"I used to. Lately I'm not so sure."
He gave her a clean uniform, a temporary badge with her first name, and a cart with a squeaking wheel. She insisted on learning the actual cleaning schedule, chemical storage rules, safety procedures, and the awkward machine used to polish the marble. Otis tried to spare her the hardest work. Ellen refused, saying she would learn nothing if he kept the building ready for her instead of making her part of it.
She arrived before sunrise, helped replenish paper towels, wiped elevator buttons, and emptied wastebaskets under conference tables where managers discussed salaries large enough to purchase the homes of the people collecting the trash. She listened to employees complain quietly about broken breakroom chairs and missing overtime. She heard a supervisor tell a cleaner to wait until executives had finished lunch before using the staff cafeteria. She watched how quickly people said please when speaking to their equals and how quickly they forgot the word when speaking to someone holding a broom.
Otis caught her standing alone beside the service elevator on her third morning. "You can go upstairs whenever you like," he reminded her. "Nobody's keeping you here."
Ellen looked at the smear of cleaning solution on her sleeve. "That's the point, Otis. I can leave. They can't."
She had not planned to wait indefinitely. Her initial visit was meant to last a week, and the independent audit committee had been told to expect an in-person report on Friday. But after the incident with Shenine, Ellen understood that the problem was not merely numbers or poor morale. Her own grandson was helping teach the company that cruelty could be rewarded, provided it came in expensive clothes.
Across the lobby, Maya carried the last bucket of water toward the service corridor. Ellen followed her, moving at the careful pace of someone whose knees had learned over decades to object to unnecessary urgency. She saw Shenine's reflection in the elevator door before the younger woman disappeared upward. The brand director was laughing again, as though what had happened had been an amusing inconvenience between appointments.
Maya set the bucket beside a utility sink. "I'm sorry you had to deal with that."
"You didn't do it."
"I could have said something sooner."
Ellen turned toward her. "You said something when it mattered. Don't confuse that with being responsible for the person who made the mess."
Maya looked down at her hands. There was a narrow red mark across one knuckle from where she had scraped it against the bucket. She had been thinking since Jamal walked away about whether her refusal would be written up as insubordination. She had also been thinking about the unmistakable relief on Ellen's face when somebody finally offered help.
"What's he like when Shenine isn't here?" Ellen asked.
"Jamal?" Maya gave a tired, incredulous laugh. "He can be thoughtful, and that's what makes it worse. He remembers who finished a project early. He sends flowers when an employee has a baby. But if Shenine tells him someone disrespected her, the rest of the facts don't seem to matter."