Sarah Zettel: Dust girl

“What? Nonsense. Have you told her we can pay?”

“Well? What of it?” the man snapped at me. “We’re not a passel of Okies, as you can see. How much for your best rooms?” With that, he yanked a roll of bills bigger than my fist out of his pocket. “Will this be sufficient?” Those thick fingers peeled off a fifty.

“I…”

He peeled off a second bill and slapped both down onto my palm. “That should be more than enough.”

A hundred dollars. My fingers curled over the bills to protect them from the wind. That was a hundred dollars in my hand. I’d never seen that much money, let alone touched it, not even when I was a little kid back before the Crash.

What I did next was about the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life.

“Sir, I’m sorry. There’s only me here. I couldn’t give you the kind of service you expect for a hundred dollars.” I held the bills out. Can your hand feel like it’s going to cry? ’Cause I swear mine did. “But you’re welcome to stay till the storm’s over.” You didn’t send anybody away in a duster, not strange Indians, not rich folks in big cars.

“Hmph!” He took those fifties back. “I’ll have you know, girl, I’m a businessman and I don’t take charity. I’m giving you a chance to make something. You give us the best you’ve got for one night, food and rooms complete, and you’ll get not one hundred, not one-twenty, but one hundred and fifty dollars.” He held up the bills. “What do you say?”

What did I say? A hundred and fifty dollars could get me to California and back again and keep me fine while I was out there. Maybe I could even hire a detective like in the movies, to help find Mama.

My shoulders squared. If this man didn’t want charity, he wouldn’t get it. “I’ll need fifty up front so I can lay in supplies for the night.”

“That’s the spirit!” The man slapped a fifty into my palm and shook my hand doing it. The bill was new and crisp. It crackled as my fist closed around it.

“Irma!” He opened the front passenger-side door of that shiny car. “Children! Come, my dears! We’re staying.”

The entire family piled out, every last one of them done up as fine as could be. There was a tall, fair-haired boy in a white suit and straw hat, just like his father. After him came a thin, willowy girl, wearing a summer dress with a bright green sash and a pleated skirt. Her hat and shoes matched the sash. The next-in-line boy wasn’t out of short pants yet. His blond curls peeked out from under his flat-brimmed cap, and he had freckles all across his stubby nose. The youngest girl held tight to her sister with one hand. In the other, she clutched a blue-eyed doll in an emerald satin dress nicer than anything I’d ever owned. Every last one of them wore the same kind of thick, round spectacles that made their eyes too big and too dark for their sharp faces.

The man’s chest swelled with pride at the sight of them. “Now, young lady, you see before you the proud Hopper clan. My wife, Irma. My heir apparent, Hunter. That fine strapping lad with him is William. This lovely lady is Letitia, and this is our little Clarinda.” Mr. Hopper waved his hand at me. “My own, this plucky young lady is offering us the run of her fine establishment for the night, and hot, home-cooked meals in the bargain.”

I looked at the Hopper kids, and the kids looked back at me, their spectacles glittering even in the dust-filtered light. I saw their tidy white-and-green clothing and tried not to tug at my own too-small, dirt-smeared, used-to-be-yellow dress.

“Won’t you come in?” I led the Hopper family into the lobby and shut the door tight behind them. I hoped they didn’t notice how the dust had already drifted up against the registration desk and the foot of the stairs.

But it looked like I didn’t have to worry. “Well, this will be charming. Just charming.” Mrs. Hopper smiled at the carpet and the curving staircase and the chandelier under its cloth cover. “We certainly didn’t expect to find such a lovely hotel. We were getting ready to sleep in a hay barn, weren’t we, Desmond?”

“Exactly!” he cried. I tried to picture these clean, rich folks bedding down like hobos and couldn’t do it. It wasn’t right. I mean, it was okay for people who were used to it, but not folks like this. “But we are all rescued. Now… Miss…?”

“Callie.” I ran around the desk, opened the registration book, and rummaged in the drawer for the fountain pen. If I was going to do this, I was going to do it right. Mama would expect it. “If you’ll just sign in, Mr. Hopper?”

“Excellent!” Mr. Hopper signed the book with a flourish.

Little Clarinda was staring all around at the stairs and the lobby and the covered chandelier, inching closer and closer to her sister the whole time. “I’m hungry!” she announced in a high, piping voice.

“Yes, honey pie.” Her mama smoothed her yellow corkscrew curls and idly straightened her big green hair bow. “We’ll be eating soon. I promise.”

I swallowed, wondering how I was going to feed the Hopper tribe, and tried to keep my brain on the job right in front of me.

“If you’ll follow me? You can wait in the parlor while I get your rooms ready.”

All six Hoppers followed me down the carpeted hallway, with Mrs. Hopper murmuring “Charming, charming” every few feet. I pushed open the door to the ladies’ parlor.

“Please, make yourselves at home.” I hurried around, pulling dustcovers off the furniture and piling the dishes from my lunch with Baya on the tray. It felt like he’d left a million years ago. The Hoppers filling the parlor seemed to wipe out all sense of him, like the sun wipes out a dream. “I’ll go see about those rooms.”

Mrs. Hopper looked around with bright eyes, taking in all the details. “Charming,” she said again, and gave me her warm smile. I’d never seen a lady like her, not in real life anyway. She was so neat and pretty, like a movie star. She carried herself as if she’d never had to worry about anything and didn’t want you to have to either. “So unexpected and so charming.”

I blushed and hurried out.

It was a kind of relief to have my head fill up with details of taking care of guests. It pushed out all the weird things that had happened and made everything real and everyday again. Even the rattling windows and the groaning walls were familiar. It was the season for high winds, after all.

The best suites were on the second floor. Those had their own sitting rooms and baths. Mr. and Mrs. Hopper could have one room and share the bath and sitter with the girls, while the boys could have the suite across the hall. I pulled tape off doors and the heavy dust cloths off furniture. I had to run to the linen cupboard to get the big laundry bag to stuff the cloths in. None of the beds were made, so it was back to the linen cupboard for pillows, sheets, and blankets. Perspiration poured off me by the time I finished with the last bed, and I had to keep wiping my face on the maid’s apron I’d wrapped around me, to keep from dripping on everything. It must have been almost nighttime, but the air wasn’t getting any cooler, and I didn’t dare open a window for the breeze because it would bring the dust in.

As I tucked in the last hospital corner on what I figured would be the boys’ beds, I heard a scraping noise and whirled around. Clarinda Hopper peered in the door from the sitting room. She’d tilted her head all the way sideways like little kids can, so I could just see her spectacles, nose, and upper lip around the door frame.

“Can I get you something, Miss Clarinda?”

Her upper lip twitched, like she was maybe trying to smile. Then she was gone except for the sound of her patent-leather shoes thudding on the carpet.