But I waited in vain. He turned to the coffee station and began making a fresh pot.
“You’d better get upstairs,” he said. “Or Chernobyl’s going to drop a bomb on you.”
I laughed—more of a guffaw/cough, actually. I was laughing with Rodney, not at Cheryl, which surely made it okay.
“Speaking with you has been delightful,” I said to Rodney. “Perhaps we can do it another time?” I prompted.
“You bet,” he said. “I’m here all week, haha.”
“Of course you are,” I said, matter-of-factly.
“It was a joke,” he replied with a wink.
Though I did not get the joke, I most definitely understood the wink. I floated out of the bar and collected my trolley. I could hear my heart in my ears, the excitement pumping.
Through the lobby I wheeled, nodding at guests as I walked. “Discreet courtesy, invisible but present customer service,” Mr. Snow often says. This is a manner I’ve cultivated, though I must admit it comes rather easily to me. I believe my gran taught me a lot about this way of being, though the hotel has offered me ample opportunity to practice and perfect.
This morning, I carried a happy tune in my head as I took the elevator up to the fourth floor. I headed to Mr. and Mrs. Black’s suite, Suite 401. Just as I was about to knock on their door, it opened, and Mr. Black stormed out. He was dressed in his trademark double-breasted suit, with a paper sticking out of his left breast pocket, on it, the word “DEED” in little curlicue letters. He nearly knocked me over with the brute force of his exit.
“Out of my way.”
He often did this—bowled me over or treated me like I was invisible. “My apologies, Mr. Black,” I said. “Have an enjoyable day.”
I stuck my foot in the door to keep it open, then decided I should still knock. “Housekeeping!” I called.
Giselle was seated on the divan in the sitting room, wearing a bathrobe, her head in her hands. Was she crying? I was not entirely sure. Her hair—sleek, long, and dark—was disheveled. It made me quite nervous, her hair in that state.
“Is this a good time for me to return your suite to a state of perfection?” I asked.
Giselle looked up. Her face was red, her eyes swollen. She grabbed her phone off the glass tabletop, got up, and ran to the bathroom, slamming the door behind her. She switched on the fan, which, I noted, sounded loud and clunky. I would have to report that to the Maintenance Department. Next, she turned on the shower.
“Well then!” I called loudly through the bathroom door. “If you don’t mind, I’ll just tidy up in here while you prepare yourself to seize the day!”
No answer.
“I said, I’ll just clean in here! Since you haven’t actually answered me….”
Nothing. It was unlike Giselle to behave in this manner. She was usually quite talkative whenever I cleaned her suite. She’d engage me in conversation, and in her presence, I felt something I rarely did with others. I felt comfortable—like I was sitting at home on the sofa with Gran.
I called out to her one more time. “My gran always said that the best way to feel better is by tidying up! If you feel sad, just grab a duster, Buster!”
But she couldn’t hear me above the running water and the clunky whirring of the fan.
I busied myself with cleaning, starting in the sitting room. The glass tabletop was a mess of smudges and fingerprints. People’s propensity to generate filth never ceases to amaze me. I grabbed my ammonia bottle and set to work, returning the table to a high and mighty shine.
I surveyed the room. The curtains were open. Fortunately, the windows had not been smeared by fingerprints, which was at least one blessing. On the bureau by the door were some envelopes, opened. A ripped corner lay curled on the floor. I retrieved it and threw it in the trash. Beside the correspondence was Giselle’s yellow purse with the gold chain-link strap. It looked valuable, but you’d never know it from the way she flung it about. The zipper at the top was open, and sticking out was a flight itinerary. I’m not one to snoop, but I couldn’t help notice it was for two one-way flights to the Cayman Islands. Were this my purse, I would always close the zipper and make sure my precious valuables weren’t about to fall out. I took it upon myself to place the purse exactly parallel to the mail and arrange the chain strap neatly.
I surveyed the room. The carpet had been well trampled—the pile disturbed on both sides, as if someone, Mr. Black or Giselle or both, had been pacing back and forth. I took my vacuum from my trolley and plugged it in.
“Pardon the ruckus!” I called out.
I vacuumed the room in straight lines until the carpet plumped right up and looked like a newly swept Zen garden. I’ve never actually visited a Zen garden in real life, but Gran and I used to holiday together on the sofa, side by side in our living room.
“Where shall we travel tonight?” she would ask. “To the Amazon with David Attenborough or to Japan with National Geographic?”
That night I chose Japan, and Gran and I learned all about Zen gardens. This was before she was sick, of course. I no longer engage in armchair travel because I can’t afford cable or even Netflix. Even if I did have the money, it wouldn’t be the same to armchair travel without Gran.
Right now, as I sit in Mr. Snow’s office replaying my day, it strikes me again just how odd it was that Giselle stayed in the bathroom for so long this morning. It was almost as though she didn’t want to speak with me.
After vacuuming, I moved on to the bedroom. The bed was rumpled, no tip on the pillows, which was a disappointment. I will admit that I’ve come to count on the generous tips from the Blacks. They’ve gotten me through the last few months now that I’m a one-salary household and can’t count on Gran’s earnings to help pay the rent.
I set about removing the bedsheets and crisply made up the bed, complete with perfect hospital corners and four plump, hotel-standard pillows—two hard, two soft, two pillows each, for husband and wife. The closet door was ajar, but when I went to shut it, I couldn’t because the safe inside was open. I could see one passport inside the safe, not two, some documents that looked very legal, and several stacks of money—crisp, new $100 notes, at least five stacks in total.
It’s hard to admit this, even to myself, but I am in the midst of a financial crisis. And while I’m not proud of the fact, it is nevertheless the truth that the piles of money sitting in that safe tempted me, so much so that I tidied the rest of the room as fast as I could—shoes pointing straight, negligee folded on the dressing chair, and so on, just so I could leave the bedroom and finish cleaning the rest of the suite quickly.
I returned to the sitting room, where I tended to the bar and the mini fridge. Five small bottles of Bombay gin were missing (hers, I presumed) and three mini bottles of scotch (definitely his). I replenished the stock and then emptied all the trash cans.
I heard the shower turn off, at long last, and the fan as well. And then I heard the unmistakable sound of Giselle sobbing.
She sounded very sad, so I announced that the suite was clean, took a tissue box from my trolley, and waited outside the bathroom door.
Eventually, she emerged. She was wrapped in one of the hotel’s fluffy white bathrobes. I’ve always wondered what it must be like to wear one of those robes; it must feel like being hugged by a cloud. She had a bath towel around her hair, too, in a perfect swirl, like my favorite treat—ice cream.
I held the tissue box out to her. “Need a tissue for your issue?” I asked.