The Lakeside Hotel

The Lakeside Hotel had been there as long as Michelle could remember. Her family had driven past it on the way to her grandparents house for Sunday dinners since she was a baby, and it had always stood out to her as a bit of a puzzle. The hotel seemed like nothing more than a bland, grey office building, mismatched with the most charming retro marquee sign at the entrance. The neon had long since gone dark, giving the impression that the hotel was abandoned, and yet there were always cars parked in the lot. The name had never made sense to her either. The property was clutched by woods, but there was no evidence of an actual lake nearby. She had never expected to have a reason to visit the hotel, but her daily scan for jobs on the college bulletin board had changed that.

‘Established local hotel under new management requires experienced seamstress for alterations contract. Must be flexible and have own sewing machine. Needed ASAP’

She plucked the paper off the board, and hoped it wasn’t another dead end or scam. After a brief phone call with a curt front desk agent, she was booked for an appointment with the manager at 3pm. Michelle felt cautiously optimistic and also very curious; this would be the first time she had ever set foot in the Lakeside.

Michelle waited nervously in the lobby of the main building. It was already 10 minutes past the appointment time she was given and it was making her uneasy. The upholstered bench she was sitting on made her keenly aware of her poor posture. It was backless and she could see herself slouching and correcting in the reflective elevator doors across the room. She had brought only a small purse, a pen and her favorite black notebook. It was leather bound, with cream coloured blank pages and a satin ribbon to mark your place. A graduation gift she had bought for herself with the intention of using it to record all of her design ideas and dreams that year.

A few months ago though, she had reluctantly begun using the back pages to record all of the odd jobs she had picked up to make money. She felt like keeping this list of work she hated in the back of the book would act as motivation to keep pushing herself in the front pages, and maybe by the time they met in the middle, she would be successful.

“Are you my 3 o’clock?”, a voice startled Michelle to her feet. A slim, slick looking man in a grey wool suit was standing in front of her.

“Uh yes...I’m here about the ad you posted for a seamstress?”, she stammered.

“Great. You’re the 5th one I’ve met with this week. Follow me.”

The man didn’t actually introduce himself but the tag on his lapel said, ‘H. Johnson’. She involuntarily smirked and wondered if that was an alias but thought better of asking him.

Michelle followed him down the hall to the first room on the right. He unlocked the door and flicked the light on. She was struck immediately that the décor looked like it hadn’t been updated since the 70s. Brown carpet, golden floral bedspreads and sad clashing wallpaper. Michelle suddenly felt a rush of excitement in her chest. She must be here to help with an interior design contract! This could be a huge boost for her portfolio. Maybe she would make some industry connections too.

“So, I need you to cut holes in the curtains.” he blurted.

Her swirling optimistic thoughts came to a halt. “Uhhhh….I’m sorry...holes?” Michelle repeated in confusion.

He walked over to the window and drew open the curtains creating a sunlit dust cloud. “Yes. You see this air conditioner?” He pointed at a grey box protruding from the wall just below the window. “Since we inherited this dump from my grandmother, the insurance company did a new inspection and they won’t renew the policy with the curtains covering these stupid things. Forget the fact that they were NEVER A PROBLEM FOR 30 YEARS, and now suddenly they are. There’s no way in HELL I’m buying new curtains for 120 rooms, so what I need YOU to do is fix this. You can just cut a hole through them, stitch it up and, BOOM, no more problem. Right?” Michelle was stunned. “How about you take a couple of minutes and work up a quote for me. I’ll be right back.” Without even pausing for her to reply, he was gone.

Michelle’s mind was racing. She had so many thoughts and no time to process. This was a terrible idea and not at all what she was hoping for. She would have to bring her sewing machine into each room, 120 times over. How many hours would this take her? She sat on the edge of the bed and reluctantly flipped to the back of her notebook to do some quick math. She needed this job even though it felt like a mistake. Suddenly, H. Johnson was back.

“Ok, so do you have a number for me? I’ll need this done in a week...did I mention that?”

She had opened her mouth to tell him that was impossible, when he craned his neck to look at her notes and cut her off.

“Hmm a little higher than what I expected... if you can cut 20% off what you’ve got written there, the job is yours. Can you start tomorrow?”

Michelle could feel every muscle in her body tightening with frustration but heard her own voice mumble, “Sure.”

When she arrived the next morning, there was a key for her at the front desk with a note:

‘This is the master room key. Do not lose it. Leave it here when you leave the hotel. Take everything you cut out of the curtains with you and dispose of it offsite. If you do not leave the rooms clean to my standard, a service fee will be deducted from your invoice. I expect this will be done by Friday. - H. Johnson’

The hotel was made up of 2 parts, a fairly unremarkable main building of 10 floors and hidden behind that was a neat row of motel style rooms that Michelle had never been able to see from the road before. They were lined up in a crescent around the secret lake that finally explained the hotel’s name. It was one of those magical spots that few locals like herself would even know existed and would deceive visitors into thinking this was a prettier town. It was October and the fall foliage was on full display and reflecting on the still water.

She gazed out at the view and longed to sit and sketch in her notebook but sadly, that’s not what she was here for. She snapped back into focus and made a plan of attack. She would start at the top floor of the main building, work her way down and finish off in the motel rooms. With occupancy changing every day, there was no time to waste if she was to hit every room by the end of the week.

She had rigged up a small luggage cart to transport her sewing machine, tools and trash. Each curtain panel had 3 layers of fabric, so this was going to be a tedious procedure. The first few tries were awkward and fiddly, like trying to write your name with your wrong hand. She knew this was not the ‘correct’ way to do an alteration, but the man in charge did not seem to care so she just pressed on. By the 46th room, it was routine. She was now a curtain cutting robot able to finish a panel in about 12 minutes. By the last day she had completed every room in the main building and only the last row outside remained.

It appeared that the motel section had been closed to guests for the season, and yet one of them had a ‘do not disturb’ sign on the doorknob all week. It was bright pink and stood out in her line of sight every time she had taken down a curtain from a window facing that direction. She wondered if it was an oversight or if someone was in there. Michelle had worked her way down the row and now stood facing that final door. She took a deep breath and knocked gently. Nothing. She tried again a bit louder and pressed her ear to the door, but didn’t hear a sound from inside. Time was wasting and she wanted to hand in her invoice before the office closed for the weekend so she could be done with this dusty drudge and get paid. She turned her key and peeked cautiously into the dark room. She felt a twinge of relief to see it was empty and nothing seemed out of place.

She quickly began to set up for her last curtain operation. She pushed a chair over to the window and stepped up to start unhooking the curtain from the rod and immediately noticed it felt heavier than normal. A lot heavier. She unhooked the last few loops and lifted the panel down to the bed and spread it out. The curtain seemed to be padded along the bottom hem. She figured maybe someone had tried to weigh it down to keep it from blowing around in front of the a/c. She was going to have to cut through it anyway so she grabbed her scissors and started to slice into the fabric. They were quickly jammed up with something solid. Michelle put the scissors aside and pulled apart the bottom of the curtain with her hands. A tightly wrapped stack of twenty dollar bills flopped out on her foot. She froze for a second, then picked up the money and fanned the end with her thumb. It must have been a thousand dollars. The curtain was still spread out in front of her and now she could make out at least a dozen more lumps. She quickly ripped the rest of the hem open to reveal nineteen others exactly...twenty thousand dollars, just sitting there in front of her.

Michelle stared at the money and then straightened up and turned to look out at the lake through the exposed window. The sun was getting lower in the sky and the golden light was casting the most beautiful shadows across the grounds. She reached into her pocket and pulled out the note she had been given at the front desk on day one.

‘...take everything you cut out of the curtains with you…’

She completed her work on the final curtain panel and hooked it back in place as she considered her options. Not a single staff member had spoken to her or acknowledged her presence all week. No one had ever asked for her name or contact information. The only time she had spoken with H Johnson, he had pressured her into a bargain rate and a ridiculous timeline, and followed it up with a written threat to penalize her if she didn’t complete the job exactly as instructed. She was basically hired to be a ghost and disappear as fast as possible. Michelle decided that it was in everyone’s best interest if she did exactly what she was told. She stuffed the remaining scrap, including the money, into the black garbage bag she had been hauling from room to room as instructed. The urgency she felt about submitting her bill to the office was replaced with her desire to sit for a moment and finally sketch that beautiful view. She parked her gear just outside of the room, locked the door behind her, and pulled out her notebook as she made her way to the edge of the lake.