The girl who brings your coffee, the girl who wipes down your sinks, the girl who wanted to go to Brown but there was no money, the girl who wanted to have an adventure in Europe like her literary heroes. She has been a whore for minimum wage made to take orders from insane assistant managers at fast food sweatshops. She has been degraded as a truck stop waitress with a hankie on her head and a cowboy's hand on her leg as she refilled his mellow yellow. It's all like this, something you do to get by. The room feels like a dungeon and in a few hours she too is dim and not a penny richer.
Grace stands up and walks to the window.
She pauses to smell the renegade roses then runs to the safety of her motorcycle boots and overalls. She is trying to catch up on love, trying to make up for what is past. They just stare from under their thin eyebrows and she gives them her best smile. Grace takes the elevator with the 8th floor working boys, maintence men in blue shirts who wear their names across their hearts and their days end at 6. Something to look forward to, the elevator stopping on the fourth floor, the whore floor.