Chapter 13 Human Resources
Lily
The first few hours of my shift fly by. After having a week off, I’m sharper and even more enthusiastic than usual, jumping between projects and supporting the hotel staff with renewed energy. I love getting into the flow at work, and there’s no shortage of things to catch up on.
“Come in!” calls a piercing voice. I enter the Human Resources office with a pile of completed forms in my hand.
Mel sits cross-legged behind her desk, working intensely at a Rubik’s cube she holds in her long fingers.
Her eyes seem to be flashing different colours depending on the side of the cube she’s working on.
Her tangled green hair falls in waves around her, and she wears a bright yellow blazer with what looks like a small twig sticking out of the pocket.
She looks like how you would dress if you had just a passing idea of what businesspeople were supposed to look like, but you’d never actually seen one in person.
I’ve always suspected she was some sort of magical person, but I have no idea what she could be.
I know there are vampires, and witches, and people who can turn into animals (animals!), but I’m not too familiar with other magical groups.
Are fairies a thing? That seems plausible, given the colour palette and her general inability to focus on anything for more than a second.
Except this Rubik’s cube, apparently.
She sighs heavily, and slams the uncompleted cube down on her desk with a shake of her head.
“Ridiculous,” she says. Her golden eyes survey me, as though she’s just noticed I’m here. “Oh, Lily. What are you doing here?”
“I have some questions about the paperwork that Lexi collected from the new internship students,” I say.
Mel stares at me, without blinking.
“Um, I think we’re going to have to redo some of them,” I continue, shuffling through the hastily-completed forms. “One of them listed ‘the Devil’ as her emergency contact…?”
“Oh, that’s Lilith,” Mel replies. “The Devil is her dad.”
I stare back at her, sure I’ve misheard. “What?”
Mel waves her hand impatiently. “It’s fine. Just put ‘Lucifer Morningstar’ and hope that you never have to call Him.”
“That’s the other thing,” I say, gesturing to a line on the form. “We need to have a way to get in touch with students’ emergency contacts, in case something happens. But there’s no phone number, or even an email address. It just says, ‘Speak His name thrice and He shalt appear before ye.’”
“Well, that is how you contact him,” Mel says with a sigh. “Is there anything else?”
She looks at me as though I’ve interrupted her doing something very important, rather than solving a Rubik’s cube in the middle of the work day.
“No, I suppose not,” I say, standing to go back to my office.
But then something occurs to me, and I turn back toward her. “Actually…there was something I was thinking of asking you about…”
She stare at me blankly. “What is it, Lily?”
“Well…” I sit down again, not sure how to phrase what I want to ask her. “I just have a hypothetical question. Not, like, that anything’s happened or anything, I was just talking to a friend of mine, and she was asking…”
Mel doesn’t say anything.
“Uh…I was just wondering if the hotel…has a policy about workplace relationships?”
Her head cocks to one side. “Relationships?”
I feel my face reddening. “Yes, like, romantic relationships. If, say…someone were to decide to get in a relationship with someone else at the hotel. You know, like Celine and Amara.”
Mel frowns. “Celine and Amara are in a relationship?”
“Um…” I fiddle with my collar anxiously. I’m in way too deep here. “I mean like, if they were to get into a relationship. Or if anyone were to get into a relationship…”
“Well, it would be different, for Celine and Amara,” Mel replies.
“Amara isn’t officially on payroll anymore.
She just works when she feels like it. And Celine is technically an employee of one of Tudor’s holding companies, not the Respite hotel corporation, so even if she was, they’re employed under two different businesses. ”
“Ok, but, say two people who are both employed at the hotel were to…decide to start seeing each other. What would happen?”
“Well,” Mel leans back a little in her chair, stretching out her long legs and arms for a painfully long minute as she considers my question. “It’s never happened before. I guess we would have to fire one of them, probably.”
“Fire them?” I reply. “Are you sure?”
“Well, it’s certainly an unethical situation.
” Mel shrugs. “You can’t have two employees working together who are in a relationship.
Maybe two people in different departments, or who don’t report to each other.
But if it was two people in the same department, yes, I think the only solution would be to let one of them go.
Probably the one with the least seniority. ”
My voice comes out a little squeaky. “Oh. Ok.”
Mel’s lime green eyebrows drop down low over her eyes. “Lily, do you know someone who’s having a workplace relationship? If you do, you have to report it.”
“Oh, no I don’t!” I tell her quickly, standing back up again. “Like I said, it was just something a friend of mine asked. Just curious.”
I give a small cough and I hurry out of the office without another word.
As I return to my desk, I’m surprised by how disappointed I feel. I didn’t think the answer would be to get fired, I thought maybe there was a policy where like…I don’t know, there could be some boundaries put in place or something? I guess I hadn’t thought it through.
I definitely can’t lose my job. Every year, it’s more and more expensive to take care of Eli, and my mother’s health has been declining. Living in the city isn’t cheap, and my salary at the hotel is good, especially given my experience and background. I’m not going to find something better.
And I love working here. I don’t want to lose my job!
It’s a silly thing to worry about anyway.
There’s no way that Renata is interested in me romantically.
What could I possibly have to offer her?
She could easily get anyone she wants. She’ll probably find some super-powerful, gorgeous witch lover like Amara who’s a thousand years old and can give you orgasms just by twitching her nose.
Then she’ll forget all about my favourite flowers and how she gave me her blood on the holding floor.
She was just being nice, that’s it. She never felt the same way about me. There’s no point in torturing myself pining after her.
From now on, I’m going to keep it strictly professional. No fantasies, just work!
And then I’m sure these feelings will go away.
They have to, right?
I put my head down and get through the remaining hours of my shift. I try not to look at the time too often, but it’s impossible as the clock ticks down to sunset.
When I hear the crisp click of her heels on the office floor, I try to keep my heart rate down, although I’m not too sure how successful I am.
“Good evening, Lily,” says that incredible, smooth voice.
“Good evening, Ms. Espina,” I reply. I give her a sweet smile, keeping my tone chipper but professional. I’m nailing this already. “I trust you had a restful slumber?”
“I did, thank you,” she replies. “How are you? Have you healed completely?”
“I’m wonderful, I appreciate you asking.”
“And did you like the flowers?” she asks, a little grin on her face. “The peonies?”
“Oh, yes,” I respond, fighting hard against the heat rising in my cheek. “They’re my favourite.”
“I remember,” she says. My stomach does a backflip. It was her!
“That’s so thoughtful of you, Ms. Espina,” I say, swallowing thickly.
“And I have something else to show you,” she says. “If you have a moment.”
“Of course,” I say, standing up from my desk. I wonder what it could be. Maybe a new project, or something for the witch conference. I’m extremely behind on the planning since my week off.
I follow her down the hallway and onto the elevator.
She presses the button for the fourth floor of the hotel, where the residential suites are.
I recall there’s a prestigious businesswoman who recently checked out.
Perhaps her suite needs to be refurnished after her departure.
Regular guests are always requesting very specific things, and it’s not unusual to make room alterations for them, especially the more expensive ones, like our residential suites.
“I just…I wanted to say sorry about my mother the other night,” I tell her, as the doors chime shut. “She’s a little…blunt.”
“Nothing to apologize for,” she says. “I did want to ask, however, whether she is living with you.”
“Oh, no,” I reply. “She lives in a senior’s residence. We moved her there after my dad died. She had a little trouble keeping the whole house, and my apartment is just too small for the three of us.”
“Good,” Renata replies, simply.
The doors chime again, and we get off the elevator.
The hotel floor hallways are gorgeous, especially the floor of the residential suites.
It’s a bit wider than the hallway of the other suites, since there are larger pieces of furniture to move in and out.
As I suspected, we walk toward the newly vacated, three-bedroom, two-bathroom suite at the very end of the floor. It’s one of my favourites.
Renata takes a keycard from her pocket and opens it. It’s a bit strange that she doesn’t use her master key. We both have one, which unlocks all of the hotel rooms. That card looks like it’s a regular room key, like a guest would have.
We step in, and I take a moment to absorb the beautiful entryway of the suite.
This one takes up two floors, so the entryway also has a carpeted staircase, with a gorgeously finished wooden banister, and a generous closet for jackets and boots.
We step through the hallway and into the living room, one of the biggest rooms of the suite.
It has a massive, flatscreen TV that my mother would die for, and a suede sectional couch that I’m sure Eli would enjoy bouncing on. It opens onto a large terrace.
To my surprise, Renata hands me the keycard.
“I had a safety fence installed around the pool,” she tells me with a smile. “For your little one, so he doesn’t fall in. And your mother is welcome anytime. There’s another TV in the third bedroom, so she can stay in that one if you’d rather have her out of the way.”
I take the card. Its veneer is silky, so unlike my own staff master key.
“Um, I’m sorry,” I say to Renata. “I don’t understand what you’re…”
“This suite is for you,” she clarifies. “And your son, and anyone else if you…” she raises her eyebrows.
“Oh! No, it’s just me and Eli,” I respond. “But you…” I look frantically around the suite, which is at least five times the size of my current apartment, and much nicer than even the house I grew up in. “You can’t be serious…”
“Lily, have you even known me not to be serious?” Renata asks, with a coy smile. “I can’t believe I didn’t think of it earlier.”
I shake my head. “But this is much, much too generous.”
“Of course it’s not. This is a hotel, if there’s one thing we have in abundance, it’s accommodations. I can’t have you living in that little apartment. I need you nearby, and well-rested. This way, you can use the daycare, and you don’t need to worry about commuting.”
I can’t believe it. I look around the incredible living room and into the adjacent kitchen.
“This is amazing,” I breathe, almost at a loss for words. “You have no idea. My kitchen is so small, I’ll even be able to cook properly again…no more fruit loops for Eli…”
“Don’t be ridiculous, you won’t be doing any cooking,” she says with a frown.
I turn back to her, confused. “When you’re hungry, call down to the kitchen and they’ll prepare something.
I told them to comp everything. You’re my assistant, and I need you by my side.
You should be well-fed and taken care of. ”
Her words almost bring tears to my eyes. “This…this means so much, Renata…” I’m so emotional, I forget to use her last name. “It’s been so long since someone did something so nice for me. I don’t know what to say.”
“You don’t need to say anything,” she says. “Just enjoy your new suite. It’s your’s for as long as you want it. I’ve already asked the receptionist to coordinate a moving company for your things.”
“Thank you,” I whisper. “Really, thank you.”
She moves toward the door. “I’ll let you look around, then you should head directly home. You must have had a long day back. The moving company will give you a call tomorrow morning to make all the necessary arrangements for your things.”
I nod, unable to believe my luck. As soon as I hear the click of the door, I squeal in delight, and immediately start floating through the suite, imagining myself here.
In the year and a half since I’ve worked at the hotel, I’ve never, ever imagined I could actually live in one of these gorgeous, impossibly chic rooms. It’s a dream come true.
The last place I find is the primary bedroom.
It has a view of the lake and an en-suite bathroom with a huge bathtub and a rain shower.
The bed is incredible, a California king with sheets of soft cotton.
Eli, me, and my mom could all share this bed and there would still be space (although I may let mom stay in the senior’s home).
I kick off my shoes and jump into the bed, pressing my face against the plush bedspread and satin pillowcase. I roll around for a little while, soaking in the joyful moment.
Her words wrap me up, softer and warmer than any thick hotel duvet.
I need you by my side. You should be taken care of.
I’m not an idiot. I know that she doesn’t, you know, like-me like me, but…she appreciates my hard work. And for right now, that’s plenty.