Chapter 1
Nora
I woke up too early, feeling that bubbling sense of excitement in my belly. I wasn’t supposed to report at the hotel for another few hours, but I couldn’t contain the energy that was bursting in my veins. I still couldn’t believe I got the job.
Sliding out of bed, I showered and changed into the uniform the hotel issued me. My roommate and best friend, Katie, was still asleep in her room, so I walked around our apartment, making myself a coffee first, then a bowl of cereal. I was too enthusiastic to calm down, to sit down and just breathe.
As a child, growing up in a small rural town in Minnesota, I had never been to a big city like San Francisco. The only life I had known was going to school in the snow, helping my grandfather at his grocery store, and going fishing on the weekends. Our town had no more than four hundred people when I was growing up, and my prospects were low.
The only future I had to look forward to was taking over Granddad’s store when I grew up and hopefully marrying a nice man to build a family with. Even though that was the life I was supposed to lead, though it was my destiny, just like it had been my mother’s destiny too…it wasn’t enough for me.
I used to stare longingly at the shows on TV, I read books and magazines about the big-city life and wondered how different my world would be if I could just get out of this godforsaken town. But I couldn’t leave Granddad, not when he was getting old and had nobody to look after him. My parents had both died in a car accident when I was twelve, and I had no other family except Granddad.
So, even though I had big dreams and I longed to leave, I knew I never would as long as Granddad was still alive.
And then one day, he wasn’t. I found him in the back storage room of the store on the floor. He had a heart attack while I was in the front, attending to customers who kept me busy. I was distraught; I felt broken…everyone I had ever loved and known was now gone. I was completely alone.
For months I tried to keep up the store, follow Granddad’s routine and make sure that I did a good job…so that he’d be proud of me. Then one morning, while I was sitting behind the counter, reading the morning newspaper, I saw a photograph of San Francisco in an advertisement. What was I waiting for? Why was I still living here now, amidst the ghosts of my parents and Granddad? There was nothing left for me here, other than a hollow cave in my chest and an itch for a better life.
I took the savings I’d collected over the years and the money that Granddad left me. I locked up the store, locked up our house, and took the first bus out of the town to Saint Paul. I had never been on a plane before; everything was new to me. Within a few hours, I was in San Francisco and I had never felt more alive.
It was through sheer luck that I found this apartment, that I found Katie as a roommate and now I had been living in San Francisco for five months, and I finally had a job. Which was good, since I was quickly running out of money.
According to Katie, Stone Hotel, a five-star luxury hotel, was one of the premier locations in San Francisco. When I looked it up, I found that there were several Stone Hotels around the country, including Hawaii and Los Angeles. I was too afraid to go in for the interview; I had no experience in hospitality. I had no experience in any kind of job!
I was a twenty-three-year-old girl with no experience of the real world. Somehow, I got the job. It was a part-time trainee position with the floor staff's team. It wasn’t anything huge, but it was something. Apparently, the HR lady who interviewed me liked my small-town midwestern charm. Katie said she was sure I got the job because I had a trustworthy face. Whatever it was, I now had a source of income. I had an actual job in an actual big city.
So, on the morning of my first day, I had butterflies in my stomach as I waited for the clock to strike eight. I was going to walk to the hotel, I was going to be on time, and I was going to make sure that the nice lady who had given me the job would not regret taking a chance on me.
Katie woke up just minutes before I was going to leave the apartment. Her shift at the cafe didn’t start till ten.
“Look at you! In that fancy skirt.” Katie came over to give me a tight hug. We had only known each other for five months, but we had grown close. I never had a friend like Katie before. In my town of four hundred people, there were only four other girls in my age-group and they were all more interested in boys and hooking a husband than making friends with other girls.
“Wish me luck, Katie!” I exclaimed, rushing for the door now.
“You’re going to have a great day,” she said and blew me a kiss.
I ran down the stairs, bursting through the front door of the apartment building. If anyone saw me, they would have seen the silly wide smile that adorned my face. There was a skip in my step as I walked in the direction of Stone Hotel.
I knew that if my parents and Granddad had been alive, they would have been shocked by what they saw and then they would have been proud.