Fear and Laundry Read Online Free PDF Page B

about once a month.
    I confirmed it was buffet night and unlocked and opened the dryer door, standing back to let an escaping wave of heat dissipate before leaning in to pull a clump of towels from the machine. I worked quickly, not letting my hands linger too long on the red-hot linens as I dropped them into the cart.
    Alma ambled slowly with a stack of folded towels to a rack of wire shelving in the back of the room. “I haven’t been off in ten days,” she said, remarking on how quickly the week seemed to have flown by. “I’ve lost all track of time.” Then, noticing what I was doing, she said “You don’t have to do that, sweetheart. You’ll keep your mother waiting.”
    “I’ve got a few minutes,” I said, shutting the dryer with my hip and wheeling the laundry cart to the folding table. “Why’re you still here?” I asked her. “It’s getting late.”
    “That new girl your mother hired,” Alma explained with a disappointed sound, “hasn’t shown up all week.” The laundry, she said, had been backed up for days.
    Plucking a wash cloth from the cart, I assured her that between the two of us we’d catch up in no time. I folded the cloth in half, laid it on the table and rolled it up tight, adding it to a pyramid of other cloths folded the same way.
    Alma moseyed back to the table. “Just like the old days, huh?” she asked, tiny lines radiating from the corners of her mouth and eyes as she smiled.
    When I was younger, Mom would pick me up from school and lock me in an empty hotel room to watch television until she’d finished her shift and could take me home. Sometimes I’d microwave popcorn in the suite kitchen and watch movies on free cable. More often, though, I’d escape, sneak down to the laundry and help Alma finish her work. She kept a stash of candy in her smock pockets, and would always let me have a few pieces.
    “Just like,” I smiled.
    ***
    “H i, Pumpkin.” Mom glanced at the clock mounted above the doorway as I walked into her office. “You’re on time.” She sounded surprised.
    People said she and I looked a lot alike, and it was true we shared some traits. We both had naturally tan skin, brown eyes, and dark, almost black, hair that fell just past our shoulders. But I was taller than she was, and not as pretty.
    “I was early, actually,” I said a little defensively.  She returned to scribbling something in a ledger.
    As I waited for her to finish, I looked around the small space. Her office, down the hall from the laundry, was really just a big supply closet rearranged to house a desk and two chairs. Shelves lined the walls, bulging with extra rolls of toilet paper and miniature bars of soap. Brand-new housekeeper and laundry attendants’ uniforms, folded and shrink-wrapped in plastic, stood sorted by size on a rack.
    Finally she capped her pen, closed the notebook and stood up behind her desk. “I think the buffet’s Chinese tonight,” she said excitedly, pulling her purse from a hook on the wall. My stomach growled in response as she switched off the light and locked the office door behind us.
    ***
    T he basement hallway continued past my mother’s office, branching off into more storage closets and an employee break room. Beyond that, a dark staircase led directly up to the hotel restaurant kitchen, facilitating the movement of banquet supplies from storage, when needed, to the event halls on the first floor.
    At an island in the center of the kitchen, chefs stood over sizzling-hot grills and enormous stock pots, their puffy, white hats drooping in the heat. Servers in black slacks and dress shirts buzzed around, narrowly avoiding bowling one another over as they jostled to drop off orders and garnish plates. In a corner, a red-faced dishwasher in a hair net directed a high-pressured jet of steaming hot water at a sink full of stainless steel pans. Everyone talked at once, their voices raised over the battery-powered radio blasting Led Zeppelin from a butcher