The Deep

On their way down to the beach, Gail had refused to ride in the elevator. “I get claustrophobia in office-building elevators,” she had said. “I’d be a basket case before I reached the bottom in that thing.”

Sanders had not argued, but he insisted on sending their air tanks down in the elevator, for, as he pointed out, “If we let one of them bong into the rocks and rupture, we’ll go up like a Roman candle.”

Now he had no intention of walking up the staircase. He turned left, toward the elevator. Gail turned right.

“You’re not going to walk up those stairs,” he said.

“I sure am. What about you? I thought you were afraid of heights.”

“I’m not afraid of heights, any more than I’m afraid of airplanes. I don’t like either one, but I’m not about to let them ruin my life.”

“Well, I’m still not getting in that bird cage. Come on. It’s good for your legs.”

Sanders shook his head. “I’ll see you up there.”

He loaded the gear into the elevator, closed the gate, and pushed the “up” button. There was a click, then the motor whirred, whined, and lifted the cage off the ground. Sanders stood facing the cliff, staring at the gray rock as it moved slowly by.

When he had seen enough of the cliff, he turned around and faced the sea, forcing himself to look down. He saw the lifeguard wheeling the Whaler up the beach on a light dolly, and a couple lying on colored beach towels arranged next to each other in perfect symmetry-looking, as they receded, like a postage stamp stuck to the pink sand.

His mind barely registered the change in the pitch of the electric motor, rising from a whine to a complaint.

When the cage bucked once, then stopped, he was not afraid; he assumed that someone, somewhere, had pushed a “stop” button, and soon that same someone would push a “g” button. He waited.

The motor was still racing, like an automobile engine in neutral with the accelerator pushed to the floor.

Sanders pressed the “down” button. There was a click, but no change in the sound. He pushed the “up” button. Another click. The elevator did not move. He looked up. There was no roof to the cage, and he could see the top of the cliff, perhaps fifteen feet away.

When Gail got to the top of the stairs, she was breathing hard, and her thighs ached. She walked along the path for a few yards and was surprised to see that the elevator wasn’t there. Her first thought made her smile: David chickened out and was following her up the stairs. She returned to the staircase and looked down; it was empty. Her next thought made beads of sweat break out on her forehead. She ran to where the elevator should have been and, supporting herself on a guardrail, leaned over the edge of the cliff.

She was relieved: the cage was still there-at least it hadn’t pulled away from the pole and crashed to the bottom. Sanders had reached his hands through the bars in the cage and was gripping the pole.

“Are you all right?” she called.

“It just stopped.”

Gail looked at the machinery by the top of the elevator shaft. Two steel arms extended from concrete bases and encircled the pole. There was a large metal box, containing, she presumed, the motor. But there were no obvious controls, no buttons. “Don’t move!” she said. “I’ll get help.”

She ran into the lobby of the Orange Grove Club, ignoring sternly worded signs prohibiting “bathing costumes and bare feet” in the public rooms of the club.

“The elevator’s stuck!” she shouted as she approached the front desk. “My husband’s caught inside.”

The elderly clerk at the front desk was dressed in a morning coat, and he seemed more concerned about Gail’s lack of clothing than about her alarm. All he said was “Yes.”

“The elevator’s stuck! My husband’s-was “Yes,” the clerk said again. He picked up a telephone and dialed one digit.

“Well, do something!” Gail said.

“I am, madam.” He spoke into the phone.

“Clarence? It’s happened again,” he said, with a teasing I-told-you-so tone. He hung up and said to Gail, “Help will be along presently.”

“What do you mean, “presently”?”

“Madam,” the clerk said stiffly, “if you’d care to wait on the veranda…” He cast a disapproving eye on Gail’s bare midriff.

As soon as Gail was outside, she started to run, and then she saw Sanders, waiting for her at the top of the cliff, a grin on his face. Gail ran to him, put her arms around him, and kissed him.

“I was so worried…,” she said. “How did you make it work?”

“Make what work? I shinnied up the pole.”

“You did what?”

“Shinnied. You know… shinnied.”

Unbelieving, Gail looked over the edge of the cliff. The elevator was where it had been, their diving gear still inside.

“Why?”

“I’d never done it before.”

She looked at him and felt a sudden rush of anger. “Are you trying to kill yourself?”

“Don’t be silly. It was a calculated risk. I thought I could do it, and I did.”

“What if you’d been wrong.”

“Yeah, well, those are the chances you take.” He noticed the fury in her face. “C’mon, everything’s…” He saw her hand coming at him, and he ducked. Her fist grazed the top of his head.