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obvious that she was mad at herself for the oversight. “Do you have yours?”
    “No. It’s in the employee room in my backpack.”
    “Crap. What if no one got the emergency signal?”
    “They did.”
    “You don’t know that.” She set the lever to their floor—Receiving—and the floor wobbled again but the elevator didn’t go up. “We’re really stuck.”
    “It’s okay,” David said.
    “I can’t believe this is happening.”
    “It’s okay,” David repeated. “They’ll get us out. It won’t be long.”
    “How do you know? You don’t know.” Nadine fought back the urge to cry. She couldn’t afford to lose her cool in front of a student.
    She hit the emergency button again and, unlike David, she held it in. There was a ringing sound, like they were phoning a security desk somewhere.
    “See?” she admonished. “They didn’t get our call before. They have to answer.”
    “They’re getting our call now,” David said in a controlled tone. He spoke slowly and calmly as though he wanted to put her at ease.
    The phone rang and rang. Four rings then five.
    “No one’s there,” Nadine said, sounding panicked.
    “Someone will answer. Give it a second.”
    “No one’s there. No one’s coming. We’re stuck.” Nadine’s voice cracked as she spoke.
    David took charge of the situation. “Here. Let me.” He took her finger off the button and pushed it.
    “That’s not helping. I was doing it right, but there’s no one there,” Nadine yelled at him.
    “Shhh,” David said quietly. “No need to raise your voice or worry. We’ll get out.”
    “Easy for you to say.” There were tears in her eyes. “I have to tell you something.”
    “What?”
    “I didn’t follow procedure.”
    She kicked the wall of the elevator with her lacquered high-heeled foot. “Ugh! The one time I deviate,” she said to herself.
    “What do you mean?”
    “I’m supposed to tell Hank every time we use the freight elevator.”
    “So, why didn’t you?” David asked. It was the first time she had heard concern in his voice.
    “I just wanted to get this done. I didn’t want to get slowed down by having to go find him and go through all the rigmarole. It’s never been stuck before.”
    “Um, so, hold on. If it’s procedure to tell Hank, and there’s no one on the other end of the security line, then that means we’re down here but no one knows we’re here.”
    “We’re gonna die.” Nadine burst into tears. “They’ll find us curled up in fetal positions, starved to death—or suffocated. Oh God. What’s worse?”
    David put his arms around her and let her cry it out. He held onto her and patted her back. He repeated, “We’re not going to die. We’re not going to die.”
    Nadine’s fears seized her. She relived her childhood trauma all over again, just as she had on carnival rides or that time her friends took her hiking and they went into a cave. Small spaces caused her to panic.
    “Help! Help!” they both yelled at the tops of their lungs. It was the only plan that made sense. But no one answered their calls, and after a few minutes they grew tired. Nadine started to cry again.
    When the sobbing stage wore off, Nadine got angry. She berated herself internally first. How could I have been so stupid? But then her anger turned outward.
    “What the hell kind of crappy building is this, anyway?” she called out.
    Finally, she’d had enough and couldn’t hold her temper in any longer. She flung off her heels and kicked the side of the elevator with all her might. The ball of her foot ached.
    That did it. The floor wobbled and the little box they’d been in shook back and forth a little and finally began an upward ascent, letting out a screeching sound.
    “You saved us,” David said, sounding his usual chipper self again.
    They stopped with a thud. Nadine pulled the rope and, this time, the doors came apart quite effortlessly and revealed that they were a mere step away from freedom. It was