La One

The other maids tuck and dream, while they pick up M&M wrappers and thongs. Dreaming when they leave what will never be enough towels, not even here, where the thread count is very high. The other maids, they hope. One day when it’s least expected one of these business-men will be La One. Drina chews her cheek and stares at them or stares off. They will never, she wants to say. Not even Gloria knows better than this. She went to bed with a guest and look what happened. Afterward he said, “Hey. I maid it. Geddit?” He said that. But Gloria simpers, “He just wasn’t La One!”

The thing Drina hates the most is all the toothpastes in the sinks. Why do people put on this much? It will only fall off. The thing she likes the most is the devastation. When she opens the door to the argument of sheets. The tiny bottles of liquor, emptied. Left-behind cufflinks and all different kinds of blow dryers on the vanities like oversized guns. The rooms are lives people walk out on every day.