CHAPTER FOUR
Zane
For the past four years, every morning I woke up to a sexy woman in my bed and the sun shining through the windows in my bedroom. Now I woke to a room the average grandmother would have considered a bit much and an empty bed that was barely illuminated thanks to the near constant grey sky that seemed to exist above the inn. Worst of all, I woke up every day to someone pounding on my damn door needing something. It was awful.
As I heard the irritating knock this morning, I sighed and got up to answer the door and ream out the person on the other side of it.
“Yes?” I said as a short and exceptionally pregnant looking Asian woman trembled before me.
“Sir, the kitchen shipment came in, and they need you to sign for it. I’m sorry.”
I rolled my eyes and shut the door before yelling back at her, “I’ll be down when I’m down. He can wait.”
It had been a month since my mother’s lawyer had given me the news that instead of just getting my inheritance that I’d have to run this damn place for a year, and I didn’t know how I was going to make it for another eleven months.
Scrubbing the sleep from my face, I stared into the mirror and wished for time to fly by so I could return to my life out west. I slipped on a pair of pants and yesterday’s shirt and ran my fingers through my hair before going downstairs to sign the paper the delivery guy had for me.
“Mondays, right?” he said, his tone far more chipper than it needed to be for seven in the morning.
“Yeah,” I grunted before putting the paper in his hands and walking away.
I left the kitchen to look at the dining room. Each table was set up and ready for breakfast, but other than that, it looked like any other restaurant before the customers arrived. Not that I gave much of a damn about dishes and what color the tablecloths should be.
I grabbed some eggs and bacon from the buffet and took a seat at what had become my usual table in the corner. Halfway through my meal I could feel someone behind me, and I turned around slowly as I rolled my eyes.
“What is it, Sue? Did you manage to ruin yet another load of linens?” I asked, my mouth still full of food as she stood wide-eyed staring at me.
“No…no, sir. I…I just…”
“What is it, Sue? Just spit it out. I’m trying to eat here.”
“I just…I needed to ask if I can have a day off next month,” she said, annoying me with every syllable.
“Why do you need a day off next month?” I asked before taking a long drink of coffee.
“Well…I have this wedding…” she answered before looking down at the floor.
“You know what, Sue. I couldn’t care less about what you do in your personal life. If you want the day off, talk to that old lady Kathy. She makes the schedule for the help.”
“Yes sir…it’s just she told me to explain it to you and…”
My breakfast ruined, I pushed the plate away and tried to pretend that I didn’t want to just get up and walk away from this conversation. “Just talk to Kathy, okay? Tell her I don’t care why you have to have the day off.”
She nodded, and with her lip quivering, ran away as fast as she could from me. Good. That was how I liked it. Every time one of the workers talked to me it felt like a migraine shot directly from my left eye straight to the back of my head.
Fuck, it was going to be a long eleven months.
I stood up from my breakfast, leaving the dishes behind, and headed to the back office to tackle the mountain of never-ending paperwork waiting for me on my desk. When I got there, one of the kitchen staff, a woman whose name escaped me at that moment, stood waiting for me. A homely thing, she had eyes that resembled a bug’s and always looked like someone had just shocked the hell out of her. Thankfully, we kept her in the back of the house.
“Yes? What do you need?” I asked as I unlocked the office, pushing past her to take a seat in the uncomfortable office chair I kept meaning to replace.
She looked around nervously and said, “Uh, Mr. Gilford, I’m sorry to be a bother, but I have to go home early today and won’t be able to make it in for the next week.”
I let out a heavy sigh. Without her, I’d have to probably help out in the kitchen over the weekend, something I definitely did not want to do.
“Are you sick?” I asked, not looking up from my computer as I mentally ran through the list of who I could call in to replace yet another lazy worker.
“No sir. I just, I have to go home. It’s personal,” she squeaked out.
For once, I wished I had one worker who could speak in a voice audible to the human ear. I looked at her, disgusted. “Listen, Nicole…”
“It’s Noel.”
“Noel, whatever. I don’t really care what personal issues you have. Leave them at the door when you come to work. When you’re here, you’re here. I can’t give you the time off so suddenly.”
“But, sir, I…”
“In the future, if you want days off, you need to schedule them in advance. Maybe my mother would just let anyone walk all over her here, but she’s gone, and I’m the boss now, so get it straight.”
Just like the employee earlier, her lip started to tremble as she stared at me, her huge bug-like eyes filling with tears.
“Oh, come on now. What is with you weepy people in this place? It’s Vermont. I thought you guys were hardy. How can I get anything done with people crying all over the damned place?”
“Sir, I really need the time off because…”
I angrily kicked a box to my left, wishing she’d just shut up and leave me alone. “Because what, Noel? Because you don’t respect your position here and the kindness it took not to clean house when I took this dump over? If you don’t want to work, maybe you don’t need to work here anymore. How about that?”
The people in the storeroom next to us watched me dress the girl down, but I didn’t care what the staff thought of me. If they wanted to leave, they were more than welcome to. Hiring new people who I liked may actually be a blessing.
“Sir, my father is sick, and I need to go travel to see him. I know you hate when people cry so I didn’t want to get into it, but they don’t think he’ll…they don’t think he’ll make it.”
With my hand on the door, I let out an enormous sigh and shook my head. “Fine. You’re not fired. Just get out and let Kathy know when you’ll be back.”
I closed the door behind her after she left and sat back in my chair. Shaking off the exchange, I dove into the paperwork I loathed as much as the staff.
I’d always thought that even if she’d invested too much time and effort into the inn, my mother at least ran a tight ship. It certainly didn’t seem that way to me now. After an hour in the cave, as I’d come to call it after too many hours spent in that musky room filling out paperwork, I walked out to check on the guests. It was an effort being nice to them sometimes, but I needed to keep the place running as well as it had with my mother for just a year, so it was a necessary evil.
Luckily, there wasn’t much glad-handing to be done. A group had decided to go on a nature walk. Old people and hipsters loved nature walks. The idea was bizarre to me. I could easily Google a picture of nature and sit my happy ass inside all day where the awful Vermont weather couldn’t touch me.
I said hello to an old couple who barely heard me and ambled up to the check-in the desk at the front.
“Good morning, Mr. Gilford,” the girl said stiffly as I approached her.
She was very young and hadn’t been there as long as the others but had worked under my mother for the last two years of her life. I didn’t think much of her as children generally annoyed me, and anyone under twenty-five was a child in my eyes.
“Morning. Is there something wrong?” I asked, noticing how she glared at me.
“What you did to Noel this morning was horrendous. Her father is dying, and you bullied her to tears like you do just about every other woman in this place.”
Her rudeness surprised me. Taking a step back, I said, “You’re implying I’m some kind of sexist?”
“No, the men hate you just as much because you treat them like garbage too,” she said matter-of-factly.
“Listen here.” I looked at her name tag and read the name Mandy written in black marker. “Mandy, you don’t get to talk to your boss that way. If I remember correctly, this is your first job?”
“Yes, and if all bosses are like you, maybe I won’t have a next one.”
“No, you don’t get to talk to me that way. I’m your boss, and that’s all there is to it. Your job is to stand here with a smile plastered on your face and greet people as they come and go. You’re the gatekeeper. I don’t pay you to give me advice on how to treat my staff. If people cry, that’s their problem, not mine. I haven’t done anything that damned traumatizing. I gave Noel the time off, so everyone wins. As for you, learn to keep quiet and do your job.”
I went to walk away, but to my immense surprise the girl felt like talking back. “Mr. Gilford, with all due respect, which is very little, you’re a bully, and your mother would be disappointed if she could see what you have become.”
Shock settled into me as she took a deep breath to continue.
“That wonderful woman was full of warmth and kindness. I can’t see how she raised such a hateful man. While I appreciate this job and will do it well, you don’t get to bully me around while I do it. You should start being nicer since we’re the ones who bust our asses for this place while you get drunk in your room. What if your mother saw you treat us like this? How would she feel?”
I didn’t feel like listening to any more chastising from the mouths of babes, so I stormed off to my room, slamming the door behind me. Looking at the clock on the nightstand, I saw it wasn’t even eleven in the morning.
Christ. Disgusted, I sat down and pulled out my cell phone, looking at the picture of my beautiful girlfriend back in California before hitting the SEND button to call her.
“Hello?” she said after a few rings.
“Hey, babe. You watching over Cali for me?” I asked as I reclined back onto the bed and closed my eyes. At the very least having someone to talk to who wasn’t in godforsaken Vermont might make me feel better.
“Hey, Zane, we should talk,” she said, the tone in her voice sounding hesitant and cautious.
“Listen, Stacey. I know this long distance thing sucks, but I’ll be back in California before you know it and we can get right back to where we left off. Your clothes being all over my floor and you naked under me seems like a good place to start,” I said, wishing so badly that I could have her there on top of me at that very moment.
“Zane, stop. This isn’t working, and you know it.”
My mouth fell open, but I did my best to salvage the conversation. “Babe, it’s only been a month. I know it isn’t ideal, but I’m going to come out of this with a ton of money. I hate it too, but if you just hang in there, I know we can make it work. How about I fly you out here for a week, and we can make fun of this boring town together?”
She sighed and the phone fell silent, but in the background I could hear someone speaking. A man. “Is someone there with you, Stace?”
“Zane, I didn’t want you to find out like this.”
“Are you kidding me?” I said, slamming my hand down on my bedside table as I jumped up, anger tearing through me.
The walls of my room felt like they were closing in on me, and my head spun from the realization that my girlfriend was there in the apartment we shared together with another man. I’d barely been gone a month, for fuck’s sake!
“I’m sorry, I just…”
“You just what? Moved the fuck on already? It’s been a fucking month, Stacey. I’m not some soldier at war and gone for years, for Christ’s sake.”
“Zane, I have to go to work. We can talk about this later.”
“Fuck later. Go have fun with your new boyfriend.”
I ended the call and threw my phone across the room where it landed in a pile of clothes I had yet to get around to washing. In just a single month, my whole life had unraveled. I hated the inn and everyone in it, and I wanted to be back in my apartment in California by the beach.
And now, my girlfriend had decided to leave me after just a month for some guy. It was probably that sleepy-eyed club owner she knew. He was always hanging around looking for an in with her.
I guess I had given it to him.
For the first time in my life, I was all alone, and it didn’t feel good. In fact, it felt like shit. I let out a big sigh and fell back onto the bed, wanting to sleep away the next eleven months and hoping that something, anything, could make them better than the first one had been.