"I'll--I'll tell you when I know you better," she said in confusion.
"Really, it was quite a dreadful thing. Maybe I shouldn't let him come
to call tonight after all."
She took the pencil I handed her, smiled her thanks, and went
thoughtfully out the office door.
We hadn't been in the motel business long before we discovered that the
proper name for customers is "clients" or "guests"--not the common,
vulgar "customers" that came so naturally to our lips. In spite of the
good example set by practically all the other motel owners we knew, who
were careful not to use the uncouth word, we continued calling our
customers what they were--customers.
Grant, falling as easily and competently into the role of motel owner
as he had into his many former roles, must have convinced our customers
from his very first day that he was a veteran of the motel business.
His every action, his every remark led people to believe he had been in
this part of the country, at this work, for years. He freely employed
such words and phrases as "usually," "generally in the summer here,"
and "every winter." If a customer were to ask him, "Isn't it warmer
than usual here?" he'd reply something like, "Nope, it always gets
pretty hot here, this time of year. In a month or so it'll get cool,
though; there'll even be snow on those mountains."
The sweating customer, glancing at the close, towering mountains to the
north and south, would mention that it didn't seem possible, and Grant
would say, "Yep, it's a surprise, every winter, when the desert heat
turns into snow and cold wind. It happens, though." Of course it does
happen, too, but at the time he had only our neighbor's word for it.
Snow near Banning was something as incredible to us as it was to any
traveler across the hot desert.
When I was still in the last stages of customerphobia, Grant was
dealing with the people who stayed in our cabins, and their often
outlandish requests, with ease and confidence. He had at his fingertips
the answers to the amazing array of questions customers put to him, and
the distances between most of the fairly well known cities in the
country. If anyone who had rented a cabin wanted to know the distance
to Los Angeles, Grant told him: eighty-nine miles. But if someone who
hadn't yet registered wanted the same information, Grant would tell him
that it was "almost a hundred miles" (merely another way of putting it)
and the prospective customer would usually decide, since it was so far,
he might as well stay for the night instead of driving on in.
Grant could describe the location of the nearest (or best-in-Banning)
bar, restaurant, skating rink or lumber yard. He could get rid of the
west-bound, cross-country truck drivers who, preparatory to going to
the bar across the highway for a quick beer, parked their long,
two-sectioned trucks so that the rear section blocked one of our two
driveways. We had one driveway on each side of our sign; they led from
the highway and were the initial source of all our income.
Getting rid of truck drivers was one thing I could never do; and there
had been many occasions during the time Grant was still working at
General Motors, and later, when he was away during the day on business,
that it had been necessary for me to try. I had two approaches, one
stern, the other sweet, which I varied. Actually, I guess I alternated
them, on the theory that last time one hadn't worked, so this time I'd
try the other! My stern approach called forth two general reactions on
the part of the drivers, who were always about to descend from their
puffing, steaming contraptions as I ran up. My tough expression and
sharp, short order to the driver to get his truck away at once!--would
bring forth (a) an amused "Look who's talkin'" smile, and a significant
glance from the lofty perch of the truck seat, at my slender height of
slightly over five feet; or (b) it would kindle an equally warm
response, and I'd find myself showered by abuse, epithets, and threats
from a mouth twisted frighteningly sidewise, full of tobacco juice, and
topping off a frame composed of so much bulging muscle that I'd start
back to the cabin without arguing.
My "sweet" approach was just as unsatisfying. There were two reactions
to it, too, and neither resulted in the removal of the truck.
"I know you don't realize it," I'd say, my voice dripping saccharin,
"but your truck is blocking our driveway. I wonder if you'd mind moving
it?" And I'd smile and flutter my eyelashes.
Either the truck driver would exclaim something like, "Well, hi there,
honey! You just forget about the truck and think about who's drivin'
it. How about givin' me your phone number, honey, so's next time I come
through here--"
Or else he'd reply in a falsetto imitation of my too-sweet voice, "Oh,
dearie me, is that dreat big bad truck really block ing your itsy bitsy
driveway? 'oo just stand there and pout at it while I go get me a itsy
bitsy glass of beer."
Both these types of reply were quite beside the point. Truck drivers
are one breed of men with whom I can't commune.
Grant, of course, never has any trouble with them. Whenever possible, I
watch out the window as he runs up to whatever truck is the offender at
the moment and speaks with the driver a few moments. He smiles, the
driver waves a hand good naturedly, and the truck moves off. I have
never been able to understand how he does it.
Grant is so irritatingly competent, in fact, that I can't help being
secretly overjoyed about his one weak point. He has no sense of system
or organization, and he can seldom make the money in the cash drawer,
when he takes out the day's profits, add up to exactly the amount our
penciled list, filled in customer by customer, says it should. When I
was running the place alone it always balanced out to the penny, with
the exception of that one morning when I found fifty cents too much.
When Grant left General Motors and came to Banning, he began adding
money to the cash drawer if there weren't enough small bills, taking
money out of the drawer on any pretext, and in general getting things
so confused that I wiped my hands of the whole affair.
"You handle the money," I said. "I'm tired of trying to keep it
straight, with you dipping into it and adding to it all the time. From
now on it's your job to make it come out right."
And from that day on I have never worried about the amount of money in
the drawer.
Grant's lack of system concerning book-keeping and handling money is
characteristic of his general lack of system in regard to everything;
with so little sense of order and preciseness, it amazes me that he can
always get so much accomplished, and so well. He's always starting
something that he knows perfectly well he won't, due to other
obligations, be able to finish. And then, of course, so that his
initial effort wont be wasted, I have to stop whatever I'm doing and
finish what he started. Perhaps, on second thought, I do understand how
he gets so much accomplished.
When the broadfelt carpet in one of the rear single cabins--number
9--began to wear out, we bought a new one, a gorgeous thing with a
swirling dark red pattern. We would have liked to add a final note of
luxuriousness to the cabins by substituting lovely new carpeting for
the plain red broadfelt in each--but that would have cost a penny that
would be not only pretty, but downright beautiful.
When Grant tried to get the old carpeting up, he made the discovery
that it had been glued to the cement floor. He would have left it there
to serve as a pad for the new rug, but he wanted to keep the good
portions of it to substitute for parts of the other carpets that were
on the verge of looking too shabby to be in keeping with the rest of
the furnishings.
The glue with which the old carpet had been secured to the floor must
have been the strongest in the world. Or perhaps, as Grant suggested,
the builders of the place had laid the carpet before the cement of the
floor had dried, and the cement had hardened with a firm grip on the
fabric of the rug.
Anyway, it took us, working together, about an hour to get each square
of the old carpet up. Grant chopping at it from underneath with a
sharp, knife-like tool while I pulled as hard as I could on the part
that was loose, so that the free parts would be lifted out of the way
and he could see in just what spots the rug was still attached to the
floor.
My hands ached before I had been on the job long. "I wasn't raised to
be a carpet yanker," I remarked at frequent intervals; but Grant,
steaming and clenching his teeth, his brown hair hanging over his
forehead like Donna's, wouldn't let me escape. "I'll never get the mmm
thing finished," he grunted, "if you don't help me."
I tried standing while I pulled, and then sitting in various positions
to relieve the strain on various parts of my body. I tried leaning
backward and pulling with all my might, relaxing all the other muscles
of my body and depending on the rug to hold me up. Of course the
inevitable happened; Grant struck an area where the rug wasn't attached
so firmly to the floor, the part I was holding yielded suddenly to my
pulling, and I sprawled backward with my legs in the air.
When Grant was through laughing we began again. My thumbs were getting
sore, and my whole hands ached. I glared out the open door of the cabin
at a fat couple sunning themselves indolently on one of the grass
islands. That's what's wrong with this country, I thought darkly--too
many loafers.
When at last the rug was completely pried and hacked loose, Grant began
cutting the new rug to fit the room, while I went up front and
administered poison verbally to Moejy, who had brought an armful of
glass jars from his father's restaurant next door and was breaking them
on our sidewalk. Moejy, in my opinion, had only one redeeming feature:
a tendency to spend most of his time at the Auto Haven Motel half a
mile west of us. The Bradleys, who owned the court, must certainly be
lovers of childhood in general--and in the raw--to be able to endure
him.
Miss Nesdeburt fluttered into the office the next morning before I was
through bathing the baby. Grant had started cleaning cabins.
I could tell she was in a talkative mood, so I invited her to sit in
the kitchen while I scrubbed Donna.
"I had the nicest dream last night," Miss Nesdeburt began. "And I
believe people should share their dreams, don't you? I dream nearly
every night, and I have a little book I write the dreams in. I do it
the first thing when I wake up, because you know how dreams slip out of
a person's mind. And if I forgot them I wouldn't be able to share them
with other people." I smiled vaguely.
"Dreams are important, you know," she said, lowering her voice
mysteriously. "Much more important than most people realize. Anyone who
can interpret them correctly can forecast coming events. I'm learning
to interpret them."
"Oh, you read those dream books?" I asked, rinsing the soap off Donna's
plump, firm little body and brushing the hair away from her eyes.
"Oh, no!" Miss Nesdeburt cried. "I was studying under Eimo, who is
known as the famous somnologist, until I started getting this asthma.
His method is entirely new. Why, he--"
"Tell me about your dream," I interposed hastily.
She clasped her little white hands. "Well, it was like most of my
dreams. I was alone, walking through a big empty place, and then all of
a sudden there were a lot of other people, couples, all around me, but
they stayed just beyond me, and I couldn't reach them, no matter how I
tried. Now, I'll interpret that for you, according to Elmo's teaching.
It means that I'm going to make a trip soon and go where there'll be
crowds of people!"
I don't pretend to be a dream interpreter, but her dream sounded to me
more like the dream of a frustrated, man-starved old maid than anything
else I could think of.
That line of thought prompted me to ask whether Mr. Hawkins had called
on her the previous night.
Her blue eyes brightened, and she took off her glasses. She smiled, and
her smile had lost its first timidity.
"Yes, he did," she confessed. "He's a very nice man, really, even
if--well, he does have a strange sense of humor." She flushed a little,
apparently remembering whatever it was he had done soon after they met,
and I ruefully remembered the black spider. (I had left it in the cash
drawer, but it didn't draw even a gasp from Grant. Reaching into the
drawer for some money, he had said, "Well, look here once! Someone's
left a fake spider in the drawer! Lucky I found it instead of you.
You'd have been running yet.")
"I hope Mr. Hawkins was more gentlemanly last night," I said. I am, I
must admit in all modesty, an expert at drawing forth information
without appearing to pry. Actually, I employ this gift principally
because a writer needs to know as much as possible of the thoughts and
actions and experiences of other people. What many of my friends and
relatives call my accursed curiosity has dug out for me plots which
eventually, garnished a little, appear in magazines. I suppose I should
confess that my curiosity isn't completely scientific, though; a
fraction of it--(about nine-tenths) is just the plain old garden
variety.
"Last night . . ." Miss Nestleburt began reminiscently, wheezing a
little. "Well, I don't know whether you'd say he was gentlemanly or
not. He--he brought me a large bag of tomatoes, which I thanked him for
and put on the bed. Then, just as I was sitting down on a chair, he
grabbed the bag and shoved it under me, like lightning. I couldn't help
sitting on it and squashing the tomatoes."
Miss Nestleburt sighed and replaced her glasses. "He laughed and
laughed, and then he said in that gallant way of his, 'I apologize
deeply, madame! I had no idea you were going to sit in that particular
chair! It was a most unfortunate coincidence!' And then, while I stood
there dripping tomato juice, he started laughing again, and he laughed
until the tears rolled down his face." The fine lines under Miss
Nesdeburt's eyes crinkled with reluctant amusement.
I finished drying Donna and began pulling her tiny gingham dress over
her head. Miss Nestleburt rose.
"Well, I must go lie in the sun for a while," she said. "It's such a
fine, bright day, n'est-ce pas? Be sure to remember your dreams from
now on, and I'll interpret them for you."
I assured her that I would, although I seldom had a chance to get more
than a third of the way into a dream before some cabin-hunter rang our
bell.
I went out to help Grant clean cabins. He was working in the rear
group, in number 9, at the moment. Donna pulled newspapers out of the
wastebasket while I set to work making the bed for which Grant had just
brought clean sheets. We "bolster" the pillows by smacking an arm down
the middle of each pillow when the clean slip is on it, folding it back
over the arm. This gives a stiff, smart appearance to the bed when the
spread is drawn taut around the pillows. There's all the difference
between pillows au naturel and pillows bolstered, that there is between
a slovenly woman without a brassiere, and a sprightly one who is
wearing the latest style uplift.
Although I bolstered the pillows faithfully, I never put the sheets on
the beds in accordance with the rules. I never bothered with "square
corners," but simply tucked the sheets in all around in my own
speedier, although slightly less neat, way.
Grant was just finishing the bathroom when I saw, through the slats of
the Venetian blind, that a car had pulled up in front of the office.
"You go," I said. "I'm tired of galloping way up there just to tell
people we don't have any cabins with kitchens."
Grant set down his bucket of soapy water, and through the slats I
watched his tall figure hurrying toward the car. He talked a few
seconds to the man and woman who were standing by the car; then,
preparatory to leading them to a cabin, he turned and started away from
them. But he had been standing just off the sidewalk, which jutted up
an inch above the gravel. He caught his toe on the sidewalk and thrust
his other foot forward quickly to regain his balance. He half ran, half
staggered, in a crouching position, for several grotesque, humiliating
steps, until at last he recovered his equilibrium and was able to stand
upright.
I howled with laughter. If I had been closer to him I would have
pretended not to notice his lack of dignity, but I was so far
away--completely out of earshot--that I knew I could enjoy myself
without causing him further embarrassment. I bent double, clutching my
aching sides. I took a step backward, and stepped against Grant's
bucket of soapy water.
In my struggle to extricate myself from the unexpected situation I
flailed the air wildly with my arms, and concluded the performance by
falling flat on the floor, tipping the bucket so that its contents
surged all over the brand new rug.
Donna looked up from the newspapers she was taking out of the
wastebasket. "Mama down," she stated, a little superfluously.