Motel Memories

by Suzie Sims-Fletcher

<sigh>

...little smile...

GRIN!

There it goes again. It doesn't seem normal to have fond, romantic feelings towards a plastic motel trash bin. But...there it goes again.

<sigh>

...little smile....

GRIN!!

I find myself actually looking for the plastic bin when I walk into a motel room.

Once upon at time, a very long time ago, well, maybe not that long ago, but long ago enough! There was a beautiful princess. All the best romantic stories start this way, right? Truth be told, she wasn't realllly a princess, and beauty is, what? Only skin deep? Ok, ok...so she wasn't bad looking, ok? Some people actually thought she was quite attractive, but, wait, that isn't what this story is all about.

Maybe I should start over.

A few years ago, when I was much more innocent, niave, and fresh to the ways of the world, I accepted an invitation to visit my boyfriend who had recently returned to California. He had graduated from college and temporarily moved back in with mom while looking for that dream Hollywood job.

I was terribly excited and nervous. It took days to pack – how much was enough, how much was too much? East coast winter versus West coast sunshine. It was difficult to reject a heavy black sweater in favor of a pink cotton t shirt. Sandles in, snow boots out. Short skirt, check; corduroy jeans, floor. Add to that decisions about clothes for meeting friends, outings with family and, quite possibly....mom. I was simply flustered.

On top of that, the whole trip seemed to my gentle soul, a little tawdry, dirty...something good girls didn't do. Going to STAY with a guy. We were getting a motel room for the first night so that we could enjoy some reuniting privacy. But, this wasn't like we were hooking up in a dorm after a party. This was serious stuff. It was planned and paid for. There was no room for casually explaining it away. Quite honestly I felt like a tramp, and the romance of it all escaped me. Why had I gotten myself into this?

I somehow made it to the airport, onto the plane, and across the skies to LAX. When I deplaned, I was expecting to see him at the gate. Of course, the rules had changed and no one was allowed back to meet passengers. We had neglected to make a backup plan. Butterflies became ostriches as I gambled towards baggage pick up. Once through the waiting area I could see the throngs of people waiting for arriving passengers. A slight sigh of relief and the ostrich butterflies became mere mallards.

What my trepidation was I am not sure. This boy I was meeting stands a short 6 foot 7 inches, usually not hard to find above a crowd. I had been seeing him for five months before he left, so I knew what he looked like, and he was incredibly punctual and reliable. But, knowing of the dirty sins I was about to partake in, I knew I would be punished in some way having to wait with my scarlet carry-on for hours due to traffic, flat tires, or police roadblocks.

I scanned the crowds, hardly seeing as my pulse thumped and my eyes tunnel visioned. Was it really this hot? I felt faint and flush as I picked off rejected faces in the masses.

Then, like slow motion in the movies, the crowd seemed to part. Standing in the middle of an indistinguishable mass was a tall, handsome man in a suit, and a bouquet of glorious red roses with streaming ribbon bursting in color from behind his back. He held a sign, with a name on it. As I somehow moved closer, the people around seemed to smile, nod and point at me. The name on the sign was mine.

In true Harlequin Romance fashion, he put his arms around me, and as he kissed me, there was applause.

Seriously, I am not making this up.

My feelings of distress and dishonor were wiped away in that moment. The rest of the trip quite a blur. I know I saw the big donut that is in all the movies shot in LA; we visited the ancient cats stuck in the tar pits, and the richer than rich and their boutiques on Rodeo Drive. Of course there was the requisite trip to see the Hollywood sign, with a secret back pathway up to it so that not only do I have pictures from the road, but also pictures of me perched sitting in the center of the giant third “O” of “wood.” A dinner of my first IN and Out Burger was followed by Griffin observatory for star gazing and ...well...mooning. Every cliche' of romance, real or imagined by a teenage girl, had been acted out beautifully. It was a dream.

And then...back to earth. It was time...to...check in. Dred. Mortification. Horror.

A motel. A nice motel. A motel recommended by friends. It was where their families always stayed when they came to town. But, a motel. The badgirl feelings came back. I don't know why this was so hard, but it was.

We drove past The Farmer's Daughter (oh, why did the name of the place have to conjure all those bad jokes), and I know that he sensed my increasing uneasiness. It was late, certainly after midnight. There was no turning back. As if a reprieve of my sentence, he pulled into a service station. But not up to the pump,

We don't need gas, he said, we need champagne.

Gas station champagne?!

And sure enough, in the back of the requisite mini market attached to gas stations around the world, there was champagne, in the back cooler, near the bottom, on the left. I couldn't help but laugh. Gas station champagne.

The champagne, weighing in at $4.79 returned with us to the Farmer's Daughter. It was gently and lovingly put in a trash basket filled with ice machine ice and wrapped with a mostly white hand towel from the green tiled bathroom. Its opening pop hit the ceiling and it poured like its much more expensive brothers, only no into long stemmed flutes, into formerly plastic wrapped rather squat water glasses... but sipped just the same.

- - - - -

I left the room the next morning, much more relaxed. We had not quite “rock star-ed” the room, but certainly doing it justice. The final once over, glance back showed soap wrapper and little shampoo bottle resting on the floor, the soft hills and valleys of crumpled enjoyed sheets, and on the dresser, reflected in the mirror, the two proud glasses, side by side, escorting the empty champagne bottle, its neck stretching above the rectangular lip of the plastic bucket. A job well done.

- - - - -

I have never been that nervous about a trip, a meeting, or a motel room again. A loss of innocence, I suppose. But I do catch myself, now, from time to time, going to the back of a service station, to peer through the glass doors – just to peek at the $5 champagne, waiting for its chance to be a romantic motel memory. And a trash basket will never quite be the same.

<sigh>

...little smile...