Mrs. Bradley, it seemed, had at last become so bad that they had had to
take her to an asylum. Someone had substituted a fertile,
ready-to-hatch egg for the china egg Mr. Bradley had provided for her
to amuse herself with, and after a few days of basking in the warmth
under the layers and layers of her garments, the egg had hatched--not
into the human baby Mrs. Bradley had wanted, but, understandably
enough, into a fluffy yellow baby chicken. The shock and disappointment
had pushed her tottering reason completely into the abyss.
"It was bound to happen sooner or later," Grant said. "Mr. Bradley says
he knew, himself, that he wouldn't be able to keep her home with him
much longer."
"Who substituted the real egg?" I asked finally.
Grant buttered a slice of bread grimly.
"Moejy," he said.
Two weeks after Grandma and Hellwig visited us, I got an airmail letter
from Grandma. Before I opened it I knew it must contain exciting news,
because Grandma wouldn't have sent the letter airmail if she had been
completely calm and in full possession of her faculties. Airmail takes
about twice as long in getting from Los Angeles to Banning as regular
mail does. It is such a short distance between the two cities that the
time gained by the speedier flight of the plane is more than lost in
the transportation to and from the airports.
Grandma's letter began with a burst of enthusiasm. "I'm going to be
married! I'm going to be a bride!" it gurgled. "Wagonseller proposed to
me. I never see anything like the way he carried on. He had a big
diamond ring with him, he said it was his mother's and he said he
wanted it to be mine if I'd accept him along with it, 'he did, all
right'!"
I was a little disappointed in Grandma. After twenty-five years of
going with Hellwig, I hadn't thought that a wad of money, a beautiful
car and a big diamond could influence her so strongly. I resumed
reading the letter.
"I told him I wouldn't marry him, though, and Thunderation, how he took
on. I thought sure he was going to cry. When he finally got over it and
left I hopped on the streetcar and went to see Hellwig. I told him what
had happened, and you were right, you little stinkpot. All he was
waiting for was for me to say something. So I said it, and, well,
plague take it anyway, that's all there is to tell you. Except he was
madder'n a wet hen to think Wagonseller'd been after me. The wedding's
going to be two weeks from today, and in the meantime he's going to
find us a little place in the country and we'll have a garden and raise
a few chickens. He's going to retire at last."
Grandma was a long time getting her man, but she finally got him.
In the same mail with Grandma's joyous airmail letter was a large box
with no return address. It bore a Burbank postmark, and I opened it
warily.
When I had torn off all the wrappings and lifted the cover from the
box, several anemic-looking cockroaches struggled out. And in the box
was a solid mass of their relatives, who had been less hardy, and were
quite dead.
A note reposed in the midst of the unsavory mess. It was face up,
fortunately, and could be read without being touched. "I thought you
might be interested," it said, "to know that Ermintrude had a blessed
event. I know that you will give her children a good home. She had
quite a litter, didn't she?"
The note wasn't signed, but there was no need for it to be.
I resolved that I'd never again try to compete with an expert at his
own game.
Grandma's plans for her future as a bride started us planning for the
future again. We had decided against putting in a trailer court in
back, or kitchens in any of the cabins, on the ground that they would
cheapen the place. But Grant was beginning to draw plans for ten small
complete houses, to be set on the back part of the land, each with its
own pleasant little yard, to be rented at weekly rates to vacationists
during the winter. During the summer they could be rented by the month
to more permanent tenants.
There would still be room for a small swimming pool. These things were,
as yet, more or less in a dream stage; but the air conditioning units
were a present reality at last, actually being installed. And the
second story two-bedroom addition to our living quarters would be next.
I know that if in years to come we ever leave the motel, as I look back
one act will stand out in my mind as representative of everything we
did here, one act will somehow be the symbol of our life here: the
removing of the covers from the "no." I'll remember how it felt to
stand carefully among the brittle, waxy-looking geraniums and the
myrtle, the wind whipping through my dress and through my hair as I
stretched to reach the covers, silhouetted against the neighboring neon
lights and feeling curiously exposed, as though each occupant of all
the cars that streamed past with brilliant headlights were staring at
me ... the cold feel of the metal in my hands as I slid the covers off
the "no" so that the sign proclaimed in glowing neon "No Vacancy." I'll
remember the smug feeling if we were the first of the nearby motels to
fill up, or the relieved feeling if we were among the last. I'll
remember the contented knowledge that the day's work was done, and that
a night of uninterrupted sleep lay ahead. I'll never forget, either,
how good it was to see lights in all the cabins and a car in each
garage, and to know that the family or couple in each cabin was cozy
and warm in its little haven-for-the-night.
And I'll remember the half guilty feeling that people might think I was
snooping, when I went around at night the last thing before bed (if for
some reason Grant couldn't do it) to write down the license number of
each car, for later comparison with the license numbers written on the
registration cards.
Being in the motel business adds a clarity to one's view of life that
few other businesses could give. It lets one see things in a new, truer
perspective. What were unalive, unreal news stories, for instance,
become to me true, believable facts when people who have just come from
the locality in question discuss them. It makes me realize that the
places where I've never been really exist, and that people whom I have
never seen are as human and as vulnerable as I am. There's as much
difference between reading a newspaper about an event and talking with
eye witnesses of that event, as there is between glancing at a faded
snapshot and studying a picture through a stereoscope.
Another advantage of the motel business is that it prevents our
marriage from sinking into the stale rut of custom and habit that
afflicts so many marriages when the first rosy years have passed. No
doubt Grant and I have some quarrels that we wouldn't have if we were
leading a more normal life, where there would be less nervous tension
and less intrusion of the public into our private life; but, on the
other side of the ledger, it must be noted in big black letters that we
never bore each other because of interests that lie in diverging
directions, and that, with so much happening every day, we never run
out of things to talk about.
Of course there are bad things about the motel business, too. Business
is seasonal; we know that the winters will be good, and that the
summers will have much room for improvement. Improvement is just what
they'll get, though--Grant has made and will continue to make changes,
some minor, some major, that will make our summers better and better,
until finally, perhaps, they will be almost as good as our winters.
Anyway, the winter tourist trade in the desert always is so good that
it makes up for the slackest of summers.
Another bad thing about our being in the motel business is that our
children are restricted more in their play than they would be if we had
the average home life. David can never have his playmates around the
front of the motel; nothing frightens prospective customers away more
quickly than the sight of children playing. There are times, too, when
the very sight of human beings nauseates me, I am so sick of being
interrupted and constantly on call. Fortunately the times when I feel
that way are rare.
A sense of humor is one of the principal requisites for any one who
aspires to own or manage a motel. For instance, if I answer the bell
late at night when Grant is out, and if the legs of my pajamas unroll
suddenly while I'm showing a cabin, and leave me presenting an
old-fashioned pantalette effect, I simply laugh and tuck them back up,
without even bothering to explain that I just slipped my dress on over
my pajamas.
In my opinion, the worst, most nearly unbearable phase of the motel
business is that our lives are brushed daily by the fascinating lives
of salesmen, vacationists, businessmen and travelers who each has
secret, important affairs of his own--and that etiquette and lack of
time (principally lack of time) prevent me from prying around the roots
of these affairs and unearthing them. In addition to the rules we have
now--that customers must check out by noon, that they must pay in
advance, etc.--we should have a rule that each customer must give me a
brief summary of his activities from birth until the present, explain
the purpose of this particular trip, reveal his plans for the immediate
future, and answer any questions that may occur to me.
Then the motel business would be perfect.