Мэри Эндрюс - The Newcomer

It was two ten-dollar bills. “Oh no,” Letty said. It was her turn to be embarrassed. “That’s not necessary, not at all.”

“Sure it is,” Arlene said, waving away Letty’s objections. “My security deposit is five hundred bucks. And I’m pretty sure Ava didn’t hire you to do plumbing work.”

“I’m here to do whatever needs doing,” Letty said, trying to hand the money back. “Please, I can’t take this.”

“Maya,” Arlene addressed the little girl. “Hold out your hand.”

“Okay.” The girl grinned as Arlene closed her chubby fingers over the cash. “You two run along now. And thanks a million.”

Letty had devised a system for completing the flyer mailing. She folded each flyer in three, inserted the rate card, affixed a preprinted mailing label to the front, then handed it off to Maya, whose sole responsibility was stapling the flyers together. The little girl chortled gleefully each time she mashed the glossy paper beneath the stapler.

Letty was so absorbed in her task she lost track of time until the door chimed again and Joe walked in, carrying a large cardboard carton. He glanced around the room. “Where’s my mom?”

“She had a dentist’s appointment and a coffee date. She said she’ll be back before lunch,” Letty said.

He walked around and joined them behind the counter, setting the box on a console table and ripping it open with a box cutter. He lifted out a bulky package wrapped in a plastic foam cube.

“I picked up her new printer,” he said, cutting away the foam. “I’m just gonna go ahead and set it up now, because otherwise I’ll have to come back and do it after I get off work tonight.”

“You’re on duty?” Letty asked. “Isn’t that against the rules or something?”

“We’re a small department. My sergeant knows where I am and he knows how to find me,” Joe said. He cleared a stack of file folders from the console top, set the printer up, and began plugging cables into the back of the printer, and then into the wall socket.

He tapped some buttons on the printer’s control panel and nodded in satisfaction when it lit up. “There’s paper on the shelf in the supply room,” he told Letty. “Grab a stack and let’s see how it works.”

She found the paper and inserted it into the printing tray. Joe sat at the computer monitor and typed, and a moment later the printer whirred to life.

“Good,” he said, nodding. He looked down at Maya, who was trying out the stapler on the discarded blocks of foam. “Hey, I recognize that table and chair.”

“Ava said they used to be your sister’s.”

“But they were mine first,” Joe said. “She used to sit me there while she worked. I watched a lot of television sitting at that table. Ate a lot of baloney sandwiches there too.”

“How nice,” Letty said. She picked up a stack of flyers and began folding them, hoping he’d get the signal that she was very, very busy.

“Where’d you grow up?” he asked. “I swear, just now when you said ‘How nice’ I detected a Southern accent.”

“We moved around a lot when I was a kid. Tennessee and West Virginia, places like that,” Letty said, being deliberately vague. “Could you hand me those rate cards over there?”

She wished he’d go.

“Were your parents from the South?”

“She was, but he wasn’t. They split up when I was little.”

“My old man took off when I was seven,” Joe volunteered.

Despite herself, Letty found herself curious about this cop’s background. Maybe if she asked the questions he’d be so distracted he’d forget to interview her.

“Your mom told me your folks bought this place when you were a baby. What was that like? Growing up, living in a motel?”

“Until I went to high school, I thought everybody lived like this,” Joe said, gesturing around the small office. “Especially after my old man left, there was always a lot to do around here. I started off emptying garbage cans, cleaning the pool, sweeping the breezeways. When I got a little taller, Ava had me mowing the grass, painting, washing windows.”

“Had your family always been in the motel business?”

“No. My dad sold cars for a living. The folks came down here from Michigan on vacation one January, Mom said they thought they’d found paradise. The water was blue and the sun was shining. My dad told her he never wanted to see another snow shovel for as long as he lived. According to her, he was always full of big ideas. They were staying at a little tourist court up the road from here, and one day he spotted the for-sale sign out front of the Murmuring Surf. Without consulting her he borrowed money from his folks and hers, did some fast talking to the previous owners, the Doughertys, and next thing Mom knew, they were in the motel business.”

“And she stayed on, running the place, after he split?” Letty asked.

“She didn’t have much of a choice. My old man met a cocktail waitress over at Derby Lane, that was the local greyhound track, and the next thing Mom knew, even though she’d always been a housewife until they moved down here to Florida, she was running a motel and raising a kid.”

“Must have been tough,” Letty said.

“She’s a tough lady,” Joe said. “But she’s a soft touch for a sob story. Which is why I try to run interference when I can. Because people take advantage.” He gave her a hard stare.

Letty stared right back. “I don’t have a sob story. I’m just trying to live my life and take care of my niece. Is that some kind of a crime?”

“You tell me,” he said.

The door chimed. Ava breezed in with an armload of grocery bags. “I’m back.”

She looked from Letty to her son. “Everything okay here?”

“I met Mr. and Mrs. Maples,” Letty said. “They came in to tell you they want first dibs on the Sheehans’ unit.”

“Here we go,” Joe said. “Musical motel units.”

“I also met Arlene, the lady in the mint-green unit? Her tub was stopped up, but I took care of it.”

Joe looked skeptical. “What’d you do?”

“I got a plunger and the plumber’s snake and I extracted a huge hairball from the drain,” Letty said.

“Good work,” Ava said, beaming at her new employee.

“Speaking of work, I gotta get back to mine,” Joe said. “I hooked up your new printer.”

“Did you show Letty that new software, so she can teach me how to use it?” Ava asked.

“No time today,” Joe said.

11

“HI MOM!” ISABELLE DECURTIS DROPPED her backpack on the reception desk. She pretended to be surprised when she spotted the small person busily coloring at the miniature red table.

“Who’s this?”

Maya looked up, giving a shy smile. “I’m Maya. I’m four.”

“Hey!” the teenager said, kneeling down beside her. “I’m Isabelle and I’m almost eighteen.” She pointed to the “cover” of the booklet Maya had stapled together.

The picture showed a small stick figure with a headful of vivid yellow circles, holding hands with a taller figure with flowing golden tresses, spiky black eyelashes, and cartoonish high heels.

“Did you draw this?” Isabelle asked, her eyes widening in admiration.

Maya nodded.

“No way!” Isabelle exclaimed. She tapped the smaller figure. “Is this you?”

“Me and Mommy,” Maya said. “We’re going to a birthday party.”

Isabelle looked up at Letty, and then at her own mother.

“Will they have cake at the birthday party?” Isabelle asked.

“Uh-huh. Pink cake. And pink candles. And pink balloons,” Maya said.

“Whose birthday is it?”

Maya pointed at Letty with her purple crayon. “It’s Letty Spaghetti’s birthday!”