"If you are so determined to have my blanket, all right. I suppose, in the motel business, you must get supplies in any way you can. But there's just one thing," he said mildly. "Before you take it, will you identify it, or try to? I just want you to admit, before we part, that you know it isn't yours."
"But it is!" I cried. "Do you think I'd be so interested in getting it away from you if it weren't?"
"Frankly, yes."
Fuming, I held up the satin edges of the blanket. "It has 'Moonrise Motel' stamped on the edges somewhere," I said. "All of our blankets do. Just wait. I'll find it right away."
I searched fruitlessly for a few minutes, while Mr. Hawkins sat watching me, a widening grin on his face.
I kept on hunting for the "Moonrise Motel" stamp. I couldn't find it.
Finally I looked up at Mr. Hawkins. If I had been angry before, I was raging now. He had made a fool of me again.
"You knew perfectly well that wasn't my blanket!" I accused him.
"My dear madame, that's what I've been trying to tell you all along," he pointed out reasonably. He took the blanket from my numb hands, and they drove off, leaving me in a shower of sand.
When I got back to the motel I went again into the cabin Mr. Hawkins had occupied and looked about thoughtfully. Where could that blanket be?
It must be on the bed, smoothed out under the spread with the other blanket. I peeked under the spread, but the extra blanket wasn't there. Nevertheless, I felt that it must be secreted about the bed somewhere; there absolutly wasn't any place else in the cabin it could be!
I gazed at the bed for a while, and then, moved by some unaccountable impulse, I lifted one side of the mattress and peered under it. There, between the mattress and the box springs, was the blanket. .
I pulled it out, smoothed the bedspread, and put the blanket neatly at the foot of the bed. I left, making a mental note that the cabin was ready to rent.
After I went back into our own cabin and told Grant ruefully what had happened, I noticed the little package Mr. Hawkins had given me, still on the desk by the telephone where I had put it before going to the wedding. I picked it up warily.
"I wonder what is his idea of a gift," I mused. "'A little token of his regard for me.' Is it more likely to be a baby rattlesnake, or a tear gas bomb?"
"Open it and see," Grant suggested, brushing back his brown hair with his thin fingers.
I tore the wrappings off the package gingerly, perched on the edge of my chair ready to throw the whole thing away quickly if necessary. I held a small, innocuous-looking box in my hand. Slowly, carefully, I opened the box.
Inside was the silver figure of a nude man, about four inches high, standing on tiptoe with his arms upraised. On the tips of his fingers was a balloon, with which he was, apparently, supposed to be playing.
"H'm," I said, "Rather immodest, and I don't know what it's for–an ornament, maybe–but I guess I didn't have to be so nervous about opening it."
Grant, with his quick perception, had figured out exactly what the thing was for before I had even completely made up my mind that it was harmless.
"It's an atomizer," he said. "The balloon is the bulb. It smells like there's perfume in it right now. Squeeze the bulb and see."
I squeezed the bulb, and we were sprayed with fragrance.
I stood the little silver man on top of the bookcase. He's there right now, the object of the admiration and titters of those who visit us. His silvery body still gleams brightly, he is as merrily nude as ever, and a little pressure on the balloon he is playing with still brings forth a gentle squirt of perfume–but where the perfume squirts from, I refuse to say.
CHAPTER NINE
THERE IS AN indefinable air about every motel cabin that is felt, I imagine, by all but the most insensitive of motel owners. It's the composite spirit of all the people who have slept in that cabin. It's nothing more tangible than memory, actually, yet it's very real.
Miss Nestleburt and Mr. Hawkins had been with us so long that their presence still seemed to cling to their cabins. I felt almost guilty the first time I rented their cabins to other people after they left. A stern, rigid old couple fell heir to Mr. Hawkins' cabin, and I couldn't help contrasting their stiff seriousness with the sly humor of the former occupant.
Grant and I sat on the davenport that night after the children were in bed, and discussed the motel business. It was raining, so he wasn't going to go outside to bring any customers in.
"What we need is a rifle," Grant observed, lifting up the top slice of bread of his sandwich to make sure that the peanut butter, Worcestershire sauce, and apple jelly were still there. I averted my eyes, and asked him what we would do with a rifle if we had one–shoot people who tried to go into any motel but ours?
"Shoot out all the signs around us," he replied, his cheeks bulging. "Then we'd fill up right away. As soon as we filled up we'd quick shoot our own sign out, so the other motel owners wouldn't get suspicious the next morning because ours was the only sign that hadn't been shot out. We'd make twenty or thirty dollars extra that way; we'd pay Rosco seven-fifty to fix the sign, and that's all there'd be to it."
"You're wonderful," I said admiringly.
"We should at least change our own sign once," Grant went on, licking his lips. "The Winking Eye's sign, with its big eye flashing on and off, is almost as much of an eyecatcher as the Peacock's. Here we are between them with a sign no better than Featherbrain's."
"Maybe we could have a picture on top of the word 'Moonrise,'" I suggested. "A big orange moon–only half of it showing because it's supposed to be rising–all made out of bright neon."
Grant took another bite of his sandwich. "Have to talk to Oian Rosco about that," he observed. "He'll know if it can be done, and how much it would cost. I'll have to find out about neon myself one of these days. I don't like to have to hire anyone to make repairs."
We were silent for a while. "Another way to get customers," Grant mused, "would be to put up a sign outside: 'Limit–one cabin to a customer.' They'd come rushing in then, I'll bet."
We talked for a while about what different characters and personalities people possess–differences evidenced by the very manner in which they ask for cabins. There are several general types of opening remarks. There's the one that goes something like this: "Have you a nice, soft bed for a poor weary traveler to lay his tired body in?" The person–almost invariably a man–who asks for a cabin in this manner is without doubt good-natured, easy-going and generous, and has a good sense of humor. Then there's the thin-nosed man who thrusts that slender appendage a cautious inch inside the office doorway and demands, "Whatcha get for your cabins?" And there's the woman–too many of her–who inquires thoroughly into every detail before she will condescend even to examine a cabin.
"Have you bedbugs?" she inquires. There are two appropriate responses to such a query that, so far, I've been able to hold back. One is, "I'm sorry, we haven't any, but I think you can get some at the little store across the street." The other response would be a sigh, a confidential motion to her to come closer, and the words: "No, but I'm eaten alive by lice. Have you found any good ways to get rid of lice?"
Not only is a woman of this type not satisfied with asking about bedbugs, but she must also ask whether there is hot water (really hot?) and whether we actually wash the sheets, or whether we just iron the wrinkles out each time they are used and put them back on the beds.
But the most common four words–I've heard them so often I can almost tell by a prospective customer's expression when I am about to hear them again–are: "Have you any vacancies?"
Obviously, since our sign is proclaiming to all the world that we have, the question seems superfluous. The question irritated me at first, until I realized that everyone who asks it knows perfectly well that we do have a vacancy, but can't think of a better way to start the conversation.
The telephone interrupted our discussion and reverie, and Grant answered it.
"A reservation for two?" he said presently. "Yep … I got that . . ." He began writing on a piece of paper by the telephone.
"The twin beds!" I hissed. "Ask them if they want twin beds!"
Our two twin bed cabins often seem to be a drug on the market, even though, except when business is rushing, we lock off the back bedroom, with its double bed, and rent the twin beds for only a dollar more than the price of a regular single cabin for two. When we remind people that we have twin beds, or ask them as they register if they wouldn't prefer them, we have better luck in getting rid of those cabins.
We often have trouble remembering to ask them, though. I prodded Grant in the back and hissed again, "Ask them if they want twin beds!"
"Do you want twin beds?" Grant said into the telephone mouthpiece. And then, to my amazement, he began to blush. He concluded the conversation hurriedly and with confusion, and then he turned to me.
"After this, will you leave me alone once when I'm telephoning?" he asked. "The man told me right away he wanted to reserve a cabin for his honeymoon. And then you quick pester me into asking him if he wants twin beds!"
Grant rented a cabin to a gushy, heavily upholstered woman, and we picked up our conversation where we had left off. "People certainly have a lot of different subjects to talk about while they register," I remarked.
"She certainly did have," Grant replied. "More than most." The principal topics of conversation are weather (both "here" and "where we came from") traveling conditions, and motels. Frequently an out-of-state customer will linger in the office to complain about the search that was made of his luggage and belongings at the border. And occasionally a customer will take the opportunity to expound his entire philosophy of life.
"We're missing a bet," Grant said, "by not having another business or two as a sideline. We could make a fortune selling the little things people leave behind and never call for–tooth brushes, bobby pins, things like that. And," he added bitterly, "we could sell wigs, and pillows stuffed with human hair."
His worst objection to cleaning the bathrooms in the cabins is the hair that is usually all over the sink and floor. He has often talked, in fact, of trying to get a law passed that would bar women from motels. Scattered bobbypins, lipstick smears on towels, hair and powder would be automatically eliminated in that way. (So would most of our income.)
Worse than hair, in my opinion, are ashes (the scattering of which is a pastime engaged in by more men than women.) Both sexes sprinkle them blithely all over the cabins–a trifle more thickly in the general neighborhood of ashtrays. That part of "ring a round the rosy" which goes "ashes, ashes, all fall down!" was probably written by a cabin-cleaner-upper as she fell down, exhausted, after removing the results of an average smokefest.
If ever the WCTU is supplemented by an organization to squelch dat ole debbil Nicotine, I shall join it. I shall be one of its most vociferous members, agitating violently for the suppression of tobacco, and for the relegation to dungeons of those whose lips, pockets, or thoughts are contaminated by cigarettes.
Grant and I had been in bed for about ten minutes when the doorbell rang. It was the male half of the rigid old couple to whom I had rented Mr. Hawkins' cabin. The door between the living room and the office was slightly ajar, and when Grant answered the bell I proceeded to engage in my favorite pastime–eavesdropping.
The man's voice was as severe and unyielding as his face. "May I inquire, young man," he said, "what was the idea behind the way you fixed our bed?"
Grant, of course, didn't know what he was talking about, and said so.
"Perhaps it is your idea of humor," the icy voice went on, fading as Grant followed the man back to his cabin to see what was the matter.
I was uneasy while I waited for Grant. Obviously, whatever was wrong, it was Mr. Hawkins' doing. I should have known there was something behind his eagerness to prepare his cabin for new occupants.
Grant came back in about twenty minutes. "Apple pie bed," he said. "Your friend Hawkins got in a last lick."
And then we sat on the bed and laughed until our sides ached.
Business was beginning to pick up again, to such an extent that Grant stayed up to pull in customers only a few nights a week. The Palm Springs season was to open October first, and the motel owners around us who had been in Banning more than a year assured us that the eight-month Palm Springs season would guarantee our being full almost every night.
Grandma came up from Los Angeles toward the end of September, exactly two weeks–as usual–from her last visit, and we decided to drive the twenty miles to Palm Springs and look the place over on its opening day.
The first of October was a bright, sunny day. Grant wasn't feeling very well–he had overindulged, the previous night while pulling in customers, on "tomato rolls," his own invention. These were cinnamon rolls, pulled apart and with slices of fresh tomato inserted. Too many of them cause the complexion to assume a greenish tinge, as Grant discovered. (The mere contemplation of them had that effect on me.)
In spite of the uneasiness of his stomach, Grant assured me that he could manage all right, and he and Donna waved to us as we swung onto the highway and headed east toward Palm Springs. I had never driven the road before.
My driving was still far from perfect, and Grandma's habit of excitedly calling my attention to sights along the way was very irritating. My curiosity about everything she pointed out was very maddening and intense, but the highway was so busy that I didn't dare take my eyes off it, even though I wasn't driving very fast.
A few miles east of Banning we turned off the main highway onto the road that led to Palm Springs. Desert stretched and sloped around us, its sand dotted with cacti and sagebrush, and mountains towered almost menacingly above us as we drew closer to Palm Springs. Gleaming white sand, beaten into purity by months of insistent pounding wind, cascaded up the sides of some of the mountains.
The little city of Palm Springs seemed like something out of a fairy story as we drove into the outskirts–low pastel stucco dwellings, pink and blue and yellow and green, dotted the sides of the road. And the lush greenness of the lawns, and the brilliance of the flowers, made the spot seem like an oasis.
Almost anything will grow in the desert, if it gets enough water. The growth of well-cared-for grass in Palm Springs amazes even the natives. If the earth is spaded and the seed planted on a Monday, the green shoots will be up on Wednesday, and on the next Monday, one week after the planting, the lawn will be thick and luxuriant and badly in need of mowing.
Clouds were hanging low over the city–or the "village," as habitues call it. I parked the car on the main street, near the famous Desert Inn, and we got out of the car. We hadn't brought coats or sweaters, of course, since it had been warm in Banning, and Palm Springs is supposed to have a warmer climate than Banning's.
There was a dull chill in the air. The streets were busy with cars and pedestrians, but no one was wearing a coat. In fact, nearly everyone was wearing shorts, with brief tops or no tops, depending on their sex–scanty outfits that left their goose pimples plainly visible.
One very protuberant man, standing in front of a swanky little novelty shop, was wearing bright yellow shorts, with yellow bobby sox to match. White sandals completed the ensemble. The hair on his chest was curly and thick, but it couldn't have done much toward keeping him warm. On his fat, slightly blue face was an expression I had noticed already on several faces since we had arrived–an expression that seemed to say, "Well, I came here so I could wear practically nothing, and by golly, I'm going to do it!"
Shivering, we walked past him. The main street of the village was lined with low, expensive looking stores, with show windows full of merchandise that sparkled and beckoned. Bars with extravagantly fancy interiors invited the thirsty into their dusky interiors. But we found the people more interesting than the surroundings. Not only were they determinedly wearing shorts and sun clothes, but many of them were wearing dark glasses–in spite of the fact that most of the low clouds were sitting on the ground now, and those that were still up in the sky were beginning to leak spasmodically.
"Godfrey Mighty, maybe they're movie stars!" Grandma exploded suddenly. "That's what they be, sure as anything."
"They couldn't all be movie stars," I protested. "Look at this dog coming, though–he seems to have gone Hollywood, all right."
We looked–or maybe we even stared. A plump, heavily jeweled woman wearing a silver fox jacket (the most appropriate garment I had seen here yet) was leading a tiny chihuahua. The creature was bundled into a bright green sweater, and around one of its frail forelegs was a glittering diamond bracelet.
"My God, that's the first time I ever see a dog with jewelry on!" Grandma hissed, as the pair met us and went on.
"I imagine we'd see a lot of things here if we'd hang around long enough," I remarked. "And incidentally," I added, "I want to congratulate you again for stopping swearing. It was a bad habit, and I'm glad you got over it."
About half of the hotels and apartment houses had "no vacancy" signs. If the accommodations were this nearly taken on the opening day, visitors would have a hard time finding a place to stay in Palm Springs a little later in the season. Besides, a night in a Palm Springs hotel would probably cost as much as a week at a motel in Banning. It looked as though Palm Springs would have a good season; and that would mean a good season for Banning. The overflow from Palm Springs, plus the usual number of winter tourists coming to California from the east, should mean a few thousand dollars extra knocked off our mortgage.
We crossed the busy street and paused in front of the window of a dress shop. There were wax models almost hidden under cascades of ruffles, models buried in layers of pleats and fluff. I had never seen such fancy clothes. There were elaborate dresses for tiny girls, and the prices calmly jotted on little tags attached to each were staggering. One little slip, for a girl of about three, was valued at nineteen dollars. The prices of the other garments were in proportion.
"Gee whittaker, I never see anything like it!" Grandma said, her small black eyes bright with amazement. "It's most a wonder it don't cost nothing to breathe here!"
"Don't worry, they'll give you the bill for that when you leave, they will all right!"
We turned around. There, behind us, stood a small, birdlike old man.
"This is Palm Springs," he chirped. "Nothin's free, not nothin', it ain't."
His lips closed tightly beneath his little beak of a nose, and he regarded us as curiously as we were looking at him.
"Have you been here long?" I asked finally, not being able to think of anything else to say.
"I've been here all day, I have," he stated. He resumed his scrutiny of Grandma, apparently pleased with her short, stocky figure.
"You ain't gonna stay here, be you?" Grandma asked him.
"Not here, I ain't, not for nothin'. I'm going back to Los Angeles tonight, I am, all right. Where you from?" he asked, indicating Grandma with a quick nod of his little head.
"I live in L.A. too," Grandma said, adding modestly, "I'm a fancy presser. I'm going back in a day or two."
The man seemed to be lost in thought. "If everything wasn't so expensive here, I'd buy you a meal, I would all right. But I'll tell you what. Give me your address, and I'll buy you a dinner next week in Los Angeles."
Grandma gasped and looked at me, half thrilled and half dismayed.
"Good Godfrey Mighty," she murmured.
"Go ahead," I whispered, knowing what she was worrying about. "Hellwig won't have to know anything about it."
"He'd be madder'n a wet hen," she hissed back.
"Well," chirped the old man, "does that sound all right to you? It does to me, all right."
Grandma said, "Ayah," feebly, and wrote her name and address on a piece of paper he handed her.
"A week from tonight I'll be there, I will all right," he said, examining what she had written on the paper. "Seven o'clock. Goodbye!" He turned abruptly and walked away.
We strolled on in the opposite direction, and paused outside a real estate office. I read the placards in the window while Grandma discussed our birdlike friend.
"He's a odd critter, awful odd," she said. "But he ain't bad looking. I knew pretty plaguey well he was interested in me. Just so Hellwig don't find out, ding bust it. He'd be madder'n Fury."
"Look," I interrupted, pointing out to her one of the signs in the window. I read it aloud. "Unfinished residence. Situated on large lot. Twenty-nine thousand. Another good buy: A choice business lot, ninety thousand down."
"Thunderation, we better get out of here. This land under us is too valuable for us to be walking around on it like this."
"Beg your pardon."
It was Grandma's little admirer again. "I forgot to tell you my name. I'm Ansil J. Wagonseller. Pleased to meet you ladies, I am all right. Goodbye."
We watched him walk perkily along the sidewalk. He got into a beautiful new car that was parked on a side street near the corner.
"Ansil J. Wagonseller," I remarked. "He must have sold a lot of wagons to be able to buy a car like that one."
"Gee cracky, I never see such a car," Grandma cried ecstatically. "Do you think he'll really show up? Or was that just a lot of talk?"
The rest of our stay in Palm Springs was lost upon her. She worried about whether or not Mr. Wagonseller would actually call on her, while we wandered about the streets. She accompanied me dumbly, paying no attention while I bought a delectable white ivory Chinese backscratcher. As we strolled back toward the car I told Grandma more about Palm Springs, from the store of wisdom presented to me by Jed, the laundry truck driver. The whole area, it seemed, was divided up into squares, like a checkerboard. Alternate squares were Indian land. It seemed too bad that, with miles of worthless desert land all around, the precious–although actually, equally worthless–land of Palm Springs should have been given back to the Indians. Of course, all this was arranged long before Palm Springs began to ascend toward its zenith of exclusiveness and popularity. Although the land now belonged irrevocably to the Indians, it was possible for white people to secure ninety-nine year leases from the Indian agent. These leases were fragile and precarious things, though, containing a clause providing for cancellation at any time. Houses built upon land so leased, therefore, were quite literally built upon stilts, ready to be moved on short notice. And since no one cared to put much money into the building of a house that might have to be removed at any time, these houses were hovels indeed compared to the sleek, expensive, modern pastel stucco creations that abounded in all the streets of Palm Springs–all the streets, that is, except those that went through Indian land.
Grandma paid no attention to my discourse. She only roused from her reverie when I pointed out to her a rotund, slightly bald man who, I said, was without doubt Bing Crosby.
Bing Crosby is her favorite actor. She clutched me feverishly as we neared the man, who was leading a sad-eyed collie.
Our mouths hanging open, forgetting to keep on walking, we watched the man approach. Behind his dark glasses, he seemed to be returning our stares with interest.
To our amazement, he stopped in front of us and said, "Beg pardon, ladies, but is you all goin' to de annual Palm Springs dog show? It's gonna be de bigges' thing evah hit Palm Springs, dis yeah! Mah li'l poochie, here, is gonna be in it, and if he don' win every ribbon, Ah'll eat mah dark glasses!"
He sauntered on by us then, without waiting for us to reply. Grandma and I looked at each other.
"That was Bing Crosby," I stated, my tongue assuming a time-honored position in relation to my cheek.
"Pshaw, 'twarn't neither," Grandma replied. "Bing Crosby ain't bald headed. Besides, 'taint likely he'd be talking to us."
We argued about that until we got back to the car.
"Anyway, they wun't nobody come to his dog show if he don't take off his glasses and let 'em see who he is!" Grandma declared.
As we left the village she sighed and said, "So that's Palm Springs. It's a H. of a place, if you ask me. I swear'n, I like Banning a sight better."
There was one thing, though, that I liked about Palm Springs very much–and that was the effect the opening of the season there had on our business. People flocked toward the desert from Los Angeles, and those who couldn't afford to stay in Palm Springs stayed in towns that were close to Palm Springs. Besides this overflow from Palm Springs, we had the regular tourist trade, and October wasn't very old before our motel began to be full every night by nine.
It would have been full earlier if we had rented a cabin to everyone who applied for one. People have an annoying habit, though, of traveling in pairs or even singly, and now we always saved our nine double cabins until three or four people together appeared who wanted accommodations. Naturally, the rate for three or four is much higher than the rate for one or two. Until recently, on nights when couples wanted a cabin after our singles were full, we had been locking off the back bedroom of double cabins and renting the remainder of each as a single.
When our rollaway bed and the army cot were in use, we could accommodate a grand total of forty-seven people. And, since the parents of large families frequently put two children in each of the twin beds, and couples with one child often rented a single cabin and let the child sleep between them, there were many nights when our motel sheltered more than fifty persons besides ourselves.
There is often a lot of confusion among customers about the word "double" as applied to cabins and beds. A double cabin is, of course, a cabin with two rooms, each of which has a double bed. A single cabin is a single room with a double bed. For short, these are called "doubles" and "singles."
About half of the people who come into the office ask if we have a "double" available. Whenever anyone asks me that, I glance out at his car, which usually contains just one other person, and show him a single, without comment. People like this mean, of course, double bed. I've thought of explaining to all these people the difference between "single" and "double", but decided that a one-woman educational campaign of such magnitude would be too much for me.
Occasionally, though, the customer is more right than I give him credit for being. Sometimes two people request a double, and really mean it–they each want a bed and a separate room. In such cases, if I show them a single after they have asked for a double, they often make it a point to inquire if I have been in the motel business long.
The motel business must be one of the best cures known for shyness. Before we came to Banning the sight of a stranger used to make me ill at ease, and the idea of an introduction sometimes almost paralyzed me. All this culminated, of course, in my first bad attacks of customerphobia. After that I grew braver and braver until now, after meeting travelers from all parts of the country and even all parts of the world, I can actually be the one to begin a conversation with a stranger.
The lessening of my shyness is very fortunate, since many of the conversations and monologues that take place in a motel office are not the sort that would be accepted by the most lenient censor. I still find it hard to keep from withering with embarrassment, though, at the things some of our customers say when they register. The men, for instance, who casually describe other places they have stayed in–places where more of their desires have been taken into consideration than simply the desire for a shower and a place to sleep.
"Last place like that I was in," one male customer said, "They said, 'Y'wanta girl?' I said, 'Naw, I just wanta sleep.' Y'know what I mean? So they showed me my room and left me alone, and I wenta sleep. Guess I didn't get my money's worth at that, ha ha ha ha, y'know what I mean?"
Customers who came from Los Angeles were enthralled by the clear, pure air, so different from that big city's foggy, smokeladen air. Customers from the east were amazed at the daytime warmth and sunshine, and the fact that flowers were blooming and practically all of the trees still had their full foliage. (Our little Chinese elms, though, by this time were nine nude sticks all in a row, and I had to concede to Grant that he had been right in our argument about them.) Natives of California and Easterners alike were struck by the beauty of the surrounding mountains. They looked like high, jagged cakes now, to which white icing was being added, a new layer each night, till the frosting was thick and pure.
Mr. Gorvane's offer to buy the Moonrise Motel wasn't the only offer we received. There were quite a few others, ranging from his sublime one to several which were very ridiculous. (One man offered us two hundred dollars down, and half the motel's monthly income until the purchase price–whatever we might ask!–should be paid.) But, in spite of the fact that we had several opportunities to make a nice, easy profit and go back to a smoother, if duller, way of living, we had both become so attached to our motel and the steadily increasing repeat business that we were building up, that we decided to put out of our minds any thought of selling.
During the slack period, when we stayed up late and had customers coming in at all hours of the night, Grant and I had been so tired that we never had any difficulty in sleeping when we had the opportunity to do so. But now that it was suddenly possible for us to go to bed early and get long nights of undisturbed rest, I found suddenly that I was out of the habit. I couldn't go to sleep at night. I'd lie awake for an hour or more, envying Grant his faculty of becoming unconscious as his head first sank against the pillow.