Desperately Seeking Domestics
Majestic Cleaning Services are looking for hygiene operatives to join their expanding company. Must be English-speaking. Hygiene experience preferred but not essential. Contact Ms Rogers-Smythe
There was a phone number. She swallowed. A small job would help tide them over here and give them a bit of a head start when they got home and she had to search for new employment. She shook her head. Was she mad? She couldn’t just apply for a job, could she?
But apart from her part-time party planning, she was officially unemployed and a few weeks in New York couldn’t have come at a worse time. This advert could be the answer.
Her phone buzzed from her bag and she stopped walking, swung her rucksack off her shoulder and retrieved it. She looked at the text message. It was from Dean.
Mum called. Said u got here OK. She said make sure Angel keeps her coat dun up. Left a jacket on dining room chair. It’s Oliver Drummond’s. He left it in Chinese last night. Forgot 2 bring it. Can u drop in 2 the office?
It was Oliver Drummond’s jacket she had squashed and creased down into her rucksack. Perhaps she should have cut the sleeves off to teach him a lesson for deserting that woman last night. Being a billionaire, perhaps he didn’t even wear clothes twice. Maybe they were just as disposable as his dinner companions.
‘There’s an exhibition of paintings from Wassily Kandinsky,’ Angel said as they moved up the ramp. ‘Apparently, Solomon Guggenheim has over 150 of his paintings in his collection.’
‘He must have liked him. What did he paint?’ Hayley asked.
‘Paintings,’ Angel answered with a grin.
‘Ha ha, funny girl.’
‘Ooh, look at this one up here!’ Angel jogged ahead, starting up the spiral path.
Now was her chance. With Angel preoccupied with paintings, but in plain sight, she could call Majestic Cleaning. She hesitated. Should she? They probably wouldn’t even offer her a job. She could just call and see what they had to say. And if they offered her a job? Well, the trip to New York hadn’t been cheap and there was Christmas too. Angel needed presents to unwrap and she couldn’t solely rely on Dean’s hospitality. She stopped walking and tapped onto her phone. The empty search box was just waiting for her to key in a number. Her thumb hovered over the icons. Her eyes were back on the newspaper in her left hand. She could treat Dean and Angel to a night out maybe. A cleaner’s wages probably wouldn’t stretch to somewhere like Asian Dawn but she could probably stretch to a diner.
Watching Angel standing in front of something that looked like a badly drawn steam train, she hastily tapped out the number before she could overthink it. She waited to be connected.
‘Good morning, Majestic Cleaning.’ The voice sounded like across between the Queen and a well-connected baroness but with a definite American twang.
‘Oh, hello.’ Hayley cleared her throat, wondering why she felt the need to speak with a cut-glass accent. ‘Is that Ms Rogers-Smythe?’
‘This is she.’
‘Hello, Ms Rogers-Smythe. My name is Hayley Walker. I’ve just come across your advert in theNew York Times.’
‘You’re English!’
The exclamation sounded like Ms Rogers-Smythe had discovered an alien life form.
‘Yes. Is that going to be a problem? I’m here for a few weeks and?—’
‘No problem! No problem whatsoever.’
‘Good,’ Hayley breathed out. ‘That’s good.’
‘Would you be able to attend the offices tomorrow? At nine?’
‘Well, I…’ Her eyes went to Angel, who was inspecting a sculpture that looked like a warty frog. She took a deep breath. ‘Yes, of course. That would be fine.’
‘Oh jolly good. I’ll text the address to this number.’
‘Great.’
‘Lovely, I look forward to greeting you tomorrow. Toodle pip!’
‘Toodle pip,’ Hayley responded.
She cursed herself as she ended the call.Toodle pip. Why had she said that? And how was she going to explain to Angel that she was visiting a cleaning firm?
