The Night Audit

I've worked the night audit at the Thornwood Inn for fifteen years. Fifteen years of 11 PM to 7 AM, fifteen years of balancing the books while the whole town sleeps, fifteen years of Galen.

Galen runs the front desk. Day shift, mostly. We overlap maybe forty minutes a night, him doing handoff, me doing math. In fifteen years we have never once eaten lunch together. We have never eaten anything together. We've never been in the same room without a desk between us and a shift change coming.

So when he leaned over the counter one Tuesday in October and said, "Want to take a fake vacation with me?" I should have said no.

Here's how it happened. Some guy he went to high school with kept posting vacation photos online. Galen was sick of looking like the boring one who never goes anywhere. His solution? Book a room at our own hotel under fake names, take a weekend, post pictures, done. Nobody would ever check. It's not like his high school friend was driving to eastern Ohio to verify anything.

And me? I had a free weekend. First one in months. I sat there trying to think of a reason to say no and nothing came. That's it. I said yes for that reason alone. A free weekend and a bad habit of not thinking things through.

"Nobody does this," I told him.

"Exactly. That's what makes it fun," he said. "We're the only two people in the world doing a fake vacation in a real hotel we work at."

"That's sad, Galen."

"It's efficient. Employee rate. You want in or not?"

I wanted in. Don't ask me why. I'd like a reason myself.

* * *

The plan needed a confirmation email, because Galen was going to post a screenshot. Don't ask me why anyone fakes a screenshot of a hotel confirmation. His logic, not mine.

So Thursday night, around 1 AM, I'm in the back office printing this fake email off the manager's login, and the door opens. Marvin. Head of maintenance, fifty-six years old, been at the Thornwood since before the carpet got that color. He's got a flashlight in one hand and a wrench in the other because it's 1 AM and something is always broken at 1 AM.

"What are you printing?" he asked.

"A confirmation," I said. "Trip. Winery weekend."

Marvin looked at the paper coming out of the printer. Looked at me. Looked back at the paper.

"You don't even like wine," he said.

"I'm expanding my horizons."

"You drink Miller Lite. You told me once that wine tastes like grape juice with an attitude."

Okay. In my defense, I did say that. In front of Marvin. Two years ago. So already the lie needed work and the only person who knew about the lie was standing there holding a wrench.

"Who you going with?" he asked.

"Friend."

"You have friends?"

"Wow, Marvin. Thanks."

He shrugged and went back to the boiler room or wherever it is he goes. I stood there holding my fake confirmation email and realized I should have picked a trip that fit the personality I actually have. Who fake-vacations to a winery when they hate wine? A person who didn't think it through. That's who.

* * *

Friday morning, 6:50 AM, Galen books the room online. Real room, room 214, fake names. Except he's doing this from the front desk terminal and he's tired and the system, our beloved system, interprets his employee login the wrong way. Instead of booking a room, it files a schedule change. It requests vacation days for Galen. Real ones. In the actual scheduling system.

Sakura catches it at 7:15.

Sakura runs breakfast. Thirty-eight, terrifyingly organized, has opinions about everything but only shares the food ones. She comes around the desk with the schedule printout and this look on her face.

"Galen. Why does the system say you requested vacation this weekend?"

"Because I'm taking vacation?"

"You've never requested vacation. I've been here four years and I've never seen you take one. Marvin thought the printer was broken when it printed this."

Galen looked at me. I looked at the coffee machine like it was fascinating.

"Winery weekend," he said. "With a friend."

"Nicola hates wine," Sakura said. "She says it's grape juice with an attitude."

Does everyone quote that? Did I put it on a T-shirt at some point?

"We're going to a cider place too," I said, because apparently I lie badly and immediately.

Sakura looked at both of us. She is not a drama person. Her whole life philosophy is staying out of other people's business. So she just said, "Okay. Weird. But okay," and went back to setting out the yogurt, and Galen and I stood there feeling like two people who got caught but not punished, which is somehow worse.

* * *

Friday night. The fake vacation begins. Room 214, which is a real room that we paid employee rate for, which means technically we're guests at our own hotel, which means technically I could audit myself.

We went to The Gutter. It's a campus bar near Ridge College. Every bar in this town has a name like The Salty Owl or The Gutter or The Empty Mug, and every grad student in the place looks like they lost a fight with their own thesis. The Gutter serves cheap beer in bottles and has a dart board nobody's ever seen anyone use.

So we're sitting in a booth. Galen's got his phone out, taking a picture of the two bottles for the fake vacation posts.

"Smile," he said.

"It's beer at a bar in the town we live in."

"That's the beauty of it. Nobody fact-checks a beer photo."