Four and Twenty Beds. Nancy Casteel Vogel
that time Grandma noticed that there was a car outside, and that a fat, middle-aged couple were getting out of it. She came rushing into the kitchen with that near panic that always overcomes her when customers approach, even when she knows perfectly well she won't have to talk to them.
"My land, here's a customer! Come on, come on!" She hurried into the kitchen, her black eyes sparkling with excitement in her unwrinkled face.
I gasped with what I hoped sounded like dismay. "A customer? Oh, dear, and I was just getting ready to take a shower! See, I'm in my slip. I can't possibly wait on them like this. You'll have to do it, I'm afraid."
"Good Godfrey Mighty," Grandma breathed. "I can't–"
The doorbell pealed a strident summons.
"My God!" exclaimed Grandma. "What am I gonna do?" Grandma, to my great regret and mortification, swears. She insists that she doesn't, and that she hasn't uttered a single word that would be inappropriate at a Ladies' Aid meeting, since two years ago when she made a New Year's resolution to stop swearing. Actually, that resolution proved to be only the mildest sort of damper on her powers of expression; but she maintains that she no longer swears. The only time she'll admit it is when she's caught in the act, and confronted with the echo of what she has said. And even at such times, she tries to persuade me that, with the exception of that one time …
The doorbell rang again, more insistently. Grandma's black eyes darted around with lightning speed. Whether she was looking for my dress, or for a means of escape, I didn't know.
"Go ahead," I prodded. "I've explained to you how to do it. You know where the keys are, and what we charge for each cabin."
Grandma gave a low moan and started for the office. I sat down again, still in my slip, and chuckled. I glanced at the book I had been reading, but I strained to hear what was going on in the office. I could hear only a low rumble of voices.
Well, she could tell me all about it afterward. I tucked one leg under me on the kitchen chair, fingered the satiny material of my slip, and began reading my book again.
I was absorbed in a faintly lavender passage in the book when suddenly I realized that I was not alone. There, in the doorway of the kitchen, stood a middle-aged couple, their eyes busily engaged in examining my slip and the broad expanses of skin above and below it.
"There she is," Grandma, behind them, was saying weakly. "I'm new here–she knows how to rent cabins–she's the owner–I ain't–Godfrey, I don't know how–" Her voice tapered off. She gave a despairing little bleat, and disappeared.
I clutched the book to my bosom, and began moving my feet under the table, hoping perhaps I could hook my dress on one of them.
"Er–uh–you wanted to rent a cabin?" I asked, with as much poise as I could muster under the circumstances.
"Well, I must say!" exclaimed the middle-aged woman, finding her voice at last. "Well, I never. Indeed, no, we do not wish to rent a cabin. Come, Horace."
And she swirled out the door, Horace behind her.
Grandma was abject. We had quite a discussion while I put my dress back on.
"You wouldn't come," she kept protesting, rather feebly. She rubbed the burn scars on her arms–scars that, in spite of her years of experience with irons and mangles and press machines, she reinforces frequently with fresh burns. "I see you wasn't coming, so–"
"Something on the order of 'Mohammed won't go to the mountain, so the mountain must come to Mohammed'?" I asked bitterly.
But I couldn't be too harsh with her. After all, it was due to my own scheming that she had found herself in a position so terrifying that she had put me in a worse one. However, as I zipped up my dress, I made a little promise to myself that I would never again try to make Grandma do anything she didn't want to do.
One thing she never minded doing was taking care of the children whenever I wanted to go anywhere. Or, when all the cabins were filled and our "no vacancy" sign was on, Grant and I could go away for one of our rare respites from the motel business.
Unless the cabins were full, and Grant could leave also, it didn't do me much good that there was someone to take care of the children, unless I felt like walking in the hot sun three quarters of a mile to town. I didn't know how to drive the car. There was no reason why I shouldn't learn, though, I decided. Now we were out of Los Angeles with its traffic and its careless drivers; there was a little, seldom-used country road–Williams street–way out behind our cabins, at the end of our land, which had probably been designed specifically for beginners to practice driving upon.
Grant explained the rudiments of driving to me. I learned to tell the gear shift lever, the clutch and the brake apart. All this, and my first experiments with making the car go, had to be done in the driveways leading to our various cabins, since a customer might arrive at any moment–and Grandma, as I well knew, would not be able to cope with such a situation. Obviously, my opportunities for practicing there, with Grant beside me to instruct and to point out my errors, were limited. When I thought I had the idea pretty well, I drove alone out our rocky driveway that extended along the side of our land behind the cabins, onto Williams street.
It was my first solo flight, and I was full of pride as the car bounced over the rocks. A glimpse into the mirror showed me that Grant and Grandma and David were standing in front of our cabin, watching me, their eyes shaded from the hot sunlight by their hands. Their faces, I assured myself smugly, were alight with admiration–although of course I couldn't see their expressions that far away.
At the end of our little private road there was a small ditch, and just beyond it was a sudden steep rise. I'd have to get out here and do some hoeing, I reflected, clinging desperately to the steering wheel as the car forged ahead over the obstacles.
And then I was on the road. I turned the car to the left, waved airily so that my tiny, faraway audience could see how well I was doing, and stepped harder on the gas until I was racing along at eighteen miles an hour.
Well, so far so good. But I recalled what I had said to Grant just before taking off–"In order to really learn to handle the car, what should I do besides just driving down the road?"
"You split an infilitive, Mama," David said reproachfully.
"Back it up, turn around in the road, pretend you're parking between two cars," Grant said.
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