“Huh,” said Giselle.
“She believed in politeness and treating people with respect. It’s not your station in life that matters. It’s how you conduct yourself that counts.”
“Yeah. I get that. I think I would have liked your gran. And she taught you to talk like that? Like Eliza from My Fair Lady?”
“I suppose she did, yes.”
She got up from the divan and stood right in front of me, her chin held high, taking me in.
“You have incredible skin. It’s like porcelain. I like you, Molly the Maid. You’re a bit weird, but I like you.” She then skipped off to the bedroom and returned with a brown men’s wallet in her hand. She rummaged through it and pulled out a new $100 bill. She put it in my hand.
“Here. For you,” she said.
“No, I couldn’t possibly—”
“He won’t even notice it’s gone. And even if he does, what’s he going to do about it, kill me?”
I looked down at the bill in my hand, crisp and feather-light. “Thank you,” I managed, my voice a hoarse whisper. It was the biggest tip I’d ever received.
“It’s nothing. Don’t mention it,” she replied.
That’s how it started, the friendship between Giselle and me. It continued and grew with each one of her extended stays. Over the course of a year, we became quite close. She would sometimes send me on errands so that she didn’t have to face the paparazzi that often waited right outside the hotel’s front door.
“Molly, I’ve had quite a day. Charles’s daughter called me a gold digger, and his ex-wife told me I have terrible taste in men. Will you slip out and buy me barbecue chips and a Coke? Charles hates it when I eat junk, but he’s out this afternoon. Here.” She’d pass me a $50 bill, and when I’d return with her treats, she’d always say the same thing. “You’re the best, Molly. Keep the change.”
She seemed to understand that I don’t always know the right way to behave or what to say. Once, I came at my usual time to clean the room, and Mr. Black was seated at the bureau by the door, perusing paperwork and smoking a filthy cigar.
“Sir. Is now a good time for me to return your suite to a state of perfection?” I inquired.
Mr. Black peered at me over his glasses. “What do you think?” he asked, then, like a dragon, exhaled smoke right in my face.
“I think it’s a good time,” I replied and turned on my vacuum.
Giselle rushed out of the bedroom. She put her arm around me and gestured for me to turn the machine off.
“Molly,” she said, “he’s trying to tell you it’s a really bad time. He’s trying to tell you to basically fuck off.”
I felt horrible, like a complete fool. “My apologies,” I said.
She grabbed my hand. “It’s okay,” she said quietly so Mr. Black wouldn’t hear. “You didn’t mean anything by it.” She saw me to the door and mouthed, I’m sorry before holding it open so I could push my trolley and myself out of the suite.
Giselle is good like that. Instead of making me feel stupid, she helps me understand things. “Molly, you stand too close to people, you know that? You have to back off a bit, not get right in people’s faces when you talk to them. Imagine your trolley is between you and the other person, even if it’s not really there.”
“Like this?” I asked, standing at what I thought was the correct distance.
“Yes! That’s perfect,” she said, and she grabbed both of my arms and squeezed. “Always stand that far away, unless it’s, like, me or another close friend.”
Another close friend. Little did she know, she was my one and only.
Some days while I was cleaning the suite, I got the sense that despite being married to Mr. Black, she felt lonely and craved my company as much as I craved hers.
“Molly!” she yelled one day, greeting me at the door in silk pajamas even though it was close to noon. “I’m so glad you’re here. Clean the rooms fast and then we’re doing a makeover.” She clapped her hands with joy.
“Excuse me?” I said.
“I’m going to teach you how to apply makeup. You’re really pretty, Molly, you know that? You have perfect skin. But your dark hair makes you look pale. And the problem is you don’t try very hard. You have to enhance what nature gave you.”
I cleaned the suite quickly, which is hard to do without cutting corners, but I managed. It was lunchtime, so I figured it was acceptable to take a break. Giselle seated me at the vanity in the hallway outside of the bathroom. She brought out her makeup case—I knew it well since I reorganized each of her cosmetics every day, putting the caps back on things she’d left open and placing each tube or container back in its proper slot.
She rolled up her pajama sleeves, put her warm hands on my shoulders, and looked at me in the mirror. It was a lovely feeling, her hands resting on my shoulders. It reminded me of Gran.
She picked up her hairbrush and started brushing my hair. “Your hair, it’s like silk,” she said. “Do you straighten it?”
“No,” I said. “But I wash it. Regularly and thoroughly. It’s quite clean.”
She giggled. “Of course it is,” she said.
“Are you laughing with me or at me?” I asked. “There’s a big difference, you know.”
“Oh, I know,” she said. “I’m the butt of many a joke. I’m laughing with you, Molly,” she said. “I’d never laugh at you.”
“Thank you,” I said. “I appreciate that. The receptionists downstairs were laughing at me today. Something about the new nickname they gave me. To be honest, I don’t fully understand it.”
“What did they call you?”
“Rumba,” I said. “Gran and I used to watch Dancing with the Stars, and the rumba is a very lively partner dance.”
Giselle winced. “I don’t think they meant the dance, Molly. I think they meant Roomba, as in the robotic vacuum cleaner.”
Finally, I understood. I looked down at my hands in my lap so Giselle wouldn’t notice the tears springing to my eyes. But it didn’t work.
She stopped brushing my hair and put her hands back on my shoulders. “Molly, don’t listen to them. They’re idiots.”
“Thank you,” I said.
I sat stiffly in the chair, staring at myself and Giselle in the mirror as she worked on my face. I was concerned that anyone could come in and find me sitting down with Giselle Black, having my makeup done. How to handle guests placing you in this exact situation had never been covered in Mr. Snow’s professional-development seminars.
“Close your eyes,” Giselle said. She wiped them, then dabbed cool foundation all over my face with a fresh makeup sponge.
“Tell me something, Molly,” she said. “You live alone, right? You’re all by yourself?”
“I am now,” I said. “My gran died a few months ago. Before that, it was just the two of us.”
She took a powder container and brush and was about to use it on my face, but I stopped her. “Is it clean?” I asked. “The brush?”
Giselle sighed. “Yes, Molly. It’s clean. You’re not the only person in the world who sanitizes things, you know.”
This pleased me immensely because it confirmed what I knew in my heart. Giselle and I are so different, and yet, fundamentally, we are very much alike.
She began using the brush on my face. It felt like my feather duster, but in miniature, like a little sparrow was dusting my cheeks.
“Is it hard, living alone like that? God, I’d never last. I don’t know how to make it on my own.”
It had been very hard. I still greeted Gran every time I came home, even though I knew she wasn’t there. I heard her voice in my head, heard her traipsing about the apartment every day. Most of the time, I wondered if that was normal or if I was going a bit soft in the head.