November Hotel (Sample)

Chapter One

Wesley Graves looked at the floor of the elevator. The couple he was taking up were having an incredibly noisy argument, and he wished they'd stop. Couldn't they see that their 'private' argument wasn't really all that private?

He was glad to see the back of them, even though they didn't tip. At least they were gone. Hopefully somebody else would be on duty when they wanted to come back down.

He brought the elevator back to the ground floor and sighed. It was busy today. That was good, he supposed-it ensured him a job-but he hated the busy days. They drained him.

"Hey, Wesley."

"Hi, Thomas."

Thomas, the desk boy, leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. Wesley thought if he was so tired, he should go to bed earlier. It was noon, after all! There was no reason to be tired at this time of day.

"I should go to bed earlier." he sighed. "I was up too late with the girls."

Girls? What girls? Wesley hadn't known that Thomas knew any girls outside of the hotel.

"Girls?"

"My new neighbors."

Oh. How nice.

"That's nice."

"You need to get out more, Wesley."

"I don't want..."

"You should! It'd be good for you."

Wesley shrugged. He'd told Thomas before that work was enough for him. Ah, well. The boy meant well, he knew that.

"Wesley."

"Yeah."

"Look who's here."

He hoped it wasn't the chatty old lady who stayed here every summer. She was nice enough, but she had a habit of pinching his cheeks.

It wasn't. It was Margaret Parks, the hotel owner's daughter. Wesley liked her a lot, but she always gave his stomach butterflies.

"Hi, Maggie." Thomas called. "Your friend called the desk, she said she'll be here in ten minutes."

"Thanks, Thomas. Hi, Wes."

"H-hi, Ms. Margaret."

That was another thing. He stammered horribly every time he tried to talk to her. He didn't know why that was, either, but he didn't like it one bit.

"Maggie." she reminded him. "You know that."

He did, but it didn't feel right to say.

"M-Maggie." he said.

She smiled at him. A few minutes later, a car chugged up. Wesley hated the noisy things, but they weren't overly common. Yet.

Maggie darted out the door and Thomas smirked at Wesley.

"She likes you."

"Shut up, Thomas."

"She does."

Wesley rolled his eyes.

* * *

Wesley was an orphan. His parents had died in a fire when he was ten years old and he had gotten a job here at the November when he was thirteen. He hadn't planned on doing anything but carrying luggage, but it turned out he had a knack for dealing with the grouchy elevator. It was a stubborn beast and he'd had to climb the cables more than once when it got stuck between floors.

He was one of the three employees that slept here, the other two being Henry Watson and his wife, Martha. Henry slept here because he was the maintenance man. Wesley slept here because he had nowhere else to go. When he was younger he had retreated to the streets after his shift, but Garret Parks, the owner, had found that out and put a stop to it.

He couldn't complain, really. The pay wasn't bad and these days he didn't have to deal with the customers nearly as often. Besides, the rooms he had here were nicer than he'd be able to afford on his own. The only problem was the headaches. Ever since he'd moved in, he'd been prone to headaches. Most of the time they were light, but sometimes-mostly in the early days-they were bad enough to confine him to his bed with the lights off. He hadn't had one of those in a while, thank goodness.

He was down in the basement with Henry right now, helping the old man fix a burst pipe. This place was in need of new pipes, but as long as it was only the basement flooding, nothing was going to be done about it.

"Ayuh." Henry was saying. "Eventually it's going to flood the whole basement and Mr. Parks will have to do something."

Wesley shrugged and adjusted his grip on the pipe. It was cold and slippery and he wished Henry would hurry up.

"You okay, kid?"

"M'okay."

"You're awfully quiet...never mind. You're always quiet. Wrench." He handed it over. "No migraines lately?"

"No."

"Good. The wife worries."

Wesley smiled to himself. Henry worried too, he just wouldn't admit it.

"I'm fine for now."

"Four words! That's gotta be a record for ya, kid. Hold this." Henry thrust the wrench back at him. "I'll let her know that you're not broken, then. Hey, you'd better go back upstairs. You've still got a job to do."

"Can you manage?"

"Yeah, yeah...damn thing...go on, Wesley."

He set the wrench down and went back upstairs.

* * *

Once Wesley was certain that the new night worker knew what he was doing, he stumbled off to bed. Despite what he'd told Henry earlier, his head had been giving trouble at night. He put it off as being around too many people in the course of a day.

He was lying in bed with the lights off, enjoying the quiet, when there was a hideous noise from the hallway.

Oh, God, that was the elevator!

He fumbled for his dressing-gown and slippers and tripped over the chair on his way out the door. Henry was already in the hall.

"Wesley?"

"I don't know. Give me a minute."

He pulled the door open and leaned over the edge. The elevator had not crashed, thankfully-its cable had caught it. He would need help getting it down the rest of the way, and he would most certainly have to clamber around to see what had caused the problem.

"It's out of order. I'll deal with it."

"What do you need?"

"Help getting it down. There's a crank on the ground floor."

Henry shuffled downstairs, muttering something about the useless desk boy. Wesley felt a surge of pity for the new clerk, but it didn't last.

He went back into his room to get dressed. It was going to be a long night.