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Perhaps I should’ve been friendlier to Aleks after last night, but I was just not feeling it. Yes, I was physically attracted to him, but the emotional connection had dissipated a long time ago if there ever was an emotional connection to begin with. I decided I didn’t want to think about that right now. Something else was weighing on my mind—Christmas time at the lodge.
Today, the lodge staff, maids included, were having an ugly Christmas sweater day. Well, everyone except me. I didn’t own a Christmas sweater of any sort, pretty or ugly, and I definitely didn’t have the money to buy one, so I wore the only thing I could, my uniform. A part of me wished I could’ve participated in the festivities, but then again, I was sort of glad to have an excuse to just keep my head down and get my work done like it was the same as any other old day.
The problem was, I both loved and hated Christmas. I loved the true meaning and of course, I loved seeing all the decorations and lights, but I hated the fact that I never had any extra money to buy Luca presents. In fact, he was not even aware that children received presents at Christmas. At least, he hadn’t known up to this point. He was bound to find out sooner rather than later, however, now that he was four years old and going to school. It was only a matter of time before his classmates would start talking about presents and Santa and I wasn't sure how I was going to handle it.
How could I explain to an innocent child, who had never done anything wrong, that Santa doesn’t visit him or bring him presents? He was too young to understand that food, clothes, shelter, and electricity take precedence, but he was old enough to think it was his fault he didn’t receive gifts when his friends did. To say it broke my heart was an understatement. Broke was too nice and clean of a word. A better description would be to say it shattered it into a cloud of fine dust that permeated my entire being.
As I walked to the bus stop, I prepared myself for the onslaught of questions I was sure to receive about my lack of participation in today’s celebration. I didn’t want my coworkers to think I was rude or disrespectful, but I also didn’t want them to know the real reason I was not participating. They wouldn’t understand that even a five-dollar sweater from Goodwill was a luxury in my world. How could they? All the other maids and hotel staff made roughly the same hourly rate as me, but they didn’t have someone like Aleks back home, draining their bank accounts every single month. Just thinking about him, and his philandering ways, put me in a bad mood, so I had to make a conscious effort to cheer myself up as I got off the bus and headed into work.
I’m not going to be the only person not wearing an ugly sweater,I thought to myself.Surely someone else will have decided to opt out… right?
Wrong.
When I walked into the employee lounge, I noticed that I was the only one not wearing a sweater. I stood out like Rudolph and his shiny red nose. The humiliation was overwhelming but there was nothing I could do about it.
I wished I could go back to sleep and wake up a month from now when Christmas was over. It was hard enough to fit in in a foreign country and not being able to participate in the customs and traditions made it worse.
“Okay, Head up high Katya. You can do this,”I muttered to myself.
My co-worker, Sherry, saw me and came right over. She was wearing a hideous red and green sweater with rhinestones and fake fur that outlined a Christmas elf. It was made even worse by the fact that the elf’s eyes lit up. It was seriously creepy.
“Good morning, Kat,” she said, her words spilling over each other as they often did. “Where is your ugly Christmas sweater? Did you forget? I am sure Harry would let you run home and get it if that’s the case.” Sherry always talked like an auctioneer and today was no different. Maybe that’s why she cleaned so fast, perhaps she was just a generally speedy person.
“No, that won’t be necessary, Sherry. I – I don’t celebrate Christmas, that’s why I’m not wearing one,” I blurted out as I stuffed my coat and purse into my employee locker. I hadn’t planned on responding that way, but I didn’t know what else to say and it wasn’t a complete lie.
I didn’t celebrate Christmas, and it wasn’t anyone’s business to know why I didn’t. I avoided making eye contact with Sherry after saying this, and thankfully she seemed to get the message and stopped asking me questions about the sweater and the holiday. I felt terribly left out, like a kid on the playground who wasn’t invited to play with the others, but I held my emoticons back and just focused on putting my things into my locker. Sherry sounded like she was about to say something else, but then apparently thought better of it, and just told me to have a good day and left me alone.
Once she was gone, I sat down on a nearby bench and tried to gather my thoughts. Nobody else said anything about my lack of sweater, but I still felt like they were all staring at me. They probably weren’t but that was the thing about insecurities, they often didn’t make a whole lot of sense and were rarely rooted in reality.
Since it was still early, most guests were not awake or did not want their rooms cleaned yet, so once I was feeling better, I started my shift in the lobby. Staying busy was good. Busy was what I needed. It kept me from thinking about how sad I was about everything. Harry already walked in on me crying yesterday, and I wasn’t going to let that happen again. I was stronger than that. I had to be.
I was, after all, the girl who left Russia alone as a pregnant teenager. I was the woman who started a new life for herself in a country where she didn’t know a single person. That life might not have turned out exactly how I wanted it to, but I was still on the right path, and I would get where I needed to be eventually. I knew I would.
This little internal monologue made me feel better, and I got to work with a little more pep in my step than I’d had before. I started vacuuming and looked up just in time to see Zane Grey, the single dad who apparently hated me, waltzing into the room. He looked like he’d had a rough night. His skin was pale and teetering on green and he was wearing sunglasses at 9:00 in the morning. That could only mean one thing. Hangover.
Good, it serves him right to feel lousy.
But my petty thoughts were quickly replaced with sympathy. I knew how bad hangovers could be and taking care of a baby in that condition was damn near impossible. I was close enough to hear him ask Dan, the front desk clerk, for some aspirin.
Oh yeah, he definitely had a hangover. I realized I had a choice at that moment. I could either enjoy watching him suffer, or I could be the bigger person and offer to help. He may have hurt me yesterday, but I didn’t know his story just like my coworkers didn’t know mine.
I felt like I was in one of those cartoons where the angel was on one shoulder and the devil was on the other. Luckily for him, the angel won out.
I walked to the desk and tapped him on the shoulder.
His look was confusing, and I could not tell if he was embarrassed to see me, surprised, or about to vomit.
“Excuse me, Mr. Grey,” I said softly.
“Oh, hello. Yes, Katya? How can I help you?” he said, his face turning a little red.
Trying to be helpful and direct, I told him, “I don’t mean to butt into your business, but I heard you ask Dan for some aspirin. No offense, but that’s not going to be strong enough to kick the kind of hangover it looks like you’re dealing with.”
“You don’t think?” He raised his eyebrows. “Then what do you suggest?”
“Hair of the dog, or however you say it in America. What you need are carbohydrates and a shot of vodka. That will have you good as new in no time,” I said with expert confidence.
“Is that right?” he said. He looked desperate to be rid of last night’s painful reminder and he turned to Dan. “Do you by any chance have any vodka I could have?”
