“I must be off,” I said. “Twenty-one rooms to clean today.”
“Okay, okay. It makes me happy when you visit. See you soon, Miss Molly.”
I rushed out of the kitchen to the quiet, bright hallway and the perfect order of my trolley. Instantly, I felt much better.
It was time to go to the Social, the restaurant bar and grill inside the hotel, where Rodney would be starting his shift. Rodney Stiles, head bartender. Rodney, with his thick, wavy hair, his white dress shirt with the top buttons tastefully undone, revealing just a little of his perfectly smooth chest—well, almost perfectly smooth, minus one small round scar on his sternum. Anyhow, the point is, he isn’t hairy. How any woman could like a hairy man is beyond me. Not that I’m prejudiced. I’m just saying that if a man I fancied was hairy, I’d get the wax out, and I’d rip the strips off him until he was clean and bare.
I have not yet had the opportunity to do this in real life. I’ve had only one boyfriend, Wilbur. And while he didn’t have chest hair, he turned out to be a heartbreaker. And a liar and a cheat. So perhaps chest hair isn’t the worst thing in the world.
I breathe deeply to cleanse my mind of Wilbur. I’m blessed with this ability—to clean my mind as I would a room. I picture offensive people or recall uncomfortable moments, and I wipe them away. Gone. Erased, just like that. My mind is returned to a state of perfection.
But as I sit here, in Mr. Snow’s office, waiting for him to return, I’m having trouble keeping my mind clean. It returns to thoughts of Mr. Black. To the feeling of his lifeless skin on my fingers. And so on.
I take a sip of my tea, which is now cold. I will focus once more on the morning, on remembering every detail…. Where was I?
Ah, yes. Juan Manuel. After I left him, I headed to the elevator with my trolley, taking it up to the lobby. The doors opened and Mr. and Mrs. Chen were standing there. The Chens are regular guests, just like the Blacks, though the Chens are from Taiwan. Mr. Chen sells textiles, so I’m told. Mrs. Chen always travels with him. That day, she was wearing a wine-colored dress with a lovely black fringe. The Chens are always flawlessly polite, a characteristic I find exceptional.
They acknowledged me right away, which, let me just say, is rare for hotel guests. They even stepped aside so I could exit the elevator before they entered.
“I thank you for being repeat guests, Mr. and Mrs. Chen.”
Mr. Snow taught me to greet guests by name, to treat them as I would family members.
“It is we who thank you for keeping our room so orderly,” said Mr. Chen. “Mrs. Chen gets to rest while she’s here.”
“I’m getting lazy. You do everything for me,” Mrs. Chen said.
I am not one for attention-seeking behavior. I prefer to acknowledge a compliment with a nod, or silence. At that moment, I nodded, curtsied, and said, “Please enjoy your stay.”
The Chens shuffled onto the elevator and the doors closed.
The lobby was moderately busy, with new guests arriving and some checking out. At a glance, it appeared clean and orderly. No touch-ups required. Sometimes, however, guests will leave a newspaper in a state of disarray on a side table, or discard a coffee cup on the clean marble floor, where it spills its last drops and leaves an ominous blot. Whenever I notice such infelicities, I address them immediately. Strictly speaking, cleaning the lobby is not my job, but as Mr. Snow has said, good employees think outside of the box.
I pushed my trolley to the entrance of the Social Bar & Grill and parked it. Rodney was behind the bar, reading a newspaper spread on the bar top.
I walked in briskly to show that I am a woman with confidence and a sense of purpose.
“I’ve arrived,” I said.
He looked up. “Oh, hey Molly. Here for the morning papers?”
“Your assumption is one hundred percent correct.” Every day, I picked up a stack of newspapers to deliver to guest rooms as I made my rounds.
“Have you seen this?” he asked, pointing to the newspaper in front of him. He wears a very shiny Rolex watch. Even though I’m not much of a brand person, I’m well aware that Rolex is an expensive brand, which must mean Mr. Snow recognizes Rodney’s superior abilities as a bartender and pays him more than a usual bartender’s salary.
I looked at the headline Rodney pointed at: “FAMILY FEUD ROCKS BLACK EMPIRE.”
“May I see that?”
“Sure.” He turned the article my way. It featured several photos, a large one of Mr. Black in his classic double-breasted suit, fending off reporters who were sticking cameras in his face. Giselle was on his arm, perfectly styled from head to toe, wearing dark sunglasses. Judging from her outfit, the photo was taken recently. Perhaps yesterday?
“Looks like trouble’s brewing in the Black family,” Rodney said. “Seems his daughter, Victoria, is forty-nine percent shareholder of the Black business empire, and he wants those shares back.”
I scanned the article. The Blacks had three children, all of them grown-up. One of the boys lived in Atlantic City, the other flitted from Thailand to the Virgin Islands or wherever else the party happened to be. In the article, Mrs. Black—the first Mrs. Black—described her two sons as “flakes” and was quoted saying, “The only way Black Properties & Investments will survive is if my daughter, Victoria, who essentially already runs the organization, becomes a half shareholder, at least.” The article went on to describe the nasty legal jabs between Mr. Black and his ex-missus. A host of other power magnates were referenced in the article, rallying on one side or the other. The article suggested that Mr. Black’s second marriage to Giselle two years ago—a woman less than half his age—marked the beginning of destabilization within the Black empire.
“Poor Giselle,” I said aloud.
“Right?” Rodney replied. “She doesn’t need this.”
A thought occurred to me. “How well do you know her, Giselle?”
Rodney whisked the paper away and slid it under the bar, bringing out a fresh stack for me to take upstairs. “Who?”
“Giselle,” I said.
“Mr. Black doesn’t let her come down here to the bar. You probably have more contact with her than I do.”
He was right. I did. I do. An unlikely and pleasing bond—dare I say friendship?—has recently formed between us, between the young and beautiful Giselle Black, second wife of the infamous property mogul, and me, Molly, insignificant room maid. I don’t talk about our bond much because Mr. Preston’s adage applies equally to gentlewomen as to gentlemen: best to keep my lips pressed shut.
I waited for Rodney to extend the conversation, leaving the kind of ample room that a single-but-not-desperate female might leave were she romantically interested in the eligible bachelor before her whose cologne hinted of bergamot and exotic masculine mystique.
I was not disappointed—not entirely, at least.
“Molly, your newspapers.” He leaned on the bar, the muscles in his forearms contracting attractively. (Since this was a bar and not a dinner table, the no-elbows-on-the-table rule did not apply.) “And Molly, by the way, thanks. For what you’re doing to help my friend, Juan Manuel. You’re really a…special girl.”
I felt a surge of warmth rush to my cheeks as if Gran had just pinched them. “I’d do the same for you, probably more. I mean, that’s what you do for friends, right? You help them out of binds?”
He put one of his hands on my wrist and subtly squeezed. The sensation was extremely pleasing and I realized suddenly how long it had been since I’d been touched at all, by anyone. He pulled away long before I was ready. I waited for him to say something more, to ask me on another date, perhaps? I wanted nothing more than a second rendezvous with Rodney Stiles. Our first occurred well over one year ago and remains a highlight of my adult life.