An Arrangement was Made

Chapter 8: Last Day

One day left until Adam got here. One day left to get this hotel looking as nice as it possibly could. Charlie had gotten way in over her head on the first day and decided to try to redo all of the wallpaper in the entryway. To the shock and repulsion of the more mentally stable members of the hotel, there was an ungodly amount of black mold sitting behind the rotting, red paper.

"Eugh. How long da ya think we've been breathing THAT in?" Angel had commented.

Charlie had spent the rest of the day with Nifty trying to scrub the mold out of the wood, but by the end of it, the entire room just looked worse than it had before. Charlie had ultimately decided to just hide the mess by putting up the new wallpaper over top of it.

The second day she had spent much more wisely. Getting rid of clutter, cleaning all the carpets, dusting everything, changing old light bulbs, the works. She managed to get the rest of her friends to help with this, though some helped far more than others. As always, Vaggie had been her rock through this. Vaggie was much better at keeping everyone organized, including Charlie who easily got distracted with drawers that needed to be organized.

"Why do we have to clean everything ssssssso thoroughly? Isssssn't it good enough already?" Pentious had asked.

"Well, I don't know very much about Adam, but the first time we met he made it pretty clear he doesn't like how dirty it is down here. If there's anything we can do to make him more comfortable here, we should at least give it a try!" Charlie gave Pentious a smile.

"Tuh. I don't ssssssee why we ssssshould try ssssso hard to make him comfortable. He hatessssss usssss."

"Yeah I know, but this is going to be a big change for him. And for...all of us really. Maybe if we make a really good first impression, he might start to like us. Maybe he'll realize that the exterminations were wrong and we won't need to keep this marriage going to keep him off our backs!" Pentious gave her a look like she was completely delusional.

"Well, if it makesssss you feel better, I will oblique. What would like ussssss to do?" Pentious was referring to his egg minions as well.

"Do you think you could fix the sink in the bathroom of room 40?"

"Yessss madame!" He saluted her and started hissing orders at his egg minions. Charlie cringed internally a bit at that. She'd have to talk to him about the way he talked to his eggs sometime. Later though. The eggs didn't seem to mind that much so it was lower on her list of priorities.

It took all day to get everything clean. Charlie predicted that Adam would want to explore the hotel at some point even if he wasn't initially interested in a tour. That meant every hallway and public room needed attention. She didn't bother with any of the bedrooms though, including empty ones. Everyone that stayed here locked their doors at night, and she could easily have KeeKee lock all of the empty bedrooms so he couldn't go in there. The storage rooms were a similar story. Just lock him out of every place she didn't want to clean.

Thankfully most of the hallways weren't too bad. Charlie went through them quickly dusting as she made her way up floor by floor. It was only when she went to the outside of the roof that she realized just how bad the hotel looked from the outside.

There were so many problems it would be impossible to fix them all. Boards were often broken or missing, the stone was cracked and chipped, a train that was supposed to act as an elevator was completely unusable do to the horrid state of the tracks (honestly Charlie had forgotten about it), and the third floor where the carousel sat was covered in large piles of trash. How did that much garbage even get up there? Most egregious was the ship that looked as if it had crashed backwards into the right side of the building. Charlie had no idea how that got there either. It had been that way since she bought it.

Charlie had more than met her match. There was just no way to fix all of this, especially not in two days. She would need her dad's magic in order to fix that much about her building, but she couldn't ask him for that. Even if he knew she was marrying Adam was totally cool with it, she just couldn't ask him for that big of a favor. They weren't close enough for that yet. The outside would just have to go untouched.

Day three. Last day before Adam gets here. Charlie had been putting it off for long enough. It was time to set up Adam's room. Charlie stood in front of the door to room 40. She didn't know why she was hesitating so much.
"I guess it's because this makes it feel like it's actually real?" She thought out loud to herself. She shook herself off and entered the room. Nifty had already cleaned the carpets and dusted everything in here, so all Charlie had to do was furnish and decorate.

There was already a bed in the room, but upon further inspection Charlie discovered that the sheets had been partially eaten by mice and the mattress was completely ruined. She had to go out and buy a new mattress which took far more time than it ought to have. Charlie regretted putting off this task for last. It should have been first.

Thankfully the rest of the furniture was practically ready to go. There was a wardrobe built into the wall so no need to worry about that. Charlie set up a basket of logs and sticks for the fire place. Despite hell usually being so hot, it still got really cold at night. It was like a desert. The rocks, sand, and concrete that covered the red landscape just didn't hold temperatures at all.

She changed out the red rug for a blue one. It clashed horribly with the burgundy walls, but she figured it might remind him of home. Heaven had been very blue.

"Hm. There's got to be something more I can do here. This doesn't feel like enough." It was starting to sink in just how much of a stranger Adam was to her. All she had to go off of was assumptions. She was able to make many educated guesses about his philosophies and thought process, but she didn't actually know what he liked. Only what he didn't like. That wasn't helpful.

"Heaven is in the sky. Maybe I could put up some pictures of clouds?" That seemed like a good idea. Charlie went to her supply closet full of materials and grabbed everything she thought she might need. She strung up blue and yellow streamers around the entire room. She taped a bunch of white balloons together to look like clouds.

"Oh hell yeah. That looks even better than I expected." She stood on a chair to get them taped to the ceiling and also put them in random places around the room. She taped a cross shape onto the window and put up drawings of birds and rainbows around the walls.

"Yes! This is cute! This good" She admired her work for a little while longer before going downstairs. "Now! Time to make those cupcakes."