She smiled and took another sip of coffee.
"Y'know, the rents in Palm Springs are unbelievable," she said. "The place where we're going to work charges a hundred and fifty dollars a night for two people." She laughed. "That's why we're waiting in Banning for the job to open up!"
Mrs. Godwin wasn't the only one who considered the Palm Springs rates of rental too high. One night a thin, brisk little man came into the office and asked mildly what our rates were. As soon as I told him he began to fill in a registration card, and while he wrote, he talked.
I had become expert at reading names upside down as they were being written, partly so that I could flatter and surprise customers by calling them by name immediately, and partly so that I could write down at once on my list which cabin had been rented by whom.
This, I learned, was a Mr. Frank B. Shannon, and I wrote his name after the number of the cabin he would occupy that night.
"I've just come back from a vacation in Florida," he said. "Thought I'd stay in Palm Springs, but I'd have had to mortgage my home, sell my car, and take all my money out of the bank, just to stay there one week."
His tone wasn't particularly bitter, but, for the sake of making conversation, I remarked,
"You don't seem to care much for Palm Springs, Mr. Shannon."
He laughed, and replied, "Well, I am rather tired of the place. I was mayor there for seventeen years!"