At Your Service (3 page)

“Um, Daddy?” I give him my sweetest, dimpled smile. “What if
I
gave it a try?”

“Hmm?” Dad is only half listening, drumming his fingers on the podium.

“What if I came up with an itinerary for Marie?”

Dad looks up, his eyebrows high. “Sweets, I'm not sure that's a good idea. It's not that I don't trust you to handle yourself professionally. Everything you did with that wedding last weekend sure proved it. In all honestly, if it were anyone other than the LaFous . . .”

“Please, Dad, I
know
I could do it.” I bounce a little on my toes and pull my glasses down the bridge of my nose, so he can see the longing, er, the sincerity in my eyes.

“I . . .”

“Oh, Dad, pleeeeeeeeeease?”

“How about this? Why don't you come up with some ideas and we'll go from there, okay? But just ideas, nothing more. Hear me?”

“Thank you, Daddy. Thankyouthankyouthankyou! You won't be sorry!”

Um, I'm pretty sure.

I
leave before Dad has time to reconsider, and settle myself into the wooden-benched phone booth outside of the ladies' lounge. Barely anyone uses a pay phone these days, so it's the perfect thinking spot.

Okay. Ideas.

Ideas, ideas, ideas.

How do I find out what Marie likes without Dad getting upset that I'm meddling?

I scroll through my mental images of Marie from past visits. There was the time she was six, when they came for Christmas. That was the year she crashed into Patrick from Room Service as he was making his way down the hallway with a glass of red wine he was delivering. When
they collided, the wine spilled all over Marie's white poufy dress, and she screamed so loudly that more than one guest called 911 from his room. Then her parents threatened to sue the hotel for serving their underage daughter alcohol, since some wine inadvertently landed in her mouth as she screeched. Even three years later the hotel puts Patrick on paid leave the minute the LaFous check in.

So, nothing with any potential spill factor involved.

There was the time she was seven and insisted she could only sleep in a loft, and the hotel had to send Terrence from Maintenance to construct a temporary bunk six feet off the ground.

That was special.

Last year, when she was eight, she requested a dolphin be flown in to swim with her in the hotel pool. But we eventually got out of that one because the Board of Health wouldn't permit it.

Okay, she likes screeching, sleeping up high, and swimming with marine animals. This isn't exactly giving me much to go on. What I need is a little recon. How can I get Marie to give me the goods without letting her in on my plans and making Dad upset that I started working the job without his okay?

I need a more comfortable thinking spot, so I take the elevator up to the third floor and head back to my apartment.

You know that expression “Home is where the heart is”? Well, in my case, it actually is. Like, literally. Any part of the hotel that guests don't see is called the heart of the house. I live in the manager's quarters, just behind the sales offices. It might not be as sparkly as the guests' rooms, but it's way, way cozier.

Our apartment is really three hotel rooms linked together. One is our living room, with a kitchenette. We eat most of our meals in the employee cafeteria, so we don't need much in the way of cooking gear. Then Dad has one bedroom and I have the other. Dad's is still decorated with the same boring boat paintings and silk drapes as every other room in this place, but he let me get a little more creative with mine. He even traded Rolling Stones concert tickets a guest changed his mind about to Terrence in exchange for him painting my room lamplight yellow.

I sprawl out on my patchwork quilt and push play on my iPod. Mom got me hooked on coffeehouse acoustic covers when I was little, and even though it's fun to listen to the more upbeat stuff with my friends (and Mercy), I hardly ever listen to anything else when I'm alone now.
It makes me feel like Mom's still around, when really all I have left of her is—

Wait a minute!

I jump down and drop to my knees. Sticking my head under the dust ruffle, I stretch my arm out and grab a box from underneath my bed. I flip the top off and rifle through it until I find what I'm looking for. Voilà: Mom's slam book.

When Mom was my age, she and her friends had a notebook they passed around. Along the top of every page was a question: How old are you? What's your favorite color? What's your favorite movie? Have you ever kissed a boy? And then under each question on each page was a list of numbers.

How it worked was that you gave it to your friends and assigned them a number. Then the whole way through the book, they answered every question on the number line they were assigned. In her book, Mom was number one (duh, since it was
her
book). By flipping the pages and reading all the answers under the number one, I can tell you that twelve-year-old Mom loved the color red but hated beets. Her favorite movie was
Grease 2
, and her favorite book was
Anne of Green Gables
. Her favorite song was Rob Base and DJ E-Z Rock's “It Takes Two.” And, unlike me, she'd already kissed one boy: Scott Bell. But then she must have been embarrassed about it,
because she crossed out his name a bunch of times, so it was really hard to read.

This could be the
perfect
way to learn everything I need to about Marie without her getting suspicious. Like a survey, only better.

Now for some supplies and major backup, in the form of my best friend, Paisley.

I send her a quick text, wait for the reply, then race down to the lobby. I force myself to slow once I come into sight of the concierge podium.

I'm casual. I'm breezy. Nothing special going on here.

“Hi, Dad. So . . . you know how tomorrow's a half day at school?”

“Hmm? Oh, okay. I have to work at two o'clock tomorrow, sweets. Sorry.”

“No problem. But I was just thinking. Yes, tonight's a school night, but not
technically
a school night since nothing critical ever happens on a half day. So it's like a quasi school night, ya know?”

Dad nods his head at a guest walking by. “Enjoy your afternoon, sir.” He continues to keep eagle eyes out for guests as he rests his hands on his podium. “Where are you going with this, Chlo?”

“Can Paisley spend the night? Pleeeeeease, Dad? I have a
great
idea for this thing with Marie and I really need Pay's help.”

Dad sighs. I know him well enough; sighs like that equal S-U-C-C-E-S-S. “Thank you, Daddy!”

I bounce away from him and head straight to the check-in desk. There aren't any guests waiting, so I step up to the counter and prop my elbows on it.

“Hey, Annalise. Have the rooms been flipped
^I
yet?”

“Hey, Chloe. What's shaking? We're all flipped except for the ones we're leaving dropped tonight,” she answers. This is
exactly
what I was hoping she'd say. When hotels aren't sold out, they sometimes skip (or drop) cleaning rooms so they can have fewer maids on a shift.

“Can I have one?” I ask.

“Sleepover time?” Annalise knows me well. I nod.

“Need adjoining rooms? How many girls are you having this time?” I'm pretty famous at school for my sleepovers, and I've hosted some epic ones for my friends. When we had a cancellation last summer, Dad even let us use the penthouse
so we could have an outdoor sleepover on the ginormous balcony,
and
he sent the piano player from our lounge to serenade us on the baby grand up there.

“Just one. A room with a king bed will be perfect.”

Annalise types away on her computer, then hands me a stack of key cards. “These rooms are all empty. Check 'em out, see which one is cleanest, and let me know which one you pick, okay?”

I squeal my thanks and zoom back to the elevators. I've spent a
ton
of time helping Mercy and my other friends in Housekeeping turn rooms, and I can flip a suite in no time flat. I veto the first one because it smells like pizza, but the next one I check looks like it was barely slept in the night before. I bump into Mercy in the housekeeping closet, and with her help the bed is changed, the towels swapped out, and the room vacuumed in less than fifteen minutes. She even volunteers to do the toilet
and
the bathtub since I'd helped her with the Coke cans.

I return to the lobby, hand the rest of the key cards back to Annalise, and let Dad know I'm headed out to the Duane Reade drugstore on the corner to buy a new composition notebook and more colored pens. Then I return to my apartment, grab my pj's and toiletries bag, and text Paisley our room number.

Ten minutes later I meet her in our own private hotel room.

“Unless there's something really awesome on the in-room movie selection this time, I brought entertainment.”

She holds up a stack of DVDs, all musicals. Pay and I are total Broadway-baby wannabes, even though neither of us can sing a note on key.

“Movie marathon!” I squeal. “I totally have a project for us later, but should we hot tub first or sauna?”

Sleepovers are the best. Sleepovers when you live in a hotel? Best of the best.

We hit the hot tub and sauna in the spa, then head back to our room, put on the giant fluffy robes, and order room service dinner. Chef surprises us by sending up a make-your-own-ice-cream-sundae cart for dessert. When we finally settle down on the edge of the giant Jacuzzi bathtub, with our feet in gurgling water, we're ready to get started on my slam book idea.

“I love this! We should totally do one for school, too. Don't you think it would be fun to see everyone's answers?” Pay asks. “I'm dying to know who Lily is crushing on. Everyone says Tyler, but I
swear
she likes Miles.”

“One step ahead of you. I bought two notebooks.” I hold up the spare and Pay smiles.

“Always prepared, Chlo.”

I smile back. “That's sort of my thing, right?”

We spend the next half hour switching up pen colors and trying to alter our handwriting so we can create an authentic-looking fake slam book for Marie. When we finish, it's a masterpiece, if we do say so ourselves.

“This is perfect. It
has
to work,” Pay says.

“I know. I'm so excited I don't think I'll be able to sleep. Do you think we should try to do it tonight?”

Pay pulls her feet from the tub and peeks over at the clock. “It's only eight thirty. She's probably still up, don't you think?”

We get dressed as fast as we can, and I pull my hair into a neat ponytail and slap on lip gloss from my toiletry kit. If we're going to be interacting with a guest, I have to look professional. I know Dad doesn't want me doing anything without his permission, so we head down to the lobby first to fill him in.

Except the elevator stops on the second floor and I happen to spot a very distraught-looking sales manager mopping sweat off her brow as she leaves the Hudson, one of our conference rooms. I recognize the look in her eyes. Slamming my hand into the elevator doors to keep them from closing, I motion Pay to step out with me.

“Mrs. Hathaway, you don't look so hot. Is it at all possible you have one of our more challenging guests in there? About this tall?” I hold my hand up to my shoulder. “Answers to Marie?”

Mrs. Hathaway's eyes roll to the ceiling. “Please do not say that name in my presence again, Chloe.
^II
Monday cannot get here soon enough.”

“So that's a yes, then?”

She sighs. “Yes. She's reserved it to watch a movie in there on our projection screen. Apparently the eighty-inch TV in her room is too miniscule and was causing her to squint.”

“Perfect. Thanks!” I place my hand on the door handle of the Hudson and tell Pay to stand guard in the hallway. Dad will just have to accept that Fate got to me before I could get to him.

“You're going in there voluntarily?” Mrs. Hathaway looks astonished.

“It's for a good cause.” She doesn't seem convinced, but she puts her hand on my shoulder and looks straight into my eyes, as if she might be preparing to say good-bye forever.

“May the luck of the Irish be with you.”

I grin and push into the room. Marie is sitting at the head of the enormous wooden table, with her shoes propped up on the antique mahogany.

“Oh, I'm so sorry, I didn't realize anyone was in here. . . .” I pretend to be flustered. Marie gives me one of those looks that starts at my feet and travels slowly to my hair. I force myself to keep a pleasant smile in place.

“You're Marie, right?” I ask.

Her eyes narrow. “Who eez asking?” Her accent is cute, which she could be too . . . if she weren't always frowning.

“Oh, my name is Chloe. I work here at the hotel.” Sort of. Hopefully she can't see my fingers crossed behind my back. “I was just looking for Mrs. Hathaway, but I must have missed her. Sorry to have disturbed you.”

“
Zut alors!
Make me some popcorn. And zees time I want zee fake movie-theater butter, not zee real stuff.”

Okay, I am a professional. A professional would not react to this by calling Marie a name like Bratty McBrattington before storming out. Deep breaths.

She leans farther back in the chair and points the remote at the screen. I've been dismissed. I swivel as if to leave, but as I reach the door, I pretend I've just remembered
something. She watches me out of the corner of her eye.

“Um, so, Marie. I was wondering. We keep a special kind of guest book for our VIP guests, and I don't know that you've had a chance to sign it on your other visits. I happen to have it on me, if you'd be interested. If not, it's fine. We just like to get our most special guests in here. I think I have some space for you under Duchess Malika. Oh gosh, I shouldn't have given her identity away. It's all anonymous. Please don't pay any attention to me.”