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Ilya’s leaning against the wall of the elevator in a Boston motel, going back to his room after having sex with Hollander, when the elevator judders and stops.
The post-orgasmic haze evaporates instantly, replaced with a flood of panic and memories clawing out of the muck at the bottom of his mind.
Calm down, calm down, it will start again in a moment, he tells himself.
But it doesn’t.
Ilya mashes the red button at the bottom of the elevator, waits for a frantic count of ten.
Nothing.
He holds it down for five seconds, waits.
Nothing.
He claws his phone out of his pocket, selects the top contact. He shouldn’t do this. They don’t talk to each other on the phone. But he can’t think what else to do.
It rings once and then a familiar voice is in his ear. “Rozanov?”
“Shane!” ShaneShaneShaneShaneShane.
Hollander’s--Shane’s--tone shifts immediately. “Ilya? What’s wrong?”
“Elevator.” He spares a moment to be thankful that it’s a loanword, because he couldn’t think of the English word if the Russian one was different.
“Elevator?” He can almost see Shane’s brows furrowing, but he puts it together before Ilya devolves into shrieking in his ear. “Shit, are you stuck?”
“Yes!”
“Did you try the button next to the door?”
In spite of the panic rushing through his veins, Ilya reflexively snaps back “No, Hollander, I am sitting here fiddling my thumbs!”
“Twiddling your thumbs,” Shane says, also automatically.
“I do not care about fucking word, Hollander, I am stuck in elevator!” His throat is choked as he swallows.
“Sorry, sorry, stupid question. What about 9-1-1?”
The panic is replaced momentarily by chagrin. Despite the memories of dark rooms, not large enough for him to stretch his legs out, mysterious rustling noises in the corners, he should have thought of that.
“No,” he says in a small voice.
“No you don’t want to call them?”
“No I did not call them,” he whispers.
“Why not? Never mind, call them now.”
“No!” Ilya shouts immediately, then continues in a voice he’d find pathetic at any other time, “Don’t hang up.”
There’s a burst of static as Shane sighs into the phone. “Okay, Ilya. I won’t hang up. I promise.”
Something in Ilya’s chest relaxes infinitesimally. Shane is a Good Boy, he always keeps his promises.
“Okay, Ilya, I need you to listen to me. What floor are you on?”
Floor? Floor? What is floor? He shakes himself and looks at the panel. It’s blank. But he thinks he remembers… “Six.”
“Right, okay. I am going to stay on the phone with you and use the hotel phone to call 9-1-1, all right? I am still here, but I need to talk to the dispatchers, okay?”
Ilya nods, then croaks out “Yes.”
The panic is receding now that Shane knows what’s happening and is doing something about it, but then he remembers something and cries “Wait!”
“Ilya? Are you okay? Did the lights go out?”
“No, no, lights are on. But if you call 9-1-1 for me, they will ask questions, yes?”
There’s silence on the line for a moment, and Ilya thinks wildly that the call dropped before Shane says “Ilya, the only way anyone will figure that out is if a 9-1-1 dispatcher cross-references the 9-1-1 call logs with the fire department records, which I suppose could conceivably happen, or someone makes a FOIA request to find out who called. And if you think I’m worried about that right now, you’re an idiot!”
Ilya only understands about a quarter of the words, but the tone comes through clearly enough. “Sorry,” he says, because the state of mind he’s in now has him primed to apologize, even though he knows it won’t do any good.
“Don’t apologize,” Shane says, but his tone is gentle. “I’m calling now okay? I’m still here.”
Ilya strains to hear through the phone because otherwise he’d have nothing to listen to except his own thoughts.
“Hi, I’m calling from the Four Seasons on Boylston about an elevator stuck between floors five and six...I don’t know which one it is...no I’m not in the elevator myself but I’m talking to the person who is on my cell phone...He tried the button, it didn’t work. He’s not hurt, but I think he might be having a panic attack...okay I’ll try.” There’s a long pause, then Shane says reluctantly “Shane Hollander…Thank you, I’ll tell him.”
There’s a rustling and Shane’s voice comes back, whispering. “Okay, Ilya? The truck is twenty minutes out.”
“Twenty minutes?!” Ilya repeats, his voice spiraling upward.
“Yeah, I know, I know, but I’ll stay here with you.”
Ilya fumbles at the phone again, opens FaceTime and calls Shane. A moment later Shane’s face appears, looking worried, then the phone call disconnects.
Shane smiles at him. “Hey? You okay?”
Ilya laughs bitterly.
Shane wipes his hand over his face. “Sorry, stupid question again. What can I do?”
“Talk to me?” Ilya asks.
Shane’s eyes widen for a moment, then he says “Okay. About what?”
“Anything. Everything. I don’t know!”
For the next twenty minutes Shane talks to Ilya about the Raiders’ Cup chances. It’s good, it forces Ilya to think, to make comments, answer questions, think of the English words for things, although Shane is patient when he can’t.
Then Shane holds up a hand and puts the hotel phone to his ear. “Firefighters on scene? Thank you so much! Yes, I’ll stay on the line.”
He sets the phone down again and smiles at Ilya, as he hears a voice above him. “BFD, call out!”
“Yes, I am here!” Ilya shouts.
“We’ll have you out of there in a moment, sir!”
The “moment” turns out to be more like ten minutes, but Shane stays on the phone with him until the doors are wedged open, saying “Let me know you’re okay,” before disconnecting.
And then Ilya’s being pulled out through a three-foot gap at the top of the door, and he’s made to sit on a gurney and given oxygen.
He bats the mask away irritably. “I am fine!” he says.
“We’ll decide that,” says one paramedic, a fierce black woman with a shaved head and black-rimmed glasses. “Sit. Still.”
Ilya blinks, then says meekly “Yes, ma’am.” The oxygen does help him calm down.
“Hmm,” she says, checking readouts. “Your pulse and blood-pressure are…very elevated, but they’re already coming down.”
Ilya moves the mask aside momentarily, gives her his most charming smile. “So I don’t have to go to hospital?” He shudders at the thought of what his father would say if he goes to the hospital after being stuck in an elevator, of all things.
She rolls her eyes at him, completely unaffected. “You should. Report said you had a panic attack.”
“I do not look panicked, do I?” Ilya asked, giving her his trademark wink.
She snorts. “Tell you what, big guy. You rest here for five minutes, and then you can go.”
Ilya smiles at her again and leans back on the gurney. She waits and then gives him a form to sign and waves him elaborately away.
He takes the stairs down to his hotel room, texting Shane omw back downstairs.
Not in the elevator I hope?
Ilya sends him a rolling eyes emoji and I do not think I will get in elevator again ever.
Shane sends a laughing-face back, followed by You okay now?
Ilya takes a deep breath. Yes. Then, after a moment Thank you.
The three dots appear and disappear several times before Shane’s message Well, if you suffocated in an elevator I wouldn’t have anyone to challenge me.
Ilya laughs and puts his phone back in his pocket.