Every single shift—no matter how hard I tried—I ended up drenched in sweat. And I'm convinced the women at those companies had a nickname for me by now. I've been in L.A. for a year, working alongside Aunt Milly, and jobs are harder to land here than I ever imagined. I was tired—tired of scrubbing toilets, tired of picking up after careless man-children who spilled their coffee, tired of the looks people gave me. I don't even work with them directly, and I try not to label them as snobs, but I still wake up two hours early just so I won't smell like exotic animal feces and so I can wear my business-casual wardrobe, trying to "fit in."
At first, it worked. The first few times I walked into an office, they assumed I worked there. It was nice—men in sharp suits giving me a second glance. But as soon as Aunt Milly shoved a toilet brush into my hand and a bottle of cleaner at me, the curtain dropped and my vanity shattered. No more compliments on my heels or my outfits. They probably thought I was insane for even wearing them to clean.
The only thing keeping me going is Summer, who swears I'm living the dream. All thanks to my Instagram posts, which she comments on and shares constantly. Every place Aunt Milly drags me to is free and public, and the bizarre things people do in L.A. are just too good not to photograph. My feed looks glamorous. My dating life, though, is dead. Every time a halfway decent guy asks what I do for work, the night crashes harder than a sugar-glider meltdown.
I don't lie. I tell them the truth: I'm the cleaning lady. And when they "correct" me—janitor, trash girl—I correct them right back. I'm grateful, really, that they lose interest so quickly they never ask where I clean. But lately, the places haven't been so random. Thanks to a new contract, I've been working at two of the biggest, fastest-growing companies in Beverly Hills: Sera Elganza, the women's lingerie powerhouse, and Style Sphere, the men's tailored-suit empire. Celebrities love them, which means everyone else does too. Can you imagine the humiliation if people knew that's where I cleaned? I'd die. I might even move back home. But of course, no one ever asks—so my secret is safe.