"You're shocked, yeah, I can see that. Well, you're young yet, you'll
learn. It shocked me too when we first got that place in Riverside and
I saw what was going on. I used to watch the people come in, and I'd
try to pick those kind from the ones who really wanted a place for the
night. I'd pick out a nice, respectable looking couple, middle-aged,
and say to my husband, 'Now, there's a couple that's married, that's
been married a long time, and that's on the square.' And then, maybe an
hour later, we'd see them come out of their cabin and drive off,
leaving the key sticking in their door for us to pick up. Why, you just
can't tell who'll do it. In this business you have to keep your mouth
shut, yeah--but you can keep your eyes open if you want to. You'll see
more'n you'd believe. Why, I got so I wouldn't have trusted my own
grandmother not to rent a room with some fella for an hour!"
She uncrossed her legs with difficulty. "You'll see. One of these days
even your Miss Nestleburt you were telling me about, and her boyfriend,
yeah, the one that's always playing practical jokes--they'll be
doubling up, and you'll have an extra cabin to rent!"
Miss Nestleburt and Mr. Hawkins were getting very friendly, all right.
(But not that friendly!) Every afternoon she waited until he came back
from his work in Palm Springs, and then they strolled together next
door to Moe's cafe for dinner. On Saturdays and Sundays they went for
long drives together in his car. Her incipient asthma seemed to have
disappeared--she told me herself that the desert air had cured her
completely--but she stayed on.
I was beginning to think that the desert air had even more marvelous
properties than those that had been claimed for it: Mr. Hawkins hadn't
played a practical joke in weeks, not since the time he poured a bottle
of ink into Grant's bucket of soapy cleaning water. Whether it was the
desert air, or the influence of his dainty companion, I didn't know.
One Saturday morning while Mr. Hawkins was getting his car filled with
gas at the service station across the street, Miss Nesdeburt waited in
the office. She was wearing a dull, inconspicuous dress. She watched
Grant, who was putting a door between the office and the living
room--to take the place of the filmy curtain that had been there. We
had had very little privacy, with only a thin bit of drapery separating
our living room from the office. We still wouldn't have complete
privacy, since there was a window in the top half of the new door--but
as soon as I made little curtains for the window, no one would be able
to look into our living room.
When Grant laid down his tools and went out to the garage, Miss
Nesdeburt smiled at me, and two delicate fans of wrinkles appeared
about her eyes.
"I had a dream," she told me, "and I think people should share their
dreams, don't you, ma cherie?"
"Absolutely," I agreed. I was at the desk in the office, catching up on
the previous day's bookkeeping.
"I dreamed I was a beautiful young girl," she said, taking her glasses
off with one tiny hand, and holding the other hand up, letting it droop
gracefully at the wrist. "My hair was fiery red, simply terribly red,
and so were my lips. I was built like a goddess. My bosom was high and
proud, my waist was just the right size for a strong man's hands to
encircle." She stopped, and stood there in ecstatic reverie.
"And then?" I prodded.
"Ah, and then. There was a prince--a gallant, polite prince with the
most wonderful sense of humor. He wore a suit of armor and rode a white
charger and went out to do battle for me--"
"Wasn't he a knight?" I interrupted.
"No, no, a prince; or at least, he said he was. And I see no reason to
think he wasn't being truthful about it.... Anyway, he loved me more
than anything else in the world, and he wanted me to marry him."
I finished adding a column of figures. "And did you do it?" I asked,
writing down the total.
"No." Miss Nesdeburt's blue eyes were sad, and she replaced her
glasses. "I got all dressed up in my hoop skirt and leg o' mutton
sleeves, but when it was time for the ceremony it turned out he had
worn just red flannel underwear to the church as a joke. He had such a
sense of humor, you know."
"Mm hmm. And how do you interpret the dream?"
"Oh, I've figured it all out very carefully, according to Elmo's
teaching, and there's only one possible meaning. I'm either going to
inherit a large sum of money soon, or else it means a close relative of
mine will inherit some."
I laughed as she went out to get into Mr. Hawkins' coupe, which had
just driven up onto the gravel. The idea of Mr. Hawkins as a prince or
as a knight amused me, and I was still smiling about her obvious little
dream when the telephone rang, about half an hour later.
It was a gentleman who, in short, clipped phrases, wanted to reserve
three cabins that evening, for a large party of people who were going
to spend a few days in the desert.
I had hardly finished writing the name in which he made the
reservations after the numbers of the three cabins on that day's list,
when the telephone rang again. This time it was a clerk from a Banning
hotel, who said that the hotel was full already. Could we accommodate
three ladies who wanted separate beds?
We could, and I took the reservation. Then I surveyed the list happily.
A few of our customers were staying over from the day before, and with
all these reservations, we had only four vacancies left. At that rate
we'd be full tonight--and early enough so that we could have one of our
rare evenings away from the place.
I started joyously outside to tell Grant, who was cleaning cabins. Just
as I shut the door, though, the telephone rang. It was the owner of the
Crawley Motel, on the west edge of Banning, calling for "some clients
he couldn't take care of"; did we have a cabin that would accommodate
five?
No, but we could give them two separate cabins.
That would be fine; they'd be over within half an hour.
That left two vacancies, and it wasn't even noon yet! There must be a
rodeo or celebration around, or the season for hunting some kind of
animal which lived around here must have just opened; or else it was a
holiday that had escaped my notice. According to the calendar, though,
neither that day nor the next was a holiday; I couldn't quite figure
out the rush for cabins.
I wasn't much surprised, though, when the telephone rang twice more in
the next hour. I took the two reservations and went out to uncover the
"no" of our sign.
"No Vacancy," our sign proclaimed; and the owner of the Blue Bonnet
Motel directly across the highway hollered across wonderingly, "We
haven't got a one! How'd ja do it?"
"Oh, you just have to know how," I laughed. Then I went inside, picked
Donna up out of her playpen, and hurried out to help Grant finish
cleaning the cabins.
All afternoon occasional cars slowed down by our motel, until their
drivers noticed the "no vacancy" sign hanging there grandly. Then they
picked up speed and drove on down the highway, turning into the
driveway of one of the other motels.
By late afternoon I was beginning to get uneasy. Not one of the people
for whom the cabins had been reserved had shown up. It was conceivable
that one, or even two, might be late or might disappoint us altogether;
but for all of them to do it--! I didn't dare, though, to cover the
"no" again and start renting cabins. I'd be in a terrible spot then if--
Suddenly a brown roadster swung out of the lane of cars and drove up to
the office. At last! I thought, they had started coming. If the rest of
them would only hurry, maybe Grant and I and the children could still
go out--at least for a little drive.
But the women in the car didn't have a reservation. They didn't even
want a cabin. All they wanted to know was, did we have a man named
Smith staying here?
"We don't have hardly anybody staying here," I told them savagely, if
not very grammatically.
One of them laughed, and indicated our sign.
"Then why do you have your 'no vacancy' sign on?" she asked.
"I'm beginning to wonder about that, myself," I replied.
Mr. Hawkins and Miss Nestleburt drove in about seven-thirty. I was
standing in the office doorway.
"Not very busy tonight, are you?" Mr. Hawkins called, his car slowing
down. I had the familiar, uncomfortable feeling that he was secretly
laughing at me.
"We're full already," I said, motioning unhappily toward our sign.
They drove on back toward their own cabins.
I stood thoughtfully in the doorway for a while. There had been
something in that man's expression . . .
I walked furiously toward the "no vacancy" sign, and put the cover back
over the "no." It would be Mr. Hawkin's idea of a good joke, I knew, to
disguise his voice and call up several times for reservations. I was
positive now that it had been he who had made all those phone calls.
Because of our late start, all the motels in our end of town filled up
before we did. It wasn't until four-thirty the next morning that Grant
could uncover the "no" again.