Tidy

“One day I’ll write it,” she said.

The notebook lay flat on the counter, not moving. To Chelsea, it looked stern. Black leather on a white marble countertop, the edges crisp and unmoving. She hadn’t looked inside for a long time, but she knew what was there.

Absolutely nothing.

She stared at it again as she made breakfast - a slice of plain toast with black coffee, the same as she did every day - and pushed back her hair with a headband, smoothing her skirt over her thighs. When she left the house, she locked her front door and click-clacked her stilettos out to her Audi.

At 32, Chelsea Livingston had the life of her dreams.

And it meant absolutely nothing.

--

At one point, she had wanted to write. Chelsea thought about this on her drive to work. Not only that, she’d wanted to write romance. The kind with ripped bodices and heaving chests. Only romance didn’t pay, and Chelsea was sensible.

Chelsea was tidy.

There was a time when she wasn’t, though. When clothes had spilled out of her drawers, when her toast had had butter and extra cheese and crumbs had speckled the cupholder of her bruised old car.

A long time ago, Chelsea hadn’t been tidy at all. Now she was. But as she pulled her sleek little car into her designated parking spot - Chelsea Livingston, Controller - she couldn’t help but wonder what it cost.

--

Chelsea pushed the button for the elevator again. She wasn’t late, exactly, but she had a latte in one hand, which she liked to sip in her 9am meeting. This meant the coffee had to be extra hot, and the time she took to get back to her office - seven minutes and thirty six seconds - was just enough for it to cool off. Only if she missed the elevator, her coffee would be too cool. Almost cold.

So she jabbed the button one more time.

Chelsea wasn’t a perfectionist, she just liked to optimize things. Coffee was one of those things she could optimize, along with her diet and the time it took to get in the elevator.

Except for today.

She pushed the button again and frowned. She was just about to try the one on the opposite side of the bay when the doors pinged open to reveal a man inside, his jeans splattered with paint. He was lanky and tall and boyishly good looking, wearing a t-shirt stretched tight over his pecs - something Chelsea appreciated enough to almost miss what he was trying to say.

“Sorry?” She asked.

“Elevator,” he said, with a slight smile. “It was broken earlier, but it should be fixed now. We can share it, if you want.”

Chelsea stepped inside. She should have been feeling relieved - her coffee ritual, by her watch, would last another day - but instead she felt...unnerved, somehow. Something in her belly was twisty and hot, and her cheeks felt prickly and oversensitive. She looked over at him again - dirty blonde hair, a little long but beautifully cut, smooth ivory skin and the barest hint of stubble on his jaw - and felt something bubble up in her chest. Something unfamiliar.

Something decidedly untidy.

She told him her floor and took a sip of her coffee as they started to move. The elevator was small enough to get a whiff of soap mixed with cologne, and she had to jiggle her foot to stay focused.

Four minutes and fifty one seconds, she told herself. And then her day could resume. No more surprises.

The thought comforted her, but not entirely. She almost felt disappointed by it - and was just trying to talk herself out of this feeling - when everything went black.

--

“Shit.”

The guy next to her turned on a flashlight. Chelsea’s heart clattered in her chest when she realized the elevator wasn’t moving.

“Are we…” she sucked in a breath. She wouldn’t say the words, not if she could help it.

“Stuck,” he finished for her. Her heart sank. He shone his flashlight at the crack in the door, and she let out a little squeak. “Yep. She’s broke. Looks like we’re between floors. I’ll call us help.”

Chelsea nodded mutely and he paused, seeing her stiff expression, and added as an afterthought. “Relax. We’ll be okay.”

She didn’t feel so sure.

“Seriously,” he told her, sticking out one hand. “Mike. I run the maintenance company for the building. This happens all the time.”

“That’s not comforting,” Chelsea muttered. The hand that was holding her coffee shook and nerves fluttered in her belly - half because of the situation, and half because of his role in it.

Mike pressed a button and the elevator lit up with emergency lighting, which only made Chelsea’s heart pound harder. “There,” he said. “Right…”

He pressed a button and the lights popped off again.

Then they plunged fifty stories.

--

Chelsea might have been exaggerating. The fifty story plunge was probably more like five, but the flashes of her life that popped up behind her eyes seemed like they went on forever.

Tidy desk. Tidy clothes. Tidy life.

Chelsea didn’t miss the feeling of being out of control, not exactly. But as she fell - or jiggled, depending on who you asked - she realized something. Her life might have been perfect, with the car she drove and the body she had and even the shiny white veneers she’d put on her teeth.

But she hadn’t had any fun.

Chelsea thought about the small black notebook sitting on her counter, the one she’d brought home to write stories in. Her stories. To kindle the tiny little part of her that hadn't given up, the part of her that wasn’t satisfied with being tidy, the part of her that wasn’t sure she liked everything optimized at all.

And then she did something so out of character she’d never believe it herself.

When the emergency lights popped on, and she saw Mike’s face illuminated in them - looking fairly shaken himself, which made her think the drop might have been fifty stories after all - she knew what she wanted. Romance. Ripped bodices.

Material for her little black book.

“Kiss me,” she demanded.

And he did.

--

Chelsea went back to the office that afternoon, shaken but not, she realized, all that late. She got to her desk by 9:30, coffee in hand, and went through her morning meeting like always. But when the analysts shut her office door, Chelsea found it hard to focus.

Besides, her heart hadn’t stopped hammering since.

His hand brushing her cheek. The rough press of stubble following it. The silky smoothness of his lips and the little thrill of electricity that went right through her, making her feel like the girl she was in college again, making her feel...wow.

Chelsea had wound her arms around his neck and pushed herself closer, overtaken by something wild. Her whole body had throbbed with it, so much so that he had to be the one to pull away when the intercom light lit up.

“Ahem,” he had said. “Help is on the way.”

Now Chelsea was rattled. So rattled she’d chewed off the end of one of her fingernails, the ones she checked almost obsessively to make sure they were still there, still perfect.

Now bitten down to the quick.

She didn’t get his number or anything. She’d thought of that, too. Chelsea didn’t get out much. Her life was too full - work, shopping for Hermes blankets, using a handy mini vacuum she’d bought to keep her car clean. There was no room for romance in Chelsea Livingston’s perfect life. Even if she did find herself loitering in the lobby later on, hoping something might need maintenance.

But they didn’t.

And when Chelsea got out to her car that day, it was splattered with rain.

Tidy only got you so far.

--

The house felt empty when she got home. The clock on the wall sounded too loud, and even though she usually liked the sound of the rain on the windows, today it made her feel…lonely.

She ate her poached fish at the counter, side by side with the black leather notebook on the marble. She did this every night - writing was the one thing she never seemed to tick off her to do list, the only thing she couldn’t seem to do well.

Well, she might. If she tried.

But she never did.

Chelsea pushed her fish around the plate, feeling a funny dissatisfaction with her life. Had the sauce always been this...bland? Had the kitchen always been so white?

She looked over at the notebook on the counter again.

The ticking of the clock banged on the wall.

And then Chelsea did something she’d never done before, not even when she was a little girl. Not even when she was a slob.

She pushed her food away, picked up a pen, and wrote.

--

The book was called Heartbeat. The name she used was Sophia Lovesworth, because she still wasn’t sure about revealing herself to the public. In it, a woman dropped fifty one stories in an elevator (Sophia was more prone to embellishment than Chelsea), met a man from another timeline, and sealed their love with a kiss.

In the book, they lived happily ever after.

In real life, Chelsea hadn’t seen Mike in so long she was beginning to think he really was from another timeline - one where maintenance man in elevators never kissed tidy accountants when they asked them to.

She thought of it often, even as the things in her life began to change. At first, it seemed like she could keep everything together - her nails, her hair, her coffee routine. Then she started to slip. She got lost in her worlds. She drank coffee haphazardly and ordered takeout while she wrote - fish, with citrusy mango on top.

And yet even as the parts of her life she’d loved slipped away, the order, the routine, the optimization, she felt something blossoming to take its place.

That something felt a lot like love.

--

Chelsea Livingston carried a small box with her belongings out to her Audi. She watched as the lights flashed and the trunk popped open, brushing aside a windbreaker and a cloth grocery bag as she set the cardboard box down. Chelsea turned back to look at the office, the chrome and steel that had symbolized tidiness and order.

Then she patted the $20,000 cheque in her pocket - a publisher’s advance, for Heartbeats - and decided she wouldn’t trade being tidy for the world.

--

The bank was on the twelfth floor. Chelsea pushed the button for the elevator, staring absently out into the distance. Her hair fell in messy waves down her shoulders, and she was wearing jeans and an ivory coat. As she stuck her fingers into the pocket, feeling around for the envelope she knew was in there, she also found an unopened lollipop and half a box of mints.

She chewed one as the elevator light dinged on - it was a miracle she still took the things after what had happened to her - and was so lost in her thoughts she almost missed the chance to push the button for her floor.

“Hold the door!”

Chelsea stuck her palm out just in time, and was hit with a wave of something familiar. Soap. Cologne. Something toe curlingly male.

His eyes met with hers, and the smile that spread across his face was huge and genuine. “I’m surprised you still take these things.”

“So am I,” Chelsea said.

The elevator doors slid shut. There was a crackle of electricity between them, humming and popping like a live wire, as she pushed the button for twelve, fingering the cheque in her pocket for good luck. Mike pushed the button for the tenth floor and they started to move, the motion of it making Chelsea’s hands shake.

“Relax,” he said. “You’re in good hands.”

And then he kissed her.