Chapter 4
Aoife
The day is too hot already as I trudge my way into work at the Regeant Hotel.
Summer in Dublin is a cruel joke. Nine months of gray and rain, then the sun comes out, and the whole city acts like it’s never seen it before.
People strip down to their underwear in Stephen’s Green like they’re in Ibiza.
Meanwhile, I’m about to spend ten hours in a polyester tunic that traps heat like a fucking greenhouse.
I push through the staff entrance at the back, and the air conditioning hits me like a mercy. Small victories. I’ll take them where I can get them.
The locker room is half-empty. My shift doesn’t start for another ten minutes. I’ve learned that being early is the one thing Sandra can’t weaponize against me. She’s tried. She’ll find something else, but at least punctuality is off the table.
I change into the uniform, twist my hair up, and check myself in the scratched mirror bolted to the wall.
Same face. Same circles under my eyes. The wine last night was a mistake, not because I drank too much, but because I didn’t drink nearly enough to dull the pain that is my life.
I grab my caddy from the supply closet and check the assignment sheet pinned to the board.
Floors three and four, as usual. Sandra’s handwriting is aggressive even on paper—each room number stabbed into the page like it personally offended her.
I grab an extra pack of bin liners because floor four always runs short. It’s like the Receptionist knows the visitors will be pigs and puts them there to torture me.
The first few rooms are standard carnage.
Room 301 had a hen party, which I know because there are pink feathers everywhere and a plastic tiara in the toilet.
Not on the floor near the toilet. In the toilet.
I fish it out with gloved hands and drop it in the bin.
Somewhere in Dublin, a bride-to-be is wondering where her crown went.
Room 304 is a business traveler who left the room almost spotless except for a single sock under the bed. Always one sock. Never two. It joins the tiara.
Onto 305, which is a checkout that looks like someone tried to recreate a crime scene using only towels and minibar peanuts. I don’t ask questions. I just clean. I check my phone, and time is ticking away, but not fast enough. Ten-thirty.
Moving to the last room on the third floor, I see someone poking their head through the door that leads to the stairway.
His eyes land on me, black, cold and mean.
I drop my gaze. I’m not here for trouble, and he looks like trouble.
He steps back, and the door swooshes shut.
I breathe out and push open the door to a room that is remarkably tidy.
I prop the door open in relief and get to work, changing the bed linens and wiping down surfaces with autopilot efficiency.
An hour later, I wheel the cart to the service elevator and ride up to four.
The doors open, and I step out, moving towards Room 401.
Toothpaste splatters on the mirror, wet towels bunched on the tile floor, sheets twisted.
I spray, wipe, remake, and move on. Room 404 has a leak under the bathroom sink—a steady drip-drip-drip into a rusty halo that looks like it has been spreading for weeks.
I report it via the tablet, picturing my message joining the digital graveyard of maintenance requests that won’t resurface until Thursday, if ever.
Room 406 stands in a glorious ode to the perfect guest. The bed sheets tucked and folded like an origami masterpiece, toiletries arranged by height, even the guest’s shoes lined up with their toes exactly touching the wall.
The kind of person who probably measures the distance between hangers.
I give them extra towels and additional complimentary goodies as a thank-you.
I’m halfway down the corridor when I hear the soft click of a door latch behind me.
Room 410. Two men step out in dark suits.
They position themselves by the ice machine with casualness that isn’t casual at all.
The shorter one’s eyes crawl over me, lingering at my hips as he, somewhat belatedly, reaches for an ice bucket.
I ignore him and the fact that it takes two men to get ice.
Not my circus. Not my monkeys.
I push open the door to 408 and gag at the smell. “Jesus,” I mutter. “Who are these people this hotel is letting stay here?”
The room looks like something crawled in here and gave up on life.
It stinks of cigarette smoke for a start, which is totally illegal, but at least they left the window wide open.
Right? The smoke detector is covered by the complimentary shower cap.
The bin is overflowing with takeaway containers—that join the lone sock and tiara, amongst other things—and there’s a wet towel draped over the TV like it’s trying to suffocate it.
The bed is a disaster zone. I don’t even want to look at the bathroom, but I do, because that’s the gig.
I scrub the bathroom tiles until my knuckles burn, bleach fumes stinging my nostrils.
The sheets snap like sails as I remake the bed with hospital corners tight enough to bounce a coin.
I restock the minibar, lining up tiny whiskey bottles like soldiers, and replace the sad, flattened soap with pristine white rectangles.
When I’m done, the room gleams with artificial perfection.
Sanitized, anonymous, awaiting its next destroyer.
No fingerprints, no stray hairs, no trace of whoever committed these crimes against hospitality.
Just the faint chemical smell of someone else’s standards.
I skip 410 and 412 and move on to 414, pushing open the door and getting to work with a long-suffering sigh.
I brighten up considerably when I find a loose ten euro note at the bottom of the wardrobe.
I chew the inside of my lip.
I should hand it in. I should.
I don’t.
I pocket it and push the guilt aside, knowing I can at least get a decent sandwich out of it at the small Tesco around the corner at lunchtime.