Frequent Traveller (Cathy Dixon #1) (7 page)

In the Darwin waiting room adjacent to the lobby, Cathy looked up at the showcased wall of fame. It was inspiring yet strange that one city had produced that many great minds over the course of a few decades. She mused at the enormity of the accomplishments. Raised voices at the check-in counter of MoonStar Edinburgh made the red head turn. She was instinctively curious to find out the source of the commotion.

"Are you mad? Why do I have to pay a deposit?! I've already paid for my room in full."

The woman's voice was at a shrill pitch. It was obvious that the associate at the check-in counter found it difficult to explain to the female guest that a refundable deposit was required in the event anything from the room went missing, damaged or the items at the mini-bar were utilised. Cathy saw that the associate was being assisted by his supervisor and continued on her way to the Fleming Hall where Banquet was getting all geared up for the biggest event this property had ever seen.

It never ceased to amaze Cathy that so many guests chose to ignore the brief information in the hotel brochure, their welcome kit or on their room key card. A little more attention and they could have spared themselves the shouting match they insisted on having at the check-in counter.

Unique for more reasons than one, MoonStar Edinburgh spread over more than forty thousand acres. It was the only hotel property in the world that housed two colonial manors restored from the late sixteenth century. These functioned as a bed and breakfast with twenty rooms each, sporting a Victorian theme. A more recent construction was added in 1972, this included three hundred rooms in a twenty-one storey building, fourteen one bedroom villas, a massive dining hall which could accommodate one thousand people and a small chapel. If one were to walk or take a buggy ride from one corner of the property to the other, it was easy to become enraptured by the elements of majestic heritage that were obvious in all the buildings.

For the first time in its twenty-eight years of operations the entire property was closed down for one event, a wedding. On her way back from one of the London properties, Cathy had been asked by the hotel's Public Relations Manager to stop over as an observer. If the wedding went off without any major glitches, it became a feather in MoonStar's cap and would generate long term publicity. If on the other hand it failed, plenty of damage control would be needed for current guests and future ones which required Cathy's presence anyway. As it was, because of this wedding, guests with previous reservations on the same dates were refunded or their trips postponed with big discounts. Neither of which was an easy feat to accomplish.

Two days before, when Cathy arrived, she noted obvious tensions running high among the wedding troupe and the associates at MoonStar Edinburgh. All rooms of every category were fully booked. The wedding was a five day event with the first day being the welcome dinner. This would be followed by the wedding rehearsal on day two. Stag night and a hen party would be on day three then the wedding ceremony followed by a dinner and a wedding high tea on the last day. At least one hundred part-timers had been recruited to join forces with the property's service team of three hundred associates.

Painstaking efforts had been made by the Events Department in the past eight months. They had planned everything down to the last second when the confetti balloons were set to burst. But even with the best laid plans, it was always better to make room for disasters. As Cathy neared the Fleming Hall, she heard a piercing scream and the loud clutter of cutlery shattering on the wooden floor. She quickened her pace and stepped in to see the bride-to-be Angela, flinging cutlery carts to the floor.

A few Banquet associates were lined up in front of her and watched while a few tried to hide their amusement. The Banquet Manager, Ronald did his best to pacify her. After the irate bride stomped off, he barked at his junior associates to pick up the cutlery and have each piece wiped again. Cathy approached him with a raised eyebrow. Laughing heartily by the time Cathy got to him, she was not sure if it was a pure funny tickle or the stress from the past few days had finally gotten to him.

He acknowledged her with a nod.

"She had wanted patterned cutlery for the wedding day dinner. These were plain. I was trying to explain to her that these are for tomorrow's welcome dinner ... she wasn't listening, I guess." He shrugged his shoulders as Cathy smiled.

"I'm free for the night so tell me what to do," she said.

"We need to place the cutlery on the tables and then fold the napkins. Once the tables, chair covers, centre pieces and wall flowers are ready, we'll need to work our string magic again just to make sure nothing was moved ... you know, the usual."

"Right, I'll grab a cutlery tray and get to work," Cathy said as she tied her hair back and put on an apron.

To maintain true hotelier spirit, this was what you had to do. Irrelevant of rank or experience, you learnt from the bottom. When it got to peak periods, it meant all hands on deck. If unsure, you asked but there was no such thing as not doing unless you wished to have your food spat on in the kitchen before it was served to you.

In a far corner, she saw a few Banquet associates already working their 'string magic'. With more than three hundred tables to go, it would definitely be a long night. What the guests saw as tables and chairs neatly in a row was actually the result of hours of measuring and adjusting. If the floor did not have markers, a string was used to measure the distances from each table to ensure equal and adequate space for guests to move around. Details, details and more details. Even if guests were not interested, the hotel's ability to churn out a masterpiece rested on how much time and effort was spent on details. The finer the masterpiece, the happier the guest and higher the revenue. It was pure simple logic at the end of the day.

As the hours wore on, Cathy heard some of the servers talking about Angela. She glanced at Ronald convinced he could hear it too.

"I can only stop what I can see Cat," he said acknowledging her stare. "If they wipe her spoons with their spit without anyone spotting it, she should know better than to charge around like a bull. But then again at least she didn't want silver horses like the other couple."

Cathy laughed. The details of that disastrous wedding reached all of the MoonStar properties including corporate. The irate couple publicly announced that they had cancelled their lavish $100,000 wedding when the hotel refused to spray-paint horses for the bridal carriage.

Once the Fleming Hall was decorated and could have passed a royal inspection, Cathy snapped a few photographs with her digital camera for her personal collection and headed off to bed. Even as she neared the elevator to her room, she heard the quickened footsteps behind her and knew it was time for another envelope and yet another target.

"Ms. Dixon, this envelope just arrived for you," said a Front Office associate as he handed her a brown sealed envelope.

She thanked him and later emptied the contents of the envelope on her bed. She had plenty of time for this target. He was one of the wedding guests. She would have more than a week to get to know him as he was staying at the property after the wedding.

The next morning as Cathy walked across the main lobby to get to the breakfast buffet, she heard Angela's voice ringing out in the lobby.

"Stop bloody smoking so much!" she screamed at her husband-to-be Greg who had conveniently found a large pillar to hide behind. While some of the hotel associates and guests looked on sympathetically, others moved along with an amused smile whilst pretending to see nothing. The accosted man gently rubbed her shoulders while whispering in her ear. Whatever he said seemed to calm Angela who was soon laughing again as she made her way to a spa appointment. Finally, Greg could light his cigarette in peace.

Both were trust-fund babies who had obviously never seen a hard day's work in their lives. High school sweethearts who had only just graduated from their respective universities, the wedding was a lavish gift from both their families. When the MoonStar Edinburgh sales team had been approached by the couples’ parents the year before, it was made clear they would not be involved in the planning of the wedding. All wedding preparations would be left to the couple, Angela and Greg. No expense would be spared, they promised. This was evident with a running bill of more than $320,000 and counting.

MoonStar Edinburgh had their own photographer for events such as these but Angela had insisted on having three photographers and a video crew. She did not want a moment missed, she had insisted. Cathy attended the event department's briefing where the freelance photographers were briefed on the do's and don'ts as per the hotel policy while still staying within the couple's desires.

Even as the briefing came to an end, Angela's voice was heard in the corridor. She was looking for Sebastian the Events Manager who was the hotel liaison for her wedding. Without knocking, Angela stormed into the room and demanded to change the wedding song. They had agreed on using a ballad when the couple walked into the wedding hall for the main dinner. Sebastian controlled himself as he glanced up at her and gently prompted that she had chosen the song.

To this Angela snarled, "I don't want to be walking down to my wedding dinner, MY big night listening to Michael Buble. I'll sing the song myself. Find me a place to record it. I bet I'll sound even better than him."

Sebastian nodded and waited for her to stomp off before he muttered, "Sound better than Michael Buble? Now there's something we'd all want to hear. I really don't understand why she even hired a wedding planner if she's going to keep looking at all these details and insist on turning her wedding into a circus."

Even as the welcome dinner was about to start, Angela was heard rebuking the florist for picking the wrong colour of roses. The red was too dull, she was heard screaming. The welcome dinner went off without a glitch by MoonStar standards. Angela, however, was seen throwing another tantrum when she discovered that thirteen people sat at the main table. Apparently, she had changed the table arrangements so many times that associates and family had gotten confused and failed to notice this ‘error’ much to the bride's horror who insisted that her wedding was doomed.

The wedding guests remained oblivious of these brewing scenes. They enjoyed the ambience, the food and most of all they relished the free flow of alcohol at the bar. As the evening wore on, Angela too seemed caught up in the moment and was seen laughing. Close to 4:00 a.m., Cathy could still hear some guests laughing in the hotel compound. What followed in the coming days was the usual hustle and bustle of any wedding.

A moment of panic on the wedding day consumed everyone when Greg, the groom showed up late. He arrived an hour after the expected time with bloodshot eyes. No explanation was offered and no one dared to ask. Thus far, the associates had kept up with Angela and all seemed to fall into place.

It was during the wedding dinner that things spun out of control before anyone even realised what happened. In absolute horror, Cathy and the guests watched as hotel Security was summoned. The bride pounced on one of the bridesmaids for dancing too long with Greg. Apparently a distant cousin, the poor girl had been invited by Greg to a hip hop number. She turned only in time to see Angela pulling at her hair. When Greg and a few others tried to pull them apart, a cat fight ensued. Each woman claimed that the other was "behaving like a tart".

Plates were smashed and hotel furniture was pushed around. At the end of the scuffle, the bride was escorted to her suite. Her dinner dress was ruined and her hair in complete disarray. To their credit, it took less than an hour for the associates to clean up the broken pieces of crockery. This allowed most guests to hit the dance floor again, forgetting the bridal brawl. Some saw this as an excuse to hurry back to their rooms for an early night or to catch up with friends outside the property and even others were busy having a discussion if the marriage would last longer than the wedding bill.

Cathy made an early night of it, leery of the next day's high tea and another show of temper. Subdued, Angela sat at the lobby the next morning. She tried her best to look sober and apologetic. Fully aware that people treated her with coldness, she allowed them little room for criticism at the moment. Greg was either used to Angela's tantrums or was the kind to brush off such incidences quickly.

He greeted wedding guests and hotel associates with graciousness, in the same manner he had before. Even as the new husband was informed of extra charges for the damages incurred by his wife, the good natured Greg assured them that he would gladly pay for these additional costs. He also offered a generous tip for each associate who had worked at the wedding dinner.

Cathy wondered what he saw in Angela and how he was able to move past it all but then again that was the question on everyone's mind. Love was complicated for those who witnessed it and for those who felt it.

It was no surprise though that an hour before the high tea was due to start, Angela and Greg sent their apologies saying they were unable to make it. They explained that Angela was extremely unwell and it was in "her best interest to get a lot of rest". The couple also thanked everyone for their support and hoped their guests would have a good time in their honour.

’Now, that's one way to start a marriage,’ Cathy thought as she saw Greg go for a walk outside the property a little later. Imagine, telling the whole world you were in love but in the end, you realised you were all alone.