One Summer I Was A Maid At The Hyatt Regency Mother said there's nothing wrong being a maid. "It's fine work." My brothers, however, asked me if I'd put "housekeeping" on a resume. It was my first job after college, and the maids who were employed for ten years or more couldn't comprehend why I got hired. For I was slower than camel dung in the sun, whereas these ladies were like metal balls in a pinball game—zip and zap and out of the room in 45 minutes—the estimated time to clean a hotel suite. I was reminded of the maid profession recently while staying at the Hilton in Secaucus, NJ. Things are well placed in a hotel room. This is the role of the housekeeper who must astutely put the retro ashtray in close proximity to the glasses. The bed is flat and the sheets are tucked with an anal-retentive zeal and complexity that only a housekeeper can muster. The smell of the room is antiseptic and reminiscent of dead bodies. Nothing moves but the dust. It is unlived in except for those few hours or weeks when people occupy temporary space. Apart from that, the life a room leads is largely with its housekeeper. I was sometimes hung over when I came to work. No one noticed, especially my boss, whose name was Mayflower Jones. She was a blue blood housekeeping supervisor whose father and mother grew up in Princeton. Mayflower received an MBA from Wharton.

When I showed Mayflower my resume, her main concern was: Have you ever cleaned toilets?

Mayflower was an urbane Aryan—the type I ultimately get a crush on. I get crushes on Mayflowers because they make me feel as if I'm a Charlotte Bronte heroine, who, upon meeting a Mayflower, has met Mr. Rochester.

Mayflower appreciated me more than the others—told me I was doing a "downright good job" while she stared more intensely at my uniform than most normal people who get a glimpse of the starched fabric and then move on to a more intriguing vision.

She was also amazed that I was an English major in college. For I am usually more seasoned mentally than the people I work with. I have been a secretary for Con Ed, a receptionist in a water-processing firm, and a computer input assistant at the North Central Bronx Hospital. It's like being a whiz in remedial English class.

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We assembled at 6 a.m. I wore white shoes (standard nurse ones) and picked shampoos. I was not the senior maid and waited until the others chose their supplies. You don't want to insult someone who has been there longer by grabbing the shampoos.

I took the vacuum on a cart and dragged everything to the elevator. I then faced a floor of unmade beds, cigarette buds mixed with room-service croissants, prophylactics, dental floss threads, and occasionally, soiled Mary Higgins Clark novels.

I relished bathroom cleaning because of Comet's smell and its abrasive effects in shower stalls. I like stretching my arm through a toilet bowl and using a brush to remove the excess dirt. I get satisfaction from a clean bowl—it looks like a birdbath when I'm done.

Beds are more complex and I hate hotel sheets—they are like pajamas for corpses. I placed them wrinkled under the comforter—for sheets do not have the virility of porcelain—toilets are the Spice Girls of cleaning.

Mayflower was extremely critical of my beds, for the pillow was off by several degrees, and although she would not fire me for messing it up, she gave me ten-minute lectures on sheet-folding etiquette.

She referred to me as the "The English Major" and took a special moment to tell the other maids that "Our Irene here is an English major." Still, this did not preclude me from the same criticism that everyone else received.

"English Major," she yelled, "what smooth muscles you have!"

"Thanks, Mayflower."

"Would you like some corn relish?"

"No thanks, Mayflower." For she was our Mayflower Madame and we were her maids of
suburbia.

Invariably, I was able to push that cart and go up and down the escalator with pizzazz, although not as exuberantly as the more senior staff.

Of course, all this was fine and dandy and dandy and fine and I never hated being a maid until this girl from my Shakespeare 101 course asked me in the locker room, "You were an English major and now you're a maid?"

I looked at her and walked silently toward my cart.

Besides, I got Ds in English and didn't want to be an English professor. My mother encouraged me to be some Ivy League thing, reminiscent of her wanting me to play the harp. Mom, however, was a bookkeeper, and quite good at it; but for me, well, she hoped I'd teach the Faerie Queen at Smith College.

While the Hyatt was not Seven Sisters, it did have its merits. In fact, Mayflower selected some of us as winners of the "Summer Hyatt Maid Cleaning Contest."

One woman was vehemently opposed to my nomination—she cleaned the chairman's penthouse suite. When she was sick one day, I broke her vacuum accidentally, but she thought I did it on purpose.

"You just a stupid white girl—what the hell you know about cleaning?!" She was an elderly Jamaican woman with grandchildren.

This did not dismay Mayflower because WASPY women favor me. I'm like that Jew on the block who's quite clever. It's like having a pet that you pay minimum wage to.

On the evening the cleaning contest dinner, six of us ate in the Hyatt's exclusive restaurant on the third floor overlooking the town of Somerville.

Reaching for my filet mignon, I saw Mayflower gaze at me.

The conversations were separate, with Mayflower humoring me about some Stephen Spielberg movie and the other women discussing their Labor Day plans, their voices were buzzing like bees floating near lilacs.

When the room cleared, Mayflower said, "English Major, I've been thinking, how would you feel about a promotion?"

"Huh?"

"Would you like to be the new laundry room assistant? That way you could always be near my office."

I looked sad. She looked at me.

"Are you upset by this promotion?"

"Yeah, kind of."

"You'd be closer to my office."

"I know, but I just won this prize, and I actually enjoy cleaning toilets."

"You do?"

"I think it's refreshing to scrub them. It's a very pure act."

"Well, as you've won this award, I think it's time to move on."

"Yeah, I guess."

This would mean no more trips through people's bedrooms as they were waking up nor would it mean a large tip from the Germans I caught without a "Do Not Disturb" sign.

"Enshüldigen Sie, bitte"

"Ahhhhhhhhh!" They screamed in German.

An hour later, when I reentered the room, I found ten dollars in a silver tray.

"I was looking forward to being a maid," I replied.

"You can still be a maid in spirit. But now you'll take care of everyone's dirty laundry." Mayflower thought she was very funny, but it was definitely her good looks that allowed such jokes.

We were quiet for a moment.

"You have nice eyes," she said to me, "they remind me of zebra eyes. Did you ever look into their eyes? I notice on your resume that you were once a tour guide at the Great Adventure safari."

"Yes, I was once a maid, er, uh, tour guide." Mayflower moved her leg against mine.

"Did you enjoy that?" It was certainly less stressful than cleaning toilets but not the same money. Maids got more money than tour guides, but secretaries got the most.

"I enjoyed Great Adventure." I also enjoyed Mayflower near me.

"Would you like to come over to my apartment for a cup of coffee?"

"Sure."

Within minutes, Mayflower and I were walking. The town had a peculiar campus sensibility throughout. You knew there was a college nearby because of the university bus fumes.

"It's a nice night." She looked at me.

"Yeah," I replied. I was itching from the uniform. Although I wore my own undergarments the uniform made me feel like I was in the Prussian army.

"This is it." She looked at her door.

"I love the door," I said.

"Yeah," she replied, "it's from Nancy, France."

"Nancy, France?"

"Oh yes, at the turn of the century, Nancy, France had the most art deco architecture anywhere. My father is an art historian and our family gets doors from France. This building was rebuilt by historical funds provided to my father for the restoration of architecture that resembles a Nancy, France building."

How could a woman named Mayflower, whose father was obviously more than your average schoolteacher, be working as a supervisor in the housekeeping department at the Hyatt Regency? Perhaps that's why she hired me to work as a maid—she wanted me to rise in the hotel industry with her.

"So you like being a maid?" She handed me a Michelob.

"It pays the bills. It's very serene."

"Yes," she sat close by, "so English Major, have you ever been with a girl before?"

"I have lots of girlfriend. . .I um. . ."

"Oh. . .you get around, huh?"

"I socialize with friends."

"But do you have a girlfriend?"

"No, no one in particular."

"Would you like one?"

"Do you know anyone who is looking to have one?"

"ME."

"Oh, you want to date me? Isn't that unethical being that you're my boss and all?"

Mayflower leaned over and kissed me.

"What are you doing?" I moved away.

"I couldn't resist your cuteness. Those zebra eyes. . .ever since you interviewed in my
office. . ."

"Thanks, but I'm not really interested in women."

She got up and walked toward the window. It looked like a bay window you'd find in Brooklyn. I knew that because my Grandmother lived in Brooklyn and called her window a bay window.

"My Grandmother has a window like that—look, maybe I better leave," I looked at Mayflower who seemed distressed.

"Did I say something wrong?" She asked.

"No."

"Then what's wrong?" She whispered.

"I've never been with a girl," I said quietly.

"I can't hear you, Irene."

"I've never been with a girl."

"Oh. I see. Just relax."

We lay there for several minutes and I began to relax. You could see the moon descend through the window. It wasn't quite full, but it was getting there.

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Eleanor Levine has been published in Happy, Penumbra, Onion River Review, Downtown Poets, Kumquat Merringue, New York Sex, The California State Quarterly, The Denver Quarterly, and Rag Shock 4; and has work forthcoming in Fiction.
 

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