Black is-was-a famous impresario, a magnate, a tycoon. Charles Black and his second wife, Giselle Black, are long-time repeat guests at The Regency Grand. Today at work, I found a guest very dead in his bed. One must live by her own moral code, not follow like a sheep, blindly. As Gran would say, Never mind what others think it’s what you think that matters. Snow, the hotel manager, was surprised to see me. The day after her death, I went to work, as usual.

Why call it anything other than what it is? She did not pass away. Recently, I turned twenty-five, “a quarter of a century” my gran would proclaim to me now if she could say anything to me.

Or when thanking you, though they really want to slap you across the face. Sometimes, people smile when they’re laughing at you. It’s only because of my gran that I know a smile doesn’t necessarily mean someone is happy. The truth is, I make etiquette mistakes with alarming regularity, offend when I mean to compliment, say the wrong thing at the wrong time. Once I’m uniformed, I know just what to say and do-at least most of the time. What a joy to see it hanging from my locker, wrapped in clingy plastic-clean, disinfected, freshly pressed, a new beginning. It is, in my humble opinion, a cornucopia of beauty. There’s nothing quite like a perfectly stocked maid’s trolley early in the morning. But when I arrive at work, I feel alive again. I’m so thankful for my job, especially now, without Gran. I know we’re all supposed to aspire to be doctors and lawyers and rich real estate tycoons. Never in my life did I think I’d hold such a lofty position in a grand hotel. The Regency Grand is a five-star boutique hotel that prides itself on “sophisticated elegance and proper decorum for the modern age.” I’m a maid at The Regency Grand Hotel, and my name is Molly. It was not ridiculous before I took this job four years ago. I am well aware that my name is ridiculous.

The Maid by Nita Prose