Photo by Rene Böhmer on Unsplash
The younger woman and the older woman were in the elevator, going up. Younger had Older figured out. She'd pieced it together over the course of several months.
Older was definitely visiting the fertility clinic on the 18th floor. She only showed up in the building at certain times of the month. That’s when they checked her eggs probably. Were they the right size? Were there enough of them? She'd read some stuff about how the fertility treatments worked.
Younger worked in the building, on a lower floor, where she tried to get her team to remember to log their tasks in the Asana schedule so she could herd all the content toward the project's inevitable end date. She sent reminder emails mostly. She was team lead.
Younger was also hoping her current boyfriend, Axel, would not get her pregnant, so it was weird to think about Older trying so hard to get pregnant. She wondered if she was doing it on her own or if there was a partner involved. She didn't wear a ring. There was never anyone with her. She looked stressed out. Her face was starting to get—what did they call them—parentheses around the mouth but she actually thought she was pretty. Like very beautiful in fact. Possibly formerly stunning in a way she could have taken a lot of advantage of.
What era would that have been, Younger wondered. Eighties? Nineties? She didn't really think a lot about the past or where things fell in terms of time.
She glanced over at Older and wished that she would actually look back at her for once. Older was always caught up in herself, like a tiny bomb was about to explode somewhere.
Oh hey, Younger wanted to say. I’m over here. I have feelings too. I have a uterus too.
Older seemed even more uptight than usual. It’s possible she was just late for her appointment. Younger wanted to say to her, Listen, it’s okay, they build in time so that even when you’re late you’re not really late.
The doors opened at her floor and Younger got out, buzzed herself through the main door, and walked to her cube. Everyone was already busy working. Someone had put a flat white on her desk—someone owed her one from the other day but she couldn’t remember who. Was it Stefania, Axel’s ex? There was something about her that made her want to just block Stefania out, like if you could literally block a human from existing anywhere in your sphere of being, she would do it, but she couldn’t, because Stefania was part of her team and she was technically her boss.
She sort of couldn’t believe that Axel would have ever been involved with Stefania. Stefania was too much of everything. Too much hair product, too much eye makeup, foundation, glow stick, brow enhancer. When you looked at her face you felt like she was about to break into an online makeup tutorial. Also, her voice. Also, she was barely out of college and Axel was thirty. Younger was twenty-seven, which was a much better age for Axel, really.
She could see Stefania from her cube, she could see her tiny shoulders straining against her sweater. How small would that sweater have to be to look that tiny on her? She saw her pick up her phone and write a quick text. Axel didn’t work there anymore but Younger wondered if he and Stefania ever traded messages still. Would they do that? And what would be the point? Probably just to say “hey.” Like, hey, I’m still out here, existing.
Nothing ever went away anymore.
She booted up and Asana started reminding her to follow up on tasks. Tasks I’ve Created. Tasks I’ve Assigned to Others. Recently Completed Tasks.
If you existed entirely in the world of Asana you could feel like any task could be completed. Relationships I’ve Aced. Exes I’ve Surpassed. Embryos I’ve Implanted in My Uterine Lining.
She took the plastic top off the flat white and looked at the creamy foam and noticed that something looked not right. Like someone had messed with the foam. Maybe added sugar? But everyone knew she didn’t like sugar in her flat white and that it made her too amped. She took a sip and it was true, someone had added sugar. A lot of sugar. Why would someone do that? Everyone knew it made her too amped. Did Stefania do that just to fuck with her? It was almost sickening, the amount of sugar in that flat white.
She looked over at Stefania sitting at her desk and thought, is that something that she and Axel dreamed up together? Is that what the text was about? Maybe Axel texted: Did she drink it yet? And Stefania texted back: idk.
Well, Stefania, I tried it and it sucked and now I have to go out and get another one, without sugar.
Someone was standing right there at her cube, asking her a question, but she hadn’t even noticed. She stood up and put on her jacket and buzzed herself out and waited for the elevator. She had to get another flat white because she couldn’t function without the caffeine. She couldn’t be too amped but she needed to be a little amped.
The elevator came and she got on and there was Older, coming down already. She was afraid to look at her. She wanted to look at her because honestly there was something so nice about Older’s face, even though it was often closed off and abstracted and indifferent, even though it was a universe away, but Younger needed sometimes to get a glimpse of the universe in her tired face.
So she looked at her, she made herself, and this time Older’s face looked different. Her eyes looked less cloudy and there was more space between the parentheses—you could almost imagine a smile growing in there.
Janet Steen has work forthcoming in Jack White's new Third Man Records print publication Maggot Brain. She has published in The New York Times, Longreads, Salon, Details, The Weeklings, and many other publications. She is the co-curator of the Murmrr Lit reading series at Murmrr Theatre in Brooklyn.
