Julian drove in early every morning and parked in the staff parking lot, where nobody noticed what time his car arrived.
Then he went up to the roof, expecting an hour alone with his bees.
It was the only hour of the day he kept for himself.
This morning, though, his plans were disrupted by a reindeer lying beside his hives, no less.
The new night concierge, Miss Ellis, gave her account standing in the snow in a Santa hat.
She started with the call Matthew had made during the night and finished with the reindeer’s refusal to get up.
She accounted for everything, including the price, remaining perfectly calm throughout while taking care not to give the impression that she was treating the whole thing lightly.
He noticed how she seemed determined to explain her own decisions without asking him to take her side against his brother either.
“Were any guests disturbed?” he asked.
“No, sir. The service lift doesn’t stop on the guest floors at night.”
“Does it have a name?” Julian asked, looking at the reindeer.
“Bernadette, sir.”
“Good morning, Bernadette,” Julian said, since there was no reason to be rude to her.
He kept his voice calm, though he was already figuring out what the consequences of these adventures on the roof of the Voss would be and who would have to take direct responsibility for them.
“The hat was the farmer’s instruction, sir,” she added, in case he’d been wondering.
“Was it?” Julian then asked, slowly figuring out how the entire system worked.
Behind him, Matthew laughed out loud.
Julian turned toward his brother, who was sitting on the bench in a blanket.
He couldn’t remember the last time he’d heard him laugh like that, and he was glad of it despite the trouble with the reindeer.
“She ate my scarf,” Matthew said.
“So Miss Ellis mentioned.”
“And a drawing.”
“She mentioned that too.”
Soon afterward, just as the farmer had promised, Bernadette got to her feet and shook the snow off her back.
Then she went to stand beside the Santa hat as though nothing had happened at all.
Rhea then led her calmly to the service lift.
She hadn’t looked embarrassed once, not even in the hat, and Julian respected that.
“Miss Ellis,” he said, and she stopped.
“Next time you take a reindeer to the roof, please let someone know.”
“Mimi knew, sir.”
The lift doors closed on her, the reindeer and the hat.
Strictly speaking, she had left the desk for most of the night, which meant he should mention it to Graff.
On the other hand, she had done exactly what she had been asked to do, quite successfully, actually, considering the circumstances.
She had also arranged for Mimi to cover the desk during her absence, so she had been careful about that as well.
So Julian eventually decided that Graff didn’t need to hear about it from him.
When he turned around, Matthew was still looking at the lift.
“Try not to make this one quit,” Julian said.
“I don’t think she would do that, to be honest, even if I tried.”
Julian thought that was probably true, though he wasn’t sure it would make his brother any easier to live with.
“Father goes through the accounts on Friday,” he said.
“Then he’ll find the reindeer receipt, no doubt.” Matthew said it lightly, finding it funny that he even had to say such a thing, but Julian knew him well enough to understand that he was just as worried as he was.
“And don’t forget Tuesday.”
“Dr. Pike. I know.”
Julian looked at the blanket, the snow and the bare ankles above his brother’s boots, then decided not to ask anything else.
He didn’t want to spoil Matthew’s good mood by questioning him any further.
He spent what was left of his time on the roof checking the hives for damage.
There wasn’t any, though the bees did seem a little unsettled, so he told them gently that it had been an unusual night indeed.
After a while, he found himself telling them how good it had been to see Matthew laugh, especially since it happened so rarely these months.
When he went down to his office, the night report was already waiting on his laptop.
Most of it was in Miss Ellis’s careful, plain wording.
Besides dealing with the reindeer, she had found a guest’s lost passport, dealt with a leaking pipe on the fourth floor, and persuaded a very drunk resident to go to bed without waking anyone.
It was the most orderly night report Julian had read in a year.
Checking Mr.
Matthew’s account next, he found the billing details for the reindeer.
It had cost more than the hotel spent on flowers in a month.
Then again, Julian thought, it was a fair price for hearing his brother laugh after such a long time.
He sat back and considered what to do about it.
Their father hadn’t said a word about Matthew since the board meeting, which was how Julian knew how angry he still was.
A reindeer on Matthew’s bill would only give him another reason to clear the Glasshouse.
He moved the charge to his own account without telling anyone.
It wouldn’t settle anything between Matthew and their father, but it would give them one less thing to argue about.
He had been the grown-up in the family since he was eleven, when their mother died.
Life sometimes worked in funny ways like that, and it had kept giving him reasons to be the responsible one ever since.
He then checked his calendar too.
Tuesday morning said *Matthew, Dr.
Pike*, with three reminders, since Julian didn’t trust his brother to remember even one of them.
When it was time to leave for his meeting, he collected his coat and folder, then went out to his car in the staff parking lot, where he found the gate blocked.
An old Mercedes taxi stood right across it, with its engine running.
The driver had her window down and was cracking sunflower seeds without a care in the world.
“Good morning,” Julian said.
“I’m afraid you’re blocking the gate.”
“I know.”
“I have a meeting to get to.”
“Good for you.”
She looked him over, from his polished shoes up to his tie, and didn’t seem impressed.
“Let me guess,” she said.
“You’ve never been late for anything in your life.”
He couldn’t tell whether she meant to annoy him or whether she spoke to everyone like this.
For now, getting the car out of his way mattered more than anything.
“I’m about to be,” Julian said.
“If it’s a question of parking, the hotel would be happy to find you a space.”
“I’m all settled. Just waiting for my sister, mister Gold Star.”
Nobody had ever called him that, though it wasn’t far from the truth.
As a boy, he had collected more gold stars from his teachers than anyone else in his class.
He was late and annoyed, yet he also found that he, surprisingly, wanted to know who her sister was.
“I’d rather not have to call someone about the car,” he said.
“Then don’t.” She held the bag out of the window.
“Seed?”
“No, thank you.”
“More for me, Gold Star.”
The staff door opened behind him, and Rhea came out in a dark coat, without the Santa hat, of course.
She nodded to Julian as politely as she had on the roof, then got into the back of the taxi.
“Babe, this is Gold Star,” the driver told her.
“I know who he is,” Rhea said.
“Drive, please.”
So this was the sister.
The two women looked nothing alike, and Rhea was as formal with him as the driver was casual.
Julian couldn’t have said which of them surprised him more.
The driver put the car into reverse without another glance at him.
She drove backward down the whole length of the lane at high speed, squeezing through a gap Julian would have sworn was too narrow.
Then she swung out into the street and was gone.
He stood looking at the empty lane for quite a long while.
He was used to people doing what he asked, but oddly enough, this person’s refusal didn’t seem to upset him as much as it probably should have.
Instead he was a little annoyed with himself for not having asked her name.
He was also going to be late for his meeting, which had never happened before.
Graff had come out to the staff door and was also looking down the lane, toward the place where the taxi had disappeared.
“Miss Ellis has handed over the desk, sir,” he said.
“She is performing rather well.”
Julian knew that, coming from Graff, this was high praise.
It was strange, though, that Graff didn’t look pleased.
He was still frowning at the empty lane.
“The new girl reminds me of someone,” he said, almost to himself.
“Who?”
“No one, sir.” Graff turned to go back inside.
“A trick of memory, I suppose.”