BECAUSE I WANT YOU TO DO IT 1
The wind blew at a higher rate that evening as time passed by. It was his first day at work; his first day at the hotel as the Chairman and he just had to bump into her, the woman he dreaded the most at the moment and to make it all worse, it turned out that she was his vice president. He let out a deep sigh as Mateo drove into the estate.
He held unto his briefcase containing nothing but a pen, a few blank papers and a squeezed-up letter as he pondered over how he left America without saying a proper goodbye. It wasn’t his plan to stay in Finland but he found himself seating at the back seat of a very expensive car, he even had a chauffeur and was now the chairman of a well-known hotel.
He took out the letter from the briefcase and reread everything over and over again. The letter his mother had sent to him while she was on her sick bed. He surprisingly found solace in those empty words that didn’t mean anything to him however, such solace was short-lived when a thought suddenly struck his mind. The thought of his mother having done all she did just to induce him for not being there for him made him the more distraught. Did she expect him to be grateful to her for remembering him and for including his name in her will?
“Was that it?” he murmured to himself loosening his tie when a certain short haired voice rang like bells in his head.
“I’d better do away with this shade of necktie.” He unconsciously threw the tie to the side.
“We’ve arrived Mr Ethan.” Mateo opened the door to the backseat.
“Oh… thanks for the smooth ride.” His mind was too occupied for him to realise that they were home. Ethan stepped out of the car letting Mateo repark the car into the garage. He advanced towards the front door when he stopped in his tracks.
“My old lady!!” the thoughts of America immediately brought to his memories like a bolt of lightning, the promise he had made to call the old lady. He felt so bad to have forgotten such an important thing especially when he made a promise regarding it. Taking his phone from his suit pocket, the doors to the house suddenly flew open and there he was. The mysterious butler stood by the door ushering him in.
“Welcome back Mr Ethan.” Charles smiled out of the blue which caught Ethan off guard. He had never seen the butler smile or smirk before, all he did was give off an emotionless expression. If he were given the opportunity to vote on who sets the mood of the house all the way down to the depression mode, Charles would get first place, he was sure about it.
“Over to the next important issue on your schedule…” Charles slowed down in his pace so that Ethan could meet up with him.
“Issue?...... at this time of the day?” he murmured, checking his wristwatch.
“It’s just 7:30pm young master Ethan.” Ethan rolled his eyes at him but the butler chose to feign ignorance.
He took Ethan through the exit door at the far end of the room, however Ethan didn’t have a clue of what was going on and as soon as he entered into a spacious room, he became perplexed since he wasn’t expecting anything after an exit door but trees and shrubs surrounding the entire building. The room was similar to that of their living room with a flight of stairs leading to the upper area. Asides that, it was bigger and wider with nothing but a table and a few chairs on the ground floor.
“What took you so long huh?” Amelia sighed, putting a wet napkin over her shoulder as she came down the set of steps alongside Marlow and Sebastian who seemed to be pissed off about something.
“What’s going on?” Ethan asked with a puzzled look on his face. He couldn’t understand what was going on. He noticed that they all had napkins in their hands, sweating profusely.
“Were you cleaning? Why?” he couldn’t help but ask because he knew they had enough maids to take care of the chores.
“We do this once every month… the butler makes us do it once every month.” Marlow wiped his face with one of the neatly placed towels on the glass table. Apart from the towels, there was also an extra napkin on the table.
“The butler practically makes us do it, even the grumpy Sebastian can’t avoid it.” Amelia scoffed, grinning from ear to ear.
“You shouldn’t be rude to your elder brother. Show some respect you spoilt brat.” Sebastian placed the dripping napkin on her head in retaliation before leaving the room.
Marlow stifled his laughter as tiny drops of water from the napkin came rolling down his sister’s face. As soon as he made eye contact with her, he suddenly burst into laughter.
“what’s so funny? Do you want to get beaten up so badly?” she took the napkin from her head and charged towards her brother who slowly took steps away from her.
“Get back here you punk!!” Amelia yelled as she pursued Marlow out of the room with two wet napkins in her hands.
“Where do you think you are going? I haven’t asked you all to leave and Amelia put those wet napkins away!” the butlers voice was as loud as an alarm clock, enough to make Ethan’s ears bleed.
“Young master Ethan, you can start cleaning whilst I attend to your siblings.” Charles spoke promptly to him with his attention elsewhere.
“But the room looks pretty clean and I sincerely don’t get why we clean an empty room. I just got back from work, shouldn’t I be exempted from doing such work today?” He spoke in a low voice as his words earned him nothing but a sharp glare from the butler.
“Do you want to know why?” The butler drew him close, whispering into his ear which he found very weird.
“It’s simply because I want you to do it. It would be lovely if the children of rich families could do some menial chores around the house, don’t you think so?” with a smile plastered on his face, he said those words as though they were his long-kept secrets.
“Get to work young man. Make sure to clean every nook and cranny of the room; I’ll be back soon.” He left Ethan all to himself.
“But… I’m just getting off work.” He complained but the butler was long gone.
“Where do I start from?” he sighed, taking a neatly placed napkin from the table.
“Do I mop the floor with this?” he stared at the floor then at the napkin repeatedly and hesitant.
“Mr Charles? Mr Charles? Do I mop with the napkin?” he threw the napkin away as he walked out of the room, looking for the butler. He decided to play dirty in order to get himself out of that situation.
“I’m tired for crying out loud!” he exclaimed, banging his hand against the door leading to the outside room.