Stan Miller is only fourteen. When Mrs. Evans wanders off to solve something, I stay behind.
“You may call me Rosie,” I tell him, since there are only a few years between us. It feels quare for him to call me by my formal name. “If you don’t mind my asking, how did you get your job when you’re so young?”
He tells me that bell-boying is different, and it’s all right to be younger. Plus, his father is head of maintenance, and his mother cleans in the kitchen, so that helped as well.
“My father put some of the carpets in,” I reply proudly, recalling the way Da had so often pressed his hand against his aching back. All the work put a bit of a stoop into his posture. “But he’s not working here any longer. He was hired in Montreal for another new hotel.”
As soon as his contract ended at the Dominion, and after he celebrated my new job in a whisky-filled evening with his friends, Da was called away. He’d seemed reluctant to leave me on my own, but I reassured him. I was seventeen, wasn’t I, and I had a steady job. Nothing to worry about. And what an international traveller he was, I said, encouraging him. Montreal!
“It’s nice that you get to stay by the door and see the sunshine and feel the fresh air when the door opens,” I tell Stan. “The windows don’t open upstairs, but at least I can open the curtains for light.”
“I’ll be a waiter in a year or two,” he says with confidence. “Just you wait and see.”
“I believe you,” I tell him sincerely. With both his parents working here, I don’t see why he wouldn’t.
“To be a waiter you must be very attentive.”
I can’t help thinking of Damien. He is attentive to me, but I cannot vouch for his attention to his job. Then again, he has not been fired. “I agree.”
“Even more than a chambermaid.”
“Now then. Let’s not argue whose job is what. And do you like the work, so?”
“I do, but Mr. Grayson doesn’t seem to want that.” He’s bothered. “Does Mrs. Evans take your tips, Rosie?”
I’m taken aback by the question. “No, never.”
“Hmm. Well, Mr. Grayson takes ours.” He laughs suddenly. “One day Mrs. Evans had angry words with him. Maybe about tips, but I don’t know for sure. He was real mad after, and I heard him say something like ‘That woman is going to ruin me.’ But I don’t imagine she has anything to do about how he runs his department.” He shrugs it off. “Anyhow, it’s all right. Maybe I’ll meet famous people one day when they come through here. Well, you know. Not actuallymeetthem, but I might see them.”
Mrs. Evans collects me, then she introduces me to two gentlemen at the reception desk, Harold and Monty. She tells them she wants me to get to know more about the hotel, which is a fine thing to hear. She has taken me under her wing, and sure, it galls Deirdre and some of the others to see it, but I haven’t a problem with it. This is my path forward. Maybe I won’t be a chambermaid forever. Maybe I’ll learn so much they will have to promote me to something more important. Maybe one day, I will be head chambermaid, like Mrs. Evans.
Monty wanders off through a door behind the polished wood counter, leaving Harold to tell me a little about what they do here, working with the guests. I ask him about the newspapers I see piled in separate stacks at the end of the counter, and he says that our guests come from all over the world, and they want to read news from their homes. I seeThe New York Times, The Boston Globe, Variety, The Pittsburgh Press, The Ottawa Citizen, and many more. I’ve seen a few of these papers in the rooms I’ve cleaned, often in the trash. I’ve been tempted to read a bit, but I’ve no time for that.
Just then, a gentleman in a black suit and tie approaches the counter and Harold is instantly at attention. Mrs. Evans takes me out of the lobby, where I am introduced to another chambermaid. The girl is also a brass polisher, which sounds interesting, but she must not have as many rooms as I, for I cannot imagine there being enough hours in the day to clean rooms as well as brass.
Mrs. Evans checks her watch, then I follow her into a little area with big, heavy doors.
“These are some of the guest elevators,” she tells me. “They’re like the one you ride in every day, but much fancier, of course.”
One of the doors opens, and I see a girl dressed similarly to Stan, but wearing a skirt in place of trousers.
“This is Catherine, one of our elevator girls,” Mrs. Evans says. “Hold the button, Catherine. This is Rosie, one of our chambermaids. I’m introducing her around.” She glances over her shoulder when we hear a woman’s raised voice in the lobby, then she turns back to us. “Excuse me, girls. Duty calls.”
Catherine has to leave almost immediately, so I say goodbye, then I wait for Mrs. Evans. She is standing before a very tall, very slender woman with a very tall, very slender feather bouncing from her hat. The woman is dressed from head to toe in pink, and she is tearing strips off Mrs. Evans. Hearing her, Mr. Grayson, the bell captain and Stan’s boss, strides toward them, chest puffed out. I don’t like his manner, but maybe that’s just because I now know that he steals the bellboys’ money. His back is to me, so I don’t hear his voice, but I hear the woman’s screeching reply.
“I cannot understand how you could employ a woman like this. Too high and mighty by far for her station,” she rants to Mr. Grayson, sneering down her nose at Mrs. Evans. “No respect at all. I am the guest. That means I am always right, and your place is to remember that and do everything I say.”
I have no idea what this is about, but Mrs. Evans isn’t budging, nor is her calm smile. I’ve seen her paste that on in a moment’s notice. I don’t like hearing the lies this nasty woman is spitting, right in the middle of the lobby for all to hear. Mrs. Evans is fierce good at her job, despite what this horrible woman is saying. She’s the reason we chambermaids do such fine work.
Mr. Grayson listens sympathetically the whole time, and when the guest has run out of complaints, he urges her away from Mrs. Evans by offering his arm. Sure, and she can’t resist glaring back at Mrs. Evans.
“I’d better not have to see you again next time I’m here.” She whirls toward Mr. Grayson, then she loudly proclaims, “You know, people likeheralways get what’s coming to them in the end.”
Fair play to Mrs. Evans for holding her tongue. I’d have let fly, then I’d surely regret it.
With not a hint of emotion on her face, Mrs. Evans walks to me and leads me out a different way. She says nothing.
“I’m sorry you have to put up with that, Mrs. Evans,” I say softly, once we are alone. “You don’t deserve it at all.”
