Rags to Riches

ASTON

 The lobby was quiet at this time of the morning. Slowly but surely, a small trickle of people were making their way from the bank of elevators to my left across the lobby to the breakfast area. I was proud to say our breakfast area was one of the best Palo Alto had to offer.

The hotel basically sat on the beach and while having bacon and eggs—or an egg white omelet for the more health conscious—clients could enjoy the magnificent view. The sparkling blue ocean lay to one side and great city views to the other.

I’d even had a hand in arranging the tables on the outside deck so everyone would have something pretty to look at while getting fueled up for the day ahead. I tried to make every guest feel special and welcomed, from the Silicon Valley business guys to the Stanford students needing some grease to cure their hangovers. Making sure their breakfast came with a view was only one way I tried to achieve my goal. When I got promoted to manager of this property, the California branch of the McAllen Hotel Group, I swore to myself it would be my personal mission to make sure every guest left happy. A tall order, but so far I thought I was doing okay.

Smiling, I greeted the few very early bird guests walking past my perch at the front desk and tidied up the bits and pieces of stationery littering the Caesar stone quartz countertop—left behind by the night shift.

“Do you ever go home?” Tiffany’s exasperated voice asked from the doorway behind me that led to the staff area in the back.

I turned to face my best friend. She was fiddling with her name tag, trying to place it in its rightful place above her heart while mussing her curly hair with her free hand. “I went home for a couple of hours, but there’s a high-end client coming in today. I wanted to make sure his room was ready on time.”

She rolled her vibrant green eyes and shook her head, making her fiery curls bounce. “I don’t understand why you go above and beyond for this company every damn day of the week.”

It wasn’t the first time we’d had this discussion. I gave her a pointed look and greeted an elderly couple celebrating their fiftieth wedding anniversary this week. “I do it because the guests deserve our best. Besides, it also happens to be our jobs.”

“Our jobs are to come in on time and do what we get paid to do. They don’t pay us to come in early to make sure every room is ready. That’s housekeeping’s job. It’s what Sheila and the girls get paid to do,” she said, smoothing out her navy blue skirt as she logged into the system for her shift as the front desk clerk.

“We’re all a team, Tiff.” I knew I sounded like I paid too much attention at our last staff retreat, but well—I had. More than that, I enjoyed my job and I worked hard because I didn’t want to be stuck in it for the rest of my life. The McAllen Property Group was huge. The kind of place a girl could do well for herself if she put some muscle into it.

“Sure, we’re a team working our butts off to make a billionaire even richer. Face it Aston, you’re nothing but another brick in the wall to the guys at the top. Another employee number they’ll never put a face to.”

In a company the size of McAllen, it was probably true. What was rare about our company though was that the CEO did actually care about his employees. Or at least he made an effort to fake it really well. “That billionaire you’re referring to is rich because he worked day and night to make it happen. You never know, it could be me next.”

“You think you’re going to become the next property billionaire by working in a hotel?” Tiffany propped a hand on her hip and arched a perfectly plucked brow. “Stuff like that doesn’t happen in real life. You should relax a little and come out with me tonight?”

“It does happen in real life. It happened for Mr. McAllen. You know his background, it’s a real rags to riches story. I respect him, he started out with nothing but look at where he is now. He has a hotel in almost every state and we’re expanding internationally. We’re more than employee numbers to him, but let’s say we really are just numbers, I still want him to know mine.”

“Think what you want, but they’re just going to get rid of us all one day. That’s how these big companies work.” She scooted back to hop onto her stool. “You never answered me about tonight.”

“I’m working tonight,” I told her. “The quarterly report came in early this morning. I want to read through it and see where we rank.”

“We’re one of the smaller hotels, so there is no way we’re anywhere near the top. Come out with me instead.” She flashed me a wide smile, twirling one of her curls between her fingers in a way that told me she was in the mood to cause trouble. My suspicions grew stronger when she batted her lashes next. “Please come out with me. We need to get your mind off work. I’m seriously worried about you. You’re my friend and you work way too hard. You’re only twenty-six, there’s plenty of time to work on world domination.”

“I don’t want to dominate the world.” I shook my head, but I was unable to hold back a smile. Tiffany and I were polar opposites. ‘Girls just want to have fun’ was her mantra and she spent every spare penny she had in pursuit of it. She was the fun to my serious, the Meredith to my Christina. But Christina and I knew when it was time to be serious. “I only want to dominate this job.”

Tiffany’s eyes crinkled at the corners as she tried to suppress a laugh. “Why don’t we find you a guy to dominate instead? You need to get laid, it’ll take your mind off of work.”

A loud crash at the revolving doors in the front of the lobby caught our attention. Both of our heads pivoted to the source of the noise. A group of guys wearing fraternity shirts came tumbling through the doors, shoving each other and laughing. Their sneakers squeaked on the polished marble floors.