Линвуд Баркли - Elevator Pitch

“Yes, well, thank you for that,” Arla’s new boss said, and then moved on to the next item.

In her head, Arla could hear the whine of a bullet-riddled fighter plane plunging earthward, the explosion as it hit the side of the mountain. There’d been no time for the pilot to eject to safety.

Humiliated, she went back to her computer after the meeting. Okay, maybe, for a newbie, she had overstepped. No one liked a smartass know-it-all, and maybe that was how she had come across. But that didn’t mean her idea wasn’t a good one. Maybe the problem was that she’d delivered it in the wrong venue. This department was not a campaign office. Yes, they gathered and analyzed data, but they were not strategists. These people, technically, worked for the city, not the mayor. It wasn’t their job to advise Headley on his image. He had political advisers for that. People like Valerie Langdon.

And Glover.

As the afternoon dragged on, Arla kept thinking about him. He was the one who needed to hear her idea. She should text him. Or... maybe not. He might react the way her supervisor had. Who did she think she was? Did she think those closest to the mayor had no clue how to present him during a crisis?

Or might Glover think she had an ulterior motive? Was she just looking for an excuse to talk to him again?

Yeah, well, maybe.

Just as she’d come to question her motives for taking this job in the first place — had she done it, at least in part, to piss off her mother? — she was now asking herself why, exactly, her thumb was poised over her phone, ready to send a text to Glover.

Wasn’t it possible she wanted to share her idea, and see him again?

She wrote: HEY, DONT WANT TO MAKE SUGGESTIONS ABOVE MY PAY GRADE BUT THINK RH COULD WIN NYERS OVER BY DOING A COUPLE OF THINGS DIFFERENTLY.

Arla reread the words several times. To send, or not to send?

She made her decision. She tapped the tiny, blue, upward-pointing arrow, heard the soft whoosh of the departing message. Arla left her phone, screen up, next to her keyboard and tried not to look at it any more often than every four seconds.

After a full minute had gone by, she believed she’d made a grave miscalculation. Glover had not responded. She’d made a fool of herself. She was some lowly new hire thinking she knew how to run the place. As the minutes ticked by, Arla realized the only thing worse than Glover not replying would be if he did reply. How would that play once the rest of her department found out? Arla Silbert, doing an end run around her boss on her second day.

Stupid stupid stupid—

The phone rang. Arla jumped. Not enough for anyone else in the room to notice, but she’d felt her entire body jolt.

It was not her cell phone that had rung. It was her desk phone.

She picked up. “Hello. Arla Silbert.”

“Hey,” said a voice that she recognized instantly. “So what’s this great idea of yours?”

Arla felt a hammering in her chest. “Listen, I’m sorry,” she said, keeping her voice low so none of her coworkers would hear her. “I never should have—”

“No, no,” said Glover. “Look, we’re in the middle of a crisis. We need to consider everything. Even,” and at this point Arla thought she heard a light chuckle, “from the new kid on the block.”

“If you really think—”

“I do. Why are you whispering?”

“I don’t think the others here appreciate my suggestions. Like you say, I’m the newbie.”

“Okay, look, your day’s just about over, right?”

“Yeah, the whistle blows in twenty minutes. But the way things are going, I wouldn’t be surprised if we’re asked to hang in.”

“If you aren’t, come by my office when you’re done.”

“Yeah, okay, sure.”

Arla hung up, looked around to assess whether anyone had been listening in. Everyone else appeared transfixed by whatever was on their screens.

I don’t know what the hell I’m doing, Arla thought.

Some of the more experienced staff were, in fact, asked to stay late. A few who lived on the upper floors of tall residential towers volunteered to work overtime, hoping that if they hung in long enough, the elevators would be working again by the time they did go home.

Arla was not asked to stay, nor did she volunteer to.

She found a place in the hallway a couple of doors down from Glover’s office. Thank God for cell phones. In the olden days, when dinosaurs ruled the earth, if you were just hanging around, someone might approach and ask if they could help you, or demand to know what you were doing there, even if you did have a City Hall ID hanging around your neck.

But today, all you had to do was lean up against the wall and look at your phone. Your phone gave you cover in almost any circumstance, especially if it appeared you were dealing with an email or a text. That said you were working . You were dealing with something. You might not even have any business with anyone on this floor, let alone in this hallway. You were en route to someplace else, but had only stopped here because you’d received, or had to send, an urgent message.

So that was what Arla was doing. Leaning up against the wall, engrossed in her phone. For real. She was reading the latest updates about the elevator crisis when she sensed someone approaching. She looked up.

Glover smiled. “Hey,” he said. “You made it.”

“Hi,” she said, tucking the phone into her purse. “Okay, so you remember last night, I was telling you about when your dad — sorry — when the mayor was talking to that kid and—”

He put a hand on her arm. “We don’t have to do this in the hall.”

His hand felt warm through the sleeve of her blouse. “Yeah, sure, okay, that sounds great.”

“I need to get out of here for a few minutes, anyway,” he said. He tapped his chest by the handkerchief pocket of his jacket. “They can get me if they need me.”

Glover had been looking Arla in the eye, but something, or someone, farther down the hall had distracted him.

“Hang on,” he said.

Arla turned, following his gaze. A tall, broad-shouldered, and entirely bald man was walking toward them.

“Chris,” Glover said.

The man stopped, nodded. “Glover,” he said, his tone flat.

“You coming back from Top of the Park? Coughlin cooled down some?” There was an air of authority in Glover’s voice, but it sounded somehow hollow to Arla. Puffed up.

Chris looked at Glover through narrowed eyes. It reminded Arla of someone doing a Robert DeNiro impression, the way you’d stare someone down as you said, “You talkin’ to me ?”

Finally, Chris said, “It’s handled.”

Glover nodded. “Great, just what I was hoping to hear.”

Arla sensed what was happening, and it made her sad for Glover. He was hoping to impress her, suggest that this Chris guy, whoever he was, reported to him. But it was clear this man felt no such obligation.

In a bid to break the tension, she extended a hand and said, “Hi. I’m Arla.”

Chris’s eyes widened and he smiled graciously as he took her hand. “Chris Vallins. Arla, you said?”

“Yes. Arla Silbert.”

Vallins’s eyes seemed to flicker. “Pleasure,” he said.

“Ms. Silbert has just joined us,” Glover said. “She’s a whiz at data analysis.”

Vallins smiled. “Well.”

“Listen, we’re just on our way,” Glover said.

“Of course,” Chris said. “Nice to meet you, Ms. Silbert.”

Glover lightly touched Arla’s arm to propel her down the hall. Once they were walking, she asked, “What’s he do?”

“Whatever my father asks,” Glover said.

“That all seemed, I don’t know, a little awkward.”