“Yep, alright,” he says, looking me over. Soon, we are joined by a man in a cheap suit and a headset microphone.
“Hi there,” I say. “My name is Caitlyn Nylo and I need to know which elevator is cage 1. I am only asking for sentimental reasons. My mother and father came here on their first date. They are both dead now, and I just wanted to ride in the same elevator where they first fell in love.”
“Cage 1?” asks the security guard. He stares at the guy at the help desk, giving him a “why did you call me over for this?” stare.
“It’s the first one,” he says. “The one closest to the ticket counter. But you gotta buy a ticket like everyone else.” He points to the line of tourists weaving through a maze of velvet rope barriers and stanchions. Thankfully it’s not too long.
“Okay, awesome,” I say. They are definitely going to watch me now on the security cameras. I have to be smart if I don’t want them to stop me and question me on my way out.
“I’m going to take a million selfies in there,” I say flirtatiously. “Gotta get a picture from every angle for the Insta.”
“Okay,” he says, shaking his head and walking away.
I join the queue behind a family speaking French and am soon sandwiched between them and a large group wearing matching T-shirts and name tags on lanyards around their necks. We move quickly and when I reach the ticket counter, I again explain how I want to ride up in “cage 1” for sentimental reasons. The ticket seller raises her eyebrows but doesn’t skip a beat.
“Sure, no problem. Just stay in line and tell Frank over there which elevator you want to be in, and he’ll take care of you.” She gestures toward a tall, thin man in a maroon jacket and slacks, one of many identically clad workers who guide the masses through the building.
I take my ticket and soon find myself at the front of the line.
“Frank?” I ask, putting on my sweetest smile. “The woman at the ticket counter said you could help a girl out. My parents had their first date here back in the seventies and got trapped in an elevator—cage 1—on their way to the restaurant. My dad just passed away over the weekend and I want to remember their love by riding in the same elevator they did all those years ago. Can you put me in cage 1 for the ride up?”
Frank’s face opens into a wide grin. “Of course, ma’am. I love me a good love story. You wouldn’t believe how many people come here with stories like yours and we always try to honor them. You just stand over here with me until cage 1 opens up.” He gently grabs my arm and pulls me to the side, letting part of the big tour group fill the next elevator. It only takes two more rounds before the doors to cage 1 slide open and Frank holds out his arm with a flourish to guide me in.
I step inside, along with another tour group and a woman with a baby strapped to her back and a toddler clinging to her leg.
“All the way to the top!” jokes one of the tourists, a man in a Michigan Wolverines T-shirt. I laugh too loudly.
“My parents met in this elevator!” I tell the group. “Do you mind if I take some pictures?”
“Go right ahead,” says the doughy, red-faced wife of the Michigander. The mom is too busy pulling their tickets out of her toddler’s mouth to respond.
I take out the game phone and start moving it all over the elevator. I hold it to each side, pretending to take a picture of myself. Nothing happens. I glance again at the clue on the screen: “Your empire awaits atop cage 1.” Of course, the box must be on top of the elevator.
I hold the phone up as high as I can. Standing on my tiptoes, I scrape the ceiling. I hear a click and a whir and my phone starts playing the Nylo Corporation theme.
“Sea Farmers!” says the Michigander.
“Totally,” I say. I put the game phone back in my purse. Eventually, the Nylo music stops playing. We ride the rest of the way up in silence. At the top, I immediately hop in the next open elevator going down.
I take out the game phone again and look at it. The clue has disappeared and has been replaced with a gold medal that says “First Place.” My name is above the medal. It also shows me four other slots for medals, but they are currently empty.
Outside, I stand by the doors and light up a cigarette, checking my real phone now, seeing if there are any more messages about Playqueen. There aren’t. Instead, there are about fifty messages of condolence from other CEOs, from “friends” at my Ladies in Business Women’s Roundtable, even from some old boyfriends and acquaintances from college. I don’t feel like answering any of them.
Actually, maybe it’s the game, but I suddenly don’t feel like our father is actually dead anymore. It doesn’t seem real. He is still sending us messages and we are still fighting each other for his approval, each of us trying to be the best at some arbitrary set of rules and tasks.
I can’t tell if this whole thing is going to be therapeutic or traumatic. Funeral plans and last requests are often about helping the living feel some sense of closure—of giving them something arbitrary to do while they are reeling from grief, while they are still talking to their dead loved one in their head. We make up for the fact that we can no longer love them or hate them in person by doing their bidding in an effort to banish them.
But this is an extremely complicated wake and possibly not a healthy one, since none
