His mood was downbeat. “I’m sorry to have spied on you.” He said apologetically, in broken English. “I am from a good family. I am here in America trying to make money to send home to my family.”
“What’s your name?” Allison asked compassionately. The boy pronounced it, but Allison couldn’t quite get it. Seeratsho, Swerapo?
“I’ll just call you Sweatshop,” decided Allison. “So did Minuete fire you?”
“Yes,” said the nervous Bengalese boy. “I am the first person in my entire village to make it to America. It is hoped that I will be able to make enough money for my village to afford plumbing.”
“What was Minuete paying you, Sweatshop?” asked a sympathetic Allison.
“37 cents a day,” said the nervous child.
“Yeah. It’s a tough economy kid. But you could work for me for say, 35 cents a day,” she offered. “You could help me with carrying the stuff I need to make jungle juice to the hotel.” The kid ran up and hugged her leg, which caught Brea’s attention as she had just recently gotten off the phone.
“Me and my entire village thank you,” said the grateful boy.
“What’s going on?” asked Brea, who then proceeded to freak out on Allison as she began to explain the situation, gross violations of child labor laws and all.
“Oh, come on Brea. Can’t I keep him, please? I promise I’ll feed him and everything! It’s just 35 cents a day!” Brea decided to try using reason on Allison for once. “How many days is it until Ashley gets here?”
“Uhm, that will be on the 9th,” said Allison.
“And is there anything a 15 year old Bangladeshi boy will be able to do for you that Ashley will not if you tell him to?” After a pause, Allison offered “Well, no.”
When once Allison had gotten distracted, Brea gave the Bangladeshi boy her personal accountant’s phone number and promised her she would instruct her to make arrangements for the boy to get a plane ticket home, and phoned ahead to get him a nice clean room at the Radisson, hailed him a cab and gave him a twenty. No reason for this boy to be further afflicted by Minuete’s insanity, all the worse Allison’s brand of it would be.
She also promised to talk to a charity she often contributed heavily to that worked in the boy’s country to make sure her donations were going to the boy’s village so they would get the plumbing they needed. She was hoping all this would be good karma for her date with Michael.