“Are you kidding? It’s never too late to change. I don’t care if you’re thirty or fifty or seventy,” I say. “What are you, twenty-six?”
“Twenty-seven.”
“Puh-lease.” I tell her my story—how long I spent stuck in a rural town I hated, dreaming so hard of a different life, a better life, and never making it happen. Maybe it’s just because she’s a stranger in an elevator, but I even confess how my specific dream of having a clan of girlfriends in the Big Apple was inspired by reruns of Sex and the City.
I tell her how I’d look on Craigslist at roommate-wanted ads in New York and Brooklyn and dream of answering one of them. I’d even google the addresses and stare at the buildings, but I was so scared to make the move because I didn’t know anybody, and also I had an on-again off-again boyfriend and a mother back in Mapleton. Then my mom got cancer. I tell her how hard I’d fought the insurance companies to get the care that Mom deserved, this special treatment that I wanted her to have, but they refused. And she died.
“And your dad?” she asks.
“Sperm bank. My mom was super independent—she was amazing. There was nothing she couldn’t do. Until, you know…”
“I’m sorry,” she says.
“Thanks,” I say. “The point is, it made me aware of how short life is. And even though I was scared, I went home after that funeral and I looked at the Craigslist ads. And there was this roommate-wanted ad. The ad mentioned gourmet popcorn and watching Bachelorette with women from down the hall, and I went for it. After all those years I spent looking at Craigslist roommate ads and never answering them, wasting all this time in a place I wanted to leave, it took my mother dying for me to make the leap. And I’m so glad I did.”
“I don’t know if I’m gutsy like that.”
“I’m not, either. Not at all! You just have to do it. Life is short, Stella.”
“I don’t think I can leave my job after investing so much time.”
“But you hate it,” I say. “And you said even if you get the good jobs, you don’t think you’re good at it.”
“True.” She picks at a sticker on her briefcase. “And I hate my bosses for sending me to coach these assholes. And I don’t even get insurance.”
“Seriously?” I scowl. “No insurance? You work full-time with no insurance?”
“I’m technically a contractor. A way for them to get out of paying benefits. God, it’s not a very good job, is it?”
“Tell me, Stella, if you could do anything, what would you want to do?”
“Quit. Give them the big FU and blow my entire paycheck on shoes. Or maybe a new outfit. No—a diamond fucking tiara, and I’d wear it to the Plaza Hotel and drink an entire bottle of their best champagne all by myself and then pick up a hot guy.”
“I meant a job. Think of what you’d do for work. Tomorrow. If you could wake up and have any career.”
“I don’t know.”
“Think big,” I say. “Pie in the sky.”
“Wellllll…There is one thing I could do,” she says.
“What?”
“My friend Jaycee is going to Estonia to teach English. She’s leaving this week. She invited me, like they need teachers. I guess that’s kind of my Craigslist ad, because she’s invited me before, and I always turn her down, but I like working with kids, and I think it would be really fun. It’s this girls school. I even looked it up on Google maps. It’s this sweet little school. And I do enjoy teaching…”
“Hold the phone,” I say. “You’re telling me that you have an actual opportunity to do this cool thing instead of coaching some guy who’s going to be a jerk to you, and you’re choosing the jerk?”
“Well, I have a lease. Bills to pay.”
“Hold out your hands,” I say.
She regards me warily. “Why?”
“Hold out your hands. Show me your hands.”
She holds them out.
“That’s funny,” I say. “I don’t see any handcuffs there, do you? I don’t see a leash around your neck. Looks to me like you’re a free operator with your own freaking life.”
She tucks her hands back in her lap, but I have her attention.
“Life is short,” I say. “I know that’s a cliché, but it’s a cliché for a reason.”
She turns and stares into the middle distance, blinking.
“I’m serious, Stella.” I feel myself getting riled up. Sometimes I get overly passionate, but things with Stella seem so clear cut. “When this elevator starts up, you could choose to not get off at the sixth floor. You could hit that lobby button and get out down at the lobby instead. Wouldn’t that be nice?”
“Yesssss,” she says.
“Well?”
She looks longingly at the button marked L. “I couldn’t.”
“Stella, you have an actual job offer. You have an apartment? Fine. Go put your stuff in storage. Get a subletter, or just eat the deposit. Get a standby flight with your friend. Pay the bills from Estonia. I mean, there’s actually a job for you doing this cool thing? And instead you’re gonna spend these next how many beautiful days of your life with some jerk jerking you around? And you’re not even getting health insurance?”
She’s watching me, eyes wide. “And he really will jerk me around.”
I shake my head. “You deserve better.”
She blinks. “I could get a subletter. My asshole ex needs a place.”
“There you go,” I say.
She sniffs. “The overseas gig pay would be shit, but you get free room and board.” She looks at me. “I would feel happy.”
“Well?” I say.
“Shit,” she laughs. “I can’t.”
“You’d rather go up there and coach the asshole?”
“No,” she whispers, clutching her briefcase, blinking some more. “Oh my god, Noelle, am I going to do this?”
“Yes!” I practically scream.
“Yes!” She reaches out and grabs my hand. “Because, why not?”
“Right?” I say.
“I could leave this whole nightmare behind,” she says.
I stand up and point to the lobby button. “This could be your next stop.”
“Let me see if there’s still room.” She pulls out her phone and calls her friend and tells her she’s thinking about going along. I’m trembling with excitement for her. Because her job sounds like it seriously sucks. Her friend’s squealing—I can hear it through the phone.
She hangs up and tells me that her friend is gonna make some calls. There’s still a need for teachers and there might even be empty seats on her connecting flight to Amsterdam. The friend is checking.
“I can’t believe I’m stuck in this elevator with a letter carrier and you’re telling me to quit my job.”
“Why can’t a letter carrier tell you to quit your job?” I ask.
Her phone rings. It’s her friend, and it sounds like good news. “Okay, then, I’m in.”
She puts away her phone. “Oh my god, I’m gonna do it. I am—I’m just doing it.”