Four and Twenty Beds

There seemed to be something about the sight of him walking into the office that affected everyone who had any idea of stopping for the night, about the way a kitten is affected by the sight of a piece of string being dragged along in front of it. They couldn't resist coming into the driveway, getting out, and following him right into the office.

Grant's technique developed until it was practically perfect. He never looked directly toward the car he was trying to pull in; that would be too apt to scare the occupants away. For some reason, people don't like to be watched when they are considering stopping at a motel. If they are watched, or even glanced at, they're just as likely as not to drive on to the next motel.

Timing was important. He had to get outside before they saw him, and stroll back into the office so that they could see him in time to turn into the driveway.

His methods were effective only after dark. While it was daylight, the sight of anyone hanging around the office actually seemed to discourage people from coming in. We never could figure that out. Unless, I thought whimsically, daylight afflicts travelers with bashfulness. Whenever a car would slow down during the day, as though it might come in, when I was in or near the office–if I'd glance up at it, it would quicken its speed; and I could almost hear the driver saying, "Oh, horrors, they've noticed us! Come on, let's get going!" Sort of a customerphobia in reverse, I mused.

Our kitchen window faces east, and Grant usually stayed in the kitchen nights, standing by the window watching the highway and passing time by eating various strange concoctions that would be enough to gag a normal person. Whenever he saw a car that looked like a prospect, he hurried outside and went into his act.

I usually began the nightly watch at the kitchen window, being "on duty" from about nine to ten while Grant relaxed and read the paper, or took a little rest in preparation for his long vigil.

Standing at the kitchen window looking at the blackness, broken only by the lights of the service stations, the beacon of the airport, and two motel signs, grew tiresome; and I didn't care to copy Grant's method of entertaining himself by indulging in gustatory nightmares and inviting actual ones. For the first night or two, I contented myself with studying the Peacock's beautiful neon sign–a huge stately blue and red, haughty peacock. That began to pall, though, and my legs got tired. I felt sorry for Grant, who put in hours of this each night after I was in bed. I also felt sorry for myself.

Sitting in a chair, while it would have been far more comfortable than standing, was impossible because of the height of the window. When I sat down, no matter at what distance from the window or at what angle to it, all I could see was a sparkling array of stars. We had no books large enough to build the seat of a chair appreciably higher; and to sit on our thick medical book and a stack of smaller ones would be to ask for a couple of broken ribs.

The typewriter seemed to be the perfect solution. It's a portable, and, enclosed in its case, makes a solid seat. I put it on the chair in the kitchen, sat on top of it, and found that I could see the highway. Whenever I saw headlights of a car coming slowly I told Grant, and he put down his paper to go out after it. During the average early evening–the part that was my shift–there weren't, usually, more than two or three coming slowly enough to rate any attention, so Grant's reading or resting wasn't much disturbed. Of the two or three, he usually managed to get one, so I couldn't use the excuse that it didn't pay, to resign from my boring job.

Even though I was more comfortable, now that I could sit down, I was still bored. I decided to try to read. The impracticality of such frivolity became apparent at once. If I let the book rest on my lap, I had to look downward at it in order to read it. And if I looked downward, I couldn't see the flash of headlights on the highway. The only way I could keep watch on the highway as I read was to hold the book up in front of me, so high that the light of headlights would be visible beneath it, or, for variety, a little lower, so that the headlights would appear above it.

My arms began to ache before I had done that very long. Finally I put my feet on the typewriter case and rested the book on my knees. Except for the fact that I had no backrest, since the typewriter case came most of the way up the back of the chair, I was quite comfortable in this position. The only flaw in the arrangement was that every few seconds I'd catch a glimpse of lights down the highway, and I'd have to stop reading and gauge the speed of the car.

If it was a fast one, I could return to my reading; if it was a slow one, I yelled, "Eep!" at Grant, and he'd go into action. At first I had said to him, when I saw a slow car, "Better go outside, dear. Here comes one that looks like it might stop."–or, "Hurry out there! Here comes a slow one!" But I reasoned that all that was a tremendous waste of energy. After all, he knew perfectly well I wasn't sitting in front of the kitchen window in such an uncomfortable position because I thought it would improve my complexion. He knew why I was sitting there, and there was no need for me to launch into detailed explanations whenever I saw a slow car. So I saved time and energy by simply remarking "Eep"; and he always knew exactly what I meant.

Cars came dribbling along the highway every few seconds, and although the actual prospects were few, the interruptions to my reading were many. I seldom was able to finish two consecutive sentences before the twinkle of headlights dragged me away from the printed words.

Sometimes I thought it might be easier just to give up the idea of reading.

It was difficult, too, to keep up with my writing. If I tried to write in our own cabin, the proximity of Grant and the children, and their noise, made it impossible for me to concentrate. And Grant didn't like having me go to cabin 15 for a few hours at a time, since that left him with a lot to handle. For a time I kept my writing to a minimum, neglecting every phase of it except a monthly feature I was doing regularly for a women's digest magazine. I grew very dissatisfied with the unproductiveness of my daily routine, though, and told Grant I must start writing again. He agreed to take over the entire responsibility of the place and the children during the baby's afternoon nap if I'd be gone only an hour; at any time after an hour, the baby might wake up and it was difficult for him to manage her and wait on customers at the same time.

The children were both in bed by seven-thirty every night, and each night at seven-thirty-five I went back to cabin 15, with my writing paraphernalia and my watch and a match to light the heater, to stay until nine, when I'd go back to look out the kitchen window for slow cars. (On the nights when we didn't have many vacancies left at that time, and it looked as though number 15 might be rented soon, I went into our kitchen to write, after first extracting a solemn promise–a new one each night–from Grant that he would keep out.)

Sometimes after I'd get across the driveways and the grass islands into number 15, it would start to rain. There was something wonderful about that, and yet it gave me a lost feeling too, knowing that my family was snug in a cabin across the chasm of downpour, while I was here alone. When it rained I usually spent as much time watching it as I did writing. I opened the door to a blast of cold air, and the sight of a lead-colored, darkening sky. Or I looked through the slats of the Venetian blind. I could see the sparkle-spattered highway shimmering like a smooth sheet of glass, glittering with the reflection of lights from the service stations, and rippled by the gusts of cold wind that danced continually across it. There were pools of black water in the gravel of our driveways, and the Chinese elms waved their wet, lacy branches mournfully. The neon signs glowed through the rain, and water trickled off the curbs of the islands of grass and the island of geraniums beneath our sign. Thunder shook all of San Gorgonio Pass intermittently, and lightning flashed the trees to a wet, brilliant green. The fury of it, and my own solitude, filled me with a kind of exultation.

Rainy weather never interfered much with David's school. We always drove him to the school, which was about a mile away, and got him after school. I usually drove him to school in the morning with Donna sitting primly in the back seat; by afternoon Grant was awake, and he picked him up after school.

David was experiencing the usual juvenile difficulties in learning to spell "cat" and "dog" and in mastering the shape and sounds of the multitude of confusing squiggles that made up the alphabet. During the first few weeks of school his class learned the first half of the alphabet.

One day David came home and told me happily that he was getting ahead of his class. Moejy, who was in the last half of the second grade, was helping him, he explained.

He exhibited a sheet of hieroglyphics, and said proudly, "I've memmerized every one of them! Moejy told me how each one sounds. This one, like a 'S' with a tail, is a 'doo'. And this one here's a 'sof'."

The marks on the paper were meaningless lines and curlicues; yet, to the untrained eye of a child they might look as much like letters as real letters do, I realized.

"I'm afraid Moejy has been fooling you," I said gently. "Those aren't real letters. They're just scribbling. They aren't anything at all."

David was furious. He pulled a long string of gum from his mouth, drawing it out so far that it broke. "All that memmerizing for nothing!" he wailed, picking the sticky gum from his chin. "Just wait'll I get my hands on that Moejy! I'll–"

"You'll what?"

He must have remembered then that Moejy was quite a bit bigger than he was.

"Oh–nothing, I guess," he said, nibbling gum from his dirty fingers.

But I knew exactly how he felt about Moejy. I felt the same way, myself.

CHAPTER EIGHT

"MADAME, I WONDER if you would be so gracious as to do me a favor?" Mr. Hawkins, coming through the office door, put his dark hat on quickly so that he could remove it in a sweeping, deferential gesture.

"Of course," I said automatically, looking up from my morning's bookkeeping. "That is, maybe," I added warily.

His brown eyes, as usual, were sparkling with a private amusement. He always gave the impression that he loved people, but couldn't resist a few chuckles at their expense.

"I fear the matter of the black rubber spider has caused you to mistrust me," he said. "Ah, madame, I apologize deeply if my little joke frightened you. Pray have the kindness to forget it long enough to do for me something for which both my fiancee and I will be grateful."

"Your fiancee!" I exclaimed. "You mean Miss Nestleburt has–you're going to be–"

"Yes, she has done me the great honor of consenting to become my wife. Our nuptials will take place a week from today, when my work in Palm Springs will be done. And today, if your husband can spare you, I would be most happy if you would come with me and help me select a small gift for my bride-to-be."

Grant was just finishing a late and solitary breakfast. (A fried egg, smothered in applesauce.) He could manage, he told me sleepily. David was in school and the baby was playing quietly in her playpen; and not many customers come in the morning as a rule. I got my coat and purse while Mr. Hawkins waited, and then he helped me gallantly into his green coupe.

We stopped at a drugstore on the corner of San Gorgonio Avenue, in the heart of Banning. A sweet smell, compounded of fragrant cosmetics and candy and soda fountain concoctions, met us as we went in.

The drugstore was crowded. Children and a few men were clustered around the comic books at the magazine stand; the seats in front of the soda fountain were full of workers having a morning coke or cup of coffee. Matrons and business men thronged the store, and the clerks were rushing about busily.

We strolled farther into the drugstore, Mr. Hawkins' broad shoulders clearing a path for us, and finally he touched my arm respectfully. He had stopped at a table laden with merchandise. The table held everything from toothbrushes to expensive cosmetic sets. Probably, I thought, he wanted my opinion on whether one of the cosmetic sets would be an appropriate gift.

I was standing there in the crowd, smiling amiably, when suddenly he picked up a toothbrush, waved it in the air, and bellowed,

"What–you mean to say you actually haven't brushed your teeth for three years? Well, COME ON, I'm going to buy you a toothbrush!" And he took me by the elbow and herded me ostentatiously through a staring, shocked, and slightly revolted crowd, to the nearest clerk.

He put some coins into her hand and said loudly, "Don't bother to wrap it up, I'm going to get her home and make her use this toothbrush right away. Did you ever hear of anyone going three years without brushing their teeth? Why, the Board of Health ought to get after people like that!"

I was scarlet with rage and mortification. I summoned up a sickly smile for the benefit of the curious eyes that were around me. But then those eyes all darted down toward my mouth, eager for a glimpse of my teeth. I pressed my lips tightly together–a move which, I realized later, must have convinced everyone that my teeth were covered with enough film to shoot another Gone With the Wind.

I stalked out of the drugstore, and Mr. Hawkins, the toothbrush in one hand, followed, shrieking with laughter.

I got into the car silently and grimly. When he had controlled his mirth enough to start the car I said with venom, "Now don't give me any of that 'I apologize deeply, madame!' stuff."

I glanced sidewise at him. His cheeks were still quivering, and wet with tears.

Chuckling intermittently, he drove the car to a candy store a few blocks away.

He got out and made a flourish as though to help me out of the car. I sat there and stared at him stonily.

"I'm not going into another store with you," I stated. "If you really want my advice on a gift, just bring it out here to the car and I'll tell you what I think about it. I'd even tell you what I think about you, if I weren't a lady."

"Madame, I assure you–" he protested. Then, his words apparently evoking the memory of my expression in the drug store, he turned away quickly. His shoulders were shaking as he went through the doorway of the candy store.

Presently, followed by an anxious salesgirl, he came out, carrying several attractive, cellophane-wrapped boxes. With a regal disdain that must have puzzled the salesgirl, I indicated that a box of chocolate covered dates was the choicest delicacy of the lot.

I was still in a bad mood that evening when I came back from cabin 15 and climbed up on the typewriter case on the kitchen chair, after sprinkling a clothesbasket full of clean clothes and getting them ready to iron. The difficulty of reading, and the headlights which clamored for my attention and turned out to belong to cars which were going so fast that it was obvious they weren't likely to stop, began to irritate me more than they ever had before.

Finally, after I had made three unsuccessful attempts to read one sentence through to the end, I snapped my book shut, sighed loudly for the benefit of Grant, who was reading on the davenport–and leaned hard, with violent disgust, against the back of the chair.

My disgust was much more violent when I found myself sprawling helplessly in the clothesbasket, like a huge turtle on its back. I had forgotten that the height of the typewriter case was enough to make the chair back–short enough to start with–practically nonexistent.

Grant came running to help me out of the clothesbasket. I looked at him sharply. Yes, he was smiling a little.

That settled it! The idea, him sitting and reading, and then laughing at me when I injured myself after working about fourteen hours in one stretch!

I'd fix him. I thanked him graciously for his help, smoothed the clothes in the basket, replaced the typewriter, and resumed my watch.

I glanced around at Grant, after a few minutes. He was immersed in his newspaper once more, and looked very comfortable.

I smiled diabolically. "Eep," I said.

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.