The Strange Occurrences At The Grand Hotel

“Puleese,” Ashley’s almost snobbish tone of voice called on the treadmill, “Ellie, Mr. Arms over there is only here to make the girls happy.”

“Come on, you have to admit that he sure is handsome.”

“I like guys that don’t have ballerina legs thank you very much.”

Ellie laughed. It was six in the morning and the two girls were running on the treadmills at the local gym. The nice gym membership was given to the both of them by Ellie’s older brother. Ellie still couldn’t believe that her brother, just one big programming nerd, was able to make millions on his latest software design. Though even in his riches, he continuously forgets about Ellie. Both in money and in family.

She can’t blame him. He’s been focusing on getting his company off the ground officially and it’s taking a lot of his time up. He’s in Chicago now, and Ellie still lived in the same apartment building that she grew up in. Thankfully Ashley takes up half the rent otherwise the both of them would be on the street.

The treadmills start to slow as their preset time came to an end. Ashley’s blonde hair was pulled back into a tight long pony tail and wore pink work out clothes. She didn’t have the need to work out every other morning with Ellie, since she has always been a stick ever since elementary school. Ellie wore a black tank top with yoga pants and her shoulder length hair was pulled back in a small pony tail.

“By the way,” Ashley said wiping her face with a sweat towel, “when are you going to dye your hair? Your roots are looking horrible!”

“I told you, I’m trying to grow out my hair.”

“Then dye your hair back to brown! The pink and brown together just makes you look lazy.”

They wiped down the treadmills and took a quick water break. Ellie really didn’t care if she looked lazy, especially with her hair. She almost shaved her head once in middle school, but Ashley stopped her. Ellie has always been the artsy person you see walking the streets of New York. It was her dream ever since she was a kid to go to the fashion district and create the next big thing that Ashley would whip out her credit card and go buy. Then she could laugh at her saying that her lazy punky artsy friend made that.

However, the community college outside of Manhattan was all that her parents could afford. She was almost hoping that her brother would finally help her with the college expenses, but he’s been gone for a year now with no “How Are You” or “Happy Birthday” cards or emails.

“Oh, look at the time!” Ashley said as they walked out of the gym, “you need to get to work missy!”

“Yes mother,” Ellie smiled walking toward her bike.

Ellie threw her gym bag over her shoulder and they waved good bye. Ellie then was soon zooming off on her bike into the busy morning roads. She found it easier to ride in the road through the traffic rather than the crowd of people that took over the side walk. The cars she cut off honked at her and other people swore at her, but she ignored them. This was her time. She took a sharp left and picked up the speed.

“Hey, Sam,” Ellie waved as she passed by a guy in one of the horse and buggies.

“Eloise,” he said tipping his nice hat to her.

She got onto the side walk briefly to get around a truck and almost ran over some guy in a suit. Ellie worked at a five star hotel simply called “The Grand”. It had a longer name that made it sound even fancier, but she always forgot what it was. The gothic style building gave The Grand an old charm to it which modeling companies and CEOs loved. There are always conventions and meetings being held somewhere inside the hotel and every once and a while Ellie would spot someone famous. Though, she could never approach them.
The only way she could ever get so close to someone famous was by their rooms.

Ellie was a maid at the hotel. She worked with many other college students and possible illegal immigrants. Ellie suddenly pressed her hands on the breaks and her tires screeched. A limo was leaving the hotel and was in a hurry. The car honked and Ellie looked through the tinted windows realizing who the person in the back was. She resisted her urge to flip the passenger in the back off and quickly biked around the limo.

She felt his eyes move with her as she biked to the back entrance of the hotel. She hopped off her bike and placed it in the back stair way. She took off her gym bag from her back and carried it through the kitchen. She grabbed a banana from a bowl of fruit that one of the waiters were taking out of the kitchen. She followed him out, not waiting to be yelled at by the chef for being in the kitchen, and made her way to the employee room.

The room had peeling paint and lockers that all looked alike. However, the other maids made it their goal to make the room look nice. There were Latino posters on the wall and post cards from around the world. Some girl even drew a picture right on the wall that was supposed to be our supervisor, but in a comical Simpsons way.

Ellie was about thirty minutes early for the eight o’clock shift and she saw a note from the supervisor about their weekly meeting posted on the bulletin board. She moaned and walked over to her locker.

She stank and was still wearing her gym clothes. It didn’t matter, whatever room she would go clean first, she would make sure to take a shower and change. The perks of being in a huge hotel. Also her partner, didn’t mind either. The maids always had to be paired up with two people, otherwise it would take forever. She threw on a dirty uniform top over her black gym shirt and walked out with a few other maids for the meeting.

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The supervisor, a bald man named Steven, stood in the center of all the workers and help of the hotel and reminded them of things that they needed to do. Ellie leaned against a table in the back and watched as he glared at one of the workers who forgot to put up a “wet floor sign”. She rolled her eyes and started to look around for Viviana, her partner. The woman had three kids and was a full time mom before a maid, but she would never ever be late for the first of the week. Steven usually had his meetings then.

He then mentioned about some new partner changes. Ellie was on that list. Her eyes got large and she tried to look around to who she was being paired up with. Some guy named Oliver Jones? Who on earth is he? There were only two guy maids in their shift, and one barely spoke English while the other was gay. She then saw a guy wearing the maintenance uniform. He had brown curly hair with dark rimmed glasses. Their eyes met for a moment before she took her gaze back at Stevenson.

Viviana and Ellie had a method, the two of them. How could Steven change that with someone who’s probably never cleaned a room before? Stevenson then let everyone go and the guy cautiously walked up to her. They greeted each other, her rather coldly, and soon she was taking him to get the cart.

“Viviana I’m going to seriously kill you,” Ellie said in her wireless cell phone piece knocking on one of the doors, “house keeping.”

“I’m sorry to leave you hanging Ellie,” Viviana said on the other line, “the baby got sick and Steven wouldn’t take any “excuses”. Can you believe him?”

Someone called from the other side of the door to go away and Ellie did.

“I just was hoping that you would quit, I don’t know… on a day that Stevenson didn’t have to announce it to the entire backstage facility.”

“You shouldn’t be on your phone…” Oliver said pushing the cart close behind Ellie.

Ellie ignored him and went onto the next room.

“No I didn’t quit, he fired me. Unemployment benefits for this single mom.”

“Yeah yeah yeah, house keeping.”

No one answered on the other side and I hung up the phone. I took out my all access key card and walked inside.

“What are you doing?!” Oliver said as he was about to fix the sheets on the bed.

Ellie was unbuttoning her uniform top and grabbed her bag that was hiding in the maid cart.

“Taking a shower?”

“But-”

“Look. Oliver, right?” he nodded, “I have a method, so get used to it.”

She grabbed everything she needed to take a shower and closed the bathroom door. She could hear Oliver sigh on the other side. After a quick shower, she emerged from the bathroom with make up, black cargo capris, uniform top, and black flats. She would have worn her mom’s old military boots, but she couldn’t find them this morning. Oliver probably though that she was another person.

They continued on and cleaned rooms.

“What is with the rubber gloves?” Oliver asked as they reached one room.

“This is room 118? Known as one of the love suits on this floor.”

“Oh…”

“Get a trash can.”

The guy caught on quickly on how to clean the rooms. Just as they were about to go into the room a maid ran up to her and asked if they could change floors. She had a family emergency and this floor had the smaller rooms. She was the girl that Steven was picking on this morning and Ellie knew that she would be in trouble if Steven knew that she left early. I gave her the rubber gloves and asked which floor she had.

“Thank you so much! I had the presidential suits.”

Ellie had to force a crooked smile. Those suites were required by the hotel to not just to be perfect, but no grain of dust shouldn’t be found anywhere…