Between Floors

The Merideth Building ~ 2010

The elevator in the Merideth Building worked fine. Zelda knew this. She had ridden it a hundred times.

Up to her third floor artist loft, where it sprawled open and smelled of linseed oil, turpentine, and whatever she'd been cooking the night before. Probably garlic.

The elevator was perfectly functional. Doors occasionally slow. Its hum a familiar frequency that made the buttons flicker. And it stuttered before it stopped. Age.

Zelda took the stairs.

The habit started three months ago. She'd been running late, carrying a half-finished canvas under one arm and her tea in the other hand. She'd pushed through the stairwell door without thinking, and stopped.

The light. That was the first thing. The way it fell through the single grimy window at the landing between floors. This luminescence that turned the worn paint on the steps into something almost silver. She'd stood there, canvas tucked under her arm, tea going cold, and just looked.

She painted it that weekend. The stairwell at mid-morning, light pooling on the steps. The white railing casting thin shadows. It was the best thing she'd made in two years.

After that, she took the stairs every single day. Inspiration.

* * *

She was alone on the stairs with her inspiration and thoughts. Most days.

One day, a woman on the landing above her, turned the corner. Solid. Unhurried. A new neighbor? Gone before Zelda could focus. She'd climbed the rest of the stairs quickly that morning. Told herself she needed more sleep. Then painted the empty landing from memory that afternoon. When she looked at the finished piece, there was a shape in the upper corner she didn't remember putting there. A suggestion of a figure. A hand resting on the railing.

She left it in.

By December, she had stopped rationalizing. The woman appeared every few days, always on the upper landing, always moving with that same unhurried purpose. She wore an avacado housedress. Her hair pinned back, and she carried groceries. Actual paper bags. The kind with the brown folded tops. Once, just once, she looked directly at Zelda and nodded hello.

Zelda nodded back. Her hand shook for the rest of the morning.

She started leaving earlier. Lingering on the landings. Noticing things. The way the walls changed texture between floors. The older plaster beneath the newer drywall. The ghost of a different railing visible in the paint where the current one had been bolted over it. The building's layers. All those decades of other people's hands on this banister.

She met Ray in February.

He was sitting on the third-floor landing with his back against the wall. Just eating his sandwich. He looked so completely ordinary that she almost said excuse me and kept walking before she noticed his clothes. The wide lapels. The particular brown of his work pants. The transistor radio next to him playing something she almost recognized.

"You work in the building?" he asked.

"Third floor," she said. "Artist."

He nodded. "I'm finishing the east wall." He gestured vaguely upward. "Should be done by Friday."

She started leaving coffee on the third landing in the mornings. It was always gone by the time she came back down.

Zelda met Margaret too. She learned in fragments. Over weeks of nods and half-conversations on the upper landing. Margaret adjusted her grip on her groceries. Zelda paused with her canvas under her arm, both of them existing in the particular amber light of late afternoon. Margaret knew what Zelda was. She'd known for a long time. She wasn't frightened.

"This building has good bones," Margaret said once. Zelda understood she wasn't talking about architecture.

* * *

The letter from the city came on a Wednesday in March.

Zelda read it standing at her kitchen table. Still in her peacoat, the smell of turpentine sharp in the air. Sale of property. Development plans. Demolition scheduled, pending final approvals. Residents and commercial tenants to be notified of relocation assistance.

She read it three times.

Then she sat down on the floor.

She called the historical preservation office that afternoon. She emailed the local arts council that evening. She spent the weekend pulling records at the city archive. The building's original permits from 1941, photographs from the postwar years, a newspaper clipping from 1974 about a renovation that had brought the building up to code after a small accident on the work crew. Her finger stopped on the name in the article. R. Kowalski. Workplace incident. She sat in the archive for a long time. Her thoughts raced in a cyclone of anxiety.

She brought flowers to the third landing that night. Daisies. They were gone by morning.

The campaign lasted eight weeks. She filed for historical landmark consideration. She contacted the local paper. Then the city desk. Then a journalist she'd met at an opening who covered development issues. She presented at a city council meeting with her paintings… six of them, the stairwell series, the light changing across the seasons. A woman in the back row leaned forward and studied them for a long time without speaking.

Her colleagues thought she'd lost perspective. Her gallerist called twice to ask if she was okay. She stopped answering calls that weren't about the building.

She went to the stairwell at odd hours. She told Margaret about the campaign. Margaret listened. The way she always did. Attentive. Unhurried. Her groceries balanced against her hip. She didn't offer reassurance. She didn't tell Zelda it would be fine. She just listened. When Zelda finished, she said, "You're the first person who's thought of us."

Zelda went home and cried for an hour. Then called the journalist back.

* * *

The demolition was scheduled for a Tuesday.

Zelda stood on the sidewalk across the street in the early morning. Her peacoat pulled tight against the cold. She watched the equipment arrive.

The permits had gone through. The historical consideration had been tabled. Denied. Tabled, which meant still possible. Which meant nothing right now, in this moment, with the bulldozer idling at the curb. Workers in their orange vests standing around with coffee cups.

She'd done everything she could think to save The Merideth Building. It wasn't enough.

The foreman mumbled into a radio. The bulldozer arm rose.

Zelda looked up.

They were in the window. The stairwell window. The one between floors. She painted that window a dozen times. They were standing together in it. Visible from the street in a way they had never been before.

Ray, his wide lapels, his easy posture.

The teenager with a skateboard, she'd only ever glimpsed. Headphones around her neck, suspicious expression. Electric green hair.

And Margaret. Front and center. Looking directly at Zelda.

Pointing.

Down the street. Finger extended. Deliberate. Frantic.

Zelda turned.

A car pulled up fast. Hazards on, parking half up on the curb. The door opened and the woman from the back row of the council meeting got out. The exact soul who had leaned forward to study Zelda's paintings. She was on her phone. She was moving quickly. Calling out to the foreman, already holding up a hand. She made him pause with his radio halfway to his mouth.

The bulldozer arm stopped.

Zelda turned back to the window. The light was doing its thing.

The window was empty.

The building stood.

For now.

---

Written for Bradley Ramsey Flash Fiction February…

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Photo prompt by Kayla Button for Flash Fiction February, Day 21