Freedom. The word turns in my head as I toe the sandy edge of the Pacific Ocean. I have wanted this vacation for months now, working at the Ramada Newport Beach offers some luxuries but daily sunbathing is not one of them.My belly puffs out over the lower line of my old bikini but the sun shines on it with a forgiving grace and I don't mind so much. I look around me at the red-flagged lifeguard towers, the beachgoers around me. During regular days of the week I am scrubbing their toilets, touching resentfully their towels soaked with their blood, their shit and vomit. But we are all friends here, we are all free to watch the waves licking the ground, studded with shells. A little girl, no older than eight, wading in the surf. If it wasn't my vacation I would probably be in the hotel room her parents left a mess, scraping up the sheets and plastic coating over the bed she wet the night before. Today, I only smile fondly at the hot-pink swimsuit studded with silver beads, rising with the water.
When I stretch out my legs, the aching muscles in my calves remind me that I haven't been on a vacation in ages. After the friendly night manager quit, employees at the Ramada Norwalk were plagued with more responsibility, stricter rules and what felt like twice as many rooms when employee after employee left for bluer skies at the Hilton Costa Mesa. I have no need for the new Hilton, the childcare at the Ramada suits my daughter and I am on my way to becoming Assistant of Cleaning Personnel. If things keep moving the way I want them to move, of course.
Still, it is a long and difficult job. Everyone forgets to leave a tip in the room but I am yelled at when I leave a fresh bed without a mint on the pillow. Though I haven't seen a shipment of fresh towels in a year, I am bitterly to blame when a one-bedroom finds two towels instead of four in the bathroom.
The little girl, the eight-year-old, is too deep in the water. She's probably trying to go out far enough to pee in it without anyone noticing. The world, some people mistake the whole world for their personal toilet, so long as they don't have to clean up after themselves.
It is otherwise a perfect day at the beach. Busloads of youngsters from church functions file out of the parking lot and into the water, dragging coolers and towels and sometimes even smaller children along behind them on boogie boards barely suitable for towing. The girl makes a helpless kind of noise and slips under the water, and I am briefly reminded of my stay at the Ramada Nashville when my daughter spilled soda on the curtains but I only laughed because I did not have to clean it up.
