The protagonist introduces herself. She is the maid who cleans your hotel room, erases the grime you leave behind, and disappears without a trace. If she does her job well, she is invisible, but she sees everything. She seems so insignificant, yet knowledge is power. She says, “I am your maid. I know so much about you. But when it comes down to it: what is it that you know about me?” (3)

Molly says she knows her name is ridiculous: Molly the maid. But she loves her job at the Regency Grand Hotel, returning every untidy room to a state of perfection. She loves the hotel with its ornate Art Deco features and the grand marble staircase. She loves her black-and-white uniform—her second skin, her invisibility cloak—and she loves her cleaning cart, a cornucopia of delicate, sweet-scented individually wrapped treasures of soap and shampoo.

Molly acknowledges that she isn’t good in social situations. She offends people without meaning to and doesn’t read their body language. Her grandmother used to help her understand the social rules, but Gran is dead. She didn’t pass away or go gently.