The Love Hotel

The first reason of course is that I had nowhere else to go. I have never looked for an apartment myself. And secondly, all of the apartments that are within my price range thanks to the fact that I am the only person that is paying for all of the things that I need are well outside Manhattan. This means that traveling to the hotel every day for work is going to be absolutely insane, it’s going to be something that I can’t handle.”

“You work here?” asked Bradley.

“Yes,” said Rochelle, “I’m sorry I didn’t mention that. I am very confused right now, you see, my head’s all over the place. Yes, I work at the hotel. I work with the cleaning service and I have been working in this capacity for four years.”

“I see,” said Bradley. “So what you are basically saying is that you are extremely needy right now. I understand that traveling here every single day is not going to be easy at all. It’s going to be expensive too, it’s going to end up costing you a lot of time as well. And this means that you will not have as much time as you would otherwise to do the things that you want to do. I think that I understand your situation completely now.”

Rochelle gulped and said, “So are you going to kick me out?”

“Oh no,” said Bradley. “Not at all. I am quite glad that everything is going on the way it’s going on. I am glad that you are able to use this place as a stepping stone in a way, a way for you to get past all of the horrible things that have happened in your life. I am really glad that you are finding your feet and becoming independent. I do need this room to start earning full money, of course, but I guess one thing that I can do is to find you a place somewhere in Manhattan. A cheap place, the kind of place that you would be able to afford. I’m really sure that at least some of my contacts would have something that would be suitable for you.”

“You’d really do that?” asked Rochelle. “You’d really help me?”

“Of course I would,” said Bradley. “I am not going to leave you high and dry like this when you are in need of assistance. I am glad that you have somewhere to stay, and I am going to make sure that you continue to have a place to stay. Stay here as long as you want. Your situation is a special one. And the fact that you are an employee of this hotel changes everything. It is the kind of situation that makes you, in a lot of ways, my responsibility. I think of my employees as a lot more than just people I pay. I am responsible for a lot of different things. I am responsible for this in a way too. I need to ensure that you would be able to get to work properly, that you would be able to work as hard as you can in the job that you have.”

“Thank you so much,” said Rochelle. She looked relieved and surprised. Bradley wondered why. How could he possibly kick her out? What halfway decent human being would do something like that? What halfway decent person would kick someone out when they needed help? He knew now that she had been through a lot over the years. He knew now that life had not been kind to her. He knew now that Rochelle had been so mistreated her entire life that she felt like no one owed her any kindness whatsoever, and that just made him all the more determined to get her the help that she needed.

He exited the room, bidding Rochelle goodbye as he did so. He hoped that she was comfortable here. He decided that he would ask how she was doing in a week if he was not able to find her a place by then. What a horrible situation to be in, he thought, to not have a place of your own after the man you thought loved you ended up betraying you so thoroughly. It was remarkable that she had not started crying while telling him the story. It showed that she was an incredibly strong woman. And she looked like it too. She looked like a woman that possessed tremendous courage. A woman that was not afraid of doing the things she needed to do in order to survive. She was a woman that was focused on getting through everything and he respected that.