Sellevision - Augusten Burroughs [85]
“Anyway,” Adam continued, “the hotel is really chic, beachfront and all that.” He stabbed a piece of lettuce with his fork. “Mostly business people, Hollywood producers, New York advertising people, some Japanese tourists. An upscale crowd. No breakfast buffet. The ceilings are low.”
“Low ceilings?” Max said over the lettuce in his mouth.
“That says a lot, I think. To have low ceilings you have to be pretty sure of yourself, as a hotel. It’s like Julia Roberts always going barefoot at her weddings. You have to be really beautiful to do that.”
Max thought, Why does this make sense to me? As he attempted to hoist a slice of tomato on his fork, it slid off the prongs and onto his lap. “Shit,” he said, blotting the oily stain with his napkin. “It looks like a pee stain.”
Adam smiled.
“I’m sorry, go on. Tell me about the snooping.”
“Well, first,” Adam said, “you need some background information.”
“I do?”
“Yes. You need to understand the system.”
“Okay, understand me.”
“Well, the first three days is pretty intensive training. You learn how to power-clean a room, which is my name for it. Basically, it’s all choreography. Efficient hand-swipes with the towel. Dusting as you walk. I never really thought there was technique to cleaning a room. I was surprised.” He plucked a crouton off his plate with his fingers and continued. “But it’s a science, really. Granted, it’s a rinse-the-hot-tub-and-coax-the-pubic-hairs-down-the-drain-while-you-dry-the-floor-with-your-knees science, but still. They teach you how to do a room in twenty-three minutes. So you go through a sort of boot-camp, basic-training kind of thing for three days and then you get your uniform. Sea-foam green with scalloped edges on the collar. Everything has to tie in to the ocean there.”
Adam saw Max looking down at his crotch. “Am I boring you?”
“No,” Max said, looking back up. “I was just seeing if the stain went away. I’m sorry. I tend to have problems with this area of my body.”
Adam smirked. “So anyway, they teach you not to make eye contact. This is probably for the benefit of the Japanese tourists. You’re supposed to knock three times before using your key. And if you find change on the floor, they tell you to work around it. And then they set you loose.”
The waiter popped over, asking if everything was all right. Max asked for another Diet Coke and Adam asked for another seltzer.
“So when do we get to the snooping part?”
“I’m getting there,” Adam said, leaning heavily on his words and smiling at Max in such a way that made Max think he was being promised something good.
“I’m responsible for the seventh floor, west wing. Seventeen rooms. Twenty-three minutes each to clean. Plus a thirty-minute lunch and two ten-minute breaks. And that’s my day. At least on paper.”
Adam shuffled the leaves on his plate around, moved an onion slice over the edge of the plate, and poked at an endive.
“But I’ve trained myself to clean a room in sixteen minutes—tops. Usually, I can do a room in twelve. I’m a fucking machine. Except when I open the door to get soap refills or hand towels from my cart. Then I move at a normal swift pace, as opposed to my manic pace, so as not to draw attention to myself from the other maids. I don’t want them to know how fast I can do a room. I need my time for investigating.”
“Okay, good, this is the snooping part. Where do you snoop?”
“I go through everything. The side pockets in the suitcases. The little secret flap pocket on the top of the Prada bags. I go through pant pockets and desk drawers, I smell the perfumes, I try on the coats and sometimes the dresses. Always the shoes. Oh, but the laptop computer has changed everything. And if there’s one in the room, this is what I go to first.”
Max liked this guy. He was like a good TV show.
“Right away, I double-click on the hard drive to get a basic overview. Then I immediately open any file called ‘personal,’ ‘letters,’ or ‘journal.’ I also open anything that sounds suspiciously vague, like ‘reports,’ because