Kara Somach always seemed to be running late and today was no different. The short, petite woman in her late forties grabbed a scrunchy and bound her shoulder length, raven hair into a quick ponytail on her way out into the dreary, drizzly March morning. She pulled the hood of her windbreaker over her head and jammed her hands into the pockets. In fifteen minutes, she would pull up to the rear door of the local Holiday Inn where she worked in housekeeping six days out of each week. The sun wasn’t up yet, but it really didn’t matter, today it would only bring a gloomy gray to the sky. She pulled into the drive-thru at the local doughnut shop to pick up a cup of coffee and an éclair. She hated to spend the two dollars, but just couldn’t stand the coffee at work. There was no way to make it through this job let alone her second job, without her daily coffee. Once at work, she parked in the same spot that she always parked in and alertly walked towards the service entrance. It wasn’t a wonderful section of town and there had been more than a few muggings in the seven years that she’d worked there.
“Hey Kara.” said the small older woman who held the door open for her.
“G’morning Wendy, how are you today?”
“Oh I’m not bad. How was your weekend?” she answered, as she pulled the door closed behind Kara.
“It was great. We visited some campuses, and we stopped at this great diner on the way home last night … or should I say this morning.”
“You must be exhausted.” Wendy said as the two of them began to work together loading housekeeping carts with supplies.
“It’s okay Wendy, I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. When August gets here, Tina will start college. Scholarships and financial aid will cover almost all of the cost and I’ll be able to move into a smaller apartment in a nicer part of town. Then I can end this madness; I’ll be able to quit this job and just work at the insurance office. It’s been murder, but it’s been worth it. I would give my life for my little girl.”
“Seems to me like for the last seven years, you have.”
“And I wouldn’t have had it any other way!”
The two spent the early part of the morning going through their regular routines as a team. For two hours, they finished stocking housekeeping carts, washed windows and cleaned the lobby. Then they took their first break. Kara pushed the service door open and wedged a doorstop beneath it in order to go out for a smoke. She then walked over to the concrete enclosure where the two big dumpsters are kept, as employees had to be at least thirty feet from any door in order to smoke, so this ‘dumpster corral offered a place where they could smoke and be sheltered from the sometimes bitter wind.
As she stepped through the opening into the corral, she stopped in her tracks and let out something between a scream and a gasp that startled the grimy man in filthy coveralls and a dirty olive green windbreaker. She didn’t expect anyone to be there so he frightened her out of her wits by his very presence. But the combination of his unkempt appearance and piercing blue eyes was even more unnerving.
“I’m sorry Ma’am, I didn’t mean to frighten you. I was just looking around for something to eat,” the man said in an obviously depressed and downtrodden voice.
“That’s okay,” Kara said, reflexively reaching out to touch the man’s shoulder.
She felt a profound sadness about this man, and was immediately overcome with concern.
“Wait right here, will you?” she said.
“Okay,” the vagabond said with his head still hung low.
When Kara marched back inside, unlit cigarette still in hand, the determined look on her face and the purpose in her stride drew Wendy’s attention and Wendy instinctively followed her to see what was going on. She pushed the kitchen door open and yelled to the cook over the din.
“Jose! Give me bacon and eggs with hash browns, white bread toast and a large orange juice. I’ll come back for it in ten minutes.”
“No way Sweetheart, you know the boss man is cracking down on the free meals. Your breakfast could be my a*s.”
“Relax Suave, I’m going to the cashier to pay for it right now. That sexy a*s is safe.”
“Then one Suave Special Breakfast, coming right up.” Jose answered with a grin.
After she paid $12.68 for the breakfast, she continued to the front desk to talk with Gerard, who was working the front desk and managing the late night/early morning shift.
“Gerard, room 130 is horrific. Don’t put anyone in there ‘til we give you the okay.”
“Do you need me to call the heavy duty cleaners?”
“No, it’s just a lot of vomit. We can take care of it; it’ll just take a while to air the smell out."
“If you say so! I’d call the heavy duty guys in a heartbeat. You girls are tougher than me!”
"Gerard, we're housekeeping! It's kind of what we do."
They got back to the kitchen door just in time to pick up the breakfast, which Kara picked up and brought back to the pristine room 130. Kara sat the breakfast down, asked Wendy to wait in the room and went right outside to the corral.
The little vagabond was still standing there, right where she left him shivering against the early spring chill.
“My name is Kara, what’s yours?”
“I’m Stephen, Stephen Wilton.”
“Well Stephen Wilton, today you’re going to have breakfast and a shower, like everyone else does. Follow me.”
Wendy’s brow furrowed when Kara led Stephen inside but Kara ignored her and brought Stephen into room 130 and showed him to his breakfast.
“The shower is in here,” she said “when you’re done with your shower and meal lie down and relax for a while. One of us will come let you know when it’s check out time, okay?”
“Thank you so …”
“Don’t thank me for treating you with normal human dignity. It makes me sick that people don’t treat others right all the time. I wish I could buy you breakfast every day, but I can barely afford to feed myself every day. I hope you can use this meal and this cleanup as a foothold to get yourself out of this awful place that life has thrown you into. You should be okay in here until at least two this afternoon. But one of us will come and let you know when you have to clear out, okay?”
“Okay.”
With that Kara pulled the door closed and left Stephen to his breakfast. Wendy was on her when the door closed.
“What the heck are you doing? You can’t afford to feed every homeless guy you see.”
“But I could afford to feed that one.”
“Bullshit! You borrowed five dollars from me yesterday.”
“Wendy, I just felt like someone had to do something. That poor man was looking for food in the garbage!”
“Well then here,” Wendy said as she handed Kara six dollars, “two of us did something. No sense in you getting all the satisfaction of doing a decent thing. Do you suppose any of those clothes that our guests left behind will fit him?”
Kara lit up at the suggestion.
“Let’s go see.”
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