Caught on Camera

Chapter 4, Scene 3, Part 8

The Spa Who Loved Me

Scene 3

Wracked with guilt for tracking dirt onto spotless linoleum floors she had no time to mop, Rachel dragged the protesting muddy dog from the back entrance and along a service corridor to the Housekeeping Supply Room where she set Mopette down in the deep janitor's sink. Behind her the door swung open.

"Excuse me, miss. Guests aren't allowed in here."

Without turning her head, she called out, "It's alright, Angeline. It's just me." Rachel rinsed one filthy paw and then the other under a stream of warm water. Muddy water flowed down the drain. She scrunched her nose at the smell of wet dog. Ughh.

"Rachel?" Angeline's solid steps announced her approach. "Let me look at you."

Obediently Rachel stepped away from the sink. She twirled around the room, arms outstretched.

"Hoo, boy. You're beaut-ti-ful! Who'd a thought one afternoon in a spa makes such a difference?"

"Thanks a lot!" Rachel smiled to show she wasn't offended. "I'm having so much fun, except for this minute," she admitted, returning to squirming Mopette. Its little nails clicked on metal as it tried to dodge her groping hands in the confined space.

Finally she wrapped both hands around its body and held its tummy under the faucet to sluice off dirt stubbornly clinging to the fur. Yipping madly, four black paw pads waving frantically in the air, Mopette rebelled at the indignity.

"Calm down, you little fur ball." Rachel swore colorfully. "You've splattered my halter top with dirty water." This miniature dog, maybe ten pounds soaking wet, created an outsized amount of trouble.

Angeline hadn't finished. "You're too pretty to work as a room attendant."

Rachel hooted. "You're just being nice. Please hand me a towel?"

Angeline pulled a white bath towel from the stack on a shelf and tossed it to her. "No, seriously. You are too pretty to work in the rooms. Remember the GM's policy."

"Yip, yip!" Mopette barked in agreement as Rachel wrapped her cozily in the thick towel and lifted her out of the sink. She peered at her reflection in Mopette's beady little black eyes, her heart plummeting to the pit of her stomach. "Too pretty? I've never been too pretty in my life."

"I expect you've never soaked up hundreds of dollars in spa services in one afternoon either."

"You really think my job is on the line? I'll return to being plain old Rachel on Sunday."

"Won't matter," Angeline gloomily predicted. "After the GM gets a load of you, he'll want you far away from the guest rooms, assign you to the laundry, maybe." Angeline's broad face creased in a dark scowl. "If you're lucky."

Holy Hades. A summer slaving in the stifling hot laundry room with no tips? A fate worse than being fired. Fired or banished to the service wing, either way she'd forfeit future opportunities to take photos of celebrity guests at Sterling Inn that summer. Tears pricked her eyelids. Candid pics from the Kane-Armstrong wedding were her only chance for acquiring enough money for tuition. A tear slid through eye lashes stiff with lengthening mascara and dripped blackly on Mopette's white fur.

Star struck upon meeting Halden, she'd completely forgotten to take photos of him on the golf course. How stupid. Another sooty tear dotted Mopette's back.

Buck up girl, she ordered. It wasn't too late to take photos. The evening reception, rehearsal dinner and wedding day offered wonderful opportunities. Rachel vigorously rubbed dry Mopette's short legs and tummy. The reward outweighed the risk of suffering the wrath of the Kane-Armstrongs should they eventually discovered who sold the photos. Or so she convinced her conscience.

Fierce ambition to work on a Hollywood film set had flared upon her first visit to a movie theater at the age of five. "I'm going to be in the movies," she'd announced to her mother. But the pretty, popular girls won lead roles in high school plays. Boys ignored Rachel, reinforcing a belief that her ordinary features, awkward height, mouse brown hair and lack of boobs crushed any chance of joining the ranks of beautiful screen starlets.

At sixteen all hope of filling a bra withered and died. She abandoned the childish dream of becoming an actress. Instead, she researched film crew jobs that provided the opportunity to spend time on set with the actors and film-makers she idolized. Of the on-set professions tapped to make a film, directors and camera operators enjoyed mandatory front row seats for the entire shoot. A practical person who had to support herself, Rachel calculated that the odds of being hired as an entry level camera assistant were considerably better than those of becoming a director.

Years of zealously watching hundreds of films, Entertainment Tonight, ET Canada, televised Academy Awards and Golden Globes later, the desire to become a camera operator, maybe even a cinematographer someday, burned as brightly. Only eighteen months at film school stood between cleaning up after movie stars and filming them. And the small matter of thirty-five thousand dollars, of course.

I 'll do whatever is necessary to work in Hollywood. Rachel heaved a fortifying breath, mustered every ounce of courage and firmly instructed herself to start clicking that hidden camera button, consequences be damned.