CLARA, Pt. 3

Work consisted of horizontal and vertical collections of paper. Clara filed. Clara stacked. She stacked files and filed stacks. She reorganized existing stacks and files. Some days she would transcribe documents onto a computer. On those days she lugged a basket of papers up to corporate. Supporting its weight with her left hip, she would carefully press “11” and wait for the elevator to groan shut and creak slowly up the long stretch of twelve floors. Clara kept her right finger hovering over the red “emergency” button, and her knees slightly bent. It was her belief that if the elevator should plummet, her best chance of survival was in countering the fall with a jump.

These mornings were both a welcome relief and a source of discomfort. A young man sat in a cubicle just outside of the elevators. His name was Elliot Fink.
“Good morning, Clara. Big stack today.”
“Hmph,” she would say, and walk toward the back of the office.
“Are you taking your lunch at 12:00 today, Clara?” he would ask, as she walked passed him.
And her shoes would click on the cold tile.
“Because I am. Taking my lunch at 12:00,” he would say.
And her shoes would click on the cold tile.
And his eyes would scan her, linger on her hair, the small of her back, the width of her hips persuading the limp fabric of her skirt to cling and then fall, cling and then fall, until her figure would disappear at a crook in the hall.

Elliot was a morning jogger, a book-a-day reader, a daily shaver, a bike-to-work rider, a fresh=faced, young accountant with an almost unhealthy, thoroughly consuming interest in the girl from the stacks who came up on Fridays. He watched her until she was gone, and then stared at his watch, urging it to turn more quickly. Clara always took her lunch at 12:00.

Around the corner, Clara let the box of papers rest between her hips and the wall, and gave her arms a rest. She clumsily brushed her hair out of her face with her back of her black, print-smudged hands. And, let her head nod into the plaster. “Yes, many papers today. Yes, quite a lot, Mr. Fink. Just look at my hands, sir. Like a coal miner’s, I always think.”