It was just an ordinary day at work on Halloween. I’d never cared about Halloween. I was a numbers gal, and very logical. I didn’t believe in ghosts, ghouls, or goblins. I tried trick-or-treating once when I was a kid, and then realized I had more fun selling my candy to the classmates who got a disappointing haul the next day at school than I did eating it. I had no time for made-up stories, and besides, I didn’t scare easily.
On this day, this Halloween day, I was about to learn that the scariest things in life aren’t made-up stories at all. There’s no mummy hiding under our beds, or a Dracula tapping on our all-too brittle window panes waiting for us to invite him in. But there are terrors in this world, real-life monsters hiding in plain sight that no amount of logic can save us from. And I was about to learn this from one of the least likely sources I could have imagined.
All of this was far from my mind as Bridgette stood confidently behind the podium in the conference room. Her presentation was nearing its conclusion “By importing all of our sprinkles from overseas, the company will save billions,” she said, pointing to the graphical representation of outsourced sprinkles saving billions on the projector behind her. “And that’s how we go from Business Zero to Business Hero.”
I looked around the conference table to feel out the room. Not that there was any question what kind of response was forthcoming — Bridgette was a rising star at Cupcake Corporation, and her sales strategies always left the bigwigs from corporate speechless.
“That’s the most brilliant idea I’ve ever heard!” proclaimed one of them even now. The others nodded emphatically in silence. One of them was even crying tears of joy. Another was actually just crying.
“I’m so sick of being a Business Zero,” he said through his tears. “Nobody respects Cupcake Corporation. Even my wife is ashamed to tell our friends about my work. ‘Cupcakes are stupid, Alan,’ she always says whenever I try to tell her about our latest breakthrough flavor.” The corporate bigwig next to him patted his shoulder comfortingly and handed him a Kleenex.
“Cupcakes aren’t stupid at all!” shouted one of the bigwigs on the other side of the table. “Sometimes you want all the benefits a cake has to offer, but on a smaller scale! Sure, you can cut a slice of whatever size you like off a full cake, but it’s not not the same!”
Everyone nodded in unison. Alan seemed cheered as he summoned an assistant over to throw his used Kleenex away for him. “We really are making the world a better place,” he said, beaming at Bridgette.
Bridgette watched the whole scene unfold with grace and composure. I hated these corporate visits, but she always seemed to rise to the occasion.
“My associate Claire has some numbers to go over,” she said in an attempt to transition to my presentation. Knowing how difficult it was to follow Bridgette’s presentations, I nervously gathered my laptop and rose from my seat. Alan waved me off.
“I don’t think we need any more presentations,” he said, still sniffling a bit but clearly excited about the promise of inflated revenues. “Has anything changed that much since the last quarter?”
“Surely not,” chimed in one of the other bigwigs. “Can that much really happen in a mere three months?”
I cleared my throat, searching for the right words as I stalled for time. “Well, actually we did fall 10 percent short of our projections. I have all the details with me of course.”
“Nonsense,” Alan said, dismissing me again. “Bridgette told us everything we needed to hear. Besides, everyone knows you don’t start with good news and end with bad, Claire.” He looked around the room for support, and seemed to find it in the firm nods of the others. “That’d be like eating a cupcake followed by a radish!”
Alan burst out laughing along with the rest of the group. One of them beat on the table in delight and started to turn red as his laughs became wheezes.
“That’s okay,” Bridgette interrupted before I could say anything more. “Claire and I will take our leave, gentlemen.” Hiding my indignity, I tucked my laptop under my arm and stood, trudging my way toward Bridgette and the exit, defeated.
“A cupcake first, followed by a radish!” shouted one of the bigwigs, and the laughter reached deafening levels all over again.
“Bridgette,” called a fancy female bigwig, the only woman in the room aside from Bridgette and me. She caught up to us in the doorway. “That was an amazing presentation. Outsourced sprinkles? We’d never have come up with that idea. I’m going to recommend you for Chief Head Sales President to the board,” she said, grabbing Bridgette’s hand and shaking it excitedly.
“Thanks, Violet,” Bridgette said. “What an honor.”
Violet gazed at Bridgette for another couple of seconds, her face full of warmth and adoration. All of that vanished as she glanced back over at me, standing awkwardly beside Bridgette. “Nobody likes a downer, Claire.” She turned and rejoined the other bigwigs at the conference table.
“Let’s have a celebration lunch,” Bridgette said to me as soon as we were out of corporate earshot.
“Yes,” I said. “Let’s celebrate how much of a downer I am.”
“Stop it,” she chided me. “They just don’t like you because you’re the money person. It’s not personal.”
“Fine,” I said, giving in. “But I’m getting a drink, and you’re buying.”
Alone in the elevator, Bridgette’s face seemed to change. She did that sometimes when no one was around to notice. She knew she didn’t have to impress me, so the bubbly charade faded just a little.
“Alan’s wife is right, you know,” she said as she hit the button to take us down to the main level. “Cupcakes are stupid. It’s like a half-measure, like something you grab from the gas station at the last minute because you forgot it was your sister’s birthday even though she always remembers yours. If you want a cake, get a real fucking cake.”
I stared at her in surprise as the elevator doors closed behind us. Even if she did let her guard down a little in private sometimes, it didn’t usually go this far.
“I think cupcakes are cute,” I ventured, a little afraid of what this new side of Bridgette would say in response.
She sighed in response, and just as I braced myself for an insult, the elevator stopped almost as soon as it had started. We heard a strange grinding sound as it settled firmly into place. Then the lights went out. We were stuck. Fortunately, I didn’t scare easily, and I knew the odds of being trapped in an elevator at some point are actually not that low. If you ride an elevator every day for 25 years, you have a one-in-seventeen chance of getting stuck in one at some point. I stayed calm.
“Of course you would,” Bridgette replied, as if nothing at all out of the ordinary had happened. She whipped out her phone and turned on the flashlight. “Isn’t that ironic, Little Miss Serious Number Freak never smiles or laughs at anything but thinks a stupid fucking hunk of processed bullshit is cute,” she said, smashing the call button on the elevator panel repeatedly.
There was silence for a few seconds. The call button didn’t seem to be doing any good. “Should we scream for help?”
“Please, I’d rather die in here than reveal myself as a woman in distress with all these assholes from corporate strutting around,” she said, slumping onto the elevator floor and resting her back against the wall. “This happened to me at the Cupcake Convention in Chicago a few years ago. We just have to wait it out while they get a technician here.”
“Assholes in suits?” I asked, taking a seat on the ground next to her. “You should love corporate. They sure love you. ‘That’s the most brilliant idea I’ve ever heard!’” I mocked her.
“They don’t care about my ideas,” Bridgette said. “It’s about making connections. You sit at your desk making your calculations and ignoring everyone all the time, and you wonder why everyone thinks you’re rude.”
“My calculations are invaluable!” I protested. “I’m not rude; I’m just focused on my work. And no one appreciates it or listens to my input. It’s like I don’t even exist as a real person here. We can’t all be like you, effortlessly flitting about, smiling at everyone and being even sweeter than the products we peddle.”
“I’m not taking the promotion,” she said, interrupting me. “I hate it here, and I hate the person I have to be at this job.”
I was stunned. Bridgette seemed like she was born to do what she was doing. She seemed to have it all, the perfect career, the perfect heartthrob husband, the perfect house, even the perfect dog if it hadn’t finished in second at The National Dog Show last year. I was at a loss for words.
“I can’t believe this is the second time you’ve been stuck in an elevator in two years,” I said. I didn’t do well in these situations. “There’s only a one-in-seventeen chance that would happen over a fifty year period! And that’s only if you rode one every day.”
“I’m thinking of leaving Harry,” she said.
“Who’s Harry?” I asked.
“My husband.”
I blinked. But they looked so happy together in all her Instagram photos. “His name is Harry?” I asked.
“All my life I’ve fallen for the trap of believing in confident men,” Bridgette said. “Snake oil salesmen is all they are, except their dicks are the product! It’s all bullshit.”
“Is that his real name, or is that just something people call him when they want to pretend he’s much older?” I asked, investigating further.
“It’s not just that the confidence is all an elaborate act to fool people into thinking he’s anything but the thoughtless, heartless scumbag he is; I could overlook that and what I know he does behind my back for the sake of our children, but you know what I can’t forgive, Claire?”
“His name?”
“He fucking loves cupcakes. The only time he’s ever been excited for me, ever, was when I got this job, and I guarantee you it was because of the goddamned cupcakes!”
Finally out of steam, Bridgette covered her face with her hands. She started to cry. I realized, unexpectedly, that I felt genuinely sorry for her. I’d never liked Bridgette. She had always seemed fake to me, and I had just assumed she was fake to cultivate her reputation, for her own self interests. I saw now she was fake because being her real self would be too painful.
I reached out to touch her arm. She stopped crying and looked at me in surprise.
“Fuck Harry,” I said. “And fuck cupcakes.”
She didn’t say anything at first, just kind of considered my words. Then she smiled through her tears. “Fuck Harry,” she agreed. “And fuck cupcakes!”
Soon we turned it into an enthusiastic chant, and it grew louder and louder as we sat there in the dark, waiting for the elevator doors to open. When they finally did, a crowd was gathered in the hallway near the elevator. It hadn’t taken long at all; a few nearby maintenance men had heard our chanting and gotten the door open without even having to involve elevator mechanics or firemen or other emergency personnel. It was only a short period of time trapped in the elevator with Bridgette, but we emerged from the dark as different people.
The corporate bigwigs had noticed the crowd gathering, of course, and were stationed right outside the elevator with everyone else. Alan was at the front, his face still red from all the laughter earlier. He caught Bridgette’s eye, realized she’d been crying, and thought the moment could use some levity.
“Now, now, Bridgette, you didn’t think we were going to let our best sales person stay trapped in that elevator, did you?”
“They were scared because they’re women!” shouted another bigwig in amusement.
Bridgette and I faced down the bigwigs side by side. We looked at each other, nodding in silent agreement.
“Fuck you, Alan,” Bridgette said, hurling the words at him with genuine force. Everyone grew silent. Alan’s mouth drew into an “O” shape, his eyes wide. No one dared even breathe.
“And fuck cupcakes!” I screamed, already starting to giggle wildly from the euphoria of letting it all out. We looked insane, the two of us shouting profanities at the top executives of a big hot shot Fortune 500 company with all the world bearing witness. We didn’t care.
Arm in arm, almost skipping with glee, we marched straight for the nearest stairwell down. It turns out there was a proper occasion for our celebratory lunch after all. And later, maybe, just maybe, it was time to give trick-or-treating another chance.
By Spencer Hendricks
