Мэри Эндрюс: The Newcomer

“Excuse me,” she said, not bothering to turn around, race-walking toward the motel office. It wasn’t just Maya who needed a bathroom now.

She glanced backward just as she reached the door. The cop was standing by the Kia, hands on his hips, watching.

Letty yanked the plate-glass door open and an unseen electronic bell dinged. There was a front counter, with a blond fiftyish-looking woman standing behind it, talking into the phone. She looked up and frowned.

“Are you the owner of that Kia out there?” the woman asked. “I’m just getting ready to call for a tow truck.”

“Bathroom,” Letty said tersely. “Please? My little girl…”

“Pee-pee,” Maya wailed, right on cue. The kid’s timing was flawless. Like her mother’s, Letty thought ruefully.

The woman paused, then shrugged and pointed to a narrow hallway. “Right there. But it’s for motel guests only.”

“Fine,” Letty said, hurrying toward the bathroom door.

She took her time in the bathroom, first washing Maya’s tearstained face and hands, finger-combing the damp curls, then doing her best to try to make herself look, as Mimi would have said, “respectable.”

Letty sat Maya on the closed toilet seat. She washed her own hands, then splashed water on her face and neck before gathering her straight brown hair into a ponytail. She fished lipstick from her purse, which was bulging with all the last-minute items she’d tossed in before fleeing the city.

She closed her eyes and tried to choke back the suffocating sense of panic she’d been seized with at the sight of that cop in the parking lot. Common sense told her she should back the Kia out of here and ride on down the road.

But.

That magazine article. There was something about this place that meant something to Tanya. Her sister was not particularly sentimental. She was not a saver of magazine articles. And yet, she had saved that article about this particular place. Why?

Breathe, Letty, she told herself. Inhale. Exhale.

When she opened her eyes again, the face that stared back from the bathroom mirror was pale and gaunt. Her hazel eyes were bloodshot, ringed with dark circles. She glanced down at the blue-and-white-striped T-shirt she’d grabbed from Tanya’s closet, after she’d realized her own white blouse bore a blood smear on the cuff.

“You look like you were rode hard and put up wet,” she muttered, unconsciously slipping into Mimi’s West Virginia twang. For the first time she noticed the price tag fluttering from beneath the sleeve of the shirt. She plucked it from the fabric. The designer brand was one she didn’t recognize, but the price took her breath away. Tanya had paid 325 dollars for this simple boat-necked blue-and-white-striped knit shirt, which she’d never even worn, and probably didn’t remember having bought. The walk-in closet in her sister’s town house was crammed with expensive clothes like this, many never worn.

Tears stung her eyes as she ripped the tag in half and stuffed it in her pocket.

“Letty?” Maya’s bright blue eyes studied her. “You crying?”

“No, baby,” Letty said, leaning down and kissing the child’s forehead. “I’m fine. We’re both gonna be fine. Let’s go talk to the nice lady about a room, okay?”

The nice lady was standing right outside the bathroom door, arms folded across her chest. The cop from the parking lot was standing next to her.

“Hi,” Letty said, forcing a weary smile. “Thanks so much for letting us use the bathroom. It was kind of an emergency.”

“You’re welcome,” the woman said. She wore a pink polo shirt tucked into high-waisted mom jeans. A name badge pinned to her collar said MURMURING SURF. MANAGER, AVA DECURTIS. Her ash-blond hair was worn in a short, bad perm. She nodded at the cop. “Joe tells me you said you’re looking for a room.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Letty said, deliberately laying on the Southern accent she’d worked so hard for so long to erase. “We don’t need anything fancy, just a clean place to sleep.”

“I’m sorry, but like the sign outside says, we’re full up.”

“I told her that,” Joe said. He’d removed his sunglasses, and if he weren’t busy being such a prick, Letty thought, he could actually be considered semi-hot.

“Yes,” Letty agreed. “He did tell me that. But I was hoping maybe somebody would be checking out this morning. We drove all night, and I haven’t slept in hours and hours. Are you sure you don’t have anything? I mean, at all?”

“I’m really sorry, hon, but if you’d called ahead, I could have told you we’re booked solid. It’s still high season, you know.”

“Oh.” Letty’s shoulders sagged and she felt like she’d been kicked in the gut.

“There’s probably rooms back up the road by the interstate,” Ava offered. “I could call Mark over at the Econo Lodge.”

Letty shook her head. “I really had my heart set on this place. I’ve heard so much about it, and I promised Maya we’d be at the beach.”

“It’s that doggone Southern Living article,” Ava said. “Forgotten motel, my ass. It’s been five years, and I’m still turning folks away.”

Joe the cop stared at her. “You’re not gonna find anything on the beach this time of year,” he said. “It’s March, and it’s Florida.”

“I realize that,” Letty said, fighting against the urge to kick him in the nuts. She sighed heavily. “I just … well, this place has some very special memories for my family.”

Once again, she’d slid into another persona. Was this the failed actress speaking now?

“Is that right?” Ava asked. “I’ve owned the Surf since the eighties. Maybe I know your family?”

“My mimi and granddaddy honeymooned here, but I guess maybe that would’ve been back in the sixties.” The lie was seamless. “Mimi used to tell us stories about swimming in the ocean … and eating shrimp at the seafood place down the street…”

“It’s the Gulf of Mexico,” Joe cut in. “And we still don’t have any rooms available.”

“Joe!” Ava said sternly. “Don’t be rude.” She knelt down and looked at Maya. “This sweet baby needs to be on the beach, don’t you, sweetheart?”

Maya batted her extraordinarily long, spiky dark lashes. She really had gotten all the very best DNA from the gene pool, Letty thought. “I wanna go swimmin’.”

“What’s your name, sweetheart?”

“Maya Abigail. And I am four years old, and I go to big-girl school.”

The manager was instantly besotted, Letty saw. Maya had that effect on people. Like her mother.

“They have a pool at the Econo Lodge,” Joe pointed out.

Ava stood up and looked around the motel lobby with a sigh. “Maybe the old storage unit?”

“Mom!”

Letty looked from Ava to Joe. “She’s your mom?”

“Guilty,” Ava said, giving her son a warning glance. “Look, we haven’t rented it out in years, because it’s the only efficiency unit in the place, and it’s tiny, but there’s nothing magical in there. Just a bunch of old broken lounge chairs and faded bedspreads and random junk I’ve been meaning to get rid of.…”

“As long as there’s a bed and a bathroom, I’m fine with small. I’m used to small,” Letty said, thinking of all the roach motel rooms she’d rented back in New York. She sounded desperate, but that was because she really was desperate.

“And who’s gonna haul away all that crap in there?” Joe demanded.

“I will,” Letty said.

“In that piece-of-shit Kia?”

Letty really, really wanted to kick him in the nuts. “I saw a dumpster in your parking lot.”

“That’s true,” Ava said. She glanced at her son, and then down at Maya, with her bedraggled stuffed toy elephant.