Startled, he leaped up and dashed for the door. I chuckled as he
hurried out to put on his act for a car that was going at least sixty
miles an hour.
As soon as he returned, acknowledging defeat, and grew absorbed in his
paper once more, I cried "Eep!" again. I kept that up until at last he
came back wearily into the house and said,
"None of those cars were going slow! Are you getting so you can't tell
a slow one from a fast one?"
"It's funny," I said, "but I've been noticing that they all begin to
speed up just about the time you start out there."
He looked at me suspiciously and resumed his reading without saying
anything. I was jubilant. It was illogical, of course, but somehow this
was making up for what Mr. Hawkins had done to me.
Suddenly I noticed two cars creeping along the highway, one behind the
other. They were past the Peacock and almost in front of Featherbrain's
little motel.
This was too good to miss. Surely one of the two, at least, could be
led in here.
"Eep! Two slow ones! Get out there!" I called excitedly to Grant.
For a moment he didn't move, and I was afraid I had cried "wolf!"
(pronounced "eep!") too often. But he finally decided I was telling the
truth, and hurried outside.
I had followed, to stand in the doorway between the living room and the
office to watch. Those cars were going so slowly that they must be
going to stop--either at Moe's restaurant or at whatever motel they
might select.
Grant was outside, walking back toward the office, rustling his
newspaper so the occupants of the cars would be sure to see him. The
light of the neon "office" sign shown full on him. The first car turned
into our driveway, its headlights silhouetting Grant's tall slender
form. The car behind it had turned into Featherbrain's driveway.
I went into the kitchen and looked out the window. The car that had
gone into Featherbrain's driveway, I saw now, was Featherbrain's own
car. Mr. Featherbrain had stopped his car in his driveway and was
getting out.
As soon as I realized he was heading for our place, I went back toward
the office. Grant had finished renting a cabin to the driver of the car
which had just come in, a man alone who hadn't cared to inspect the
cabin before accepting it. The man had left, taking the key of his
cabin, when Mr. Featherbrain came charging into the office. His ruddy
chin was quivering with indignation above his long, skinny neck.
"That car oughta been mine!" he snarled. "If it hadn't a been for you
and your durned old newspaper that anyone could see a mile away, they'd
a come in my driveway! You allus been doin' that way, ewy evenin', I
bet. No wonder I ain't been gettin' anybody. I oughta bust evvy bone in
yer head!"
Grant pointed out logically that a man had a perfect right to stroll
about on his own property, with or without a newspaper. He added that
if, at any time, Mr. Featherbrain had an inclination to do likewise, he
would have no objection whatever.
The old man stormed away without saying another word. And it was to be
a long time before he would speak to either of us again.
After that, I felt a little guilty about pulling the customers in.
Grant agreed with me that we shouldn't take Featherbrain's potential
customers away from him; neither of us had looked at it in exactly this
light before.
For two nights we let the slow cars approach unchallenged. A few of
them came into our driveway; none at all went into Featherbrain's. The
majority went at a turtle's pace past our place, undecided whether or
not to stop, and ended by turning into one of the motels nearer town or
continuing on through Banning.
After two nights we were convinced we weren't robbing Featherbrain of
anything; no one stopped at his little Palace Motel anyway. And it was
heartbreaking to let all those prospects go by without doing anything
to bring them in. So Grant resumed his old tactics, and business
improved again after its two-day slump within a slump.
Grant was full of plans for what we would do when we had saved a little
money. We'd put in kitchens; we'd have a bigger, more eye-catching neon
sign; we might make the back half acre into a deluxe trailer park. With
all that and the repeat trade bound to come to a new motel that's clean
and well-managed, we'd never suffer another summer slump like this one,
he prophesied. And, knowing him and his ability to devise ways of doing
what he wants done, so that the ultimate results on which he sets his
mind are achieved, I knew that his prophecy was right.
Miss Nestleburr came into the office three days before the date set for
the wedding, to pay up her rent for the remaining days.
"We got our license this morning," she told me tremulously, taking the
bills I gave her in change, and tucking them into her purse--a new,
shiny black purse that glittered against the pale blue of her suit. Her
entire outfit was new, and in contrast to the dull, unnoticeable
clothes she had always worn before. The fine network of wrinkles
beneath her eyes was almost hidden by a well-applied layer of pancake
makeup, and the whole office tingled with the scent of her perfume.
"I made a simply wonderful discovery while I was filling out the blank
for the license," Miss Nestleburt said. "I happened to take my glasses
off just before I started to write, and--" she paused impressively. "I
don't need glasses at all!" I laughed. Everyone but Miss Nestleburt,
apparently, had known that all along.
In the few days that intervened before the wedding, we had a lot of bad
luck--so much, in fact, that I began to get discouraged.
"Maybe this motel is jinxed," I said to Grant. "Maybe we were never
meant to be in the motel business."
First it was our electricity. A high truck, going to the parking lot
directly behind Moe's restaurant next door, tore down the wires that
led from the row of cabins beside the restaurant to the main lines. One
whole side of our motel was without electricity, and therefore
unrentable, for two days and two nights, until the understaffed
electrical department could send some men out. And Grant had a battle
on his hands to keep from being stuck with the expense. The truck
driver who had done the damage was gone; if Moe knew who he was, he
wouldn't admit it. Truck drivers gave him the better part of his
income, and he didn't want to anger any of them.
Finally, on the grounds that the wires must have been strung
dangerously low in the first place, Grant succeeded in making the
electric company repair the damage free.
I hadn't worried that we would have to pay for repairing the wires,
even when I knew that there was no trace of the truck that had done the
damage. I knew Grant would work out some way to get them fixed, without
its costing us a cent. I had no idea how he'd do it, but I knew he
would do it.
Grant can always figure a way out of anything. He is so ingenious that
I see no reason why, someday, I shouldn't be swathed in emeralds and
diamonds. (None of these have materialized as yet, though.) For
instance, one night when he ran out of gas, being able barely to coast
into a station before the car stopped, he made the dismaying discovery
that the station was closed. Refusing to be cast into the gloom that
would have overcome an average person, he got out of the car and
emptied into the gas tank the dregs of gasoline remaining in the hoses
attached to each pump, amounts which totalled up to enough gas to get
the car to a station where he could order, "Fill 'er up!"
On another occasion, after getting a flat tire when we were on an open
stretch of highway near Hemet, he changed the tire for his spare, only
to discover that there was no air in the spare. He had no pump. There
was no civilization around, except for some old ramshackle barns near
the highway, beside one of which was a sort of spray gun for painting.
It was a huge container with a hose attached. The container was empty
of paint, fortunately, and, after toying with the hose awhile, Grant
discovered how to make it shoot a jet of air--air that would have been
paint, if the container hadn't had the courtesy to be empty. Grant
moved the limping car close to the paint sprayer, and after repeated
efforts somehow succeeded in getting quite a bit of the squirted air
into the soft tire.
I sometimes think that if an earthquake should suddenly shatter our
motel to a level with the ground, if I should run away with another
man, if David should put all our possessions into a glorious bonfire,
and Donna should get her hand caught in the wringer of the washing
machine--all simultaneously--Grant would be able, by a few incisive
words or actions, to bring the entire situation back to normal. In
case, since he is my husband, this sounds like bragging, let me add
that there is nothing so deflating to the ego, so utterly crushing to
one's sense of having any worth or value, so completely paralyzing to
one's latent, potential abilities, if any, as being married to such a
paragon of accomplishment.
After our electricity was fixed--on the house, as it were--our neon
sign went bad again. It flickered uneasily for a while, and finally
went off altogether. We called the cherubic-faced Oian Roscoe again,
and he fixed it for us promptly; but we were beginning to get
disgusted. This neon sign was costing us a lot of money.
And business hadn't yet picked up to a point where we were taking in
much more than enough to make our payments. Then some boys stole
David's red wagon--a shiny, deluxe job we had given him for a Christmas
present, when we were still in Los Angeles.
David had left it out behind the single cabins, by his tent. He and
Moejy, who had been throwing gravel at each other behind Moejy's
father's restaurant, came running in to tell me that they had seen a
bunch of big boys pulling the wagon away.
Grant had gone to the bank. I knew that if the wagon was to be
recovered, it was up to me to do something--and do it quick.
Donna was in her playpen. Telling David to stay with her, I loped out
toward the tent. Sure enough, there in the distance, across Williams
street, and with what seemed like a mile of fields between them and me,
were the boys with David's wagon. It looked like a tiny toy, sparkling
red in the sunlight.
I ran determinedly toward the boys, and I could see them pulling the
wagon after them as fast as they could go.
I was soon out of breath, and nervous at the thought of leaving the
motel and the baby for so long, but I plugged on. I couldn't see that I
was gaining on the boys, but they must have thought I was, because
finally they let go of the wagon and ran on without it, disappearing
behind a group of houses.
Then I still had to trot the remaining quarter of a mile, or however
far it was, get the wagon, and trudge wearily homeward with it.
When I got home I discovered that Moejy, who had stayed with David, had
locked the office doors and the bathroom door, and hidden the keys.
When I tried to make him tell me what he had done with the keys, the
wiry little creature ran outside and down the edge of the highway
toward the Peacock. David had been giving the baby a piece of bread, he
said, when Moejy hid the keys; he hadn't seen where he put them.
I was frantic. If a customer should come, what would I do? With the
outer office door, and the one leading to the living room, locked, I
wouldn't be able to get the keys to the cabins or a master key. I
wouldn't be able to show a cabin to a prospect; even if I could, I
wouldn't be able to get at the change or the registration blanks. "I
won't be able to even show one cabin!" I wailed.
And as for the bathroom being locked--well, that situation, too, might
become acute. But so far I wasn't worried about that.
Just then a bright red roadster pulled into our driveway. I opened the
living room door and stepped out, so that they wouldn't go to the
office.
"Gotta single?" asked the driver.