Housekeeping

Melanie Parks rolled her steel cart, heaped with towels and complimentary pens, up to room 217. She slid her card into the lock.

In the twenty-four years she’d been a maid at the Greensborough Hilton, Melanie had seen almost everything, including a Vietnamese pig helping itself to the mini bar. Once she’d found a diamond ring in the shower drain. And although it could have ended most of her troubles she’d reported it to the manager.

Melanie opened the bathroom door, her housekeeper’s fingers grasping the brass handle. On the counter sat a brand new bottle of Chanel No. 5.

The glass was weighty and luxurious. Its contents shimmered like liquid amber.

She sprayed the perfume into the air, the mist filling the windowless room.

Unexpectedly she was nineteen again, waiting in the basement of First Baptist for her wedding.

She slipped the bottle into the pocket of her apron.