Big Daddy Sinatra: There Was a Ruthless Man (The Sinatras of Jericho County Book 1) (17 page)

But
at BHI Jenay was trained on how, as a manager, she was supposed to inspect a
room.
 
She wiped the underside of a
table.
 
A pile of dust appeared on her
finger.
 
She flared out the beautiful
drapes.
 
More dust.
 
So much so that Charles coughed.
 
She wiped the window sills.
 
Pure dirt.
 
She lifted the beautiful oriental rug in the middle of the floor.
 
A burn spot and a few other spots
appeared.
 
Charles was floored.

“I’ll
be damned,” he said.
 
“So that’s why you
wanted to see the rooms?”

“You
can always, and I mean always tell the general health of an establishment, not
by the lobby or the outside buildings, but by the way they take care of their
rooms.
 
If they have excellent rooms,
they have excellent management.
 
If they
have rooms where they are hiding things or cutting corners, then you have a
management team that’s cutting corners too.”

Charles
walked over to the phone.
 
He picked it
up and pressed Housekeeping.
 
When a
woman came on the line, he pounced. “This is Sinatra,” he said.
 
“I’m in room 452.
 
Get up here now!”
 
He hung up the phone.

Jenay
continued her inspection.
 
He was
impressed.
 
She took her job
super-seriously, and he liked that.
 
“You
also started going over the books yesterday,” he said.

“I’m
still going over them, yes.”

“What’s
your verdict so far?”

Jenay
stopped inspecting and thought about her answer.
 
“So far, so good,” she said.
 
“Megan keeps meticulous books.
 
She’s definitely not the problem.”

Charles
nodded, and looked down at the burn spots on his floor.
 
“Good,” he said.
 
“At least somebody’s doing their job.”

He
sat on the bed, and then laid back, that tiredness sweeping over him
again.
 
He watched her as she continued
to look over every aspect of the upscale room.
 
He was getting hard watching her body move around that room, and even
she could see his pants begin to tent.
 
But she considered herself on the clock right now.
 
She wasn’t about to go down that road with
him right now.

A
knock was heard on the door, and Charles sat up.
 
“Come in!” he yelled.

An
older white woman in her fifties entered the room.
 
She hurried toward Charles.
 
“Good morning, sir.”

“Good
morning, Edna.
 
Have you met your new
boss?”

“Oh,
yes, sir.
 
Beatrice brought her down to
Housekeeping and introduced us yesterday.”

Charles
looked at Jenay.
 
He wanted to see for
himself how she would handle a situation like this.

Jenay
had fully expected him to handle this, but she knew it was her job now.
 
And she aimed to do it right.
 
“How long have you worked here, Edna?”

“Since
it opened nearly twenty years ago.”

Jenay
had assumed she was a long timer, just not that long.
 
“How long have you been the supervisor?”

“About
that time.
 
Eighteen-nineteen years.
 
They promoted me almost as soon as I got
here.”

“Since
you’re such an experienced Housekeeping Supervisor, Edna,” Jenay went on,
“would you say your primary responsibility is to oversee the housekeepers?”

“Yes,
ma’am.
 
I’m to make sure they’re doing
their jobs.”

“And
if they aren’t doing their jobs?”

“Then
I have a problem,” Edna responded.

“You
have a problem,” Jenay said, and proceeded to show Edna the various problem
points.
 

Charles
watched as the two ladies made the rounds.
 
He was proud of Jenay.
 
She was
all business and had that air of professionalism he saw in her when they first
met.
 
But she had weak spots too.
 
He saw it in her eyes when he terminated
Beatrice.
 
She was going to be taken
advantage of by these cunning Jericho folk if she wasn’t careful.
 

But
he also realized she was going to be careful because she had him.
 
And nobody was going to do a damn thing to
hurt her or take advantage of her as long as he was around.
 
But he was out of town often, and there was
no way it was going to change any time soon.
 
She was going to have to develop a thicker skin and a tougher coat to
survive these salt-of-the-earth-hypocritical Jerichodians.

When
the two ladies came out of the bathroom, Edna was filled with something Charles
despised: excuses.

“I
declare if I didn’t tell that maid to take care of that mildew in the shower
stall.
 
It’s small, and the guests could
barely see it, but I did tell her to take care of it.”

“Whether
the guests can see it or not is irrelevant,” Jenay said.
 
“The fact that the mildew is there is what
matters.
 
The mildew cannot be there.”

“I
couldn’t agree with you more,” Edna said, although Charles knew her type.
 
She not only didn’t agree with Jenay, she
couldn’t stand the sight of Jenay.
 

“When
you give an order to take care of a situation, especially a health hazard like
mold and mildew,” Jenay pointed out, “you make careful note of it.”

“I
do,” Edna said.
 
Charles knew she was
lying.

“And
then,” Jenay continued, “you go back and check yourself.
 
To make sure it’s been done.”

“But
she told me she had taken care of it.”

“She
lied,” Jenay said.
 
“It’s obviously not
taken care of.”

“Yeah,
you’re right,” Edna said.
 
“I can see
that.
 
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist
to be able to see that.”

Charles
looked at Jenay.
 
Was she going to take
that kind of lip?
 

But
Jenay moved on.
 
“How regularly do you
check your staff’s work?”

“Apparently
not regular enough,” Edna responded.

“How
often?” Jenay asked again.

“Once
every few days or so, I don’t know.
 
There’s no set time.”

“There
needs to be a set time.
 
Not every few
days or so, but every single day.”

Edna
glanced at Charles.
 
Charles remained
non-committal.

Edna
looked back at Jenay.
 
“I don’t think you
understand my duties.
 
I have to do their
timesheets.
 
I have to find coverage when
somebody’s out.
 
I have to answer
complaints by guests all the time. I have to---”

“Every
day, Edna,” Jenay said.
 
“You check the
rooms every day.
 
That’s your number one
job from here on out.
 
If you need
additional help to---”

“I
don’t need help.
 
No thank-you.”

Jenay
could cut the tension between her and her subordinate with a knife.
 
But she wasn’t going down that road with this
woman.
  
“And just as you check their
work daily, I will be checking your work daily.
 
I will do constant spot checks myself, to ensure that there are no
hiding places for spots and burns, and there are no corners cut.
 
If a burn occurs, for whatever reason, the
carpet must be mended in that spot.
 
If
it can’t be mended, it will have to be replaced.
 
But we will not have rugs covering anything.
 
We will not be that kind of establishment.”

“We?”
Edna asked.

Jenay
and Charles both looked at her.
 
“Yes,
we,” Charles responded.
 
“You have a
problem with that?”

“Oh,
no, sir,” Edna quickly responded.
  
She
even smiled.
 
“No problem here at all.”

“If
the situation regarding the cleanliness of these rooms persists,” Jenay went
on, “I will not only fire the maid responsible for cleaning the room, but I
will have to fire you as well.”

Edna
was surprised.
 
“Me?”

“That’s
correct.
 
Do you now understand the
importance of your first responsibility?”

Edna
nodded, although it was obvious she didn’t like it.
 
“Yes, ma’am,” she said.

Jenay
almost told the older woman that she didn’t have to call her ma’am like that,
but she caught herself.
 
Because she did
have to call her ma’am.
 
Because Edna and
all of these long-timers like her had to understand that this Bed and Breakfast
didn’t belong to her, or anybody else on staff.
 
This establishment belonged to Charles.
 
And Charles made the decision to put her in charge.

“I’ll
be checking every vacant room today, and I’ll be noting all of the problems.
 
Tomorrow when I check, and I will check, I’d
better not see any of those problems unresolved.
 
Understand?”

“Yes
ma’am,” Edna said, tight-lipped and firm.
 
Jenay wasn’t sure if she was determined to get her job right, or just
angry that she was being forced to get it right.
 
Charles was sure it was the latter.

“That’ll
be all,” Jenay said to Edna.
 
And Edna
left.

Jenay
looked at Charles, certain he approved of the way she handled the
situation.
 
But she was wrong.

“You
should have fired her ass,” he said as he stood up.

“Fired
her?” Jenay asked, stunned.

“Yes,”
he said, as certain as she was stunned.

“But
she hadn’t been warned yet.
 
She’s a
middle-aged lady with responsibilities I’m sure.
 
I can’t fire her without warning her
first.
 
If she doesn’t abide by what we
discussed today, then yes, she’ll deserve to be fired.
 
But after working here for nearly twenty
years, I feel she deserves to be warned first.”

“Stop
feeling,” Charles warned Jenay.
 
“I
didn’t hire you to feel a damn thing.
 
I
like your judgment, and I’ll go with it in this case, but you need to keep your
feelings out of it.”

“So
you would have fired her?”

“On
the spot,” Charles responded.
 
“I should
have hired a GM when I first took over this place, I understand that.
 
But since I acquired this place, she and the
rest of these people were paid every single week, with my name on every single
one of those checks.
 
And they cashed
every single one of those checks.
 
They
were paid to do a job regardless of what I did or didn’t do.
 
She wasn’t doing her job.
 
I would have fired her on the spot.”

“With
no warning?”

“When
you don’t do your job, you get fired.
 
That’s your warning.
 
She didn’t
do her job and she knew she wasn’t doing it.
 
She’d rather sit behind some desk playing around with timesheets than to
walk the plank and find out what level of work her staff is really doing.
 
I paid her to do that, she didn’t do it.
 
As soon as I found out she wasn’t up to the
task, it would have been over as far as I was concerned.
 
She would have been out.
 
Because I’m going to tell you something, my
dear. Kill problems as soon as they arise or they will fester and become bigger
and bigger problems until they become a disaster.
 
People destroy businesses.
 
Not the other way around.
 
Let’s go,” Charles said as he headed for the
exit.

Jenay
wasn’t accustomed to this side of Charles, and it was a little disheartening to
see that he could be so heartless.
 
She
followed him out of the room, and she still wanted to see where their
relationship would lead, but she also realized now she needed to pump the
brakes a little and ease up a bit.
 
After
last night, she was ready to give it her all and fully commit to this man.
 
But now, after the way he so easily fired
Beatrice, and after the way he would have so easily fired Edna, and that whole
Big Daddy
nickname, she knew she had to
slow her roll.
 
To wait and see.
 
To watch and learn.