shoulders, and a rather creamy complexion, though she wore no make-up except a touch of lipstick. The mouth was nice. Her cheekbones were high and prominent, giving an impression of faint hollows below them and adding to that general suggestion of being underweight and overstrained and tired. It was the face of a mature woman, and there was strength in it. Her wedding and engagement rings looked expensive, but the rest of her outfit failed to match them. The dress was a cheap hand-me-down and the sandals were old and beat-up. She had nice long legs, but wore no stockings.
On the right, just beyond the city limits, was the Spanish Main motel. It had a large pool set among colored umbrellas in front. It looked cool and blue in the white glare of the sun, and I remembered what he’d said about the Magnolia’s not having one. Chump, I thought sourly. Well, I didn’t like being conned. And she had been nice.
The Magnolia was about a quarter of a mile beyond, on the left. As she turned in off the highway I could see what he’d meant about its being run-down: there was an air of neglect about it, or an impression that it had never been quite completed. There were twelve or fifteen connected units in the usual quadrangle arrangement, with the open end facing the highway. The construction was solid and not too old, brick with a red-tile roof, but it all needed painting, and the grounds were bleak and inhospitable in the hot glare of afternoon. There’d been an attempt at a lawn in front, facing the road, and in the center of the square, but it was brown now, and dusty, and the white gravel of the drive was scattered and threadbare, with scrawny weeds poking up through it in places. I wondered why her husband had let it get into this condition.
The office was on the left. She stopped in front of it. There were two bags of groceries on one of the back seats. I gathered them up and followed her inside.
The small lobby was cool and pleasantly dim with its Venetian blinds closed against the harsh sunlight outside. There were two or three braided rugs scattered about the waxed floor of dark blue tile, and several bamboo armchairs with orange and black cushions. A T.V. set stood in one corner, and in front of a sofa was a long bamboo-and-glass coffee table with a number of magazines. On a table against the left wall was a scale model of a sloop. It was about three feet long and had beautiful lines. Opposite the door was the registration desk, and at the closed end of that a small telephone switchboard and the rack of pigeonholes for the keys. Directly behind the desk was a curtained doorway that apparently connected with their living quarters. Beyond it, somewhere in the rear, I could hear a vacuum sweeper.
I set the groceries on the desk. She called out, “Josie,” and the sound of the vacuum sweeper cut off. A heavy-bodied colored girl in a white apron pushed through the curtains in the doorway. She had a fat, good-natured face and a big mouth overpainted with some odd shade of lipstick that was almost purple.
Mrs. Langston placed a registration card before me and nodded toward the groceries. “Take those into the kitchen, will you, Josie?”
“Yes, ma'am.” Josie gathered them up and started to turn away. “Did the plumber call?” Mrs. Langston asked.
I undipped my pen and bent over the card, wondering— as I had for the past week—why I still gave San Francisco as my address. Well, you had to put down something, and at least that matched the license plates on the car.
“No, ma'am,” Josie replied. “Phone did ring a couple of times but I reckon it was a wrong number. When I answer they don’t say nothin’; they just hang up.” She went on out.
I happened to glance up. Mrs. Langston’s face was utterly still, but the creamy skin had gone a shade paler, and I had an odd impression she was having to fight for the composure she showed. She looked away.
“Is something wrong?” I asked.
“Oh,” she said. She shook her head and forced a smile. “No. I’m all right It’s just the heat.”
She turned the registration card round and looked at it. “San Francisco?” she said. “And how are you standing the heat, Mr. Chatham?”