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I finished the room I was cleaning and pulled my trolley into the hall. I searched for Sunitha on the other side of the floor.
“Knock-knock,” I said, though the suite she was cleaning was wide open. She stopped what she was doing and looked at me. “I need to run an errand. If Cheryl comes up here, would you tell her…that I’ll be back shortly?”
“Yes, Molly. It’s well past lunchtime and you never stop. You’re allowed to take a break, you know.” She began to hum as she continued cleaning.
“Thank you,” I said, dashing out of the room and down the hall to the elevator. I rushed out the revolving front doors.
“Molly? Everything all right?” Mr. Preston asked as I sailed by him.
“Splendid!” I called back. I took to the sidewalk, jogging. I raced around the corner to a little boutique I passed every day on my way towork. I’d always admired the lovely lemon-yellow sign and the mannequin in the window, smartly dressed in a chic new outfit every day. This was not a place I’d normally shop. It was meant for the guests of the hotel, not for their maid.
I grabbed the door handle and stepped inside. A shopkeeper approached me instantly.
“You look like you need some help,” she said.
“Yes,” I replied, a bit breathlessly. “I need an outfit posthaste. I have a date tonight with a subject of potential romantic intrigue.”
“Whoa,” she said. “You’re in luck. Romantic intrigue is my specialty.”
About twenty-two minutes later, I was leaving the store with a large lemon-yellow bag containing a polka-dot top, something called “skinny jeans,” and a pair of “kitten heels” that did not have kittens on them so far as I could tell. I nearly fainted when the shopkeeper announced the total, but it seemed a breach of decorum to back out of payment when the items were already bagged. I paid using my debit card, then rushed back to the hotel. I tried not to think about the rent money I’d just spent and how I’d replace it.
I was back at work at 12:54, just in time to start work again. Mr. Preston did a double-take when he saw my shopping bag, but he refrained from comment. I hurried down the marble stairs to the housekeeping quarters, where I stowed my new purchases in my locker. Back to work I went, Cheryl never the wiser.
That night, at exactly sixp.m., I showed up in the hotel lobby dressed in my new outfit. I’d even managed to style my hair a bit with a curling iron from the lost and found, making it sleek and smooth the way I’d seen Giselle do with her flat iron. I watched as Rodney entered the lobby and looked for me, his eyes brushing right past me and then back, because he failed to recognize me at first glance.
He approached. “Molly?” he said. “You look…different.”
“Different good or bad?” I asked. “I put my trust in a local shopkeeper, and I hope she didn’t lead me astray. Fashion is not my forte.”
“You look…great.” Rodney’s eyes darted about the room. “Let’s get out of here, okay? We can go to the Olive Garden down the street.”
I could not believe it! It was fate. A sign. The Olive Garden is my very favorite restaurant. It was Gran’s favorite too. Every year, on her birthday and on mine, we’d ready ourselves for a big night out together, complete with endless garlic bread and free salad. The last time we went to the Olive Garden together, Gran turned seventy-five. We ordered two glasses of Chardonnay to celebrate.
“To you, Gran, on three-quarters of a century, one quarter left to go, at a minimum!”
“Hear, hear!” said Gran.
The fact that Rodney had chosen my favorite dining establishment? We were star-crossed, meant to be.
Mr. Preston eyed us as we exited the hotel. “Molly, are you all right?” he asked as he offered his arm, steadying me as I wobbled uncertainly down the staircase in my new feline heels. Rodney had raced down the stairs ahead of me and was waiting on the sidewalk, checking his phone.
“Not to worry, Mr. Preston,” I said. “I’m very well indeed.”
Once we were at the bottom step, Mr. Preston assumed a low tone. “You’re not going out with him, are you?” he asked.
“As a matter of fact,” I whispered, “I am. So if you’ll excuse me…” I gave his arm a little squeeze and then teetered up to Rodney on the sidewalk.
“I’m ready. Let’s go,” I said. Rodney began walking without glancing up from the important, last-minute business he was taking care of on his phone. Once we were away from the hotel, he put his phone away and slowed his pace.
“Sorry about that,” he said. “A bartender’s work is never done.”
“That’s quite all right,” I replied. “Yours is a very important job. You’re an integral bee in the hive.”
I hoped he was impressed by my reference to Mr. Snow’s employee-training seminar, but if he was, he did not show it.
All the way to the restaurant, I babbled on about any and all topics of interest I could think of—the advantages of real feather dusters versus synthetic ones, the waitresses he worked with who rarely remembered my name and, of course, my love for the Olive Garden.
After what seemed like a long time but was probably only sixteen and a half minutes, we arrived at the entrance of the Olive Garden. “After you,” Rodney said, politely opening the door for me.
