Running Cold: A Novel, page 5
“How are you doing, Julie?” I asked, even though I knew the answer. The hollows beneath her eyes were purple with exhaustion. She took off her hat and squeezed it to her chest.
“I need a job, Remy.”
The statement was so absurd I thought I’d misheard her.
“I’m sorry?”
“Just for a few months, until my house sells.”
“You want to work here?” The Banff Springs Hotel was a fine place to work, if you were unable to do what you loved full time. But Julie was an Olympian. Surely there were other jobs better suited to her.
“I can’t stay in California. And I need the money.” I understood one of those statements, but the other was unexpected.
“What about your clients?” Julie and I had not stayed in touch beyond the occasional thumbs-up on a Facebook post. But I knew she worked as a physical therapist, and I had no doubt she made decent money, better than she could make here.
She looked at me with desperate eyes. “I can’t face them. Not after . . .” Her voice cracked, and she pressed her lips together to hold back the tears. I wanted to tell her Jeff’s death was not her fault, that her clients knew that. But it occurred to me, the less I talked about Jeff, the better.
“Why don’t you get a job at one of the resorts?” I suggested. “You would enjoy teaching skiing more than working at a hotel, no?” I would have loved to have Julie under my wing, but the thought of her doing anything other than what she was born to do broke my heart.
“You need a certification to teach on the mountain. Plus I’m not a downhiller.” Technically both statements were true. She could get certified in a weekend, but only if a course was available—unlikely so close to the holidays. And while I was sure she could hold her own on any terrain, downhill technique was complex, and she had probably never learned it. When you are a natural at something, it can be hard to teach others who are not.
“What kind of job are you looking for?” There was no way I would let her shovel snow or pick up trash.
“Preferably one where I don’t need to see or talk to anybody.”
I was so entranced by the sight of her, I had momentarily forgotten I had a job opening, one I was desperate to fill. One that met her preferences perfectly. She wouldn’t need to talk to guests or even many coworkers. In fact, the more invisible she was, the better. No one wants to fraternize with the person who cleans their toilette.
“I had an employee quit this morning,” I started, then stopped myself. The notion of Olympic-gold-medalist Julie Weston Adler working as a maid was absurd. “But you don’t want her job.”
“I’ll do anything,” she said. “I’m not proud.”
Her pronouncement was a slap in the face. I would have sold my soul to achieve what she had achieved. Yes, I had a staffing problem. And a potential solution was sitting right across from me. But I could not bring myself to offer her the job.
As I was racking my brain to figure out how else I might help her, the bookcase door to the lounge opened. It was Johnny, the bartender, with our tea and bread. He set down the cups, but as he went to pour the tea, Julie stopped him with her hand.
“Thank you, I’ll do it.”
Johnny looked at me, and I nodded. “C’est bon.”
She slid my teacup in front of me. Amber liquid cascaded into the cup as she poured. I could have put her in the bar, as we could always use an extra cocktail waitress. But I didn’t want her interfacing with our distinguished guests. That was how I lost her the first time.
“So?” she asked, setting the pot down without pouring herself a cup.
“It’s in housekeeping,” I said. “You would be a room attendant.”
“You mean like a chambermaid?”
“We call them room attendants here,” I said, because if she was going to do it, I wanted her to do it with dignity.
“That sounds perfect. I’ll take it.” I tried to tell myself this was a win-win. She was solving my problem, and I was solving hers.
“You don’t have to live in staff housing, but it’s easier—”
“No, I want to live on-site,” she said before I could finish my thought. We had a few rooms in the executive-staff wing of the main building. They were cramped and dark, but she’d have one to herself. Unlike in the dorms, where she would have to share.
“I have a room for you,” I said. “But it is very small—you are not going to like it.”
“I’m sure it’s perfect.” She reached across the table and grabbed my hand. “I can’t tell you how much I appreciate this, Remy.” Her fingers were cold, but her grip was strong. I loved her duality of femininity and strength. She was a superstar. She could have gotten a job anywhere. Everyone needed seasonal help. But she came here, to my hotel. I couldn’t stop myself from jumping to the obvious conclusion, because the only thing different about working at the Banff Springs Hotel was me.
“Happy to have you here.” The sides of her mouth ticked up like she was happy too. And I let myself believe that we were finally walking into our destiny.
“When can I start?” Her eagerness swallowed up my apprehension.
“We can get you moved in right now.”
CHAPTER 9
Julie
“Housekeeping!” Lily called out as she knocked on a hotel-room door. My maid mentor and I were dressed in matching slate gray uniforms that looked like scrubs. She wore hers a size too small, to show off a figure that rivaled those of my Hollywood-bombshell neighbors. Her red hair was swept up in a messy bun, and her upturned eyelashes seemed to go on forever.
“You’re supposed to count to three before you enter,” Lily said as she waved her card in front of the magnetic keypad. “But I have a life outside this job.” She winked at me, like that life was pretty great.
“You ready?” she asked as the lock clicked open and the pea-size light turned from red to green.
She pushed open the door without waiting for my answer. The room was a junior suite with a king-size bed and a small sitting area. Lily walked around the foot of the bed and opened the blinds.
“You gotta see what you’re doing,” Lily said as the room flooded with sunlight. “Even though you might not want to.” She laugh-snorted at her own joke, then walked back over to the bed.
“Always strip the bed first,” she instructed. “That will tell you what kind of people you’re dealing with.”
“How do you mean?”
“Hotel rooms are made for sex,” she explained. “It’s not a question of if they’re doing it, it’s how freaky they’re doing it.” She wrinkled her nose, then lowered her voice. “There’s evidence of the no-pants dance just about everywhere.”
She pointed to an opaque streak on the headboard, and I made a mental note to never sleep in a hotel bed again.
“It goes without saying, whatever you do, don’t take off your gloves.”
We were both wearing royal blue latex gloves. There was a box of them in the cart parked outside the door. “Part of the uniform,” Lily had said. And they just became the most important part.
“We cover the duvet with a sheet,” she said as she pulled back the top sheet. “Don’t be surprised if you find a little present underneath it. You can radio one of the floaters for a clean duvet if you have to. Stuff sometimes finds its way inside the pillowcases, too, so remove them slowly.”
We worked together to strip the bed. I tossed the dirty linens into the cart, then got a lesson in how to make perfect hospital corners.
“We don’t have fitted sheets. They’re all the same, just different sizes.” I watched Lily do the first corner. Then she did two as I did one.
“Don’t worry, you’ll get faster at it.”
We put on fresh pillowcases, then karate chopped the pillows down the middle to make them puff out like butterfly wings.
“That’s it for the bed.”
We sprayed the mirrors with window cleaner and the shower with mold killer, and wiped down the wood surfaces with a pink solvent that smelled like grapefruit.
“If they leave clothes on the floor, put them on the chair,” she said, picking a pair of pants up off the floor. “But make sure it’s clean first. People love to do it on the chair.”
I made a second mental note: no sitting on the chairs either.
“Speaking of, y’know.” She didn’t want to say the word, so I said it for her.
“Sex?”
“You’re pretty, so occasionally you may encounter a guest who wants you to do things. We’re not supposed to, but that’s up to you.”
“Wait, what?” The other stuff was disturbing, but this was obscene.
“Oh, honey,” she soothed. We were close in age, but apparently she felt I needed mothering. “Hotels attract all sorts of weirdos. I once had a guy ask me to tie him up and whip him with a wet towel.”
“You didn’t do it . . . did you?”
“He gave me a thousand bucks,” she said with a shrug, and I suddenly wondered if I should have asked Remy for a waitressing job. “Most people are cool. They leave you alone, you leave them alone.”
I stayed in Lily’s shadow for the rest of my shift. After that first clean, we mostly worked in silence. She shouted a correction here and there—“Don’t forget to clean the soap well!” “Change the toilet paper roll!” “Radio room service to restock the minifridge!”—but otherwise she stayed in her head and I stayed in mine.
The best thing about the job was also the worst thing. It was hard. To turn the rooms over in the narrow window between checkout and check-in, we had to be like sharks, always moving. It was physical work. I was strong, but polishing fixtures until they shone took a different kind of strength. But between scrubbing grout and counting glassware, towels, bottles in the minibar, I didn’t have time to think about Jeff. Best thing, worst thing. It all balanced out.
Most of the rooms we cleaned were unoccupied. A few guests sent us away. One older man let us clean while he read a book in the germ-infested chair. My shift was almost over—I had started an hour before Lily to fill out paperwork and get a lecture from the head of housekeeping—so I mentioned to Lily that I should probably go clock out.
“You know we only have one clean left,” she said.
I didn’t want to go into overtime on my first day. “Can you do it without me?”
“I mean, I could, but . . .” A slow smile spread across her face.
“But what?”
She tilted her head toward the door at the end of the hall: the penthouse suite.
“You’re going to want to see this.”
CHAPTER 10
Julie
“Come in!” a woman’s voice boomed as Lily knocked on the door to announce our arrival.
“Brace yourself.” Lily waved her key over the keypad—click!—and opened the door to the penthouse suite. I stepped over the threshold. It was more like an apartment than a suite, with a proper living room, dining room, kitchenette, powder room, and two bedrooms with en suite baths. You could live there all year round. Which apparently the current resident was planning to do.
“Hello, Mrs. Rousseau,” Lily said to the spindly blonde sitting at the writing desk. The woman was dressed in a cashmere hoodie with matching flared leggings and fur-lined slippers. She looked to be in her early fifties, but it was hard to know for sure, as anyone who could afford this room surely had surgical help to keep from looking her age.
“Hello, Lily,” Mrs. Rousseau said without looking up. She was typing on a laptop. I glanced down at her hands. Thick veins snaked toward fingers adorned with diamonds. Not fifties—sixties, more likely. The only other thing on the desk was a lowball cocktail in a beveled crystal glass. I figured it must have been whiskey because you don’t drink iced tea out of a glass like that.
“OK to clean now?” Lily asked.
“I wouldn’t have told you to come in if it wasn’t.”
Lily looked at me and ticked her head toward one of the bedrooms. I was just about to head in with my armful of clean sheets when Mrs. Rousseau spoke again.
“Who’s your tagalong?”
“This is Julie. Today’s her first day.”
I turned around, expecting to see Mrs. Rousseau looking at me. But she was still staring at her screen.
“You know I don’t like new people.”
“Well, you’re going to have to get used to her, because I’m retiring.”
Mrs. Rousseau stopped typing and looked at Lily.
“Retiring? To do what?”
“I’m getting married.”
“For money, I hope.”
“No. For love.”
“There’s no such thing.”
“Well, hopefully he’ll make a lot of money then,” Lily replied with a smile.
“If he doesn’t, get out fast while you still have your looks,” Mrs. Rousseau said sternly, to make sure Lily knew she wasn’t joking.
Lily turned her back to Mrs. Rousseau and rolled her eyes. I forced a smile, even though talk of marriage and husbands made my heart drop into my shoes. I absolutely married for love. Yes, I’d met Jeff when he was a guest here. And I knew this to be a nice hotel and that most of the guests had money. But I didn’t make assumptions. I was there, and I was broke. Turns out I’d been right to assume Jeff wasn’t rich, either—at least not yet. As he explained the night we met, it was his angel investor, an Alberta oilman, who was footing the bill for his trips to Banff. “Megabucks Mackenzie,” he jokingly called him. He explained how Megabucks flew him up from Southern California to drink expensive brandy and play golf with potential investors. Jeff would impress them with his killer golf swing, and Megabucks would take their money.
Jeff’s company took off thanks to all those trips, and our love soared along with it. I assumed Jeff knew I meant it when I vowed to love him for richer or for poorer, but maybe I should have told him? Because now I couldn’t help but wonder if he’d killed himself because he was afraid of disappointing me. The only other reason I could think of was that he’d been desperately, hopelessly disappointed in himself.
I followed Lily into Mrs. Rousseau’s bedroom. Lily did three hospital corners in the time it took me to do one, but when she inspected my work, she smiled her approval.
“Nice job.”
I’m embarrassed to admit how good that compliment made me feel. People assume Olympians are confident, and I suppose we are when we’re winning. But there can only be one winner. Which makes for a lot of losers. And when medals and accolades are the only things that make you feel worthy, falling off the podium is like falling off a cliff.
“I’ll do her bathroom,” Lily said, whipping out a toilet brush. “Go do the second bedroom. No one’s sleeping there—you just need to dust.”
I had to cross the living room to get to the other bedroom, but Mrs. Rousseau ignored me like someone who is accustomed to hired help buzzing around. I expected the second bedroom to be empty, so had to choke back a gasp when I opened the door.
Lily was right, the room hadn’t been slept in. That would have been impossible, as both beds were covered with clothes. And I mean covered. The bed closer to the door was for purses. Chanel, Gucci, Prada, Balenciaga, Louis Vuitton, Hermès—you didn’t have to be a sophisticate to recognize the luxury brands. The other bed was a sea of denim, silk, and cashmere: jeans, leggings, turtlenecks, and crewnecks. Just beyond the beds, and also between them, blouses, blazers, puffers, and furs hung on expandable wardrobe racks, all extended to maximum length. Boots and shoes were piled high on every surface, including the windowsills. It looked like a high-end garage sale, minus the garage.
As I gaped at Mrs. Rousseau’s outlandish riches, the pain of losing the life I had with Jeff rose up from the pit of my belly. It wasn’t the clothes I coveted, it was what they represented—a life of ease, a man to take care of you, even if you could take care of yourself. I’d let myself be seduced by a man with a promising future, forgetting that I once had one too. Had. It was gone now. And took my self-worth along with it.
I knew it would take time to accept my new lot in life. That’s why I came here, to start fresh. But memories of my former glory were not only still lurking, they were also about to get me in a whole lot of trouble.
CHAPTER 11
Julie
“What’s the deal with Mrs. Rousseau?” I asked Lily over a plate of lemony shrimp scampi.
“Oh, you mean Lady Ceci?”
“Lady Ceci?”
“That’s what we call her. She’s a trip, huh?” We were in the staff canteen. All employees got one free meal a day in the spartan cafeteria-style eatery, and this was the first proper one I’d had since I left California.
“How long has she been staying at the hotel?” I asked, dipping my bread into the buttery sauce. For cafeteria food it was delicious, and I wasn’t going to waste a drop of it.
“Oh, months. Five or six at least.”
“Six months?!”
“She’s going through a divorce. Her husband is loaded. Or was loaded before she started living here, ha ha. I think she’s trying to stick it to him.”
“Her suite looks like a department store,” I said, trying to imagine how many elevator trips it had taken to get all that stuff up there.
“Yeah, well, don’t go shopping in it,” Lily warned, and I would later wonder if she was the one who’d put the idea in my head.
She talked about her upcoming wedding, and she let it slip that contrary to what she’d told Lady Ceci, she was marrying for love and money. I still wore my rings, but she didn’t ask about my husband. I figured she intuited that something had happened to him. But her next question revealed she’d intuited more than that.
“So what’s the deal with you and Remy?”
I felt myself blush. “What do you mean?”
“You kind of skipped the whole interview process. I figured you must be tight.” She raised a knowing eyebrow.
“He’s an old friend,” I said, even though my red cheeks surely gave away that we were once more than that.
