Authors Note: Motel Summer is a series of stories loosely linked together by a common set of characters and situation. Each story is (or will be) thematically distinct and can be read on its own.
This one goes from the sublime to the ridiculous, trading poetry for economics.
During the summer after my sophomore year in college, I decided to stay in town over the break and take some general ed courses to ease my workload in the fall. My landlady wanted to renovate the house I was renting with my buddies, and, since she owned a decent motel, she gave me a room there while she was renovating.
Good housekeeping is the foundation of a good life, my mother always told me.
My first week at the motel had been eventful, but when Monday rolled around it seemed like I was poised to fall back into the grind. I had a good job at a local bicycle shop, where the owner was teaching me the ins-and-outs of assembly and repair. And I had a pair of English lit courses at the college.
I think I may have been a bit down. My encounter with Sara had been a whirlwind of passion, excitement, lust, and infatuation. Couple that with a healthy dose of concern over our failure to use birth control, with evidence aplenty (in the form of two very young daughters) that at least
her
plumbing works, and I had a heady cocktail to keep my imagination spinning.
By Wednesday, though, I was ready to shake off the fugue. I couldn't do anything about the situation and on Wednesdays I didn't have class or work. I decided it was time to catch up on laundry. Unlike the house, the motel didn't have a setup for guests to wash things and they sent all their towels and sheets out to a service. I knew there was a laundromat near work, so I packed up all my dirty clothes up into a duffel and pedaled over.
The place was a hole in the wall, with ten washers and four huge dryers. I fired up a couple loads and sat down with my next reading assignment, Whitman's
Leaves of Grass
, to keep me company.
I was just getting settled when a perky gal came in to do her own stuff. She came with four identical white plastic baskets jammed up under her chin. Each was piled to overflowing with dirty clothes. Her setup was practiced and boom-boom-boom she had four washers fired up and going.
Her mission accomplished, she spun on her heels and walked out.
When my loads were done, I shifted them into one of the dryers. That's when I realized I didn't have any quarters left and the change machine seemed out of order. I peered out the front door and decided to go across the street to the liquor store to get change.
It took me a bit of time to negotiate changing some bills into quarters--apparently the owner was peeved with the laundromat guy for not fixing his change-making machine.
When I returned, Perky Gal was there, just firing off the fourth (and last) dryer. All four dryers were running and all of my clean wet clothes were sitting on a bench.
"Hey, um, no fair. I had that dryer."
"It wasn't running and you weren't here."
"I had to get change from across the street. The machine isn't working."
"Ya snooze, ya lose." She turned to go wherever she'd gone during the laundry cycle.
"Ah, so as soon as you go I can toss your lacy personal items on the bench and bogart the dryer for myself?"
"No, that would be stealing, since my coins are operating the dryer. Don't you understand the laundromat code?"
"I might be a dryer bandito. You can never tell in these one-horse towns."
"I don't think the ambulance will pick up your laundry or that bicycle."
"I suppose. But you might have consolidated. That's probably why there are fewer dryers than washers: the dryers can hold more stuff."
"I'm an economics major and I'm fairly sure this is a case of inefficient allocation. Also, I'm doing my roommates' laundry and I hate when our shit gets mixed up. You know, the whole 'sock that's not quite the same color' problem? Hate that."
"I hate that too, on the other hand, I don't think my stuff would blend in with your roommates. And since you're an economist, you'll understand how the value I put on my time might lead to a rent seeking opportunity for you."
"Careful. You might hurt yourself using those technical terms. I'm Lidia, by the way. You want to get some coffee?"
There were two weekday housekeepers at the hotel. There was an Hispanic lady, Elena, who seemed to do the bulk of the work. I think it was supposed to be split evenly, but Elena seemed to be done with her share before the other gal was even out of the starting blocks.
The other housekeeper had a name tag that said "Caryn" and she must have been a local. I think the job was a gift of the night manager, who was something like her third cousin--and she treated the work with disrespect. My first week there, I kept hearing Elena chewing her out for cutting corners on the small number of rooms she did manage to finish.
One of the rooms that Caryn made up every day was mine. My building was at the back of the property and usually she'd start on the room at the other end of the building and work her way to mine. That gave her maximum flake time because you couldn't really see the building from elsewhere on the property.
Thus, on Monday, I wasn't fretting about the need to hang the do-not-disturb sign when I hopped in the shower. It'd be noon before she even got close. I even left the bathroom door open to let the steam out. Instead I was shocked when, without warning, the front door of my room burst open and she strolled into my room mid-shower.
The scuzzy translucent curtain in the tub probably obscured me from casual viewing, but I still felt exposed by the sudden daylight spilling in from the front door. I could barely make out the housekeeper's form silhouetted in the light.
"Uh... hi. I'm not ready for housekeeping," I called out to her. I was rinsed off, so I reached out from behind the curtain for the towel.
"Hey, I can see that. Don't mind me." The front door shut again, which was good. If I'd thought the towels were kind of stingy before, now it felt like I was wielding a washcloth. It wasn't long enough to wrap around my waist and I didn't need to flash the neighbors.
Still dripping due to the inadequate towel, I stepped out to look for my boxer briefs, which was when I realized that she was still standing there, inside my room.
"Hey, I had you figured for a boxers kind of guy," she said. She was quite obviously checking me out. Sheesh. So much for playing it cool. What was she doing, still in my room?
"Sometimes, but I like these on the bike more. Keeps the package in place." Was I having this conversation? Why was I having this conversation?
"Hey, I see you haven't broken into the protection." She indicated the unopened box of condoms on my nightstand. "I thought you were boning the chick in 302." She meant Sara.
"I'm not sure it's any of your business?"
"Hey, just don't put any down the toilet. Krista gets pissy when they plug up the plumbing. And I'm not a big fan of the mess it makes either." Krista must be her cousin the night manager. Why did she keep saying "hey"?
