Page 18 of Euphoria
8
Ididn’tdare return to the library.
I wasn’t sure if it was embarrassment or disappointment that drove me to separate myself from Edward, but I didn’t return, and he didn’t send for me. To think the master of Thornfield would lower himself for me! It was absurd. Poor plain Jane Doe.
Still, I held our encounter close and had begun to think of it fondly. I wasn’t rash enough to call him Edward in front of Alice or the other staff, so I was careful when mention of him came up in the general gossiping of the hotel. Our conversation in the library had been perplexing at best and had a sacredness about it I wanted to hold close. He bade me to call him by his given name at that time and in that place, so only then he would be Edward, and outside of my own mind and that room, he would remain Mr. Rochester.
For three nights since, I have fallen asleep in the aftermath of self-relief, my body coming apart like it had never been uncoiled before. All because of—
A knock at the door saved me from my inappropriate daydream. Looking up, I saw a man wearing a yellow high visibility vest lingering at the door.
“I’ve got a delivery for…Jane Doe?” He raised an eyebrow at the name but didn’t say anything about it, just held out a clunky PDA and waited for me to sign my name with the stylus.
Once he had my signature, he went outside to a small lorry that was parked in the driveway. When he returned, he wheeled in two large boxes on a trolley, both emblazoned with the Apple logo, and placed them in the center of the room. There wasn’t anywhere else to leave them, but he didn’t seem to mind. Once he’d unloaded, he went back out and brought in two more boxes. Lastly, he gave me a large orange envelope, and I took it blindly, my head still spinning.
Weeks ago, I’d asked for a few things I thought would be instrumental in rounding out the operations of Thornfield, but I had expected some refurbished equipment or at least a budget allocated so I could arrange delivery myself. I’d resigned myself to thinking we’d been overlooked when Edward had dismissed my proposal for the artist’s retreat, but here was the best of the best sitting in the middle of the chaos of the front office. Just like that.
This was… It was too grand. More money sat in front of me than I could ever imagine. The most I’d ever had at one time was a thousand pounds, and saving it had been a stretch, indeed.
“What did you do, Jane?” Alice asked, looking just as startled as I felt.
Staring at the boxes as the deliveryman left us to our surprised gaping, I was dumbfounded. “I don’t know.”
“There’s got to be thousands of pounds worth of computer equipment here.” She lifted the smallest box onto the desk and picked at the tape holding it closed. “This is… Wow. We’ve never gotten anything like this for the hotel, and I’ve been asking for years. You must’ve done something.”
“Why me?” I muttered, more to myself than her, but she answered anyway.
“You’re the only new person who’s been hired for a long time,” she said, opening the box. “And you’ve thrown yourself into this place like it were your own. Rocky likes that, I think.” She gasped and began pulling out white packages from within the brown shipping box. “There are like five iPads in here! One for the dining room staff, one for the office, one for the chef, one for housekeeping…here. This one has your name on it.”
“My name?” I reached out for the box Alice offered me and found it had a sticker with my name printed on it.For Jane Doe.
She peered at me curiously and asked, “Has no one ever given you a gift before?”
A gift? Surely this was for work, not… No, no one had ever given me a gift. Not that I could remember. Birthdays were nonevents, and forget about Christmas. It was an opportunity for penalty wages waitressing fancy dinners.
“Jane, open it, and turn it on!” Alice laughed at my expression, finding great pleasure in my shocked state.
Feeling uncomfortable at the thought Edward bought me something for personal use, I set the box aside and said, “Later. I think we should sort this lot out first.”
Alice nodded in agreement. “What’s in the envelope?”
Realizing I was still holding it, I quickly broke the seal and pulled out a swath of papers.
“Warranty information,” I said, flipping through the stack. “A manual and directions for included software. There’s a program which should help us with our bookings.”
“Amazing!” Alice declared. “Maybe we can get the hotel up on more online booking sites now we have all this.”
“That would make visibility a great deal easier.”
Setting the envelope aside with the elephant in the room, the mysterious iPad, we set about unboxing the computers and clearing space for them on the desks. We chattered happily, turning on the radio and listening to some rock music as we worked. I was so engrossed in our task I didn’t see him at first. Not until he had to declare his presence.
“Jane.”
Even though I’d only spoken with him twice at length, I would know his voice anywhere, and I stilled.
I was sitting among a pile of Styrofoam and cardboard on the floor, hardly looking the picture of professionalism for my position, and I rose to my feet so fast my head began to spin.
“Sir,” I declared as Alice quickly switched off the radio.
