A PLACE TO Belong

Vi leaned on the counter in the motel office, trying to ease her suffering feet. She was having another hard day. The door opened to reveal a youngish woman in a wrinkled red suit and streaked blond hair that had fallen into rat tails hours ago. She glared at Vi defiantly. “Do you have a room available?” “Sure, for how many?” “Just me.” Vi covertly examined the tote bag, the messy clothes and the dusty walking shoes. No money here, but there had been. She estimated the risk, weighted because she needed the money and because more than half of her twenty units were empty. “Pay in advance.” An obscure credit card was produced. “I have this.” “Room two, right beside the office. It’s cheaper.” She took her new tenant down the hall and opened the door to a small room with a double bed, a window and a television. “Will this do?” At the young woman’s nod, she leaned one hip on the dresser. She studied the girl’s registration card. “Look, uh, Annette, are you in some kind of trouble?” She watched the girl’s face harden. “Is it a man? All I want to know is, is he likely to come here? I need to know that.” Annette’s face seemed to sag with exhaustion. “No, I can assure you that there’s no chance of that.” Vi turned toward the door. “Okay, we’ll talk about things in the morning. Sleep until you wake up and I can give you breakfast. If you need work, I need a chambermaid.” Annette showered, sniffing disdainfully at the motel soap. Her hair would be a mess without her special shampoo but who would notice in this dump. She fell into the hard bed, pulled the blankets around her ears and finally ended a harrowing day. Infuriatingly, she was wakeful because she missed her husband, BG, in spite of everything. In one day she had lost it all. That morning, she and BG had dressed for Court in their luxury suite. She wore a power suit, red, short and assertive. “It will look good in Court. Daddy and that so-called wife of his will see that I mean business. I have a right to the money and he’ll soften up. Daddy always does.” BG only replied that he would see her in Court; he had a few things to do. They separated and Annette drove to the courthouse in the rented red Camaro, and that was the last time she saw him or the Camaro. The Court decision was a disaster with the judge ignoring all of her needs and even making her pay the costs, and her sister even laughed, as usual, when Annette got a dirty deal. Ever since her mother died and Daddy married Anne life had been different for her. BG was a mistake who ended up taking the rented Camaro, cleaning out the bank accounts and the hotel safe before he took off, probably back to his home in Florida. Then when she came to The Port looking for Daddy she found that they had gone on a trip and wouldn’t be back for months. Typical. Nobody cared about her. Here she was in this dismal room with absolutely nowhere to go. She and BG had sold the house that Daddy had given her and put the money in the bank along with the settlement that Daddy made, so that after the lawsuit they could take all the money and move to BG’s place in Miami. Boy, she had been stupid. BG could go back to being a tennis pro and she had nowhere to go back to.