Page 5 of Happy After All

Not that it’s all gritty.

Maybe he’s returning because I kept his secret. I didn’t broadcast to all and sundry that A Very FamousNew York TimesBestselling Author Who Happens to Also Be Sexy had stayed in my motel while writing a book, and honestly, I could have. It might have been good for the motel.

His newest book released in May, right before he was due to show up the second time, and I bought it to put in the motel lobby becausesomedayI’ll tell the world he wrote some of it here.

I read the back to see if it was set in Rancho Encanto, or a town that looked like it, but no. It’s set in the Pacific Northwest.

When he walks into the lobby and our eyes meet, I have to come to terms with the fact that his return likely has nothing to do with meat all. He seems almost furious that I’m at the check-in desk, which is weird because I’m a goddamn delight actually, and his options are limited either way.

The only other person who ever works the desk is my friend and new tenant, Elise, who lives in the motel with her daughter.

Elise seems to have an endless well of energy. She’s everything, everywhere, all at once. Always with a perfect manicure.

I’m supporting local businesses,she says whenever she shows up with a new sparkling set of nails.

Elise is the reason this summer started to feel possible. She moved in at the beginning of January, and I hired her to help me in February. She used to work full-time at Get Your Kicks Diner, but working at the motel gives her better hours and keeps her close to her daughter, and she’s given me an emotional link I didn’t know I was missing.

A reason to stay that isn’t just ... it was the place I ran away to.

I mark him as checked in, and I take out the key. This time I set it on the counter in front of him. He puts his hand over the top of it, and I can’t help but notice how big his hand is.

I haven’t felt anything like electricity since the last time I saw him. I’ve been working, and I’ve been happy—mostly.

I’m starting to feel more connected with people in town. I’m getting involved in different community organization efforts and small-business coalitions.

I don’t need electricity. I’ve disavowed it, in fact.

But looking at his hand makes me miss it.

Before he can leave, I take out my printed handout and press it onto the counter with purpose. “This is general information about Rancho Encanto, including restaurants that offer delivery.” He stares at me blankly. “And this”—I take out another paper and put it on top of the other—“is the itinerary for the week. A new one will be available in the office every Sunday and will offer information on events happening at the Pink Flamingo.”

“Do I have to take those?” he asks.

I want to say yes. To see what he’ll do. Unfortunately, I’m not that wedded to testing him, and also I’m supposed to be engaged in customer service, which means behaving in a manner that suggests the customer is always right, even when the customer is being silly.

Now, I’m also the owner of the motel, so I can do whatever I want. I can disenfranchise a customer if I feel like it, but I really shouldn’t disenfranchise a famous customer whose stay last year was very helpful to me the whole following year and whose repeated business would be a big help into the next year.

So I don’t say he has to. Instead, I smile and pull them back. “Of course not.”

He turns and walks out of the lobby, leaving me there feeling ...

Affected.

I don’t indulge myself. I remember a conversation I had with Alice—one of my nonagenarian long-term residents—just the other day.

Alice was married for fifty-seven years. She’s been widowed now for twenty. A couple of months ago I asked her if she’d ever marry again.

She’d smiled, serene, her chin-length white hair ruffling in the breeze. “No.”

“Because you loved Marty so much?”

She’d laughed. “I did love him. But that isn’t why. We married so young, we were flexible. Like saplings. Two young trees who bent around each other as they grew. Well, I’m a mighty oak now, Amelia. And I can’t bend. Not again. Not for anyone else.”

Alice is broad in all ways. Her smile is broad, her shoulders are broad, and so are her gestures. Age hasn’t shrunk her or made her demure. I want to claim that energy for myself without waiting sixty years to do it.

I claim it now.

I get my word count for the day in the comfort of the lobby, fielding the occasional guest request, and once the sun starts to go down, I head into the courtyard, where most of my long-term residents have assembled for their evening social.

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