The Counselor

Susan retracted the keys from the ignition and stuffed them into the front pocket of her tote. She hadn’t done the commute to the city in months. She resented having to return to the office now. Scowling, she grabbed a three-ply mask off the dashboard. She stretched the elastic loops over her ears and checked her appearance, groaning. She’d fussed with her hair and makeup to look put together for her first day back, and now a crappy face covering dug into her cheeks.

After months of doing business over Zoom, how was she ever going to get used to working a full day wearing a mask?

Ahmad had been let go shortly after the pandemic hit the U.S.—sadly, no new litigation work and no need for a newly minted attorney. Now, he stayed home with Bingo.

He was supposed to be job-hunting but had been dragging his feet. He was getting way too comfy being unemployed—jogging daily, lifting weights in a spare bedroom that now reeked of perspiration, playing Bingo’s very best doggy daddy, shopping at the online pet store every other day, and signing up for Autoship offers for god-knows-what nonsense.

That made Susan—the last attorney standing—the breadwinner. She’d never wanted to be solely responsible for providing all their household income. That’s one big reason why she married another lawyer, also with an Ivy League pedigree.

Ahmad needed to do something. Didn’t he want to return to being somebody? An anybody? Not to mention, without his income, how was she going to have a baby? If he kept buying all those stinking dog toys, how could they ever afford a kid?

She exited and locked the Jetta, then headed to the elevator. She nudged the up-arrow button with her elbow. A new sign had been posted. “Limit: Four passengers at a time.” While she waited, she glanced around the parking garage. Eight cars total were parked on Level 4. What a useless sign. No crowds would swarm the elevator today. Perhaps never again.

She whirled around upon hearing the too-familiar ding. The elevator doors slid open, revealing one passenger. A man, about 40, in a nicely tailored suit, yanked an N95 down over his face as soon as Susan entered. His hair had been freshly cut, and a face covering couldn’t conceal his graying temples. He clutched a silver flask.

“Good morning,” Susan said because she felt she had to. Future client headed toward bankruptcy, hence, the morning drinking?

“Is it?” he asked.

Not the response she expected. “What?”

“Is it a good morning? You look very…troubled.”

She looked troubled? How could he tell whether she looked agitated, elated, sated, or drunk-off-her-ass, for that matter, with that awful mask obscuring her nose and mouth? Her mood this morning or any morning was none of his damn business. She eyed his flask.

I’m not the one hitting the sauce at quarter-to-nine in the morning, she thought.

He raised the canteen. “Bourbon. Want a belt?”

“No!” she said quickly, then remembered her manners. “No, thank you.”

The pandemic was still killing people, hundreds per day, for god's sake. Swigging anything that someone else’s lips had touched, let alone from some stranger tippling before lunchtime was a death wish. It’s always the normal, corporate-looking guys you had to be especially wary of, she reminded herself.

“I don’t usually imbibe this early,” he offered. “This whole COVID-19 situation has been super stressful.”

“Tell me about it,” Susan muttered, pushing the button for the 12th floor.

“Sure you don’t want a sip?”

“Look, mister,” she said, trying to look menacing from behind her mask by squeezing her eyebrows together. “You just said yourself we are in the midst of a global pandemic, and you’re offering me a hit off something that just touched your mouth?”

She retreated to the corner of the elevator, parking her briefcase between them, folding her arms.

The elevator whirred to a lumbering start, and the stranger fell silent.

She felt guilty for having snapped at him. This pandemic had taxed everyone’s sanity. If this man wasn’t going bankrupt, maybe he needed legal help because he was a tax dodger. Her firm handled IRS cheats, too.

“Why are you here?” Susan asked.

“Who, me?”

No, the invisible man beside you, she wanted to say, regretting having restarted the conversation. “Do you need legal help?”

“Me? Nah, I’m a counselor,” he said politely. “Mind if I take a swig?”

“Whatever.”

He pulled down his mask and took a long pull. “Since you’re thinking of leaving your husband, and he’s been contemplating suicide,” he said, gently licking a few drops of liquor off his lips. “I just thought you might want to take the edge off, Susan.”

“Who are you, pal?” She scrounged in her purse for the pepper spray and pointed it at him. “Some crazy stalker? How the hell do you know my name? How do you know what I’m thinking? What my husband’s thinking? Not one step closer.”

“I’m not going to hurt you. You’re hurting enough,” the Counselor said. “Ahmad is overwrought about losing his job. He knows you want to start a family.”

She leaned against the back of the elevator, grounding her feet to the floor, and took a deep breath. Otherwise, she might faint. This guy knows my husband’s name. Our most personal thoughts.

She was being punk’d. First day back at the office in 11 months, and someone was already messing with her. Probably Richardson, the goofy partner with all the lame Dad jokes.

“Was it Richardson?” she asked because he knew about Ahmad being let go. “Did he put you up to this?”

“I don’t know Richardson. Just trying to help.” He sighed. “Can you push 13?”

The Infinity Building didn’t have a 13th floor, did it? Okay, she’d been gone since March of 2020, but could’ve sworn the city’s newest tower, like most skyscrapers everywhere in the world, never had a 13th floor because it was universally considered bad luck. What sensible business person would establish their business on an unlucky floor? She scoured the elevator panel. Lo and behold, there was a button on the panel designating a 13th floor. She could’ve sworn her building didn’t have a 13th floor last year, but this year it did? Was she losing her mind?

Was Ahmad really considering killing himself?

As soon as she reached her desk, she’d call Ahmad and assure him they’d get through this together. Just like they worked through the other seemingly insurmountable challenges together.

Her parents never wanted her to marry Ahmad. Super-controlling and surprisingly racist when push came to shove, her conventional, old-school parents were upset at the prospect of having mixed-race grandbabies.

Screw them, she thought. She’d always felt like she’d won the Powerball, marrying Ahmad. Besides being very handsome, he was smart, considerate, and ambitious. It must have been the pandemic’s disruption to their very comfortable lives—his hasty firing—which had left him distraught. She’d reach out to him as soon as she could, apologize for lashing out at breakfast, and tell him she loved him and believed in him, that he’d find something soon, she felt sure of it.

Finally, the doors clanged open. She scuttled out of the elevator as fast as her spike heels would allow, abandoning the bourbon-swilling counselor. While nearing the entrance to the suite, she heard the elevator hum to life, ascending to the 13th floor, presumably.

“Hello, Jeannie,” Susan said, her tone softened. “It’s so nice to see you. Hey, does this building have a 13th—”

Jeannie gave her a demure wave and spoke into her headset. “Law offices of Kemp and Biddle. You wish to speak to Mr. Richardson?” Susan overheard her saying. “He no longer works here.”

Richardson had been let go? If he wasn’t the co-worker pulling a fast one on her, then who was that know-it-all elevator dude? She raced back down the hall and depressed the button with her elbow. The shiny doors eased open. He’d disappeared, leaving the hip flask and its contents spilled on the floor. The stench of alcohol seeped through her mask.

She peered inside, scanning the button panel. Every button for every floor was lit up simultaneously except for the button designating Floor 13. That button had disappeared off the face of the elevator panel.