Ghost Tour

by Claryn Vaile

  “Gotta get out of here for a while,” she explained when Maureen asked why she was packing a bag so hastily. Rebecca felt the situation at the Keep spinning out of control as its new management began to impose their tawdry vision on the hotel’s future. She’d made enemies already, she knew, with what they surely perceived as her fuddy-duddy intractability. Menopausal meltdown, they probably said behind her back. Resistant to change? Hell yes. Unreasonably uncooperative. Damn straight. But was her knee-jerk recalcitrance helping anything? Influencing anyone?

  “Where are you going?”

  “Someplace where history can envelope me,” she declared. “I’m off to D.C.”

  “Fine choice,” Mo said. “though I’ve always been partial to Baltimore. Any idea how long you’ll be gone?”

  “As long as it takes me to regain perspective. Could be weeks. They won’t miss me at work.”

  Mo picked up Willoughby, who had been fretting at her heels, fully aware of what a suitcase prefaced. “Well, we’ll miss you,” she said sincerely. “Just hope it helps. I really do, Beck.”

  As her plane lifted off from DIA, Rebecca could almost feel the stress of the last few weeks slip from her shoulders and flutter to the quickly receding ground. Nothing like flight to remind one of just how small earthbound concerns are in respect to the Big Picture.

  Checking into the Willard Hotel near the Mall was like stepping back in time. Beloved and respected by both locals and travelers, the hostelry was a historic gem in the heart of the nation’s capitol. Rebecca had stayed there several times since starting at the Griffins Keep.

  “Ms. Bridger,” the front desk manager greeted her warmly. “A pleasure, as always, to see you again. You’ll be staying in the Tabor Suite as usual, of course.”

  “Hello, Alistair,” she said, smiling somewhat sadly. “You know me so well. I’m suddenly starved for history.”

  “We’ve heard, of course, about the recent unfortunate developments at your hotel,” Alistair said, “and you have our most sincere condolences. But as far as we are concerned, The Keep will always be a distinguished historical hospitality colleague. And it is our great pleasure to accommodate you in classic style.”

  Bless him, Rebecca thought as she tapped her card key on the lock scanner. Her suite was named for one of Colorado’s most famous “Silver Kings,” Horace Tabor, who had married his controversial second wife at the Willard while serving as U.S. Senator for one month in 1883. Elegant yet comfortable, spacious yet intimate, the Tabor Suite felt like home – only better. A bottle of chilled champagne in a sterling ice bucket on the foyer table welcomed her in style. The note from Alistair on the silver tray said simply, “Welcome back to the Willard, where history still matters.”

  Rebecca peeled off the foil, removed the metal crown cap, and eased the cork from the champagne bottle. She poured herself a glass filled almost to the rim and opened the window to breathe in the melancholy scents of early winter.

  Slowly sipping her drink, she mentally replayed the marketing session at The Keep. Madison was right. She did remember the Sixties. But she’d been a school girl, no more involved with the dope-smoking hippie culture than wholesome Sally Field in The Flying Nun TV series popular at the time. Might as well have been a nun herself, cloistered at an all-girls Christian boarding school in Plano, Texas. The wildest thing she recalled from those years was playing “The Chipmunks Sing the Beatles Hits” afterhours in the boarders’ dorm and inciting several other girls to jump on their beds and rock-out to Alvin and the contraband tune-age. Busted for that shocking bit of rebelliousness, she’d had to spend three consecutive Saturdays knitting potholders for charity.

  Looking back, Rebecca could trace the roots of her disillusionment with the church to those school years. The U.S. was becoming more deeply mired in the war in Vietnam. Her older brothers Joseph and Micah were both called during the draft lottery. Joseph, who heeded “Thou Shalt not Kill” over “My Country, Right or Wrong,” had fled to Canada rather than serve in what he considered an unjust and unwinnable war. The church and all their family friends had shunned and villified him. Their father had disowned Joseph and never forgiven him. Their mother, ashamed, rarely spoke of her eldest son, even decades later.

  Micah had served in the Southeast Asian conflict for 18 months. The Micah who left was not the Micah who returned and who overdosed on drugs soon thereafter. Both tragedies broke Rebecca’s heart and hardened her outlook.

  Adults – church adults, including her own parents -- didn’t know everything and they weren’t always right. Adolescent Rebecca recognized their hypocrisy in espousing Christian beliefs while supporting the war. The realization had rocked her young world and spawned years of critical questioning that led her away from her religious upbringing.

  Rebecca closed the window of her Willard suite against the suddenly cold air and finished a second glass of champagne before drawing a bath. She slipped into the warm, scented water and relaxed utterly for the first time in weeks.

  The Willard Hotel, the “Queen of Pennsylvania Avenue,” reigned just two blocks from the White House and two blocks from the National Mall. The institution traced its roots back more than 150 years, though the current building had debuted 10 years after the Griffins Keep. The Willard had not been “absolutely fireproof.”

  The Edwardian lobby décor bespoke what the Willard website described as a “unique blend of contemporary luxury, historic charm and sustainable hospitality that subtly reflects the spirit of the city.” A small hotel history museum on the ground floor honored its Washington lineage and legacy. Why couldn’t The Keep incorporate something similar?

  One evening in the Willard’s iconic Round Robin & Scotch Bar, Rebecca chanced to encounter a former Secretary of State who had stayed at the Griffins Keep on multiple occasions and who still remembered the historian’s program at a fundraising luncheon there. They chatted briefly before the subject of TITHE’s takeover came up.

  “I was so sorry to hear from a colleague about the changes they’re making to my favorite Denver hotel,” the prominent lady lamented. “I’ve always said The Keep was the most gracious, most restorative place I’ve ever stayed. But from what I can gather about its new emphasis on entertainment and the decline in service, I doubt I’ll be returning.”

  The Smithsonian Museums, the Capitol building, and the Library of Congress were heady tonics for Rebecca. The eight-day regimen of concentrated history was all it took to restore her to fighting shape. Validated and invigorated, she returned to Denver, optimistically determined to persuade the new Keep management of the cultural – and yes, commercial -- value of connections to the past.

  She’d propose an onsite hotel museum and gift shop. Griffins Keep guests and visitors were always asking for a gift shop, and the hotel had none. With a few logo items in the Coffee Shop, a few more in the Spa, there was no single source for affordable but tasteful mementos of a visit to the venerable Denver hotel. Rebecca would bring both museum and retail experience to the venture. Surely with all the remodeling currently planned, a place could be found for such an important addition.

  The getaway to D.C. had refreshed Rebecca’s perspective and renewed her resolve. It felt good to be back. On the tenth floor, she found the archives door slightly ajar. She pushed it open -- and stopped dead.

  The center island – gone. The wall of shelves – gone. File cabinets, cupboards, even the window shades – all gone. Rebecca took in the fresh paint and new carpet and feared she was going to be sick. Nothing remained of her work corner but a charred spot just above the baseboard. It was as if the archives had never been there.

  Two ladies in tight-skirted dark suits with TITHE name badges arrived on the service elevator and excused themselves as they pushed past the stricken historian.

  “Oh, this is a great space!” the taller one said to her associate. “Windows with a rooftop view. And a ladies room right outside – did you see it? The competition for this place is going to be cutthroat. Bet
on it.”

  Competition for this place? Rebecca couldn’t believe her ears. She felt dizzy, disoriented. It was obvious, if only she could bring herself to accept it.

  The Griffins Keep archives were no more.

  This was exactly how management did things, she knew from similar examples. Decisions made and implemented immediately, without notification of – let alone consultation with – the affected staff. One evening a smiling Director of Restaurants would be greeting Versailles Room diners; the next morning he was dismissed, informed that his duties had been redistributed and his position eliminated. Thank you for your 18 years of dedicated service. Don’t let the Employee Entrance door hit you on the way out.

  Rebecca had known the new management placed no value on the hotel’s history. Why hadn’t she seen this coming? She had to find Lochlan. He could tell her what had happened. He would understand her shock and despair as no one else. She turned and stumbled toward the paint and carpentry shop, desperately hoping he’d be there, putting things back together as he always did.

  “Lochlan!” she cried breathlessly when she found him refinishing a nightstand. “It can’t be true. Where has everything gone?”

  The engineer strode calmly toward her. “Sit first,” he ordered, leading her to a chair awaiting reupholstering. “Breathe.”

  She tried to follow his directions, inhaling deeply. The familiar scene ceased swimming before her eyes.

  “They packed up everything and moved it into the sub-basement for now. I heard they’re considering donating it all to the Colorado Historical Society,” Lochlan explained, and added, “They’ll be able to take proper care of it there – temperature and humidity control like we never had. You know we always talked about that. It’s probably for the best. We just have to accept this. We have no choice.”

  Rebecca looked into his eyes and saw that he felt the loss as keenly as she. She caught his hand and squeezed it. “I shouldn’t be surprised. It was just so fast. I’m reeling. I should never have left for so long….”

  “Wouldn’t have made any difference to their plans,” Ian said. “This way you were spared watching it all go down.”

  Rebecca wondered if that scenario would actually have been more painful. And another question occurred to her.

  “Am I still historian, do you think? Do I still have a job here?”

  Lochlan replied honestly. “Doesn’t look good. I imagine HR will want to talk with you.”

  “I’m in shock,” she said as her eyes welled with angry tears. “It’s the history that makes The Keep so special. The guest registers, the blueprints – they belong here. This is their origin. Their presence gives the place its meaning, I can’t believe they’d just pack it off like that…they could have talked to me first…I could have organized things better before they took it all away…” She planted elbows on her knees and leaned her forehead on her clenched fists.

  At length, she looked up, sniffled, and wiped her eyes on her cuff. She shook her head in hopeless surrender. “So much for Charlotte and Marjory being guardian spirits of the archives. I almost believed in them after Charlotte’s death.” She felt betrayed, abandoned, and foolish.

  Lochlan surprised her then by smiling at this. “Our ladies put up a fight, make no mistake,” he said. He pulled up a stool and perched conspiratorily beside her.

  “Seems the historian key ring disappeared the first day they started moving things. They had a spare key for the archives, but not for the cupboards and cabinets. Had to break into those to get the stuff out.

  “And toward the end, when all the artifacts were gone and they disconnected your computer, the outlet sparked into a fire. If it weren’t for the extinguisher you kept in there, the whole room could have been razed in no time, dry as it is.” He smiled again as he recounted it. “A shame you missed all that. I think our guardians expressed their dismay at the pillaging of the archives quite clearly.”

  “Of course you still have a job here,” Brenda, the woman who had replaced Angelica in HR assured Rebecca. “After all, you haven’t done anything wrong. But with the elimination of the hotel archives, we’ve naturally eliminated the historian position, as well. You’ll be moving into the Sales office, and they’re just thrilled about it. Ms. Jordan’s been wanting to make Dawn her personal assistant, so you can step right in as the new receptionist. The timing is perfect, and the move’ll actually mean a slight pay rate increase for you. I’m sure it will work out for everyone.”

  “You’ll still be the corporate memory,” Dawn said as she cleaned a few personal items out of her desk and made way for Rebecca. “And LaTishia says she still wants you to do a few private tours. Mostly site tours for sales prospects, of course, so you’ll have to learn all the packages and pricing stuff.”

  Like Rebecca’s previous supervisor, LaTishia Jordan had never bothered to shadow one of her historical tours. Public tours of the hotel were no longer offered, replaced by the audio tours available from the concierge desk. But Ms. Jordan did acquiesce to the occasional special request from large meeting or conference groups who wanted a private historical or ghost tour or presentation.

  “I also want your help with some of our social media outreach,” Ms. Jordan said when next they met. “I realize you don’t know anything about Twitter or blogs. Are you even on Facebook? But we’ll take care of the tech part. Just need you to write a bunch of little hotel history factoids we can tweet. An occasional short piece for our blog whenever we’re short of important things to post. Heavy on the ghost stories, of course. That’s the only history our target demographic of young people care to hear about. You can even make some stories up, if you need to.”

  The former historian sat silently across the desk.

  “Look, I’m going to be straight with you, Rebecca. It’s about your attitude. I know sales receptionist is not what you signed on for, but if you don’t like it, you are welcome to leave. Marketing is all about positivity and aggressive promotion. There’s no room on our team for anyone who isn’t totally onboard with what TITHE is doing with The Keep.”

  Rebecca cast the younger woman what she hoped was a withering glance. “I’ll keep that in mind,” she said, suddenly realizing she was now in a perfect position for subtle subterfuge.

  Chapter 15

  To: Brittany Johnson

  Subject: Meeting Request

  Good morning, Brittany –

  I would like to meet with Mr. Branson a.s.a.p. to discuss the contents of the hotel archives. Please let me know when I might speak with him today or tomorrow.

  Cordially,

  Rebecca Bridger

  The reply to her email was anything but cordial.

  Rebecca –

  The hotel archives have been eliminated. The objects previously collected therein will be dealt with in whatever manner Mr. Branson sees fit. They are no longer your concern.

  Brittany

  Stay calm, Rebecca told herself. Maintain professionalism.

  Brittany –

  I would appreciate the opportunity to discuss options for the dispensation of the various hotel artifacts with Mr. Branson before he settles upon a course of action. I still consider stewardship of the hotel’s history my responsibility and have several recommendations I wish to propose. In the spirit of the “open door” policy Mr. Branson espouses, please advise me of the earliest appointment time you can arrange.

  Rebecca

  A communication lapse of several hours ensued. At last, Brittany responded curtly:

  Next Monday from 1:30 to 1:50p in the Executive Office.

  Round One to the Historian.

  Rebecca had already gathered information on the process for and advantages of donating archival items to History Colorado and the Denver Public Library Western History department in preparation for this eventuality. The griffin girded for battle as she rode the service elevator to the new executive offices the next day.

  The familiar 10th floor landing was familiar no more. Mr. Branson had
commandeered the former upholstery shop for his Managing Director office. The light-speed remodeling had transformed the empty archives into his executive assistant’s office. The plain wooden door with its peephole at Rebecca’s eyelevel was replaced by a heavy glass door etched with the TITHE logo. Puce-upholstered scoop pedestal chairs coddled their sitters like eggs. Chrome accent tables casually usurped the space so recently occupied by bookshelves and file cabinets. A huge photo of Chad Tagawa hung on the wall formerly graced by Hamilton Griffin’s portrait. Assaulted by this complete obliteration of her beloved workspace, Rebecca’s bravado shriveled.

  Brittany’s reception was about as warm as the chic décor. “Mr. Branson is on an important conference call,” she informed the historian. “It may be some time before he can fit you in.”

  Annoyance began to restoke Rebecca’s determination.

  “I’ll wait,” she said, sinking into one of the ultra-contemporary chairs. She withdrew the documentation she’d brought along, taking the opportunity to crib once more before their meeting. Fifteen minutes passed. Thirty minutes. Brittany focused exclusively on her PC and the occasional phone call, making no attempt at polite conversation.

  “Pretty great having a restroom right outside your door up here, isn’t it?” Rebecca ventured after 40 minutes. Brittany looked up, almost startled, as though she’d forgotten there was someone else in the room.

  “Mmm, I suppose so,” she replied, returning to her computer screen. “It’s broken half the time, though. The plumbing in this old building sucks.”