House of the Yellow Fern

iv. Ms. Jones

07/09/2030 6:30 am

The maid for Hall 100 had seventeen minutes to clean the lobby before the sheriff arrived. It wasn't common for members of the police force to enter such a place as the House, and being the closest serving to the bottom floor, it was the maids duty to make sure the Sheriff Cornwallace thought highly of the place during his unexpected visit.

Riley Jones, or as the other maids called her "Little Jo", had a penchant for quick clean-ups, and since she did them so dreadfully well the head of hotel management decided it would be her duty to clean the extra rooms. The sheriff had called in saying he was on his way, and without asking the occasion Ms. Jones understood and begun to dust and prim whatever she could find. Based on instinct alone (and Riley Jones was known to have a strong one), she was able to deduce that Sheriff Cornwallace was coming over not to visit, but to investigate the reported homicide in one of the higher floors, Room 701. Talk of the incident spread like wildfire throughout the staff, and as a result all but the manager were banned from entering the 700 Hall on the account of a foul smell costing the Victorian style hall. The owner had sent an unmarked letter to the manager himself and demanded the staff be fired should they disobey that one specific rule. One maid, Germinotta Pollock, had taken the liberty of sneaking into the forbidden room during a fire evacuation that night and came to the shocking conclusion that the smell emanating from the room was in fact a corpse hanging lifelessly from the curtains. Mrs. Pollock had been found the following morning in a state of shock, and the manager called her husband Mr. Pollock to escort her away from the room and clubhouse in its entirety. She never did return, and her happening only added to the ridiculous, if not  childish, fantasies spread throughout the rest of the staff. The lobby was empty when Ms. Jones entered from the luxurious elevator. The smell of dried pine and cherry wafted in from the club beyond the double doors, and a smile crept from the corners of her mouth.

The woman had a ritual of sorts, one she shared with herself and none other. It was almost a dream to her, a suspension of disbelief she took anytime she was in isolation. Lucky for her, business was always busier in the evening time with people from all over New Balton and beyond flocking in to live under the neon glow of the House's aura for a night or two. Yet, in the morning times between the coming and leaving, Jones would abandon her apron and duster on the marble floor and imagine a grandiose version of reality with hundreds of unfamiliar faces twirling about the lobby dresses in elaborate costumes. In this parallel world, Riley Jones would be dressed elegantly herself, a ruby red frock tied up in a similar colored bow nearly half the size of the dress itself. Her heels were no longer the black, open-toed nightmares she wore, but rather a pair of stilettos that clung up the length of her legs with tight scarlet leather. Upon her head now sat a gargantuan of a bonnet, so big in fact that it covered the lot of her own face (which in reality was unwashed and marked by hours of pressing labor).

She spun around the room in a peppy fashion, twirling the ends of her frock around her body with a large spin. The other residents followed suit, beginning to take the hand of another and twist around the length of newly decorated lobby. Music sprung to life as if it had been playing long before it was so happily imagined, and the residents moved and swayed to the beat of a slow classical drone. Ms. Jones, who was so deeply involved in her own world, began to gyrate more intensely, her mellow movements transforming into a more sexual devotion to the music at hand. With a flick of her wrists against the rotating crowd, the music that filled the ballroom hall faded into a heavier arrangement. Jones felt the crowd respond, leaving their partners and rushing across the hall creating a resonating sea of clicks and clacks.

The maid took to the center of the hall, twirling and vibrating against the melody harder than ever. The music switched to a french rendition of classic rock - a style Ms. Jones was quite fond of - and the act of dancing became more of a mechanical blur against her thoughts. The dream was perfect, not because it was bizarre, - it wasn't bizarre for a woman in the position of maid to yearn to be free, - but because she recognized the comfort she found in her mind.