Four and Twenty Beds

Watering the calendulas and the roses that Oliv Snyder had planted in front of the office was, I felt, one of the most hazardous jobs connected with running the motel. The flowers in the tip end of the rock-enclosed triangle were only about six feet from the edge of the highway. And six feet from the edge of a highway where busses hurtle past and trucks roar by and there is no speed limit, and where cars are continually cutting in and out of traffic to go to the cafe or to the bar or to one of the motels, and where wrecks are a common occurrence, is a locality that not even Lloyds of London would care to insure against anything, at any premium.

But it wasn't only highway accidents as prospective items for the Banning paper that clamored for my attention. Things happened all the time, with our motel usually the geographic center. There was the civic news picked up from gossip around the motel and at meetings of the motel owners' association. There were the miscellaneous odds and ends about fires, sicknesses, promotions, and so forth, that drift naturally through a busy, public place like the office of a motel. And there were the trivial "personals" so dear to the heart of a country paper editor. I had developed such a nose for news that I couldn't let any of these pass by without dashing to the typewriter and slamming out a few paragraphs about it. If David so much as mentioned that a certain playmate of his had to hurry home from school because an uncle from Michigan was coming to visit, I had to find out about it, even if it meant tracking down the child's parents through his address at school, and asking them point-blank if they had a visitor–and if so, how about a few details. At first I fought against this compulsion to track down every potential however-minor story. But, for hours after I conquered the urge to follow a certain lead, I would feel a gnawing sense of guilt, a feeling of having left something unfinished. It was a familiar feeling; I have experienced it many times after failing to turn back a page of a magazine to see whether that ad read "You must try Whippersnapper's Mange Medicine" or "You should try Whippersnapper's Mange Medicine." I've experienced it after failing to count the exact number of stairs I climb in a given flight. I always experience it if, after idly making creases in one side of my skirt, I neglect to make an equal number of identical creases in the opposite side of my skirt. Psychologists call it, I believe, a compulsion neurosis.

Whatever it is, I've got it.

I always give in finally and go back to count the stairs, check on the exact wording of the ad, or belatedly crease my skirt in the required manner; and I always wind up by tracing the news item to its lair. Sometimes I wish I had never heard of newspapers.

Tyrone Power had once stayed at the Peacock, and I waited eagerly for him, or some equally famous personage, to spend a night with us, so that I would have a really worthwhile story for the paper–one that would make Banning's citizens sit up and gasp–and, incidentally, give the Moonrise Motel a little good publicity. I turned over in my mind the few famous people I had met, wishing I knew them well enough to be able to write a casual note suggesting that they take a vacation in Banning. I had interviewed Margaret Lee Runbeck and Rupert Hughes, before we left Los Angeles, but of course neither of them would remember. And I had met Dick Powell one Sunday afternoon. I was introduced to him by Virginia Gregg, a radio actress I was interviewing who was working with him on that afternoon's broadcast of "The Rogue's Gallery." Dick Powell, I'm sure, will always remember the day–not because of meeting me, but because of the fluff he made. Closing the drama in a narrated summing up of the afternoon's story, he let the radio audience in on the fact that the villain had been convicted of "robbery and murdery."

A green coupe drove into our driveway with a swish of gravel. I sighed. I felt almost too tired to cope with customers. Grant, with his usual lack of system, had started the big job of washing all the soiled bedspreads, doilies and dresser scarves–forgetting that he had an appointment with the dentist in half an hour. Remembering the appointment just in time to keep it, he left me to finish the job he had started.

The spreads, scarves and doilies were hanging on the line now. I opened the office door and walked wearily out toward the green coupe.

The middle-aged driver reached onto the seat beside him for his hat, put it on quickly and removed it with a courtly gesture. His narrow brown eyes were amused.

"Mr. Hawkins!" I exclaimed. My first impulse was one of joy at seeing him again, but then I remembered the blanket he had made me think was stolen, and the apple-pie bed he had made for the new occupants of his cabin the day he left on his honeymoon.

Miss Nesdeburt's plump little body was already halfway out of the car. She hugged me, tears running down over the fine wrinkles around her eyes.

"Ma chere amie!" she exclaimed, dabbing daintily at her eyes with a lace-edged hanky. Her fair skin was flushed with emotion. "It's simply terribly good to see you again, and to be back at the sweet little motel where I first met my Herbert! We just thought we'd drive out this way for old times' sake! After all, it's only a few miles from Burbank, n'est-ce pas?"

When we were all seated in the living room Mr. Hawkins caught my eye almost guiltily and said, "I apologize deeply, madame, for any unpleasantness that may have occurred during my stay at your charming motel. I seem to recall something about–ah–a blanket, wrongly supposed to have been stolen, and–ah–"

"An apple pie bed?" I refreshed his memory.

"I'm sure," he said gallantly, "that you are too sweet and fair-minded a young lady to hold grudges. Let's let bygones be bygones, shall we?"

"I'm willing," I laughed. And he held out a big, strong-looking hand for me to shake.

I shook my head, instead. "I'm willing to let bygones be bygones," I said, "but that doesn't mean I have to trust you. I'm afraid if I shake hands with you I'll either find a spider in my hand, or glue all over my fingers, or maybe you'll try some kind of a jiu-jitsu trick on me. We'll be friends–but at a distance, if you don't mind."

Mr. Hawkins laughed and sat down again. "All right–but you must at least let me thank you for the cockroach you sent me. You'll be happy to hear it's in perfect health, and we've made quite a pet of it. We named it 'Ermintrude.' A neighbor is taking care of it for us today while we're away from home."

Miss Nesdburt was quivering with eagerness to get into the conversation.

"There's so much to tell you, I simply don't know where to begin," she said. "We've sold my car, and we've moved into Herbert's lovely little place in Burbank, and we had a long, wonderful honeymoon. We camped in the mountains near Big Bear Lake for a few days–we got a tent and Herbert put it up all by himself. He's so strong and wonderful. One night we woke up and heard something scratching at the flaps of the tent. We were miles from anywhere, and we were simply terrified. I thought maybe it was one of the big bears the lake was named for. It was pitch black outside, no moon or stars, and we got out of the tent and started to run. One shouldn't become so frightened, of course, but anyway we ran–for miles, it seemed, and all the time this bear, or whatever it was, was right behind us. And then, of all things to encounter in the mountains, we ran up against a fence! It was really dreadful, with the big old creature gaining on us and ready, for all we knew, to kill us the moment he caught us. We scrambled over the fence as best we could, with dear Herbert risking his life by helping me over. It took us quite a while to get across, and we were all scratched up by wire and frightened half to death. The animal had apparently given up in the meantime, because we didn't hear him any more. We didn't dare to go back to our tent, though, so we stayed out there until morning. We were half frozen."

"Well, that was quite an adventure," I exclaimed. "When it was daylight, did you climb back over the fence and go back to your tent?"

Mr. Hawkins and Miss Nestleburt exchanged rueful glances.

"No," she laughed, one of her tiny white hands fluttering up to adjust a blue brooch at her neck. "We didn't climb over the fence when daylight came. We simply walked around it. You see, it was just about five feet long–a remnant of an old fence that had apparently been torn down for years."

When I could stop laughing I said, "What about the animal that had been chasing you? Did you ever find out what it was?"

"No–o," Miss Nestleburt said. "But we looked at the tracks, and Herbert said they couldn't have been made by anything else but a cow!"

"Speaking of cows, my dear," said Mr. Hawkins, brushing a speck of dust off one neatly pressed, striped trouser leg, '"Why don't you give her the present we brought for David? And then we must leave."

"Mais oui! I must go out to the car and get it! I almost forgot all about it!" exclaimed Miss Nestleburt. "Where is David?"

"Grant went to the dentist, and he was to get David from school as soon as he was through. They should be here any minute," I said.

Mr. Hawkins sprang to his feet and held the door open for Miss Nestleburt. Then he closed the door and sat down again.

"Ah, my dear madame," he said to me, "marriage is indeed wonderful. Since Miss Nestleburt did me the great honor of becoming my wife, I have been the happiest man alive."

His brown eyes were full of laughter, as they had been every time I had seen him.

"You never struck me as being a particularly unhappy type," I said.

"No, how true that is, madame! I'm full of joie de vivre, as my dear wife would say."

Just as Miss Nestleburt tapped lightly at the door and came in again. Grant drove up with David. They came in behind her, David making as much noise as a calliope.

"I have a present for you, little David!" Miss Nestleburt said; and she handed David what she was carrying–a large, soft black cat.

David was ecstatic. "Is it really mine? Can I really keep it?" he demanded.

I eyed the cat's bulging sides askance. "I think it's about to calve," I whispered in an aside to Grant.

"Yep, you can keep it," Grant said good-humouredly. "We'll quick fix it a bed in one of the garages."

"Is it a boy cat or a girl cat?" David asked.

"A girl cat, dear," I replied drily.

Miss Nestleburt's blue eyes sparkled as she watched David's joy in his new pet. "Let's go out now and see where the cat wants his bed to be," David cried, pulling a dried piece of gum off his cheek; and Grant and Mr. Hawkins followed him outside.

"Such pretty black, curly eyelashes the boy has!" Miss Nestleburt exclaimed.

I was about to ask her where she got the plump cat when I remembered that there was something else I was curious about.

"A long time ago Mr. Hawkins did something that embarrassed you–one of his practical jokes, I suppose–and you said you'd tell me all about it when you'd known me longer. Do you remember?" I asked. "And do you think you've known me long enough now?"

Rosy color flooded her fair skin, and I saw that she remembered what I was talking about.

I knew I shouldn't have brought up the subject again, but I reasoned that I would suffer more from curiosity if she never told me than she would suffer from embarrassment if she did.

Her bright blue eyes darted around the room, to avoid meeting mine.

"Yes, I remember. Of course I've known you long enough. It's just that one has difficulty in talking about such things …"

"I suppose he played a rather crude joke on you?" I prodded.

"No, it–it wasn't a joke. It was something he gave me. It was–oh, dear, I don't know how to say it. I suppose he meant well, but it was really a most embarrassing gift . . ."

She clasped and unclasped her tiny hands. "It really shocked me, especially since it had been only a few minutes since we had met. You see, he gave me a little undressed–that is, actually nude–ooh!" Miss Nestleburt gasped. Her eyes, in their uneasy jaunt around the room, had caught sight of the bookcase and what was on top of it–the perfume atomizer Mr. Hawkins had given me.

"He–he gave you one too?" she asked weakly. I nodded, and we dissolved into helpless laughter.

Our merriment was cut into abruptly by a loud crash and splintering outside.

"A wreck!" I exclaimed, dashing through the door and forming the first catch sentence for the story as I ran.

It wasn't exactly a wreck. A heavy truck, loaded with grapefruit, had been parked on the highway in front of Moe's cafe while the driver went in to eat. The brake had failed to hold, and the truck had slid backward, gaining momentum until it crashed heavily into one of the small cabins across the highway behind Mr. Bertram's grocery store. Fortunately, no one was in the cabin, which was half destroyed.

I knew Mr. Bertram would take time out from his snuff-chewing to get all the details about the incident, the name of the truck driver and everything else that I'd need in order to write up a story for the paper. I didn't have to wade into the mob of curious people that had collected. I'd just go over and talk to Mr. Bertram in an hour or so.

Someone had called the truck driver's attention to what had happened. He came dashing out of Moe's, his eyes wild, a doughnut clutched in one hand. He went galloping across the highway toward his truck.

"And look at the bar across the street!" Miss Nesdeburt cried, her little hands going to her mouth in dismay. "The front of it is smashed in a little bit too!"

"Oh, that happened last week," I said airily. "A man who was going to go in for a drink couldn't stop his car in time. We're so used to accidents like that that we hardly notice them any more."

Grant and David and Mr. Hawkins appeared from the direction of the garages, where they had been arranging for the black cat's living quarters.

Grant went across the highway to see the excitement and, I suspected, to get a few of the crushed or slightly damaged grapefruit that the truck driver would have to discard.

I was right. Miss Nestleburt and Mr. Hawkins had a big sack of slightly crushed grapefruit in the car with them when they left, and as for us–for three weeks we dined on sliced grapefruit, halved grapefruit, peeled grapefruit, grapefruit salad, grapefruit a la mode and grapefruit au gratin.

One morning as I placed grapefruit halves before Grant and David, Grant caught my expression. He said something that sounded like, "Don't feel that way. Grapefruit is good for hales."

"What?" I asked.

"I said you shouldn't feel that way. Grapefruit is healthy."

"No, that isn't either what you said. You said something that sounded like 'Grapefruit is good for hales.'"

"Well, I don't remember exactly what I said, but that's what I meant. Grapefruit is healthy."

"I knew what you meant; what I wanted to know was, what did you say?"

Grant sighed. I know my curiosity exasperates him, but it annoys me for hours if I can't discover exactly what a word was that I didn't quite get.

"Why do you always have to change the wording of what you say when I say 'What?' instead of actually repeating what you say, which is what I want you to do?" I railed at him.

This argument of ours, which has come up over and over again, grows very involved if we don't drop it in its earliest stages–and sad experience has taught me that Grant can't, or won't, recall and tell me the exact word he used, anyway.

I was clearing away the remains of the sugar-sprinkled grapefruit slices we had had for dessert one evening, and Grant was in the office assuring some man that we hadn't found his toupee in the cabin he had occupied the previous night, when a lanky, thin-faced, big-eyed boy opened the living room door and walked into the living room.

"Oh, I guess I musta got the wrong door," he said, twisting his dirty handkerchief nervously between skinny fingers. "I'm sorry, maam, but I thought I oughta tell you–I guess my ma is gonna have a baby."

I remembered renting a double cabin, number 3, earlier in the day, to an extremely pregnant woman and her son.

I stared at the pale boy. I must have been rather pale myself. "You mean–right now?" I gasped.

He nodded shamefacedly.

"Oh, dear. Well, sit down on the davenport there. Don't be nervous. What's your name?"

"Eugene."

"Well, well. And how old are you?"

"Ten."

"Ten? Well. That's a nice age. And what kind of work does your daddy do?"

"He's a salesman. He travels. On'y gets home once in a while."

"And do you have any brothers or sisters?" I asked. It was as though, by stalling and refusing to face what was happening in one of our cabins, I could postpone it, or make it not so. I was coming out of my first condition of shock and realizing that I must call a doctor, and tell Grant what was happening, immediately, when the boy answered my last question.

"Yes, ma'am," he said. "I got six brothers and five sisters. My littlest sister is still a baby. On'y one and a half. My oldest sister is takin care of the kids now while Ma and me was gonna visit Gramma in Frisco. Ma didn't think she'd have this new baby for awhile yit. But I guess she's gonna, though. She's got pains somethin' awful."

Numbly I seized the telephone book and looked up the number of one of the town's three doctors. There was no answer when I dialed his number. I dialed the number of another; he was, a crisp feminine voice informed me, out on a call. I dialed the number of the residence of the third doctor. I heard a ringing sound, and I prayed that this doctor would be avail able. The suspense of waiting for someone to lift the receiver at the other end of the line was terrible, and I tried feverishly to occupy my mind. Doctors … doctors . .. how many famous ones could I think off? I kept my mind off what was happening in cabin 3, and concentrated on doctors. Famous doctors; well, there were the Mayo brothers, of course, and Dr. Kildare. He's pretty famous, I mused, even though he is just a figment of someone's imagination.

Imagination .. . some philosophers think everything is a figment of people's imagination–or would it be figments? Figments, pigments, pudding and pie; babies are cute, but they sure do cry. And here I was back on the subject of babies again.

The ringing at the other end of the line stopped (although the ringing in my head continued) and the doctor himself answered. I said,

"I'm calling Dr. Kildare! I mean–" I laughed apologetically, "I'm calling Dr. Adams. Is this Dr. Adams?"

When he gave me a curt, affirmative reply, obviously bored with what he considered my facetiousness, I told him what was going on; and he said he'd be over at once.

By that time Grant, having convinced the man that we hadn't found his toupee, came back into the living room, and I told him about the impending blessed event. His complexion took on a hue to match mine and that of the skinny boy.

"I've called the doctor," I said. "What do we do in the meantime?"

Grant, the ever resourceful, the maddeningly efficient, was stymied for once.

"Well…" he said uncertainly.

"That's how I feel about it," I said. "But we can't just–sit here."

"You're a woman," Grant pointed out cruelly, passing the buck to me. "You've had two babies."

"Yes," I came back at him, "but I just had them–I didn't deliver them."

"Well, you won't have to deliver these either. I mean, this one. The doctor will be here in a few minutes."

"I know, but–what about in the meantime?"

"Well," Grant said uneasily, "I suppose you should go in once and see how she's getting along. Maybe you can give her some aspirin or something."

"Aspirin!" I snorted.

Donna was playing contentedly in the bedroom, stacking blocks, knocking them over, and stacking them up again. David was outside adding another worn-out baby blanket to the bed he had made in the garage of cabin 6 for his new black cat. With the children occupied, and the dinner dishes done, obviously I couldn't claim any pressing domestic duties.

"Well… come on," I said.

The door of cabin 3 had never looked so forbidding. While we were standing in front of it, wondering whether or not to knock, little Eugene brushed past us and opened it. He went to stand beside the bed, where he looked from his mother to us with big, dark eyes.

"You had the baby yit?" he asked her anxiously.

"You don't see it nowheres, do you?"

Grant and I edged into the cabin. "How do you do," I said. "We heard–that is, your son said–you were–well, having a little difficulty."

"That ain't the half of it, honey," the woman remarked, biting her lower lip until there was a row of neat little white teeth marks printed upon it.

She was a huge woman, broad-shouldered and big boned, and her body rose like a small mountain beneath the blankets. Her greying hair was long and untidy on the pillow. Her dark, beautiful eyes were like jewels in a crude setting; they were surrounded by flushed, large-pored flesh, and complemented by a large, misshapen nose. Her teeth were pretty, but they were too much in evidence when she talked, as were all the other details of the interior of her mouth. The brazen display of such an expanse of gums and tongue made me feel ill.

"I'm Mrs. Watkins, you prob'ly know that. Cripes, I'm sorry if I was rude when you come in, but I was havin' a pain. Say, didja call me a doc?"

I nodded, and she went on, "Ain't it a fit, me havin' a kid in a motel? I never thought I'd have it so soon, but you sure can't tell noways, can you?"

She took my feeble smile for agreement that you sure can't tell noways, and laughed heartily, slapping a swelling under the blankets that was presumably her thigh. Her laugh was of a size to match her body; it boomed and bounced through the room until the pictures on the walls quivered.

Grant and I were so relieved at finding her in good spirits and not in much pain that we began to giggle, too; and a moment later the three of us were laughing uproariously at nothing, while Eugene stared at us with wide, solemn eyes.

Mrs. Watkins was the first to regain control of herself.

"I'll bust a gut if I don't quit laughin'! Ain't it about time for the doc?" she asked, dabbing at her moist eyes with a handkerchief she took from under the pillow.

"Yes," I said. "He lives only about a mile and a half away. He'll be here any minute."

"I wouldn't care," she said, "On'y I have my kids pretty sudden. It'll be that way for you too, honey, after you've had eleven, like me."

I couldn't think of an appropriate reply to that one. Grant looked at his watch anxiously, shook it and held it to his ear.

"Eleven!" I exclaimed after a moment. "You've had twelve, haven't you? At least that's what Eugene–"

"Sure, ma, you know, there's Ruthie, and Lyon, and Ernest, and–"

"Well, I guess I know my own kids' names!" she interrupted. "Yeah, that's right, twelve. So many I can't remember noways! My husband don't git home very often, but he sure gits home often enough! I musta forgot about the littlest one. Seems like I ain't got used to havin' her yit."

I couldn't keep my eyes off Mrs. Watkins' large, flapping red tongue when she talked. The crease down the center of it seemed to separate two smooth pieces of raw meat.

Suddenly her teeth clamped down on her lip again and she turned her face away from us, moaning.

I looked at Grant. He looked at his watch again. We were still standing, stiff and uneasy, beside the bed.

When Mrs. Watkins' pain had ebbed, she put one hand into her mouth, took out her false teeth, and stared at them.

Grant and I stared at them too, fascinated. They were even and pretty, a fragile pink-and-white toy in her big, roughened hands.

"Seems like it makes me feel better to look at 'em," she confessed. "Makes it so I ain't so lonesome for Rodney. That's my hubby. He gave me these teeth, for our tenth weddin' anniversary. I was gonna get some cheap old ugly things, but he said no, the best wasn't none too good for his girl, and so he bought 'em for me. They're the–the nicest thing I ever had in my life!"

Tears were pouring out of Mrs. Watkins' lovely dark eyes, streaming over the flushed, coarse skin of her cheeks. "Cripes, I wisht Rodney was here!" she sobbed.

"I'd settle for Doctor Adams," Grant said. He glanced again at his watch. '"He should be here by now. I wonder if his car could have broken down?"