While he slept, I lay there and thought about going into the motel business. Grant could quit his job at General Motors, and together we could keep the cabins clean and the place looking its best. The more I thought about it, the more excited I became.
In the morning we drove into the business district of Banning, about a mile from the Moonrise Motel, and went into Pillyer's cafe, for breakfast. Pillyer was a thin, stooped old man with an embittered expression and a few lonely hairs on a broad expanse of skull.
"What's he mad about, Mama?" David whispered, when Pillyer had taken our orders and disappeared into the dim regions beyond the counter.
"Probably because everyone calls him Pill," I ventured.
Grant shifted Donna onto his other knee, feeling her diaper gingerly. He took a sip of water, and drummed his lean fingers on the counter.
"How would you like to go into the motel business?" he asked me.
I gasped for air.
"I've been figuring," he said. "Why, I'll bet a horned toad the Moonrise takes in two thousand a month. Say they want fifty thousand for the place, it would just about pay itself off, interest and expenses and all, in three years. It sounds pretty good to me. What do you think--shall we look into it?"
As I said, our going into the motel business was all Grant's idea.
While Donna took her nap that afternoon, and David alternately dug in the gravel and drew out from his mouth for inspection a long string of gum, we lay in the sunshine on one of the green islands and talked feverishly. Grant had been wanting to get away from factory work; for a year he had been looking around in his spare time for a profitable business. He had wanted an automobile agency or a farm implement agency, but now he was willing to give up those plans in favor of getting a motel. Ever since our marriage six years ago we had saved our money; aside from our house and furniture, our only big expenses had been David, born five years ago, and Donna, born one year ago. We hoped that what we had saved--five thousand dollars--would be enough for a down payment on a motel.