A Most Curious Maid

Most people use the hotel safe to lock up what they perceive as their most valuable items: passports, jewelry, and cash. They trust the heavy door and combination will protect their most valuable possessions. But what they forget to lock up, as Claudia knows, is their diary. Luckily for Claudia, she never had to crack open a safe or dig through a guest’s belongings too much in order to find a diary. In fact, sometimes it’s tucked under a pillow or even left idle on the desk and Claudia would’ve had to touch it anyway while making the room impeccably clean during her shifts as a maid in a five-star hotel in New Orleans.

Claudia is a kind, hard-working woman, whose life dealt her unfavorable cards, but she has always persevered. She never travelled outside of Louisiana and dreamt of meeting someone one day who would whisk her away, but grew up only to learn that the men she met were all unreliable. Eventually she settled in with her younger sister and her sister's two-year old toddler. Being a hotel maid paid meager wages, but the tips helped cover the cost of living for the family to at least make ends meet and sometimes even afforded Claudia to put some money into savings. But what Claudia wanted most now, was to have experiences beyond her home and travel like the guests whose rooms she cleaned every day.

Claudia had no malice, but she did have a profound curiosity about life. She always wondered what other people’s lives were like and what other places in the world had to offer. And while she worked in a hotel where people from all over the world came and went, she never truly got to interact with them as a hotel maid. She was invisible in their presence and only got to know their belongings, which is how Claudia developed a bad habit of reading guests’ diaries.

On the morning of June 1, Claudia arrived at work and received her clipboard containing her room assignments for the day. She noted the six checkouts and eight stay-overs, stocked up her supply cart accordingly, and began her daily grind by reviewing her room assignments as she cleaned each room.

Room 401: Mr. Alvarez—5/30 to 6/3 (Stayover)

Cleaned and Check

Room 402: Mr. and Mrs. Son—5/31 to 6/1 (Checkout)

Cleaned and Check

Room 403: Mr. Meadows—5/31 to 6/5 (Stayover)

Mr. Meadows again? This is like the fourth time he has stayed at this hotel this past month, Claudia thought.

Claudia knew that Mr. Meadows didn’t keep a diary, or at least he never left one in the room. She also knew that he always left a mess and began mentally and physically preparing for the task ahead. As Claudia opened the door, she was expecting the room to be in the state Mr. Meadows usually leaves it in—with bedsheets strangely out of place and plates and champagne glasses from room service scattered all over the room.

Claudia knocked on the door and announced, “Housekeeping.” No answer. Claudia knocked one more time and after there was still no response, proceeded to enter the room. She was surprised to see it tidy and noticed two large matching suitcases. Claudia thought to herself, Mr. Meadows usually only travels with a small carry on. She checked the clipboard again and noticed that Mr. Meadows was checked in for five nights. Much longer than usual.

Claudia began cleaning the room. As she wiped the nightstand table, she opened its tiny drawer and noticed a little black book. It was hotel policy that doors must remain open while maids clean, but Claudia always left her large supply cart directly in front of the door so no one could easily enter without moving it which helped conceal her engagement in this bad habit. She opened the little black book and thought even though it looked so simple, it felt soft and luxurious. On the inside cover, she saw a label that read, “If found, please return to Sophia Meadows.”

This must be Mr. Meadows’s wife, Claudia thought to herself and then immediately turned to the page where the book’s elastic bookmark ribbon was left. The entry was from the night before and read,

5/31: I am so happy to finally be here—the hotel where we got married five years ago. Even though we are only a few miles from home, this still feels like a mini getaway. I hope this brings back all of our good memories. Jaques has been so busy traveling for work lately that we rarely get to spend time together anymore. And sure, his business is doing well and we don’t worry about our finances, but I would give it all up to go back to what we were like before. I hope we find it again this week. Time together is what we need. I feel like I don’t know him anymore. He’s planned a whole lovely day for us tomorrow: afternoon tea at the hotel café, jewelry shopping in the Garden District, and then dinner in the French Quarter. I am so excited. This is exactly what we need.

Claudia immediately felt helpless. She saw what Mrs. Meadows hadn’t seen and knew that this trip was not going to provide Mrs. Meadows with what she had hoped. She also knew that there was nothing she could do to help Mrs. Meadows. She placed the diary back in the nightstand and finished her shift. The next day, while cleaning Room 403, Claudia picked up the diary again. She turned to the page where the ribbon bookmark was left and saw there was a new entry:

6/1: I don’t get it. The day started off like our old days. Smiles and kisses non-stop. But as the day progressed, Jaques stopped paying attention to me. Even though we spent the whole day together, I felt like we weren’t really together. I don’t know what I did wrong. I kept thanking him all day for bringing me back here to this hotel and for the lovely gifts and dinner. But he didn’t seem to hear me at all. I don’t get it. Something is wrong…

While Claudia felt sympathetic, she was slightly relieved to read that Mrs. Meadows was not completely oblivious to the reality of her situation. She finished cleaning the room and left. The next day, Claudia again picked up the diary from the nightstand and read the latest entry. She was interested in how much progress Mrs. Meadows had made.

6/2: While my heart feels like something is wrong, my mind is uncertain. I know once I accuse him there is no recovering from that point. What if I am wrong? What if I am the one who ruins everything? What if Jaques has just been stressed and pre-occupied with work? But what if he isn’t? What if this pit in my stomach knows better? This uncertainty is driving me crazy. And I am not a crazy.

I feel so alone.

Claudia felt both sorrow and anger. Even though these women were so different, she knew exactly how Mrs. Meadows felt.

That evening, while Claudia was at home with her family, hours after having clocked-out, she was thinking about Mrs. Meadows. She knew how that feeling of uncertainty could consume one’s thoughts and drive them crazy like an itch that cannot be reached.

The next morning, Claudia clocked-in and prepped her cart for the day, but instead of taking the elevator to the fourth floor, she took a detour to the hotel lobby and approached the front desk and said, “Morning Andrew, how are you today?” Andrew was a new front desk employee. Claudia knew he didn’t know much and also knew that he didn’t want to disappoint.

Andrew replied, “Good Morning Claudia, I’m good. How are you?”

“Oh you know, just trying to keep up. Hey, did you get the request from Room 403? Mr. Meadows was asking for the receipts for his last four stays for the month of May. Something about needing to show expenses to the employer.”

Andrew looked embarrassed. He had not known he failed to complete a made-up task and proceeded to search for Mr. Meadows’s last four stays and printed off the receipts containing all of the single-night stays and room service charges. While Claudia watched the receipts get printed, she turned to Andrew and said, “I can bring it to him, I have to go back that way anyway.” Andrew handed Claudia the papers and thanked her for taking care of it. He had not suspected anything and was only thankful that his co-workers seemed to keep helping him.

Claudia walked away and proceeded to the fourth floor to begin her shift. She added the receipts to her clipboard. Once she got to Room 403 and was alone again, she removed the receipts from the clipboard and folded them into squares so small she could fit them in her palm. She picked up the little black book and placed the squares inside the secret envelope pocket in the back, and while the pocket looked discreet, the papers created a small bulge. Claudia put the diary back, cleaned the room, and left without any hesitation. She knew the trouble she could be in for what she had done. But she suspected finding the truth would occupy Mrs. Meadows enough to prevent her from reporting the unethical cleaning practices at the hotel.

The next day however, Claudia felt her throat tighten with guilt. How could she have been so audacious? What will she do if she loses her job? How will she tell her sister? She arrived at the hotel, clocked in, and began prepping her cart, expecting to be called by management and expecting her co-workers to give her reprehensible looks. But she kept her head down and continued working and to her surprise, everything seemed normal.

Just as she was about to take the service elevator to the fourth floor, someone shouted “Hey Claudia!” Oh no. She turned around and saw Ann, another maid. “Hey Claudia, wait for me, I just got called to the fifth floor. Someone vomited in Room 561.” Claudia was relieved, both at the fact that she wasn’t in trouble and that she didn’t have to clean Room 561.

Once Claudia got to Room 403, she checked the clipboard of assignments and noticed that the Meadows had checked out early and that a full cleaning service was required. She entered the room. It was relatively tidy but she could tell the couple left in a hurry since some of the lights were left on and some personal toiletries were still in the bathroom. She began cleaning and when she got to the nightstand, she checked to see if Mrs. Meadows had forgotten the diary.

When she opened the small drawer, Claudia did not see a diary. But she did see a check with the words “Thank You” written on the memo line for the amount of $20,000 from Sophia Meadows. Claudia could not believe it and fell onto the bed. Claudia felt a wave of emotions beating through—relief, shock, happiness, and shame. She knew reading guests’ diaries was wrong and recognized the irony in being rewarded for it. However, before she left Room 403, she decided that she would stop reading guests’ diaries and use Mrs. Meadows’s tip to finally travel and have experiences of her own.