About a year back, back when Tommy impressed Mr. McHenry and earned a job at the Savery, he replaced his daily odd jobs for Reverend Shaw for once in a while odd jobs and the glamour of the hotel’s crystal chandeliers, Oriental rugs, and guests outfitted in fashionable, high-quality clothing.
Every time he went to work and entered the hotel lobby, a blazing smile lit his lips. Like a performer on stage, he not only turned on charm and solicitousness, he felt it deep inside. He liked being at the service of people who expected the best.
Tommy shook hands with gentlemen coming and going and held the door for ladies as though he owned the whole shebang. He carried more luggage than any other bellboy, and with his polished language and high-class manners, Mr. McHenry appreciated him all the more. Times like that made him grateful for Mama’s early, heavy-handed parenting. He saw the value of knowing how to behave like he was wealthy even though he lived in a tent in the back property of a wealthy, independent woman.
Tommy headed for the changing room to get into his uniform but his attention was drawn to a young woman darting across the lobby, arms pumping, expression serious, as though she were on an errand to save the world from itself.
Pearl.
His stomach leapt.
Pearl. He said her name aloud, loving the feel of it on his lips. What was the matter with him? The women he met either excited him, making it difficult to ignore their overtures, or bored him to unconsciousness. But Pearl? Her honest rawness, the beauty underneath her mussed hair, dirt-smudged skin blotched with ink she’d transferred from envelopes to her face, her absolutely accidental beauty, made him feel as though a thousand buzzing insects had gathered in his belly. He walked toward her but then was pulled back.
“You. Arthur, right? Tommy Arthur?” A man angled himself inches from Tommy, staring at him as though he’d tried to walk off with a velvet settee in tow. Tommy drew back as he caught wind of the man’s stiff breath. His coat and pants were the same as the other managers like Mr. McHenry always wore.
Tommy glanced one last time at Pearl before he shook the man’s hand. “Yes, Tommy Arthur. Bellboy.”
“I’ve been hired to manage the managers.”
“Welcome,” Tommy said, sweeping his arm across the space.
“You’re late.” The manager of managers stared at Tommy, working his jaw so hard his teeth would wear to nubs in seconds.
Tommy’s cheeks flushed, and he saw Pearl watching him from the mailroom. She waved, smiling.
“This way.” The immaculately dressed man with horrid breath spun on his heel.
“I need to change into my uniform, Mister . . . uh, Mister?”
“Wierach.”
“Mr. Wierach. Nice to meet you, but I’m going to be later if I don’t get changed. Surely Mr. McHenry’s told you about my dedication and skill.”
The man’s shoes clicked in a rhythm that, set against the hum of guests’ voices rising and falling, sounded musical.
Mr. Wierach passed his hand down a panel in the wainscoted wall behind the front desk, opened a door, and directed Tommy inside with a jerk of his head.
Tommy held his hat against his belly and rotated it as he cleared his throat. He craned to see if he could catch a glimpse of Mr. McHenry. He was always at work by first light. “Mr. Wierach? I normally check in with Mr. McHenry before my shift. We talk and . . . Well, he must have mentioned . . .”
The man shook his head and waved him in.
Tommy’s breath caught. Maybe they were finally restructuring the duties in the “front of house.” Yes. He could feel it. He’d be given the desk clerk position. Mr. McHenry had told him twice in the last month he was looking at Tommy for the position. This Mr. Wierach must have been part of the changes. Tommy’s heart thudded, thinking of the promotion and the extra money it would bring.
Mr. Wierach stood straight as the seams where the walls met, hands balled at his side, looking as though he were butler to President Harrison as much as some guy running a hotel.
“One.” The man unclenched his hands, wiggled his fingers, and balled them back up. “Someone of your position should enter the hotel rear of house. Go down the back alley, through the laundry, into the locker room. You’ve been here a year and ought to know that.”
Tommy felt a jolt in his gut. He began to sweat. Mr. McHenry never told him that. He straightened his posture to show he was listening even if confused.
The manager swallowed hard, closed his eyes, and shook his head as though disgusted. “Who assigned you to bellboy?”
“Mr. McHenry himself.”
Mr. Wierach scoffed. “Well, he himself has moved on to another job in another state, so it looks like I have a lot more work to do than I anticipated.”
Tommy’s eyes widened. When was the last time he’d seen Mr. McHenry? He tried to remember but couldn’t. Was it a week back? He hadn’t heard anything about him leaving. Tommy’s throat dried, making it hard to swallow. His heart sped up. Mr. McHenry had been wonderful to Tommy, hiring him after they shared stories about a mutual friend.
“Mr. McHenry gave me glowing reviews. Always.”
“Pfft. Means nothing in light of his departure. I’m unimpressed with you, so . . .”
Panic sizzled in Tommy’s belly, taking him back to harder times.
The man pressed his lips together and took off through another doorway signaling with a wave for Tommy to follow.
Tommy jogged again. He caught a glimpse of Mrs. Simmons heading toward the concierge. He almost yelled to tell her he’d gotten the cure from Katherine, but he bit his tongue and focused on the crisis at hand. “Sir? I’ll show you how good I am at my job. I take it seriously and won’t come in the front door ever again. You see, Mr. McHenry allowed me to do that because of my manners. He knows my background in Des Moines and—”
He waved Tommy off, silencing him as he strode through back hallways, making sharp turns around corners, causing anyone coming toward them—maid, chef, or waitress—to plaster their backs against the wall until Mr. Wierach was safely past. Tommy thought at first it was due to their respect for the new manager, but down-turned eyes and the quiet “Sir” that came out of everyone’s mouth showed fear more than respect.
Mr. Wierach stopped in front of an elevator, and Tommy kept on toward the locker room.
“Stop.”
Tommy followed orders.
“You’ve got a new job.”
Tommy’s mood surged again. He knew it. Mr. McHenry might have left, but he knew the man wouldn’t go without recommending Tommy for the desk clerk position.
Tommy put his hand out. “Thank you, sir. I’ll make you proud being desk clerk. You’ll see.”
Mr. Wierach smirked. “Desk clerk?”
“Yes, I—”
“A judge just sent a boy over. Said to give him the bellboy job. And yes, everyone said you work hard, so I decided to give you a new position.”
“Right. Desk clerk,” Tommy said.
Mr. Wierach winced. “No, what are you . . . No.” He gripped the metal gate that kept people from entering the elevator shaft until the car was in place. “You’re going to run this elevator. You must use it two hundred times a day taking luggage upstairs. Lenny got caught giving girls rides back here, and I fired him. Should suit you perfectly. You know the rules. No guests back here. Once you run the back elevator for a time and we trust you won’t kill anyone, you’ll be trained at the front of the house to run the guest elevator.”
A drop of sweat trailed down the side of Tommy’s face, curving around his ear, his body reacting to memories of being kept in a dirty, tiny cellar room at the Hendersons’.
He told himself he was perfectly safe and fought the urge to wipe the sweat away and draw attention to it. The odor of greased cables filled his nose. He looked behind him; the dark hallway felt as though it were suddenly closing in. His heart pounded, and he scanned the space for a door to the outside, windows, anything that might open up the space.
Stop it.
Tommy’s throat constricted and he cleared it, trying to relax the clinch and breathe easier. Mr. Wierach greeted a man coming from the other direction, the night elevator man. “Mr. Crabtree will train you.”
Mr. Crabtree yanked the iron door open. The sound of the metal accordion folds collapsing and scraping the track made Tommy squeeze his eyes shut.
Stop it. It’s perfectly safe. It’s not punishment. It’s not a cellar or closet. It’s not a broken-down elevator. Stop.
“Arthur. Don’t dawdle.”
Tommy nodded and followed Mr. Wierach into the compartment, determined to fight off his panic. He’d boarded in a home where they’d treated him like an animal. They’d installed a metal crosshatched door like this one in the root cellar where he often had to stay. The door created a cage, and the brothers who had suffered at the hand of their father shared a little of that abuse with Tommy, poking at him with broom handles and sticks.
“As elevator man, you’ll get room and board and nine dollars a month.”
Tommy backed up against the wall, his hands gripping the chair rail that belted the perimeter. He wanted to explain his arrangement with Mr. McHenry: he got paid more than usual bellboy pay because he didn’t room at the hotel. He drew heavy breaths. He shouldn’t suffer a pay cut for no reason. The elevator jerked to life as the man pulled down on the rope. Tommy gripped the rail harder.
“Arthur!” The manager elbowed him. “Eli’s showing you how to work this thing. You’ll have lives at stake; you can’t afford to play around like some—”
The metal door slammed down, causing the car to go nearly dark. The lurching motion as it shook upward made it feel as though the car would shudder right off its cables and crash to the bottom. His vision grew blurry, and although he was sure he turned his head to meet the manager’s gaze, and although he was positive he was seeing the manager’s mouth move, the words were garbled and foreign.
The elevator cables ground against each other, causing the occasional spark to fly as the car rose. Tommy would have sworn in court that the wires were unraveling with every inch upward. He moved across the back of the elevator and into the corner. As quickly as the hall light had been squelched when Eli dropped the metal door, the car stopped and light flooded the compartment as he lifted it again.
Tommy grasped the door, fingers through the diamond-shaped openings, and yanked at it like a wild man, making the car swing and the cables jam before it stopped in the proper spot. Leaving Crabtree and Wierach in the elevator, Tommy squeezed through the half-opened door and leapt down onto the hallway floor, rolling into the wall.
He had to get out.
The two men shouted, but their voices faded into dizzying fuzz. He popped up, chest heaving, heat coursing through him. The manager bellowed, shoving through the same opening, but in between Tommy’s humiliation and bone-jarring fear, he knew he could not have a conversation.
His legs churned as he bolted down the passage, as he’d done many times before while in the midst of a panic, the movement and pounding of his feet eventually releasing him from his fear. He wove in and out of maids filing down the hallway and pushed into the stairwell that led to the first floor and out the door.
Once outside, Tommy stood against the wall. The humid air added to the streams of sweat dripping into every valley of his body. Voices and the sound of the door slamming open made him take off again, sprinting for Miss Violet’s, running for home, attempting to outrun every terrible thing that had ever happened to him, all the awfulness that clung to him like his drenched, sticky clothes.