Story: The Cleaner Returns. Chapters 21-22.

by BigBird74

21.

The rippling electricity that filled her body made Dahlia breathe in short, shallow breaths. She peered left and right down to opposite ends of the corridor. From her brief tour of the house, Dahlia could tell that her room was situated in one of two wings. She stepped from the room a little further, still nervous of being ‘seen’ in this dress.

Just as her nerves were starting to jangle, she could hear the clip of heels on the solid wooden flooring, approaching her from behind. She spun around to see a woman approaching her. This being an old house, the corridors were dimly lit with only a little natural light let in through the small windows. Dahlia froze. She did not recognise the woman and, for a moment, debated in her head whether or not to duck back into her room. But that would look terribly odd!

“Petra?” The woman asked in an alien accent. “I am looking for Petra.” Dahlia’s fingers twitched. She was still holding the name tag and decided now was the time to lift it into place.

“That….. that is me,” she answered with little thought as she pinned the badge to the lapel of her dowdy dress. She was still mildly drowsy from the aftereffects of the tablets and her mind was not at its sharpest.

“Hmm. You were not quite what I expected,” the woman replied, surveying Dahlia intimately, her dark brown eyes scanning her face and body. The two of them stood beside a window, the daylight revealing the older woman’s worn, dark features. “I am Ms Nechita. I am the head of cleaning for the clinic.” She paused, still weighing Dahlia up. “I understand that you are here for ‘training’ and induction.” Her voice betrayed a slight measure of disbelief, as though, in spite of Dahlia’s drab uniform and name tag, she was somehow talking to the wrong person.

Perhaps it was Dahlia’s own body language that made Ms Nechita have her doubts. She was clearly suffering from a fair bit of disorientation and was struggling to answer even the simplest of questions. Raising an eyebrow, she nodded once and indicated for Dahlia to follow her. Walking a few strides behind Ms Nechita, Dahlia took in more of the woman’s appearance. It was hard to tell her exact age, but if forced to take a guess, Dahlia would have plumped for mid 50s. Her long hair, streaked with grey and pulled back sharply was presented in a kind of bun that sat behind her head and spoke a kind of faded glamour. Like Dahlia, she wore an ill-fitting dress that made it hard to see her figure, but it was obvious that she was still quite slim. Now that she had heard her speak a little more, Dahlia was sure the accent was eastern European, probably Romanian.

Like Dahlia she wore no make-up. However when made up, she would have looked quite attractive for her age. Her features, though a little timeworn, were small, proportioned and symmetrical. She obviously made an effort to keep up her appearances.

After turning a couple of corners, the two of them arrived at a small room tucked away at the end of the corridor. Inside were lines of metal shelving stocked with mops, aprons and paper towels, among other cleaning tools. Dahlia took in the room in a sweeping arc that ended with her staring directly into Ms Netchita’s eyes. The mature woman smiled gently, as the supermodel could not maintain eye contact for long, an instinctive submissiveness making her drop her eyes to the floor.

The next half an hour was a blur to Dahlia, as she was given a long list of tasks and was walked from the small room through the bowels of the large home being shown around. All the while, a constant flicker of excitement rippled through her. The manner in which Ms Nechita addressed her, as ‘girl’. The assumption that Dahlia knew next to zero about anything. The complete disregard for Dahlia’s opinion. It all made Dahlia feel curiously aroused. She was used to her own retinue following after her, delivering whatever she needed. Now she felt a little like an unskilled lackey. Was this all she was cut out to be? Shorn of her looks and the status they gave her, she felt somehow adrift. Her life had been defined by her modelling career and now she found herself staring into the deep abyss of what now? Now, I am no longer that?

Ms Nechita snapped her fingers in Dahlia’s face. “Stop daydreaming”, she remonstrated. “Did you get all that?”

Dahlia nodded. She hadn’t but was confident she could cope. The results were predictable. Fast forward a couple of hours and Petra was being berated for not listening, as a clearly unhappy Ms Nechita addressed the situation. Of course, Dahlia’s mistakes were small and really did not matter greatly in the larger scope of things, but this was all designed to make her feel powerless. By the time she stopped for lunch, she was already feeling robbed of much of her confidence. Still, she told herself, this was all for her own good. She needed something to focus her wandering mind and this, according to her doctor, was it.

 

22.

The contrast between the two sisters’ days could not have been starker. After wakening in 5-star luxury, Melissa was treated to a light, healthy breakfast on the balcony of her suite overlooking the pool, with an extended view of the surrounding hillsides. The first of her appointments with the nutritionist was for tomorrow, when they promised to concoct a healthy – but tasty – diet for her. Melissa’s first reaction to that idea was a bit sceptical. She could not recount the number of failed diets she had subjected herself too. Of course, previously, she blamed everyone and everything for her failures, without taking a hard, long look in the mirror. Such an act of self-reckoning was not in her nature, preferring instead to surround herself with myriad excuses that softened the guilt she always felt at those moments.

Melissa had chosen the resort for its promise of exclusivity. She figured if she was going to try and get fit, it best be done in relative privacy. She could not deny that the sessions with the doctor had helped and were the reason for the sudden volte-face in her attitude towards diet and exercise. Those long sessions with him has helped turn her around and now gave her the energy and enthusiasm she had seen in her sister all those years.

As she dwelt on her past failings, Melissa winced a little. She reflected on all the time she had wasted and, most of all, she found herself obsessing over how much Dahlia had achieved while she had been lounging around, wasting time. It made her angry to think of it. Not with Dahlia, but with herself. For the first time in her life, she felt a real heartfelt desire to change the course of her life. Partly this was borne out of the incessant rivalry with her sibling. But it also reflected a degree of self-loathing. Now, unencumbered by both sources of negativity, she felt a surge of enthusiasm and a feeling of what was possible. Where once she would have felt a great weight on her shoulders, dragging her head down, now she felt like grasping the proverbial bull by the horns.

There was another helping factor. In the eyes of the staff here and any other guests she might happen to meet, she, Melissa, was rich and successful. No-one here could know her and she was going to play that part with gusto. Whenever she was in Dahlia’s long shadow, she was eclipsed to some degree, usually totally. Now, in the sunshine, life felt better. A sense of the possible that was aided by her using her formerly married name when she registered. Melissa Chapman – and not Melissa Western.

Melissa Western was the fat, plain sister of Dahlia Western, supermodel and businesswoman. People might recognise the surname and the lingering resemblance and manage to put one and one together. Using her married name afforded her some privacy. People would take her for what she appeared to be, rather than instantly referencing her as Dahlia’s failure of a sister.

Perhaps she did not need that? The wellspring of enthused confidence now surging up inside of her was strong, but she feared it was also fragile. She did not wish to test it and, as she gazed into her mirror, at the bloated form that looked back towards her, almost mocking her attempts at self-improvement, she felt for a second that desire to shy away. Only for a second. For this time, rather than passivity, the experience stoked a fire inside of her. Anger. She had wasted all that time. No more.

As she left the seclusion of the room and walked out to the pool, she wore a snug fitting swimsuit covered with a silk robe, her legs extended in high heels. She felt butterflies in her stomach from the nerves. She would never normally do this and the wings inside her stomach were telling her to retreat back to the safety of her room. But what was there? Only that mirror and the mocking image. No. She would not turn back. She WAS rich and successful. These people were just staff. They did not matter to her.

Descending from the lift, she strode out to the pool with purpose, choosing the recliner that sat at the far end of the terrace. As the morning wore on, she grew in confidence as her assertive manner bore fruits. She could see in the faces of the staff that they had marked her out as a potential source of tips and treated her as such, bowing and scraping to her as one might expect in a luxury hotel.

As she watched a pool boy mop up the side of the pool, a faraway thought entered Melissa’s mind: ‘A cleaner?’ she thought with a sneer. Thank god, she had not bowed to her sister’s wishes. What would she be doing right now if she had been stupid enough to agree to that? A few hundred miles away Dahlia could have answered that question.