In a Small Motel

1

The couple from Ohio wanted two rollaway beds for their two tired, whining kids, and so Ginny Mallory had hurried to her storeroom and wheeled one down the walk to the end unit of Belle View Courts. The man made no move to help her wrestle the bed over the low sill of the door. He stood, a dead cigar clamped in his teeth, watching her struggle with it.

Ginny hurried back to the storeroom and got the other one and just as she came to the door of the end unit, another car pulled up by the office and began honking. The tourist woman was fussing with one of the children.

The rollaway wedged itself stubbornly in the door. As she pried at it, the man said, “Set the other one up over there, girl.”

For a moment she thought she would howl like a kicked dog. She stood quite still for a moment, then pulled again. The bed came free and she shoved it into the room.

“I’d appreciate it if you and your wife would unfold this one and put it where you want it. I’ve got another customer out there.”

She turned quickly and as she went down the walk toward the office she heard him holler something about ice. Let him holler. Thick October heat lay heavily over south Georgia. Though she walked briskly, she felt as if all the heat of the long summer just past had turned the marrow of her bones to soft stubborn lead. She managed a smile as she went out to the big car with Massachusetts plates. A tall, white-faced man stood by the door of the car. He was alone.

“Do you have a single?” he asked, his voice flat and toneless.

“Yes, sir. Do you want to look at it?”

“No thanks. I’ll take it. Which one is it?”

“Number three. Down there. The third from the end.”

“Can I put my car in back?”

“It will be perfectly safe right in front of your door, sir.”

“Can I put it in back?” he snapped.

“Yes, I suppose so. But it—”

“Where do I register?”

“Right in the office.” She went in and went behind the counter. He followed her in. She laid the card in front of him. He signed J. L. Brown, gave his residence as Boston, wrote in his license number and the make of the big car, gave her the money and she gave him the key. As he went out the door she asked him if he would want ice. He ignored her. She wished they would all be as little trouble. And she wished more would come so that she could cut the lights on the big red-and-blue neon sign, leaving only the sign that said: No vacancy.

She stood behind the counter for a moment, resting a lot of her slim weight on her elbows, the heels of her hands cupped over her eyes. She had finished cleaning the rooms and making all the beds at noon. She had showered, changed to a crisp blue denim sun suit, and had a quick light lunch. Now, at six, the sun suit was sadly wilted. Her long blonde hair, piled high on her head, was damp with perspiration. She smoothed the corners of her eyes with her fingertips. She knew the lines of strain that the long summer had put there. Her eyes felt as if they had sunk back into her head, and they burned like coals.

Out on the highway directly in front of the Belle View Courts the big diesel rigs thundered by. The sun was far enough down to give the world an orange look. There was a hint in the shadows of the blue dusk that would bring the mosquitoes out of the lowlands. And this, she thought, is the slack season. And I can barely keep up with it. And barely keep ahead of the mortgage. You were so damn proud of this hideous white elephant, Scott. And it was so much easier when you were around. I don’t know why. It just was.

She took her hands from her eyes as the screen door slapped. The man from Ohio said, “How about that ice, girl? We going to get it?”

“Right away. If you wait a minute, I can give it to you.”

But he went back out the door, saying, “Bring it over to the room.”

She went back into the small room where she slept and ate. She opened the refrigerator and dumped ice cubes into a glass pitcher. She hurried to the end room with it, knocked, walked briskly in and set the pitcher on the tray on the bureau. As she turned toward the door the man said, “Here, girl.” He pushed a dime and a nickel into her hand.

Ginny looked quite fixedly at his chin, at the dark stubble, and said, “Thank you, sir.”

When she got back to the office she put the fifteen cents in the pottery pig on her window sill. Next came a honeymoon couple, too intrigued with each other to need much service. She settled them in eighteen, and there were only three units left to rent. She wondered if she would try to eat now, or wait in the hope that the three empties would fill up quickly.

She looked with practised eye at the highway traffic. Most of the business was beginning to come from Florida-bound cars. It would continue that way until Christmas, and then the northbound ones would start to build up, and by April the court would be full of the ones headed home, bright with new tans.

She went outside and leaned against the front of the office, her hands shoved deep into the wide front pockets of the sun suit. She felt sticky and weary. The sun was entirely gone and the world was blue. Peepers were beginning to chant over in the patch of swamp beyond the gas station. Cars had turned on their lights. The big rigs were aglow like Christmas trees.

Across the way, the floodlights made the gas station a white glare. She saw Manuel pumping gas into a battered station wagon. Johnny Benton came out and stood in the glare of lights, looking across the highway. When she waved, he saw her and came strolling across. His weight crunched the gravel of her parking area, and her neon made a red highlight on his shoulder and on the side of his tanned face.

He came up to her, offered a cigarette. She took it and he lit both cigarettes with a kitchen match he popped with his thumbnail. “How’s it going, Ginny?”

“Three empties left.”

“Not bad for this time of day. Things are picking up a little. We had a good day too.”

For a time there was no traffic and the night was still. The station wagon had gone. Manuel was back inside the station. Ginny could hear the Cuban station on the small radio across the way, bongo drums and dry rustle of gourds.

“You beat, kid?” Johnny asked, his voice deep and slow.

“I’ll live, I guess.”

“You start filling up every night, you get some help, you hear?”

“Sure, Johnny. I’ll have to.”

“You can get a part-time girl for maybe twenty a week. No need making yourself sick, you know. How much weight you lost this summer?”

“Not much.”

Johnny flipped his cigarette away, slapped at a mosquito on his big bare brown arm. He leaned against the wall beside her. “Funny thing,” he said.

“What’s funny, Johnny?”

“When Scotty brought you up here from Jax and built this layout, we all sort of figured you for something different.”

“How, Johnny?”

“Well, you just didn’t look like the kind of woman to take to this kind of work, that’s all. We figured on you giving Scotty a bad time soon as the novelty sort of wore off. I guess we figured wrong.”

“Maybe you didn’t.”

He laughed again, softly in the night. “You’re too bull-headed stubborn to quit now. I don’t know as old Scotty would have made this place pay out, but I got a hunch you’re going to.”

“Scott would have made out,” said Ginny.

Johnny was frowning. Ginny could tell by his expression that he was thinking of the senseless traffic accident that had taken Scott’s life seven months ago.

Johnny wrapped his knuckles on the bar. “You use a cold beer? We got some over there.”

“Later on, maybe. When are you closing, Johnny?”

“Around eleven, I guess. Manuel’s taking off about eight to go see that gal of his. Look, Ginny. Manuel and I were talking it over the other day. We made the deal with Scotty on that room of yours we share. Scotty set it too low. It isn’t right we pay you so little. Manuel and I, we figure the fair thing to do is bump it about fifteen a month.”

“I don’t want any charity, Johnny.”

“Charity, hell! I’m talking about fair.”

“Let me think about it, Johnny.”

“No need thinking. You’re on summer rates now. When the season is on you get twelve a night for that room. Know what that is? Three hundred and sixty bucks a month.”

“And look how you’ve helped. All the little jobs I can’t do, Johnny. And think of what it would have cost me to have men come out from town. Last week you fixed the electric pump. And Manuel painting all those ceilings for nothing. Let’s not talk about it, Johnny. Please.”

“Okay, okay,” he said softly. He looked through the office window. “More business, Ginny.” She saw his shoulders stiffen. “It’s that guy from Jax. Ferris.” He moved toward the door. “Whistle when you can use that beer.”

She stood in the doorway, heard Johnny Benton and Don Ferris say “Hi” to each other with exaggerated casualness. Don came to the doorway, held her arms tightly, kissed her on the cheek. “Hello, darling,” he said.

“Hello, Don. Surprise visit?”