That’s Mr. Preston.
After passing him this morning, I swung through the massive front lobby and dashed down the stairs into the maze of hallways leading to the kitchen, the laundry rooms, and, my favorite rooms of all, the housekeeping quarters. They may not be grand—no brass, no marble, no velvet—but the housekeeping rooms are where I belong.
Like I always do, I put on my fresh maid uniform and collected my housekeeping trolley, making sure it was replenished and ready for my rounds. It was not replenished, which is no surprise, since my supervisor, Cheryl Green, was the one on shift last night. Chernobyl is what most employees at the Regency Grand call her behind her back. To be clear, she’s not from Chernobyl. In fact, she’s not from Ukraine at all. She’s lived her entire life in this city, as have I. Let it be known that while I do not think highly of Cheryl, I refuse to call her—or anyone—names. Treat others as you wish to be treated, Gran used to say, and that’s a tenet I live by. I’ve been called many a thing in my quarter century, and what I’ve learned is that the common expression about sticks and stones is backward: sticks and stones often hurt far less than words.
Cheryl may be my boss, but she’s definitely not my superior. There is a difference, you know. You can’t judge a person by the job they do or by their station in life; you must judge a person by their actions. Cheryl is slovenly and lazy. She cheats and cuts corners. She drags her feet when she walks. I’ve actually seen her clean a guest’s sink with the same cloth she used to clean their toilet. Can you believe such a thing?
“What are you doing?” I asked the day I caught her in flagrante. “That’s not sanitary.”
Shoulder shrug. “These guests barely tip. This’ll teach them.”
Which is illogical. How are guests to know that the head maid just spread microscopic fecal matter around their sink? And how are they to know this means they need to tip better?
“As low to the ground as a squirrel’s behind,” is what Gran said when I told her about Cheryl and the toilet cloth.
This morning, upon my arrival, my trolley was still full of damp, soiled towels and used soaps from the day before. If I were the boss of things, let me tell you this: I would relish the chance to restock the trolleys.
It took me some time to replenish my wares, and by the time I was finished, Cheryl was finally arriving for her shift, late as usual, dragging her floppy feet behind her. I wondered if she’d rush to the top floor today as she usually did “to do her first rounds,” meaning to sneak to the penthouse suites that are mine to clean and steal my biggest tips off the pillows, leaving only the loose change behind for me. I know she does this, though I can’t prove it. That’s just the kind of person she is—a cheater—and not the Robin Hood kind. The Robin Hood kind takes for the greater good, restoring justice to those who’ve been wronged. This kind of theft is justified, whereas other kinds are not. But make no mistake: Cheryl is no Robin Hood. She steals from others for one reason only—to better herself at the expense of others. And that makes her a parasite, not a hero.
I said my halfhearted hello to Cheryl, and then greeted Sunshine and Sunitha, the two other maids on shift with me. Sunshine is from the Philippines.
“Why are you named Sunshine?” I asked her when we first met.
“For my bright smile,” she said as she put a hand on one hip and made a flourish with her feather duster.
I could see it then, the similarity—how the sun and Sunshine were similar. Sunshine is bright and shiny. She talks a lot, and guests love her. Sunitha is from Sri Lanka, and unlike Sunshine, she barely says a word.
“Good morning,” I’ll say to her when she’s on shift with me. “Are you well?”
She’ll nod once and say a word or two and little else, which suits me just fine. She’s agreeable to work with and she does not slack or dillydally. I take no exception to other maids, provided they do their jobs well. One thing I will say: both Sunitha and Sunshine know how to make up a room spotlessly, which, maid to maid, I respect.
Once my trolley was set, I rolled down the hall to the kitchen to visit Juan Manuel. He is a fine colleague, always quite pleasant and collegial. I left my trolley outside the kitchen doors, then I peeked through the glass. There he was, at the giant dishwasher, pushing racks of dishes through its maw. Other kitchen workers milled about, carrying food trays with silver covers, fresh triple-layer cakes, or other decadent delights. Juan Manuel’s supervisor was nowhere to be seen, so now was a good time to enter. I crept along the perimeter until I reached Juan Manuel’s workstation.
“Hello!” I said, probably too loudly, but I wanted to be heard above the whirring machine.
Juan Manuel jumped and turned. “Híjole, you scared me.”
“Is now a good time?” I asked.
“Yes,” he replied, wiping his hands on his apron. He ran over to the large metal sink, grabbed a clean glass, and filled it with ice-cold water, which he handed to me.
“Oh, thank you,” I said. If the basement was warm, the kitchen was an inferno. I don’t know how Juan Manuel does his job, standing for hours in the unbearable heat and humidity, scraping half-eaten food from plates. All that waste, all those germs. I visit him every day, and every day I try not to think about it.
“I’ve got your keycard. Room 308, early checkout today. I will clean the room now so it’s ready for you whenever you want it. Okay?” I’d been slipping Juan Manuel keycards for at least a year, ever since Rodney explained Juan Manuel’s unfortunate situation.
“Amiga mía, thank you so much,” Juan Manuel said.
“You’ll be safe until nine tomorrow morning, when Cheryl arrives. She’s not supposed to clean that floor at all—but with her, you just never know.”
It was then that I noticed the angry marks on his wrist, round and red.
“What are those?” I asked. “Did you burn yourself?”
“Oh! Yes. I burned myself. On the washer. Yes.”
“That sounds like a safety infraction,” I said. “Mr. Snow is very serious about safety. You should tell him and he’ll have the machine looked at.”
“No, no,” Juan Manuel replied. “It was my mistake. I put my arm where it shouldn’t go.”
“Well,” I said. “Do be careful.”
“I will,” he answered.
He did not make eye contact with me during this part of the conversation, which was most unlike him. I concluded he was embarrassed by his mishap, so I changed the subject.
“Have you heard from your family lately?” I asked.
“My mother sent me this yesterday.” He pulled a phone from his apron pocket and called up a photo. His family lives in northern Mexico. His father died over two years ago, which left the family short of income. Juan Manuel sends money home to compensate. He has four sisters, two brothers, six aunts, seven uncles, and one nephew. He’s the oldest of his siblings, about my age. The photo showed the entire family seated around a plastic table, all of them smiling for the camera. His mother stood at the head of the table proudly holding a platter of barbecued meat.
“This is why I’m here, in this kitchen, in this country. So my family can eat meat on Sundays. If my mother met you, Molly, she’d like you right away. My mother and me? We are alike. We know good people when we see them.” He pointed to his mother’s face in the photo. “Look! She never stops smiling, no matter what. Oh, Molly.”
Tears came to his eyes then. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t want to look at any more pictures of his family. Every time I did, I felt an odd sensation in the pit of my stomach, the same feeling I got when I once accidentally knocked a guest’s earring into the black hole of a drain.