“Do you think it would be possible to live there? I mean, if you managed to clear away all the Christmas stuff?” Linn said, standing up straight.
Emelie chuckled. Living there? The thought of it was absurd. Or was it?
At work it was the same mess as always during summer. The most reliable cleaners were all on holiday and had been replaced by young, seasonal workers that had no idea how anything worked and didn’t really care. They were only there to make money and didn’t have much appreciation for the hotel or its guests. At the same time, the hotel was fully booked, and the tourists were flocking in with all their questions and requests: breakfast without nuts, lactose and gluten, extra pillows and duvets, thicker blinds, because the sun was justsoobright, and how come the hotel didn’t offer the same tv-channels as the ones they had at home?”
“Oh yes, I wonder why…” Emelie sighed to herself as she rushed through the corridors on her way to fetch more pillows.
In the lift down to her office, she got to thinking about her house again. She hadn’t told anyone but Sara and the girls about it. Not even her mother. Most of all, she didn’t want to worry her, and she also wished to avoid all the questions that she still couldn’t answer yet. Emelie shut herself in her office that most of all resembled a cleaning storage room and dropped down in front of her computer. Suddenly the door flew open, and Linn came rushing in.
“I don’t want to work for another second in this disgusting place”, she yelled, and Emelie was abruptly awoken from her thoughts.
Her daughter was shaking, and tears were streaming down her face, drawing black mascara lines on her cheeks. Emelie rushed over and put her arms around her.
“But love, what’s the matter?”
“It was a disgusting old man in one of the rooms…” she sobbed.
“What? What are you saying? Now?”
Linn nodded and wiped away her tears with the side of her hand.
“Sit down, love, and tell me exactly what happened”, she said, helping Linn sit down in the chair by the desk.
Linn sat down and Emelie squatted in front of her, stroking her daughter’s leg as Linn’s breathing returned to normal.
“I came into room 328 and there was a guest in there, an old guy. I said that I could just come back later, but he said that it was okay. It felt a bit uncomfortable, because I didn’t feel like cleaning when he was there, but I figured I would do as he said. Then he came over to me and put a hand on my bum and said that I could get a big tip if we had some fun. Do you get it? ‘Some fun’, bloody hell it was so disgusting,” Linn said, fizzing with anger.
Before Emelie had the time to say anything, Linn continued:”
“I don’t want to work here for another day, Christ, old men are so disgusting, it’s revolting”, she said with emphasis.
“But love, take the rest of the day off and come back tomorrow. Not all guests are like that, you know, you were just unlucky.”
Linn buried her face in her hands and cried.
“No, I will never be able to walk into a hotel room after this. How will I ever feel safe? You are supposed to feel safe at your workplace, aren’t you? Can’t we just take an early holiday and just go somewhere? I know, how about the Christmas house? We can live there over summer. I just want to get out of here…”
Emelie held Linn and let her calm down. She eventually dried her tears and Emelie told her to go back home. She walked her daughter to the changing room and out through the back door. As she was walking back to her office, she thought about how to handle the situation. And the Christmas house? No, they couldn’t live there.
That same evening, all four of them curled up in the sofa. Emelie had made popcorn and they had all decided to watchFrozenwhich was a family favourite.
Linn pulled her legs up, hugging them and leaned into her mother’s arms.
“Did you have a chat with the guest?”
She was whispering so as not to disturb her sisters who were sitting closely together on the other end of the corner sofa with a blue fleece blanket around their shoulders and a big bowl of popcorn between them. Emelie shook her head. He had left before she had gotten ahold of him, but Emelie had told her supervisor what had happened, and it was going to be dealt with.
“Mum, I just cannot work there anymore”, Linn said to her with a tiny voice.
Liv turned towards Linn.
“Are you not going to work for mum anymore? Why not?”
Linn stroked her arm.
“Something happened today that wasn’t so great, so I decided not to work there anymore. But don’t worry, I will find another job”, she said. “Doesn’t Sara know the people that have the bakery on Storgatan? It would be a dream working there.”
Emelie sighed.
