{"id":87331,"date":"2015-07-06T16:00:47","date_gmt":"2015-07-06T20:00:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=87331"},"modified":"2015-07-10T11:25:58","modified_gmt":"2015-07-10T15:25:58","slug":"fourteen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/07\/06\/fourteen\/","title":{"rendered":"Fourteen"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"A<\/a>

A building without a thirteenth floor.<\/p><\/div>\n

You can tell who has lived in my building for a while by their elevator behavior. Anyone who\u2019s spent any time in that unreliable apparatus knows it to be molasses slow, and that there is a significant interval between the stop and the opening of the doors. For instance, if you say, \u201cHave a good one!\u201d as soon as the elevator reaches the floor, there will be an agonizingly long moment of awkward silence in which you both stare fixedly at the door, willing it to open. An old-timer, by contrast, will allow the moment of silence first<\/em>, and then slip in the valediction at the last possible second. I usually walk.<\/p>\n

But on this occasion, I was riding. You see, I\u2019d snuck up to the roof to collect a mothballed sweater I\u2019d been secretly airing and didn\u2019t feel like walking all the way down to the basement laundry room. I had already marked out the other occupants of the elevator as newbies, both because I\u2019d never seen them, and because they essayed a premature good-bye to a departing tenant on twelve. They had a very cherubic baby with them.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat a little sweetie,\u201d I said. \u201cHow old is he?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

I wasn\u2019t particularly invested in the answer one way or another\u2014I have no baby of my own to compare, development-wise, and thus no possibility of common ground, let alone concealed panic or concealed smugness\u2014but I didn\u2019t want to leave it at a remark on his cuteness. What if the parents then felt compelled to say\u00a0thank you, as if I\u2019d been complimenting them<\/em>, somehow? I didn\u2019t want to put them in such a position.<\/p>\n

\u201cFifteen months,\u201d said the mother, and I smiled in the knowing way I felt was expected.<\/p>\n

\u201cDo you live on fourteen?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re visiting friends,\u201d\u00a0said the dad.<\/p>\n

\u201cDo your friends who live there feel like they\u2019re living a lie?\u201d I said eagerly, because I always wonder, and the one person I\u2019d managed to corner on the issue hadn\u2019t spoken English. \u201cI mean, because it\u2019s actually thirteen, and such a big part of their lives is dictated by medieval superstition?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOh, I don\u2019t know,\u201d said the woman.<\/p>\n

We subsided into silence. I smiled at the baby; he was really very cute. He glared.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s a little grumpy,\u201d said the man, apologetically.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t take it personally,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n

The dad then turned to the baby and said, loudly, \u201cYou\u2019ve offended her, Jackson! You\u2019ve hurt her feelings!\u201d<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t know what to say. I was appalled. Was he crazy?<\/p>\n

Or, worse, was he telepathic? I wasn\u2019t exactly offended, but I did feel exposed. After all, everyone knows a baby can secretly see into the blackness of your soul. That\u2019s just common knowledge.<\/p>\n

As we reached one\u2014finally\u2014the baby Jackson broke into a toothy grin. \u201cThere it is!\u201d said his mom. We were all relieved.<\/p>\n

Sadie Stein is contributing editor of\u00a0<\/em>The Paris Review, and the\u00a0<\/em>Daily\u2019s correspondent.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You can tell who has lived in my building for a while by their elevator behavior. Anyone who\u2019s spent any time in that unreliable apparatus knows it to be molasses slow, and that there is a significant interval between the stop and the opening of the doors. For instance, if you say, \u201cHave a good […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":178,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13115],"tags":[5452,18662,18658,18660,18661,18659,18663],"class_list":["post-87331","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-our-daily-correspondent","tag-baby","tag-blackness","tag-elevator","tag-mothballs","tag-souls","tag-thirteenth-floor","tag-toothy-grins"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nIs It a Lie to Live on the Fourteenth Floor?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Sadie Stein confronts a baby in an elevator\u2014and wrestles with a medieval superstition.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/07\/06\/fourteen\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Fourteen by Sadie Stein\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"July 6, 2015 \u2013 You can tell who has lived in my building for a while by their elevator behavior. 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