Chapter 5 More Confusion

Diana Rodrigues

"I want to talk to you," the hotel owner tells me, but Sonia shouts at me.

"Diana! Are you already causing trouble with the boss again?" - already comes the cow manager - "I'm sorry sir, I'll take this incompetent girl away before she causes more trouble."

"Look Sonia, I'm not causing any trouble," he watches me being taken away by her.

"Don't make any more fuss," was all he said, so I went on my way with my manager.

"Since your debt to the hotel is so large, you are scheduled to work overtime. When I call, you should be ready."

"Okay Sonia, I'll do the overtime," I agreed.

"And today, in addition to the suites, you will be cleaning the staff bathroom after your shift."

"But it will be at the staff's check-in and check-out time, it will be full of people, it will be wasted service, I can finish cleaning."

"Diana, do as I say, dear."

Cleaning the bathroom at staff in and out was a punishment when one of us did something wrong. If you had an enemy and she knew about your punishment, she would leave horrible things for you to clean up. Several girls went through this, and the new girls too. Sonia was the aunt of our general manager, no one would go against her, especially those who needed her job. When I started working here, I stayed there for five days and it wasn't nice. The older ones would purposely make a mess, things out of the trash and other things I don't even want to comment on. Jose told me to hang in there, because it wasn't only me who went through this, but all the girls who came to work as maids. I finished cleaning the suite I was in and went to my punishment.

"Girlfriend, we have to leave, go get your things," Jose tells me.

"I can't leave now, I'm in Sonia's detention."

"What do you mean? Who put you on bathroom cleaning?"

"Sonia said that since I owe a lot of money to the hotel, I should work overtime and she put me in charge of cleaning the bathroom when the staff changes.

"That witch keeps making mischief with you, my friend. Imagine now what she won't do. I will see if I can think of something so we can raise this money.

"Jose, it's a lot of money, and what's making me more angry is that I'm only getting half a salary now. I don't know how I'm going to do it."

"There friend, I will always be here for you more money. Mine is already counted.

"I'll have to get a job at night. In fact, I'm desperate. If Sonia wouldn't give me overtime, I could get something else to do, but I'm sure she'll hold me here every day for those damn overtime hours." Before Jose could say anything, the woman's voice was heard by both of us.

"Diana, to my knowledge, your working hours aren't over yet. You shouldn't be chatting with reception staff." She teases.

"Girlfriend, the reception clerk here is leaving because his manager is not the Hotel witch. Go ahead girlfriend, Cinderella gets along in the end, don't forget that."

 "Diana, the bathroom - she pointed to the bathroom - Don't forget the debt or it will never be paid - and gave a sideways smile."

I felt like taking the mop and hitting her over the head, but I knew I couldn't do that or I would get really in trouble, and I went for my punishment. I walked into that bathroom with my head held high as the other girls looked at me and laughed, sometimes people thought they were so superior to the others, all of them in there had already cleaned that bathroom, but when one earned her punishment, she was always ridiculed by the others. What is going on in the heads of these people? We were all doing the same job and I really don't understand why there was laughter whenever someone had their punishment given to them by Sonia's witch.

"Too bad Diana you won't be able to leave early today" - she walked over to one of the rubbish bins that were crowded and knocked it over - "I feel so sorry for you. Oh there was quite a bit of dirty paper dropped here for poor Diana to clean up."

"And some more fell here." Sirlene's friends went about doing this to all the rubbish bins that existed in the bathroom "Oh, I think Diana is going to take a bit longer here cleaning up than she should."

"And she'll get a scolding from our dear little boss, but since I'm a good girl I'll throw this soap in to help her clean up faster" Sirlene threw the soap on the floor.

"Enough Sirlene, you know I am in this situation because you left the suite and didn't call me, while I cleaned everything by myself."

"Me? How do you say I'm to blame for your incompetence, you told me you wanted to stay there to see the hotel owner. That you wanted to see if he would fall in love with you, like those silly books you keep reading." Sirlene provokes me.

"I'm going to beat you up Sirlene, I want to rub your face in the soap you threw on the floor. I set off on her.

I grabbed her by the hair and half of it came out in my hand. Was she wearing fake hair? I threw the woman to the ground, and slapped her in the face. She was screaming and scratching me with her huge nails and one of the nails even fell on the floor. I managed to get on top of her and hit the woman.

"You don't want to humiliate me".

"Get off of me" she shouts "You crazy woman, you ripped my fingernail off."

"Stop it right now" Someone's voice was heard and I was pulled off the woman.

"Let me go, I wanna hit her"

He led me to the lift and I was on his shoulders, today was humiliation world day.

"Can you let me go?"

"You're not going to go around beating people up?" The stranger speaks to me.

"I want to get down."

He was quite tall and I didn't have much vision, there hanging on the shoulders of an unknown man. In fact, my day of humiliation is getting worse by the moment, right now, I'm standing with my butt up, on the shoulder of a man who I have no idea who he is. We're in an office and it's not the one I'm used to going to, is it the general manager's? He sets me down and I can see the stranger's face.

"What's your name?" I had seen that face somewhere before.

"Diana" He looks at me.

"I think you need a shower and so do I" He looked at my clothes.

I looked awful, my uniform which was light grey was stained green with paper sticking to it in several places, my hair was messy, half up and half down, I had a few scratches on my arms.

"I have to agree with you."

" Weren't you crying earlier today in the hallway?" - Of course, now that I remember him.

"You're the handsome guy who talked to me?" my god, I spoke out loud and he smiled. "You were talking to me earlier in the hallway."

"You're intriguing, one moment you seem so fragile and the next you're like a hurricane."

"Yeah, I'm like that"-I get embarrassed and lower my eyes staring at the floor.

"You just can't keep getting into trouble, Diana.

"I'm not like that, most of the time no one even notices me, but today is being a different day."

"Why are you different?"

"I burned my suit and broke the hotel owner's watch and I'm going to have to pay, that idiot Sirlene teasing me and it all happened because of her, who didn't warn me that the hotel owner was coming."

"And what did the hotel owner say?"

"He will take it out of his salary because I am wrong."

"I don't believe he deducted it from you?"

"Yes, it was my fault, nothing fairer than him taking it out."

"The guy's a billionaire and he took it out, do you know how many suits he has? And how many watches?" I shook my head in denial. "Neither does he, because he has so many he has no idea."

"I need to go back to the bathroom, to clean up that mess." I look at him. "I can't make a mess anymore." My phone rings, "I gotta take this." He agreed. "Hello, Mom?" I hear my mother's crying voice. And I despair.