Chapter 11 #3
She listened to the rest of the messages, jotting down information quickly.
One man spoke in such a garbled manner she had to listen to his message three times before she could understand what his name was.
Finally, all the voicemails had been checked, and she turned back to her emails, her brain buzzing.
She noticed her yogurt parfait and grabbed it, bringing the spoon to her lips with a sigh.
In all the flurry, she’d forgotten to eat, but she was still incredibly hungry.
She ate the parfait while she worked on the emails, some of which were long and confusing but most of which were short and easy to deal with.
Finally, an hour later, Michelle had replied to every email and sent a message to everyone who had left a voicemail. She leaned her head back in her chair and let out a faint groan. She felt as though it was seven p.m., when in reality, it was just barely lunch time.
I don’t think I’ve ever properly appreciated just how nice it is to have a team running this place, she thought, shaking her head and downing the last of her coffee.
We need lots of hands to keep things running smoothly when a rush like this hits.
I’ve never had to deal with something like this before, because every time I turn around, Mom and Grandma are taking care of the little details that need doing.
She smiled, thinking about how great Elaine would be at calling back the long-winded elderly woman and having a pleasant chat with her, and how Audrey would have had the rooms cleaned the second the previous guests vacated.
For a moment, she wished they were back at the hotel with her with all her might.
Then she remembered the looks of excitement on their faces as they’d set off across the airport.
She was determined to deal with everything that needed doing in an efficient and professional manner, no matter how hard it was.
She didn’t want to have to call her mother or grandmother and tell them she needed them to come back, and she didn’t want them to come home and find that things were falling apart.
I’m going to do this, and I’m going to do a great job, she thought fiercely. I’m going to reassure Mom and Grandma that things are going great here, and it’s going to be true.
She shut her eyes for a moment, taking a deep breath.
Her brain felt messy, as if everything that she’d carefully organized in her thoughts had been tossed around and knocked over.
She steadied herself, wondering what she should do next.
There was some cleaning to be done, some social media work to be done, and she would need to feed herself lunch.
After that, she would need to check the email and the voicemails again, and she should probably call that woman back…
“Arf!”
Michelle’s eyes opened wide and she straightened up in a hurry. “Puddle!” she gasped.
Puddle sat on the floor in front of her, wagging her tail and looking up joyfully. Something white was poking out of her mouth. It looked like a feather.
“You—what?” Michelle stammered. She glanced down the hallway, feeling confused. For a second, she wondered if she’d fallen asleep and was having a bizarre dream. “I put you in your closet.”
Puddle stood up and wagged her tail so emphatically her whole back end moved back and forth. Michelle stood up too, feeling concerned about the feather in Puddle’s mouth.
“Good thing we don’t own chickens,” she muttered. “Or I’d be really worried.”
She was just bending down to pick Puddle up when she noticed another feather on the hallway carpet. Her eyes traveled to the grand staircase, where she saw three more feathers.
She groaned. Whatever Puddle had gotten into, it was upstairs. Where all the guests were.
“Oh no,” she muttered, picking up the puppy and starting toward the staircase. “Oh no, no, no.”
She followed the trail of feathers to the first room on the top floor. The door was ajar, and she could see a trail of feathers across the whole room. In the corner, lying under the window, was a mangled feather pillow.
“Puddle, you didn’t!” Michelle whispered, horrified. She pushed open the door a little more and saw that the floor was practically covered in feathers. Mercifully, however, Puddle seemed to have left everything other than the pillow alone.
She bit her lip, trying to remember what guest was staying in that room.
Her heart sank when she remembered it was a middle-aged man who was in town for an art show and who was on the irritable side.
He wouldn’t be thrilled about the fact that a dog had gotten into his room and chewed up his pillow.
She glanced at her watch. The art show went until four. So he must be gone at the moment and was very unlikely to come back until after the show was over. She inhaled, trying to form a plan. She wanted to move as fast as possible, in case he came back early—or came back to the hotel for lunch!
She let out a sound that was a mixture between a groan and a squeal and darted out of the room. It took her five seconds to realize that Puddle was still in her arms. Michelle turned around and hurried back into the room.
“No,” she said, holding Puddle’s nose against the destroyed pillow. “No. Bad dog.”
Puddle’s expression became so tragic that Michelle felt bad about disciplining her.
“Hey, you know what you did,” she said, leaving the room again and heading back downstairs to Puddle’s closet. “Pillows are not puppy food.”
She found the gate of Puddle’s closet swung open. She groaned and set Puddle down before checking it. It didn’t seem broken, and she guessed that one of the guests—probably a kid—had let Puddle out on purpose.
Michelle gave Puddle more food and then shut the gate again. She hurriedly made a sign and taped it on the front of the gate: “Please Do Not Let Puddle Out, She is Still Being Trained.”
Once that was done, Michelle began to move at lightning speed.
She ran to get the vacuum and a trash bag.
Before darting up the steps to the room she needed to clean, she glanced out the front window to make sure the grumpy art enthusiast wasn’t coming.
For a second, her heart leapt into her throat when she thought she saw him walking down the sidewalk, but a moment later she realized it was just the mailman.
Muttering under her breath, she raced to the room and started to vacuum.
The feathers were difficult to clean up because they kept being blown away, but she soon had the mess eradicated.
She stuffed what remained of the beautiful feather pillow into a plastic bag and took one long look around the room to make sure she hadn’t missed anything.
She was just starting to breathe a sigh of relief when she froze.
She needed another pillow! She clamped her hand to her forehead. That was a flaw in her plans, for sure. They didn’t have any backup pillows. Since they’d just opened the hotel, they’d banked on all their pillows staying fresh for at least another few months.
She glanced at her watch. She loathed the idea of running to the store and coming back. She felt worried that the guest might return before she did, and then he would wonder why he was missing a pillow.
I’ll give him one of mine, she decided suddenly. I’ve got that extra one I hardly ever use. It’s basically new. He won’t know the difference.
She deposited the vacuum and the trash bag in a hallway closet and then darted up another flight of stairs to the third floor, where her cozy bedroom was.
She rushed inside, saw her window seat with its breathtaking view of the snowy yard, and wished that she could just curl up with a mug of tea and a good book and a blanket.
Tonight, she told herself. I’ll get my work done today and then I’ll have a moment to rest.
She grabbed the pillow and hurried back down the stairs. They kept extra sheets in the hallway closets, and she grabbed a fresh pillowcase and put it on the new pillow. She returned to the room and replaced the pillow with a sigh of relief.
As she left the room, she shut the door behind her, just in case. Still feeling jittery, she roamed the hallways for a few minutes, making sure all the other rooms’ doors were shut and that there were no other signs of Puddle having done damage.
Everything seemed all right, but Michelle still felt drained and overwhelmed as she made her way back down the stairs. One thing was for sure—it was going to be a long couple of days.