Pop! The purple skin splits and the slimy yellow-green inside pops out like a zombie eyeball, right into an empty bowl. The skins go into another bowl. No knife or peeler needed. It’s way easier than I thought.
We work until all the grapes are popped and my fingertips are numb. Mrs. Whitley shows me how she cooks the peeled grapes in a pot on the stove and then strains out the seeds. Then she mixes the skins back in with the grapes. When they cool a little, she adds sugar to make the filling. I hold the bowl while she scoops it into six pie crusts that she made before I came over.
I’m not sure who is going to eat six whole pies. The woman with the newspaper left a while ago and other than some other guy coming in for two coffees to go, there haven’t been any other customers.
I guess the motel being closed hasn’t been good for the Whitleys either.
“Business has been slow around here with all the problems at the motel,” says Mr. Whitley, like he read my mind. “But now that you’re here, we’re all feeling optimistic.”
“What problems?” I ask him.
“Oh, don’t bother her with all that, Phil. Anyway, at the end of the summer there’s a big grape festival over in Naples and lots of people will come to buy pies.”
The pies are in the oven but I don’t want to go back to the Jewel if someone is just going to put me to work. Working here is like being on vacation compared to the Jewel.
Mrs. Whitley has me wipe off the salt and pepper shakers on the tables with a damp cloth. I keep an eye on the motel parking lot while I work.
Around two o’clock a car pulls in.
A guest! I almost drop the pepper shaker I’m holding.
The car is kind of old looking. The words Just Married are painted in white on the rear windshield and there’s a giant white ribbon tied in a bow on the antenna.
Just Married!
“Go on over,” says Mrs. Whitley when she sees it. “I can’t compete with that.”
I pull out the money that Mom gave me for lunch but Mrs. Whitley shoos it away, then reaches into her apron pocket and hands me a crisp five-dollar bill.
“That plus lunch is more than fair for the work you put in today, Miriam.”
Five dollars! I’d have popped grapes for free, just to get away from the motel for a while.
“Thank you!” I yell, running out the door.
I get to Reception right behind the man and woman. They’re both wearing ripped jeans and matching T-shirts. No wedding dress. No tuxedo. Not even a bouquet of flowers.
Sammy must be taking a really long nap because Mom is alone behind the counter.
The two of them look around Reception and the man sighs.
“Do you have a room for tonight?” he asks.
Mom taps at the computer keyboard. “Yes,” she says, “it looks like we have one available.”
“They’re all —” I start to say but Mom cuts me off.
“How many nights?”
“Just one,” says the woman firmly. “We’re heading to Niagara Falls for our honeymoon but we’re just too tired to keep driving today.”
“That’ll be 55.95 plus tax for the night, with complimentary breakfast,” Mom tells her.
She digs into her pocket and pulls out a neon-orange wallet. Our first paying customer!
“Since it’s a special occasion,” Mom says, “we’ll upgrade you to a bigger room, no charge.” She hands them a key card. “Room 115, up the stairs outside and to the right.”
One room filled. And it’s not even check-in time yet.
Maria walks in as the couple goes back out to the parking lot.
“Your first huéspedes!” she says. “Felicidades!”
Our first guests. I add huéspedes and felicidades, which Maria says means congratulations, just like Mazel Tov, to my mental list.
“What about bride and groom?” I ask, even though that makes four words.
“Novia y novio,” Maria says. I’m going to need a notebook pretty soon.
Through the glass door, I watch the couple take a suitcase out of their trunk. I stare at the woman’s jeans and flip-flops.
A real bride in a sparkly white dress with a long train and a veil down to the floor would really help brighten things up around here.
6
——
The voice comes from under the laundry sink.
“Do you know where your dad is?”
Uncle Mordy’s legs stick out from underneath the sink. His shoes are off and he’s wearing the goofy pink flamingo socks that a student gave him. He’s on his back, trying to fix a leak in the pipe that connects the washing machine to the faucet. Sammy’s sitting a few feet away, playing with a set of toy wrenches, banging on a bucket lying on its side.
It’s really hot in here and I feel beads of sweat trickle down my nose.
“He’s in the storeroom, counting. Want me to get him?”
“Never mind.” Uncle Mordy grunts and lifts up his head. His face is dripping. “Hand me that hammer, would you?”
It’s been a whole week since we opened. The bride and groom are long gone. There was a teenager and his mother who were on a trip to look at colleges and stayed one night. And yesterday a tow truck pulled in a fancy yellow convertible that Uncle Mordy says costs twice what a teacher makes in a whole year. It broke down right outside of Greenvale and the man said he’s stuck here until the part he needs comes in, which could take two days. I’m hoping it takes longer.
You don’t need a degree in hotel management to know that things are not going well.
“Uncle Mordy,” I ask, “what does cooked the books mean?”
Uncle Mordy scoots out from under the sink. He grabs a rag from the toolbox and wipes his forehead.
“Where did you hear that?”
“I heard you and Dad talking about it last night. That the old owner cooked the books and that the place is practically bankrupt.” I don’t tell him how it scared me to hear the worry in Dad’s voice.
He sighs.
“I know I shouldn’t have been listening. But what does it mean?”
“It means the old owners faked the numbers in the accounts so the motel looked like it was making more money. They lied, to make the motel look like a better investment than it actually was.”
That doesn’t sound good.
“Hey, squirt,” says Uncle Mordy, frowning back at me. “Your mom and dad are working really hard to fix this mess. Me too. We’ll get the place fixed up and do some advertising on the highway.”
Last week, all I wanted was for this whole thing to fail and to go home. But hearing the worry in Dad’s voice and the hope in Mr. and Mrs. Whitley’s, now I’m not so sure.
“But what if it doesn’t work? What if we go bankrupt? Where will we live?”
“It’ll be okay, Miriam. Have a little faith in the power of hard work.”
I stare at my duct-taped sandal and think about how hard everyone’s worked since we got here, how little time anyone’s had for fun or anything else.
“But what if hard work isn’t enough?”
Uncle Mordy takes a bottle of water sitting next to the toolbox and pours half of it over his head. Sammy giggles.
“Then we’ll just need a miracle.”
“Really?” says Kate. “Where would you go?”
We’re walking down to the gas station to get popsicles, staying under the trees which are the only shade around. Kate’s been coming over after camp most days. She says she spends all day with her other friends and it’s fun to be with someone new for a change.
I told her about the fight my parents had last night, the one I could hear right through the wall between our rooms. Someone needs to tell them that old motels don’t have good soundproofing.
“That’s the thing. Dad said the only option is to move in with Bubbie
and Zaydie in New Jersey and Mom said no way and then Dad said that if she doesn’t want to move in with his parents then they have to find a way to get people to stay in the motel.”
“Bubbie and Zaydie?”
“My grandparents, on my dad’s side. It’s Yiddish.”
“Yiddish?”
“It’s an old language that the Jews used to speak in Europe. It’s part German, part Hebrew.”
“Cool. Do you speak it?”
“No. But my dad taught me some Yiddish insults.”
“Awesome. Teach me one?”
I think, trying to remember a good one.
“Shmendrik. It means fool.”
“Shmendrik,” Kate repeats. It’s funny hearing Yiddish come out of her mouth. “I’ll have to remember that the next time my brother is being a jerk.”
We squeeze around the old gas pumps and stand over the freezer case that sits right outside the door to the little store where people pay for gas, since the pumps are so ancient they don’t even take credit cards.
White wisps of coolness cover us as we open the sliding door. Kate chooses a red, white and blue rocket-shaped popsicle and I grab an ice cream sandwich, even though I know it’s so hot that the ice cream will ooze out the sides with every bite.
“Well, a lot of people come in for the Grape Festival at the beginning of September,” Kate says as we pay inside. “Even though it’s in Naples, people still come through Greenvale. The diner gets really busy and Grandma and Grandpa work until midnight some nights.”
“But that’s like six weeks away.”
“Yeah.”
We head back. There’s laundry hanging on a clothesline outside one of the houses — not just shirts and jeans but also underwear. I try to imagine doing that in the city. Your clothes would get dirtier drying than they were before you washed them, with all the pollution in Manhattan.
“My mom said that the diner isn’t making a profit now either, because of the motel. She wants Grandma and Grandpa to retire,” Kate says.
“Wow. I can’t imagine that. They both seem to love working there.”
“I know. Grandma told me that if she didn’t have the diner and her grape pies, she’d climb the walls with boredom. She doesn’t want to sit at home or travel. She said she just wants to have a place where people can sit and talk to one another and smile when they put something sweet in their mouths.”
If the Whitleys retired, then Kate wouldn’t be over here practically every day.
Now there are even more reasons for the motel not to go bankrupt.
We stop under a tree for shade. A line of ants is heading somewhere. I lick the stream of white traveling down my arm.
“What if we made a better sign?” I ask, popping the last bite in my mouth. “Like repaint it or something. It’s pretty pathetic, and Mom and Dad don’t have time. Everyone’s busy enough with the inside of the motel. Yesterday Mom was scrubbing mildew off all the shower curtains because she says there’s no money to buy new ones.”
“Oooh!” says Kate. “Grandpa’s got a stack of paint cans in the basement. Maybe he’d let us use them. And there’s a set of stencils somewhere too, from when they repainted the letters on the diner window a couple of years ago.”
Kate bites off the last bit of red ice from her popsicle stick and tosses it in the garbage can on the corner.
“Last one to the diner is it!” she yells, already taking off.
I race off after her. It feels good to have a plan.
We tumble into the diner, laughing and sweating. The air conditioner is blasting and it feels like walking into a giant refrigerator.
“There you are,” says Mrs. Whitley to Kate. “Your mom will be here in ten minutes to take you to the dentist. Cleaning time.”
“Oh, shoot,” says Kate. “Totally forgot about that.” She sticks out her tongue, which is dark purple from the popsicle.
Mrs. Whitley shakes her head. “Dr. Stevenson will love that. Let me call your mom and tell her to bring your toothbrush.”
“But we were going to paint the Jewel’s sign! Can we use the cans of paint in the basement? And the stencils?” asks Kate.
“I’ll ask your grandfather. But after the dentist,” Mrs. Whitley says.
She turns to me. “While she’s there, Miriam, I’d love some help with another batch of grapes if your mom can spare you. Big church dinner this Thursday night and I’m in charge of dessert.”
The bell jingles and Kate’s mom comes in.
“Oops,” says Mrs. Whitley. “I guess it’s too late for the toothbrush.”
Kate sticks her tongue out at her mother, who shakes her head exactly the way Mrs. Whitley did. “Go and rinse your mouth out at least.”
She turns to me as Kate heads to the bathroom. “Hi, Miriam. How are things going next door?”
I shrug. “Not too good, really. But Kate and I are going to paint the sign, make it look new.”
“Sounds like a good idea. I’ll have her back in about an hour.”
I run over to the Jewel after they leave to ask Mom about the grapes.
“Sure,” she says, surprising me. “Just take Sammy along, would you, honey?” Sammy looks up from the floor where he’s making towers of blocks.
“Seriously? You know he’ll just get in the way.”
Her eyebrows go up.
“For real, Mom. It’s just an hour.”
“Miriam —”
“I know, I know,” I grumble, giving her my own eyes of death and holding my hand out to my brother. “Family first.”
“So, what’s our color scheme?” Kate asks, looking down from the stepladder.
At my feet are a bunch of open paint cans and a stack of brushes that Mr. Whitley gave us. I stir the white paint around, lift out the mixing stick and watch it drip down like maple syrup onto a pancake. There are also a couple of smaller cans in different colors. One is called Sapphire Blue.
We’ve sanded off the flaking yellowy paint like Mr. Whitley showed us. Sammy’s already sticky and purple from eating cut-up grapes at the diner but I strip off his T-shirt and shorts and let him toddle around in his diaper.
“Sapphire is a kind of jewel, right?” I ask. “How about we do the post and the background white, and then do the lettering in blue, with a black outline?” I say.
Sammy wants to help, of course, so I give him a paintbrush and a cup of water and let him “paint” the bottom of the post, the only part he can reach. I hope he doesn’t stomp on the pink and white petunias Mom planted around the base. He’s so happy it makes me laugh.
It takes two coats of white before the old letters no longer show through. We swing on the swings and wait for it to dry, while Sammy digs in the sandbox.
A car pulls up next to us in the parking lot, with Georgia license plates. Woo-hoo!
A woman sticks her head out the window.
“I’m looking for the Daisy Inn in Spartanburg?”
Kate shakes her head. “This is Greenvale. Spartanburg is the next exit.”
The woman drives off.
“What’s in Spartanburg?”
“The university. The motels there get tons of business at the end of the summer, with all the parents coming to drop off their kids for the school year.”
She jumps off the swing and turns around to face me.
“The problem with Greenvale is that we don’t have anything people come to see. Not even a museum or a racetrack. It’s just some place people come through on their way to somewhere else.”
“My dad says there’s a synagogue in Spartanburg. Not that that would attract tourists.”
“How come you don’t go there every week, like we go to church?”
I shrug. “We used to when I was little and we lived near Bubbie and Zaydie. But when we moved to the city, we stopped.”
We check on the sign. It’s dry enough so we use the stencils to outline the letters and then paint them in while Sammy paints his post again.
It’s gotten pretty hot and the petunias look wilted. Kate finds a bucket and we fill it with water and drag it back together to water everything.
We step back to get a good look.
“It looks great,” says Kate.
And it does.
After we put the paint away, Kate bikes home. Sammy needs a bath but I’m starving so I take him through Reception on the way to the dining room. Mom’s on the phone but points to a pile of mail on the counter. On top there’s a postcard addressed to me.
“Greetings from Camp Maplewood!” the front says, under a photo of kids in a canoe. On the back it says, Camp is awesome. I can waterski now! How is the motel? I hope there will be a room left for me to stay in when I come visit you. I miss you!!!! Love, Lekha. She’s drawn little hearts around the edges.
A room left? More like ten.
I grab a bagel and an apple that’s not too bruised and take the postcard back to Room 109 and lie on the bed, watching a fly buzz around the light fixture. If it’s not careful, it’ll end up joining the collection of dead ones inside.
When Dahlia’s back from Israel and Lekha’s back from camp, the plan is for both of them to come up to visit the weekend before school starts. Mom said she’d have Sammy sleep in her room and bring a cot into Room 109 so the three of us can have a sleepover just like we used to back home.
I look out my window at the empty parking lot.
New York City feels like a million miles away.
7
——
I have nothing to do the next day. Kate’s at camp and the motel is empty, except for one guy on his way back home to somewhere in Canada who is leaving this morning if he ever wakes up.
Even Maria has time for a cup of coffee on the balcony.
There’s no one around to notice the sign got a new paint job.
In the storeroom I find a carton of brownie mix that’s almost expired and let Sammy help me make them. By the time we get them in the oven, he’s covered with chocolate. He looks like he ran through a mud puddle.
No Vacancy Page 4
