Chapter Thirteen
It was easy to take the beauty of the hotel for granted. I’d walked through its elaborate reception room a number of times, but I still had that first stunned moment at each entrance into the reception room. It was frankly stunning. The red carpet, the chandeliers, the classy seats and tables with individual lamps. I think it was the shine of it all that hit me mostly, as if lemon polish had just been applied to every piece of wood and someone had made the glass of the door and windows sparkle.
And then there was the huge wooden desk with the women all in a line, doing whatever they were supposed to do, looking busy, but glancing up to smile each time anyone approached. Their hair was always immaculate, and their dresses were minus a single wrinkle. The bouquet of flowers, a fresh one each day, held a practiced display of color, even if the flowers stank. Oh, and the huge wooden bowl filled with red delicious apples. I couldn’t forget them, even though I no longer grabbed one as we passed by since we had a bowl full in our room.
As we rounded the corner, my eyes took in the elevator. I think that was the item that caught my eye the most. How did someone get that kind of shine? Unfingered or smudged. A shine so brilliant, you could actually see yourself in the reflection as you waited for the doors to open and to step inside.
Timothy pushed our buttons, five this time, just in case, then smiled down at me. “Your face shows me all that I now fail to observe on my own. Never lose that ability my darling. I hope you always see the beauty in simple things like the shine of an elevator door.”
Timothy’s words startled me. Was my face that reflective. Was I like the shiny elevator door, providing an image of my inner mind?
But I said nothing and only smiled back at him. It was easy to do that. Timothy’s smile produced smiles, not just from me, but from everywhere. He had that quality of charisma, I guess they called it. I wondered what my grandmother would have said. Would she have fallen under Timothy’s spell as I had?