By this time I had found the doorknob, and I hurried out of the room. The old lady's stage whisper followed me: "I'm Mrs. Bradley. You must come back to see me soon, when my baby is born."
The election of officers was held later that evening. Mr. Cruz of the Rosarita Motel was to be president and I, it developed, was to be permanent secretary. I was relieved to hear that the next meeting was not to be at the Bradley's motel.
Every evening while we are eating dinner we keep the light turned out in the living room. My chair is placed at the end of the kitchen table nearest the range and sink, so that I am in the most strategic position possible for mopping up whatever food Donna spills, for catching David's plate on one of its sudden trips to the floor, and for serving hot second helpings from the covered pans that are simmering on the stove. (I never put all the food on the table; it would just get cold before we would be able to finish eating it, because of our many interruptions.) My position at the table is strategic in another way, too. I face the door to the living room and the moment a car drives in its lights shine through our Venetian blinds and form stripes on the wall of the darkened living room. (Months of experience have taught me the difference in angle and appearance between the stripes cast by the headlights of cars going into Moe's and those driving into our driveway). When a car drives in I tell Grant, who sits in the chair nearest the doorway, with his back toward the living room. As long as we have been at the Moonrise Motel, I don't believe Grant has eaten one evening meal without having to get up and rent a cabin or talk to someone, while the food on his plate loses its heat and its savor.
As for me, I don't believe I have ever washed dishes after dinner without having to stop once or twice, dry my hands, answer the doorbell and be a gracious landlady, and then go back and dip my dry hands into the unappetizing dish water again. Grant usually chooses this period of the day to shave, and it is easier for me to go to the door in the middle of dishwashing than it is for him to wipe off every trace of shaving cream and go.
The actual work connected with the motel seems easier now than it did at first--and, of course, that isn't surprising, since we do very little of it ourselves. Mrs. Clark cleans the cabins thoroughly every day, and after she has stripped all the beds Grant and I whisk through the laundry, getting it sorted and ready to go in about half an hour. About once a week Grant works with Mrs. Clark, and they give the cabins a very thorough cleaning, vacuuming under the beds, washing windows, and doing all the other little jobs that don't have to be done every day. Occasionally he does a little redecorating, painting a bathroom or repairing the damage done to the side of a garage when a car was backed out carelessly--and on such days it is my job to get the laundry out alone.
Watering, a big job in the summer time, can be practically forgotten about during the winter.
The last task before bedtime is to go around and check all the license numbers, to be sure that we have the correct ones. This is a safeguard in case of theft or damage to the cabins.
A typical day, with enough work of different kinds to keep us busy, but seldom enough to make us tired, and with the opportunity for meeting people from all parts of the country, is very interesting. The typical customer, however, is not. He is, in most cases, rather boring--not through any fault of his own, but because I know in advance exactly how he is going to behave and what he is going to say.
He comes in saying, "Got a vacancy?" After seeing and approving the cabin, if he wanted to look at it, he fills out the registration blank, omitting everything but his name and city and state. Prodded, he adds his address, fuming with belated alarm over the fact that he has written his home state immediately after the name of his town, in the blank left for "city," instead of putting it in its own blank space, labelled "state." Assured that it doesn't matter, he proceeds to the greatest hurdle of all--his car license. Laughing apologetically, he fingers through the papers in his wallet, trying to find it recorded on one or the other of his papers. Giving up at last, he darts outside, looks at his license, darts back in and writes it down quickly before he can forget it. Then he comments at some length on his persistent inability to remember his car license. I always smirk and assure him that I've never been able to remember ours, either (a lie). Having paid and obtained his key, he lingers a few minutes to comment on the travels he has made, the distance he has covered, and how tired he is; and to ask where's a good place to eat.
That's the typical customer. But there are a lot of unusual, amazing, intriguing, uncouth, and even frightening customers, and it's in the hope of encountering one of these that, when neither of us is busy, I fight to beat Grant to the door when a car drives in.