There's Only One Quantum (3 page)

Coe’s pulse quickened.

He found the bank of elevators and pressed up. He waited. The dial above the doors indicated a car was coming down. He thought about Ms. Hunter. She was trim and pretty with a slender neck, pink earlobes, and swollen red lips. He imagined her buttocks bare; the supple flesh of her thighs.

A tone sounded and the elevator doors opened. He was surprised to find an elevator operator seated on a stool. He was even more surprised to discover it was a woman.

“Up?” she asked. She was as equally attractive as Ms. Hunter—though where Ms. Hunter had blonde hair, the operator was red.

Coe felt shame at his fantasizing about Ms. Hunter. “Yes.”

“Let’s go.”

He stepped in.

“Floor?”

“Thirty-eight.”

“Uh-oh. Someone’s dropping a dime,” she said, and closed the door.

He asked, “Is there an operator in all the elevators?” By his count, there were eight.

“You got the only one in the building,” she said. “In fact, the last one in this whole city. The elevator business is a highly-automated one these days.”

“Perhaps the last fifty years,” Coe said.

“My response time, on average, is two and a half seconds faster than my automated counterparts. Bottom line: I get you there faster. Multiply that two and a half seconds by how many times you ride the elevator, per year, and you’ll see I’m good for productivity. I get you back to your desk and working while the other guy’s still listening to the muzak version of ‘Hey, Jude.’”

“I appreciate it.”

“You’re the only one,” she said.

Her legs were bare; she wore no stockings. She sat perched on the stool with one leg crossed over the other. She wore flats.

“You’ve got a troubled mind,” she said.

The remark shocked him out of his secret assessment of her. “I don’t,” he snapped.

She smiled. “If you say so, fella.”

“Today’s my first day—not with the company. My first day here.”

“It’s a nice place to work,” she said. “The people are friendly, pleasant. Every place has got secrets. This one’s no different. I hear things—bits and pieces. They talk around me. Who am I going to tell? I see nothing but the inside of this car, three walls, two sliding doors, a ceiling, a floor. Seven and a half hours a day—I get a thirty minute lunch and two breaks. I don’t smoke—but I use my breaks anyway. I read a glamor magazine. I have a coffee. I go look out the windows on forty-five. Have you been up to forty-five?”

“No, I haven’t.”

“You need to go to forty-five,” she said.

“Okay. I will. Thank you for the recommendation—”

“Go to forty-five,” she repeated.

The elevator stopped at the 38
th
floor. She tugged a lever and the doors slid open. Coe looked out onto a confusing configuration of cubicles, no different than those on his floor.

“You said thirty-eight, right?” she asked.

“I need to see Mr. Hanover.”

“Never heard of him,” she said, which struck Coe as odd.

He thanked her and stepped out onto the floor.

“I’m Carmen,” she said as the doors closed.

He turned to tell her his name, but she had already gone. He walked cross the hallway which was covered in marble tile and caused his shoes to clack on the floor. When he reached the edge of the blue carpet, he was immediately greeted by a cacophony of keystrokes from what sounded like an entire team of typists.

Perhaps eighty to a hundred women, all smartly dressed, sat at row-upon-row of crowded desks, madly and efficiently typing away. He approached the nearest, a young woman with sandy hair pulled back in a ponytail, a pair of small tortoise shell glasses perched on her nose.

“Excuse me,” he said. “I’m sorry to interrupt but I’m looking for Mr. Hanover—”

“Hanover, Warren L.,” she said without looking up. “Suite three-eight-nine.”

“Suite three-eight-nine—”

“Ninth door,” she said, focused on her typing.

“On the right,” the woman to her immediate left said.

Coe spied a corridor just off the pool of women. “Thank you.”

He walked down the corridor of offices, all doors closed. It was eerily quiet. They reminded him of crypts. When he reached suite three-eight-nine on the right, he found a door comprised of fogged glass, bearing the name WARREN L. HANOVER in black and gold lettering. In slightly smaller script beneath the name it read, CONSULTANT. Coe knocked on the glass. A woman’s voice said in an even tone, “Come in.”

Coe opened the door. A woman in a brown pants suit sat at a glass desk. The office consisted of a wall of law books, a leather sofa and wing back chair, three large potted ferns, a ceiling fan, and an Egyptian sarcophagus. He could not tell if it was real. “Is in Mr. Hanover in?”

“I’m sorry,” she said, without smiling. She glanced over her shoulder at a door marked PRIVATE. He assumed it was to an inner office. “Mr. Hanover stepped out. Can I help you?”

“My name is Coe. I’m a new auditor. I was told to report to Mr. Hanover regarding a troubling call I received on my extension.”

“Who referred you to Mr. Hanover?” she asked.

“My secretary,” he said. “Ms. Hunter.”

She tapped a pencil on the edge of her desk. “I see.”

She stared at him unblinkingly. Coe sensed she was assessing the seriousness of his information.

Finally, she said, “Mr. Hanover is taking a steam. He generally does not like to be disturbed when he does. However, Mr. Hanover is a firm believer in that there is no time off in SAU. It is, in a sense, his credo.” She seemed to be justifying it to herself. “If Ms. Hunter judged the call serious enough to warrant Mr. Hanover’s involvement, I have no doubt you should go to the steam room and advise Mr. Hanover of the call immediately.”

“Steam room?”

“On forty-four.”

“Should I—”

“Tell him that Ms. Cleopatra sent you,” she said.

“You’re Ms. Cleopatra?”

She tapped the pencil on a name plate on her desk. It read MARGOT CLEOPATRA.

“Thank you, Mr. Coe,” she said, dismissing him.

He backed away from her desk and left. The pool of women continued typing without pause. He returned to the elevators and pushed up. Carmen’s car arrived and the doors opened. Her stool was empty. A sign hung next to it that read: ON BREAK. BE BACK IN 10 MINUTES.

Coe pressed 44. The elevator did nothing. He remembered Carmen had pulled the lever to close the doors. He did so, and the elevator began to rise.

At the 44
th
floor, the doors unceremoniously opened. When he stepped off the elevator, the doors closed. He heard the elevator move away. He puzzled over how it operated when no one was in there to work it, since it seemed entirely dependent on an operator.

A sign on the wall read EXECUTIVE LEVEL GYMNASIUM & TREATMENT. An arrow pointed to the left. He followed it. A series of arrows led down a corridor comprised of seven right turns, until finally, the hallway opened onto a lobby. A young, attractive woman sat at a desk reading a paperback. Behind her, there was a Japanese bath. Naked men of all ages walked around or relaxed in the waters. The woman seemed disinterested in their nakedness.

“I’m here to see Mr. Hanover,” Coe said to her.

She did not look up from her book. “Sign in,” she said, and gestured toward a clipboard.

Coe picked up a pen and looked at the form. He found W. HANOVER signed in at 1:47 P. He wrote simply, COE and the time.

“Where can I find the steam room?” he asked.

She pointed casually behind her without looking. “Down that hallway. There’s a door marked STEAM. That would be the steam room.”

“Thank you.”

She did not respond. He started to walk toward the hallway when she said, “Don’t forget a towel,” and handed him a thick, white bath towel.

“Thank you, but I won’t need—”

“Everyone takes a towel,” she said.

He reluctantly took the towel as though her will was too strong. She immediately went back to her paperback.

Coe followed the hallway to the door marked steam. He looked down at his gray flannel suit, his white shirt, his black tie. It was all new for his first day. He shrugged, draped the towel around his shoulders, and entered. Inside, he was instantly greeted by a wall of steam. It briefly halted his breath as if the air had suddenly become too thick to breathe in. It smelled vaguely of menthol. He could not see; however, he sensed others in the room. Men, older men. Gray chest hair; limply hanging penises; sagging testicles. He called out softly, “Mr. Hanover?”

A voice responded, “Come sit down.”

Coe found the source of the voice: one of the old, naked men. He sat down beside him.

The man said, “The dress code does not apply in here,” referring to Coe’s suit. “Who are you?”

“Coe...I’m the new man in—”

“Yes,” he said. “The auditor from Philadelphia.”

“That’s right. I don’t mean to bother you here, sir, but—”

“Here you are,” he said. “In your nice gray suit, sweating like a pig.”

“I received a troubling call on my extension.”

“Remind me whose old desk you’ve been assigned to.”

“Collin Revis.”

Coe heard him breathe out. “What was the call?”

“A man said their man has been waiting at the drop-off.”

“Who’s they?”

“I don’t know,” Coe said.

“That’s pretty vague, don’t you think?”

“I suppose there was enough menace in it that, well, it troubled me.”

“It troubled you, you say? You’d interrupt a man’s steam with that kind of nonsense?”

“It wasn’t exactly my idea to tell you. I was referred to you by a secretary in our section.”

“You’re an auditor now, Coe. You’re going to receive a lot of troubling calls. Get used to it. You can’t go interrupting a man’s steam every time you do.”

“I apologize, Mr. Hanover.”

The man hesitated. “I’m not Hanover,” he said.

It was Coe’s turn to pause. “Who are you then?”

The man said, “You best take yourself out of the steam now, before your suit is completely ruined, Mr. Coe, new auditor from Philadelphia.”

“Where’s Mr. Hanover?”

“I don’t know a Mr. Hanover,” he said.

Coe stood. Though the man was old, he took on a threatening manner, or so it seemed to him. He walked quickly for the door.

“In the future, perhaps you should screen your calls more carefully, Mr. Coe. It’s a rookie mistake.”

Coe left. In the hallway, he passed a completely naked man and woman casually discussing a cornbread recipe. He hurried past them. His hands trembled at the thought he may have delivered damaging information to the wrong hands. He was worrying over this when he blankly walked past the woman with the paperback.

“Sign out,” she said.

“What?”

She pointed to the clipboard. Again, she did not bother to look away from her book.

Coe leaned over, found his name, and began to write the time when it suddenly occurred to him that he should steal the entire sheet from the clipboard. He looked to the woman whose face was expressionless. Her eyes, unblinking, were darting back and forth across the pages of the book. He carefully lifted the clip and slid the top sheet out from beneath it. In one fluid motion, he took the sheet, folded it tri-fold across his chest, and slipped it inside the breast pocket of his damp suit coat. He started to walk softly away when—

“Stop!” the woman cried.

Coe stopped and looked back at her.

“Your towel, please,” she said.

“Oh.” Coe patted his shoulder, found the towel still there where he had draped it. He removed it and handed it to her.

She said, “Have a nice day,” and returned to her book.

He rushed to the elevator and repeatedly tapped the down button. At any moment, the woman could discover the missing sign-in sheet—or one of the executives could come to sign out and find he is unable to locate his name.

He tapped it again. “Come on...”

The dial above the elevators began to descend. The doors opened. He found Carmen sitting on her stool. He quickly hurried into the car.

“What floor?”

Coe realized he did not remember what floor he’d come from. Carmen stared at him.

“Have you been swimming in your clothes?” she asked.

“I—don’t remember what floor my desk is on...”

She smiled. There was empathy engrained deeply within the lines of her face. She drew the doors closed. The elevator began to move. She stopped it in between floors.

“Darling,” she said. “What kind of trouble have you gotten yourself into on your first day?”

“I’m not sure,” he said. It was the most honest response he could give.

He suddenly became aware of her body, beneath the red jacket with gold epulets and brass buttons, her short black skirt, her bare legs crossed, her black flats with one shoe dangling off slender toes. “Tell Carmen all about it,” she said. Her lips were red to match her hair; her eyes were an oceanic green.

He did. He told her about the call, Ms. Hunter’s insistence that he report it directly to Mr. Hanover, and the strange man he encountered in the steam bath. He purposely left out the theft of the sign-in sheet.

While he did, she briefly uncrossed her legs and he caught a brief scent of her sex waft up from beneath the skirt.

“Things happen here every minute of every day,” she said, breathlessly. “Things happen, like matter—ideas—flashing in and out of existence. They’re forgotten as quickly as they’re revealed. Go home,” she said, standing. “And make yourself a drink and forget about it. Make yourself a second and a third, until you are the one...” She drew her face close to his now. “Flashing...” she whispered. “In...and out...of existence.”

Her mouth hovered dangerously close to his without touching. He could detect the sweet, sticky smell of brandy on her breath. She smiled then, her eyes cast down at his lips, and drew herself slowly away.

She sat down onto the stool and resumed operation of the elevator. The car descended.

“You’re in Auditing, I believe,” she said. “That’s twenty-seven.”

When they arrived at his floor, she pulled the lever and commanded the doors to open.

“Don’t forget forty-five,” she said.