Big Daddy Sinatra: There Was a Ruthless Man(45)

Jenay smiled. “Then I can spare Meg long enough to drive you home.”

“Oh, you can, can you?” Charles asked with a smile of his own as they arrived at the vacant room.

“But wait a minute,” Jenay said. “I thought you said you owned a car dealership.”

“I do. My son Donald works there.”

“So you have many vehicles then.”

“That I personally own? No. Just the Jag.”

“You own a car dealership, but you only own one car?”

“That’s correct. I can only drive one car. I only own one car. But that was before I met you,” Charles added as he swiped the master keycard and they entered the room.

Jenay felt some kind of way as she walked into the room. Not about the room, but about what Charles had said. It sounded as if he was serious about building a future with her. The fact that he had come back from New York early, just because he didn’t like the way she sounded on the telephone, spoke volumes to her. Although the job was still stressful, and she hated that Beatrice had to lose her position like that after so many years working here, but the personal side was shaping up just fine. Better than she could have ever hoped.

“This is one of our standard rooms,” Charles said as they walked around the room. Like the hotel itself, it was a gorgeous room, and Charles seemed pleased.

“As you can see,” he said, “the maid staff keeps it in tiptop shape.”

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.