Page 13 of Forgotten

“My normal?”

“Sexy professional,” she said without hesitation. “You know, the power boss look. The reason all the guys here follow you around like a puppy dog?”

“They do?”

Jessica rolled her eyes.

“Yeah, they do,” she said. “You look amazing, and it’s kind of frustrating since you looked amazing even without makeup on. But yeah, usually you look like you are about to walk onto a Marvel movie set as some spy or something.”

“Wow, okay,” I said. “But this works?”

“For literally anyone else, this would be the best look they’d have all month,” she said diplomatically.

“Good enough,” I said.

“Get out of here,” Jessica said. “I think I will cash in part of my favor by keeping this room for the night. I need a night away from everything.”

“Part of?”

She cocked an eyebrow and turned her head to the side.

“Right, fine,” I said. “Part of. Wish me luck!”

I took off down to the elevator, leaving my other things behind in the room, and arrived in the lobby just in time to see Tom Bethel arrive in his limousine. Tall, with dark hair streaked with gray, Tom Bethel was a very attractive older man, and his winning smile and fine Italian suit did a lot of work for him in that way. As he offered to shake my hand, even I felt impressed by him, and I’d met him dozens of times. Though, to be fair, never in a one-on-one situation like this.

We went into a conference room, one of the three our hotel had, and Tom looked around for a moment, as if he were evaluating the place.

“You know,” he said, “I think I want breakfast, but I’ve had the menu at our hotels all week. Would you like to go to Weaver’s Restaurant?”

“Sure,” I said excitedly. “They have amazing breakfasts there.”

“I remember,” he said. “Your old boss took me there when we opened this place. I believe you were working here then at the front desk?”

I blushed as my jaw fell. “You remember that?”

“Of course,” he said. “I don’t forget a face. Or a story. And your story is of particular interest to me, April. Come on. Let’s go get breakfast.”

Ushering me out with him, we walked past the front desk, waving at Stan and heading to his limo.

“You know,” Tom said as the waiter walked away after dropping our breakfast orders off, “your name has come up a lot in conversations at corporate.”

“It has?”

Up to now, we’d been idly chatting about the city, about the oppressive heat wave we’d been in, even about our favorite coffee. Nothing about work, though, and I felt like I was being set up for something. Be it good or bad, I wasn’t sure, but it certainly felt like I was being set up. Now hearing my name was a frequent piece of conversation in corporate seemed to indicate I was about to find out.

“Indeed,” he said, spreading butter on his pancakes with a concentrated exactness, “we absolutely love what you’ve done with Bethel Tulsa. I’m sure I don’t need to repeat your numbers back to you, but suffice it to say, it has been very eye-opening.”

“Thank you,” I said, taking a sip of my coffee to try and hide my wide grin. Everything was coming up roses today.

“Customer satisfaction is at an all-time high, your rate manipulation methods are truly intricate and something we want to teach to other managers, and the place looks immaculate all the time. We have secret shoppers, you know. They come in and take pictures and stay a night in the rooms to test you out.”

“I remember,” I said, sighing. “It was how my old boss got fired.”

“Yes, it was,” he said, shaking his head as if discarding a particularly unpleasant memory.

The thing was it was more than just a dirty hotel or slow room service that had gotten my old boss, Eric Watts, fired. It was the tryst he was having with his night manager that got himin trouble. The fact that the secret shopper happened to catch them in the act in the elevator was purely coincidental. But it opened up a spot for me, and I went from being the head of the front desk to overnight manager, and eventually to restaurant manager after the temporary managers didn’t work out.

“At any rate, your reviews have been spectacular, and we want to see if you can translate that success into another position.”

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