“It was a six-hundred-and-forty-five-dollar room rate,” Richie says. “That needs to be paid. By you. You made a unilateral decision to comp the room.”
“Okay?” Alessandra says. “I’ll point out that Edie upgraded the Marsh family for the summer without anyone’s permission. That adds up to a lot more lost revenue than six hundred and forty-five dollars, and no one is making her pay.”
Both Richie and Edie are silent.
Richie huffs. “Fine. I’ll let this go but don’t do it again, either of you.” He disappears back into Lizbet’s office.
Alessandra turns to Edie. “I should have just gotten them a toaster,” she says.
Edie gives Alessandra a withering look.
“I’m sorry, Edie,” Alessandra says. She pauses. “Is it a desk thing to throw your helpful, kind coworker under the bus?”
“Your desk thing,” Edie says, and Alessandra is more relieved than she can explain when Edie lets the tiniest smile slip.
15. Behind Closed Doors
Adam drags Raoul into the break room, and Grace follows them because it looks like trouble!
“We need to speak to Lizbet about the schedule,” Adam says. “It’s not fair that she switched our shifts. You need to talk to her. She likes you better.”
“I don’t want to talk to her,” Raoul says. “Because, believe it or not, I’m ready to stop working nights. I did it for an entire month. Now it’s your turn.”
“You just want to spend all day with Zeke,” Adam says.
Raoul blinks. “Or you do, and that’s why you’re kerking.”
“I hope you’re not accusing me of anything,” Adam says. “Because I don’t need to remind you which one of us was caught making out with that busboy at Nikki Beach.”
“That was before we were even together,” Raoul says. “I’ve been faithful since our first date. And working with Zeke isn’t going to make me unfaithful. If you think that, then you have trust issues.”
“I have trust issues?”
“Do you have a thing for Zeke, Adam?”
At that moment the door to the break room swings open and Zeke steps in. “Adam, you’re on tonight? I’ve gotta bounce.”
“I’ll be right there,” Adam says. “Just chatting with my husband whom I never see.”
Zeke looks from Adam to Raoul and must sense something because he steps back out and closes the door.
“Why can’t we work together?” Adam says. “Zeke can work nights.”
“You know why we can’t work together,” Raoul says. “George said he’d recommend to any future employer that we be scheduled opposite each other.”
“Well, I’m lonely. I made dinner plans with Alessandra three times and she ditched me all three,” Adam says. Surprise, surprise, Grace thinks. There was Mr. Brownlee in 309, Mr. Yamaguchi in suite 215, and Dr. Romano in room 107. “I miss you.”
“I miss you too, boo.”
Suddenly, Adam and Raoul embrace and start kissing. Grace is delighted the fight is over and the making up has begun. She heads over to the jukebox and plays “Take My Breath Away,” by Berlin, and then she lights up the pinball machine.
The gentlemen don’t even seem to notice.
Could Kimber Marsh be any more obvious? Grace wonders. She comes down to the lobby—again at quarter past one in the morning （coincidentally after Adam has left and the Blue Bar has closed）， again wearing her shorty pajamas, cardigan, and the hotel slippers.
“Richie?” Kimber whispers—but Richie isn’t at his usual post out front. Richie, Grace sees, is in Lizbet’s office with the door not only closed but locked. He’s on his cell phone （forbidden at work unless you need it to conduct hotel business）， having a terse conversation. What can Grace think but that he’s speaking to his ex-wife? Who else would he be talking to at one fifteen in the morning? Then Grace sees what Richie has on the desk in front of him and she hears what he’s saying into the phone.
Oh, dear, she thinks. This is what he’s up to. What a disappointment.
Grace blows the paperwork off the desk in an attempt to be disruptive but Richie doesn’t seem to care. Then she tries to mess with the phone connection but it’s too late, the conversation is over. When Richie hangs up, he slumps back in his chair and grabs his head.
There’s a tap on the office door. “Richie?”
The inevitable has happened, Grace thinks. Kimber has grown so comfortable at the hotel that she has crossed the border between guest and staff. She’s behind the front desk—and now she’s knocking on the office door. If it weren’t locked, Grace suspects she would have marched right in and caught Richie at his odious business.