Chapter 6 Iris
Iris
New-job jitters, that’s all, Iris told herself as she smoothed her hand along the satin coverlet adorning the carved wooden bed.
Plump pillows enclosed in crisp white cases were piled high at the headboard.
Flocked wallpaper patterned the walls, while velvety cream carpet lay across the floor, muffling her footfalls.
The sun streamed through the long windows overlooking the pond.
By this time tomorrow, there would be a paying guest ensconced in the bed, ready to begin at least a week of rest and rejuvenation that time spent at the exclusive Maine Chance resort promised to provide.
She should think it had better, considering what those women from away were paying for the privilege of lakeside calisthenics sessions and meals prepared with so little food that she couldn’t really see the point in bothering to dirty up the bone-china plates.
Not that she would say such a thing out loud.
No, if a bunch of pampered, demanding women wanted to traipse into the middle of nowhere and pay through the nose to be slathered with beauty creams and half-starved for weeks on end, it was no concern of hers.
Her business was to see to it that the guests wanted for nothing—at least not as far as the facilities were concerned.
With a ratio of two staff members to every guest, it ought to be easy enough to meet any demand.
But somehow it never seemed to work out that way.
Satisfied that the room would meet even the highest of standards, she moved into the hallway and down the back stairs.
As she ran a dustcloth down the gleaming banister, she told herself she was ready for the day.
And why shouldn’t she be? She had worked as the head maid at the Maine Chance for enough summers to prepare her for the opportunity to move up once it presented itself.
Still, she couldn’t help but feel like a vulture, flapping and feasting on Alice Merrick’s corpse.
But when she’d heard about her friend and predecessor Alice’s fatal car accident, her first thought had not been about her loss of life. No, Lord forgive her, it had been to wonder whether or not the resort would be forced to close for the rest of the season.
It wasn’t that she had no feelings of sorrow for Alice.
She was heartily ashamed of herself for such selfish considerations, especially in light of their long friendship, but the fact remained that she, along with so many other year-round residents of Mount Vernon, relied on summer wages earned at the resort to make ends meet.
There were very few decent-paying jobs available during the off-season, and she had no idea what she would do if the resort shuttered its doors for even a week of the already too-short season.
She envied the employees of the second Maine Chance, located in Arizona.
Their employment season was nowhere near as fleeting.
It opened as soon as the brief Maine summer ended and offered guests the same level of service and luxury in a warm locale, from autumn through spring.
Miss Arden saved money and time by shuttling the spa technicians between the two facilities as the seasons changed.
Iris quelled a feeling of unproductive envy and turned her thoughts to the heavy workload at hand.
She reached the bottom of the staircase, then strode down a long hallway and through the wide arched doorway into a room covered in fawn-colored wallpaper printed with bold golden leaves.
Small tables covered with snowy linens, gleaming silver candlesticks, and sparkling crystal vases brimming with freshly cut flowers dotted the dining room.
She nodded with satisfaction at an enormous urn filled with sprays of delphiniums and roses filling the marble-tiled fireplace.
Even in the Belgrade Lakes region of Maine, there would be no need to light a fire in mid-June—at least, not if one had the good sense to pack a sweater in among all the sleeveless gowns and bathing suits.
She glanced up at the crystal chandelier, its brass arms dangling at the center of the spacious room, and inspected it for stray flecks of dust on the faceted pendants, or cobwebs clinging where they ought not above the diners’ heads.
Finding nothing untoward, she continued to the main drawing room, as Miss Arden called it.
The room’s generous windows provided sweeping views of Long Pond, and Iris paused for a moment, as she always did when alone in the space, even after a lifetime of living in a lake town, to soak in the serene beauty.
Long Pond was a lake, really, but for some reason, the many lakes in the area were all called ponds.
Perhaps it was the almost pathological desire not to make too much of oneself or one’s surroundings, which was part and parcel of Maine culture.
But whatever it was called, she had to admit a certain pride in the beauty of the building and of the property surrounding it.
She nodded with satisfaction at the tasteful arrangements of flowers filling vases on the occasional tables placed strategically around the room.
A glittering crystal clock on the mantel chimed seven o’clock and reminded her there was no time for dawdling.
She glanced about the entryway, where the tasteful and understated reception desk stood with its guest register, pigeonholes to sort guest mail, and a shallow tray of brass room keys.
Pulling a dust rag from the waistband of her starched apron once again, Iris ran it, more from habit than necessity, across the surface of the reception desk before opening the reservation ledger.
She ran her finger down the names printed neatly on the page.
Several congressmen’s wives, a famous opera singer, and a half dozen society ladies whose names made the rounds in the newspapers as chairwomen of charity committees and hostesses of debutante balls were par for the course.
But one name on the list did give her pause.
Iris’s finger hovered over it: Geraldine Putnam.
Guests came to stay at the Maine Chance from almost everywhere, with one exception: They did not come from Mount Vernon. Mrs. Putnam was a local fixture, and an important one at that. She owned an enormous elegant home on the lake. What possible reason could she have to book an indefinite stay?
And how was Iris to treat this unexpected guest?
She had often found herself in Mrs. Putnam’s presence at church functions, town meetings, and in the lobby of the post office.
It was one thing to bow and scrape for people she would never see outside of her work—and even then, only ever during the season.
It was quite another to think she would need to do so for someone she would see again and again throughout the year.
They regularly ran into each other at the grocer’s, for heaven’s sake.
It was difficult to imagine her interesting herself in what, to Iris’s mind, could be considered frivolous—albeit luxurious—pursuits like the ones offered at the Maine Chance.
Could a woman with as much restless energy as Mrs. Putnam be contented with endless sessions at the spa being slathered with new-fangled hormone cremes, or sitting for precious moments of each day having her hair styled and set like so many resort guests?
She had always admired the older woman, with her outspoken ways and independent spirit.
She was generous too. It was well known that her staff was more than happy with the pay they received, and it was rumored that an anonymously funded scholarship awarded to a high school senior heading off to college was thanks to her.
She even opened her lovely grounds for a veterans’ fundraiser every year.
That said, she could be terrifying. Mrs. Putnam was forthright to a fault and was quick to point out when she felt a thing ought to be done differently.
Iris knew for a fact she was a woman of high standards and did not mince words when those standards were not met.
More than once, she and her mother had been hired as extra help when Geraldine and her late husband had thrown a large party at their lakefront home.
She had always proved exacting on such occasions.
As she thought of her mother and her increasingly worrying lapses of memory, a cold lump filled Iris’s stomach.
What if she did not measure up to Mrs. Putnam’s expectations?
Would she complain directly to Miss Arden?
After all, Miss Arden’s and Mrs. Putnam’s names were often linked in the society columns of the local newspaper for attending the same charity functions and sophisticated parties.
What would she do if she lost her job before she had even gotten used to having it?