about increases in entropy, or the shift from mechanical to digital, or a rejection of color theory in contemporary American art. But all of that is completely useless. None of that is going to change your mind about anything.”
 
“I guess I just don’t get modern art.”
 
“Oh no, you get it. You get it better than anyone I’ll talk to at this stupid reception tonight. That is, if I ever get there.” She paused, eyes to the ceiling. “Actually, come to think of it, shouldn’t we be freaking out instead of discussing art right now?”
 
I shrugged.
 
“I’ve never been claustrophobic, and it doesn’t seem like you really want to be going to this event.”
 
“Yeah, of course I don’t, but it’s one of those things you gotta do, y’know?”
 
Maybe I was studying her too hard or maybe she really did look down at her ring when she said that.
 
What I wanted to do was grab her and kiss her and push her against the mahogany wall and wake up tomorrow with mascara on my pillowcase and her, half-dressed, sitting on the edge of my bed, on the phone with her fiancé, telling him it was over.
 
But I didn’t. That’s the kind of thing movie characters do, not me.
 
Besides, even if I did sleep with her, all it would end up as would be a secret she’d be holding in the back of her mind as she walked down the aisle. 
 
“Hey, are we moving?”
 
I’d been so caught up in my dumb fantasies I hadn’t noticed. But we were definitely moving again.
 
I knew that once she stepped out of that elevator, I wouldn’t be seeing her again. Something told me that. So if I had anything else monumental to say, I needed to tell her very quickly.
 
But all of a sudden, any words I could form seemed so stupid, so misguided. So I stayed quiet.
 
Finally, the elevator slowed to a stop at her floor, finally near the ground again, and the doors opened.
 
“Wait.” I commanded, making her pause in the doorway.
 
I wanted to tell her that art was a silly field to pursue because no painting could ever be as beautiful as she was. I wanted to tell her she deserved better than a blood diamond and plates of hors d'oeuvres. I wanted to tell her that the sound of her voice made me feel safe and whole and happier than I’d been since I was a child. I wanted to tell her I’d do anything to have the privilege of falling in love with her.
 
“What did you mean when you told me I get modern art?”
 
She looked at me like she had just as many things to say as I had, and she was just as unable to say any of it.
 
“It’s art. I like your questions but stop looking for answers.”
 
She stepped out and the doors slid closed, leaving me one last look to soak in as much of her as possible, before I was alone again.
 
The elevator went down one more floor, and when the door opened there was a man in a suit, smiling at me.
 
“Is everything alright? It was a slight mechanical malfunction and we promise we’ll do our best to assure you that it never happens again.
 
I assured him I was fine.
 
“Did it cause any sort of inconvenience to your plans tonight? If so, we’d be happy to—”
 
I brushed him off with a wave of my hand.
 
“No. No inconvenience at all, actually.”
 
And with that, I held down the close button until he was gone, until it was just me and my reflection and the very faint smell of magnolias.


 
The first thing you have to understand is that I eventually didn’t live there. I grew tired of the smell of old piss and garbage and longed for clean breezes and uncut grass again. 
 
The second is that, in the absence of her, I settled for someone not nearly as beautiful, but with eyes just as captivating.
 
The third is that I could never get the magnolias to smell like they did in my memories.