Chương 7
“I owe you an apology,” Elena said.
“For what part?”
“The part where I announced a staff review before I knew who the staff were.”
“That’s a start.”
She had expected him to make the apology easier once offered. The expectation embarrassed her.
“Martin says you’ll be paid for the full shift.”
“I saw it in payroll.”
“Good.”
Darius placed the pen beside the claim book.
“You want something else.”
“I want to know whether you trust the audit.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because audits belong to whoever pays for them.”
“We’re hiring an outside firm.”
“And who pays them?”
“We do.”
“Then there you go.”
A young couple approached with three matching suitcases. Darius greeted them, tagged the luggage, and answered a question about brunch. Elena stepped aside.
The couple never looked at his face for more than a second. They thanked him warmly enough, but their attention stayed on each other and the phone between them. Darius rolled their luggage toward the elevators.
When he returned, Elena was still there.
“You waiting for a bag?” he asked.
“For an answer.”
“I gave you one.”
“What would make the process credible?”
He studied her.
“Let employees choose one of the investigators.”
“That creates confidentiality problems.”
“So does asking people to trust the person who signs their checks.”
Elena looked toward Ruth, who had heard.
Ruth shook her head once.
Elena said, “I’ll consider it.”
Darius picked up his pen.
“That means no.”
“It means I’ll ask counsel.”
“That means no with an invoice.”
Elena almost smiled.
Darius did not.
By noon, Mercer Lodging announced that employees would select one member of a three-person review panel. The decision created seventeen new problems. Two department heads argued that hourly employees would choose an activist. The hotel’s counsel warned that staff access to records could violate privacy agreements. Grant’s attorneys described the structure as a hostile proceeding designed to manufacture cause for termination.
Employees distrusted it anyway.
The first nomination meeting drew fifty-eight people and ended after a banquet server accused a housekeeping supervisor of protecting managers. Three employees left before the vote. One demanded a union representative, though the hotel was not unionized. Another asked whether choosing an investigator would put her immigration paperwork at risk.
The question reached Elena after dinner.
She stared at Martin. “Why would she think that?”
“Because her work authorization renewal is pending and the hotel’s attorney handles the filing.”
“Can her participation affect it?”
“Legally? No.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
Martin rubbed his forehead. “She may believe management can delay supporting documents.”
“Can management delay them?”
He did not answer.
Elena left the meeting room and walked through the service corridor. The luxury lobby ended abruptly behind a swinging door. Here the walls were beige, the light flat, the air warm with laundry and food. Employees moved quickly around carts and racks. A dishwasher argued in Spanish with someone on speakerphone while scraping plates. A housekeeper drank orange soda beside a linen bin and watched Elena pass without smiling.
Elena remembered the Lakeview’s corridors, though these were cleaner and three times as wide.
She found Darius in the loading area, tightening a loose wheel on a luggage cart with a small wrench.
“Did you know about the immigration concern?”
He kept working. “Everybody knows.”
“Why didn’t anyone report it?”
“To whom?”
“Martin.”
Darius looked up.
Elena let out a breath. “All right.”
He tested the wheel.
“You want this place to be one bad man,” he said. “It would be easier.”
“I don’t think Grant is the only problem.”
“You look at him like he is.”
“How do I look at Martin?”
“Like he disappointed you.”
“He did.”
“Grant didn’t?”
“I didn’t expect anything from Grant.”
Darius slipped the wrench into his pocket. “That’s the difference.”
The employee vote eventually selected Naomi Price, a forty-six-year-old front desk supervisor who had worked at the Beaumont for eleven years. She was not the person management preferred or the person Darius nominated. She had a reputation for remembering every scheduling promise and forgiving none of them.
The other investigators were a labor attorney chosen by Mercer Lodging and a retired hotel executive chosen jointly by the seller and lender.
The panel began interviews on the third day.
Grant moved the charity gala to the Langford that afternoon.
The cancellation cost the Beaumont one hundred and eighty room nights, two ballrooms, three private dinners, and enough catering revenue to cover a week of hourly payroll. Grant’s company also notified six corporate clients that the hotel’s ownership transition created “service uncertainty.”
The phrase spread through industry emails with impressive speed.
Ruth brought Elena the revised forecast.
“If this continues, we breach the lender’s occupancy covenant in five weeks.”
Elena read the numbers.
“We can offer discounts.”
“We can destroy the rate structure, yes.”
“Temporary packages.”
“Which online booking sites will remember forever.”
“Then find groups not connected to Rowe.”
“We are doing that.”
Ruth took back the forecast.
“This is what consequences look like when they aren’t edited into fifteen seconds.”
Elena glanced at her.
Ruth’s face softened. “That was unfair.”
“No. It was accurate.”
The public loved the story for four days.
Bianca’s clothing sponsors received thousands of messages. One jewelry company removed her from its website. A nonprofit where she served as honorary chair announced that it was “reviewing recent events.” Grant released a statement calling the incident regrettable while accusing Elena of exploiting it to interfere with a valid commercial contract.
Bianca released nothing.
Her silence produced more coverage than an apology would have.
On the fifth day, an entertainment program aired photographs of Elena arriving at other properties in expensive clothing. A commentator asked why she had “dressed down” at the Beaumont and suggested the humiliation might have been engineered to justify removing Rowe Hospitality.
The claim was unsupported.
May you like
It was also useful to Grant.
Within hours, people online compared the prices of Elena’s sneakers, cardigan, and handbag. The worn sneakers were from a common brand and had cost sixty dollars. The cardigan had been purchased six years earlier. The gray tote, unfortunately, was handmade and expensive.
