Incident at Midnight
…be careful what you wish for….
Trash, bathrooms, surfaces and floors. Empty the trashcans under each desk. Dust the corners. Vacuum and sweep. That was the routine every night. When she followed the routine, nothing was forgotten or skipped.
From the time the three-story office building closed at 5 p.m. until 2:00 in the morning she kept the routine, stopping every 30 minutes or so to straighten her aching back. When she reached the middle floor conference room, she sat down in the overstuffed leather chair beside the door and rubbed her sore feet.
This had been Marie’s job for about 6 years now, and she really was grateful to have the work. She didn’t mind that she had to sleep until noon every day. The neighbors were quiet and her children had left the nest many years ago and rarely visited. Marie denied ever being lonely. She insisted there was always too much to do and not enough time in which to get it done. Well, that was true.
She loved reading. Real books that you could hold in your hand, with real pages and that smell that books come with. She loved to open a book — new, old, it didn’t matter — put it up to her nose and breathe in deeply. Ahhh, lovely.
The best feeling in the world was when she first checked out a book from the library, or on special occasions, bought one from the local bookstore, and read the inside jacket. These people would soon be her companions. She would know their thoughts, their motives. She would feel with them, laugh and cry when they did, be surprised or sad when the plot twists happened, as they almost always did. And it’s not that she was a hoarder, she told herself. But you can’t just give good books away. You might want to read them again one rainy afternoon. It is such a comfort to read a book you already know the ending to. Sometimes no surprises are a good thing too.
When cleaning, Marie especially enjoyed the office on the top floor of the building. It belonged to an attorney, a Ms. Deloitte of Deloitte and Sanders. Ms. Deloitte had a beautiful inlaid wood desk with a leather top under glass and took care of it herself, not trusting anyone else with its care, and was often still working in front of it when Marie finished cleaning in the early morning hours. But when Ms. Deloitte was not there, Marie enjoyed sitting at the desk in the matching leather chair and imagining that she had a completely different life.
She would dream of what her house would be like, and the fabulous vacations she would be taking, and the clothes she would wear at her dinner parties with all of her celebrity friends. Sometimes she would be so focused she could almost hear the laughter of her important guests and smell the delicious foods that her cook had prepared. Once she had been sitting here in the chair at this fabulous desk when the elevator went ding! And she had jumped up, grabbed the trash receptacle and hurried toward the door just as Ms. Deloitte rounded the corner. It didn’t happen that often, though.
Tonight the light was on in the attorney’s office. Marie checked her watch. It was nearly midnight. And once again, she wondered what it would be like to live that fabulous life of the weatlhy and powerful. She ocntinued thinking about it as she cleaned the waiting room, the bathrooms and the ahllway, leavin the main offices for last. Hoping that Ms. Deloitte would go home so that her own work could be finished.
Inside the office, Kristine Deloitte reached for another file on the stack of cases that needed her attention yesterday. She was so tired. Her husband Harvey had insisted on her staying at the dinner party until the last of the guests had gone home, so she knew the work that should have been finished by 10 p.m. would now take her until labout 4:00 in the morning. And then she had court at 9 a.m.
She listened as the vacuum cleaner in the hall stopped. How wonderful would it be to have a stopping place for your work? To enjoy going home to relax. Maybe lose yourself in a good book.
She checked the calendar. Seven weeks until her next vacation. And she had so many projects at home that she needed to get to; a real vacation was not an option.
She heard the cleaning lady coming down the hall. How nice would it be to have such an undemanding job that didn’t require deep thought. For a moment, she let her mind relax and savored the thought of escaping from this merry-go-round of a career. To actually start your work and know when it was done and then you were blissfully free until the next night. No surprises. No ups and downs. Monotony sounded wonderful.
Marie entered the office and headed for the trash bin, dust rag and polish in hand, and Kristine pretended not to watch as the cleaning woman moved efficiently around the room completing her tasks.
Marie felt the eyes of the other woman following her and pausing for a moment, remarked shyly, “Working late, ma’am?” Kristine’s eyes widened. “Yes. Unfortunately. You, too?” Marie’s smile came and went quickly as she nodded. Kristine reached under the desk to hand the trash can to the cleaning lady, and for a moment their fingers touched. The clock struck midnight. Each woman felt light-headed and dizzy for a moment. And then time stopped.
Marie looked around. She was in a beautiful bedroom wearing a lovely lavender dinner gown with heavy beading around the collar and down the sleeves. She turned slowly and saw her reflection in the mirror. The face was not hers. It was Kristine Deloitte’s, but it was pinched and unhappy; pale and filled with distress. Before she could admire her rich surroundings, she heard a man’s voice complaining about the overcooked vegetables at the dinner table and accusing her of ignoring the congressman’s brother who’d been invited. She felt sick to her stomach and her head hurt.
The man continued to whine about what she hadn’t done correctly and what she ought to have done differently and was she really going back to the office tonight, and couldn’t they have just a normal life once in a while. Marie closed her eyes.
Kristine opened her eyes and knew she was standing in the janitor’s closet, even though she couldn’t remember ever seeing the inside of this room. She was holding a mop and had apparently just made mop water. It was clear and hadn’t been used yet. She noticed that her back was aching terribly and wondered how she was supposed to mop with this horrible pain. In fact, now that she was thinking about it, there weren’t too many places on her body that didn’t ache — to some degree. She stepped into the deserted hallway and noticed a mirror on the wall in the lobby. The face she saw was not her own. It was drawn and wrinkled. And so tired-looking. And she was expected to mop the entire building? Just thinking about it was exhausting. She felt sick to her stomach and her head hurt. Kristine closed her eyes.
When each woman opened her eyes again, they were staring at each other in amazement. In just a few moments of time, years of knowledge had passed between the two. Each one now understood that there is a price to pay no matter what lifestyle is chosen. And happiness, or lack of it, doesn‘t come just from possessions, work, marriage, or being alone. Kristine took the first step in this new, unexpected friendship. “Would you like to meet me for coffee sometime? I think we have a lot in common, don’t you?”