corner, stirring up a frenzy of dust motes.
I escaped into the adjoining room with cleaning supplies in hand. Up until the early sixties, the room was just another unit. But then Aunt Ingrid did some renovations, one of which involved transforming this particular unit into a gathering place for motel guests, something most motels lacked at the time. Thus, the hospitality room was born—not only a place to serve complimentary coffee and muffins, but a place to highlight the motel’s rich and interesting history. It eventually became The Chest’s most lucrative attraction.
Though empty now, the room had once brimmed with knickknacks. Gerald had handcrafted a large trophy case, only instead of putting trophies inside, Ingrid had lined the shelves with relevant memorabilia, most of them Monopoly related. She had covered two of the walls with framed photographs—black and whites of the motel when it was La Tresor Motel, an eight by ten of Frank Sideris shaking hands with Charles Darrow, and poignant pictures from the end of the Great Depression and World War II. Wall three became the wall of fame, highlighting all the celebrities who had stayed at or visited The Chest since its inception. And then my personal favorite, the fourth wall. A wall Ingrid invited guests to sign, doodle notes, scribble jokes, or scrawl their favorite quotes. She called it the wall of wisdom.
As a girl, I memorized nearly every single word, so that now, as an adult, I could quickly find my favorites.
Dead center:
Phillip Peppergree was here
. I liked the sound of his name so much I named my first and only cat after him.
Further to the left and up a bit:
John 3:16. Life
. For the longest time, I thought that was the person’s name—Life. And what a funny name it was. Until I looked up the verse in Aunt Ingrid’s Bible and realized it wasn’t a name at all, but a statement.
A hand’s width below:
Soul Mates, Helena and George, 1962
. I used to wonder if they were still alive, if they were still in love, if they had children or grandchildren.
Down to the right, so low as to almost be on the ground, was my childhood favorite:
Life is worth living as long as there’s a laugh in it
. That used to be my absolute favorite quote from
Anne of Green Gables
. Whoever wrote it didn’t leave a name, but one thing was obvious. We were kindred spirits. Now, as an adult, my mind recalled a much different line from Anne’s story.
My life is a perfect graveyard of buried hopes
.
I shook the words away, then pressed my hand over some obscure initials scrawled inside a tiny heart, right near the center next to Mr. Peppergree—
CB + WG
. A memory pulsed beneath my palm.
“We’ve only been on one date,” I’d told Ben. And as amazing as that date had been, this was the wall of wisdom. Whatever a person wrote couldn’t be taken back.
Ben had given me a disapproving look. “Aren’t you a pessimist.”
“I’m just saying, once you put us on the wall of wisdom, it’s there forever.”
Shaking his head, he drew a skinny, slightly lopsided heart—nothing feminine or bubbly about it. Everybody who would see it ever after would know it was a man’s heart.
“I’m serious,” I said. “You could be jinxing everything.”
Ben brought the marker down to his side. “Okay then, how about a compromise?”
“What do you mean?”
Inside the heart, he scrawled the initials CB, and below that, WG, adding a plus sign in between.
I squinted at the letters. “Who’s CB and WG?”
“Us.”
“Those aren’t our initials.”
“Sure they are. Cabana Boy plus Weather Girl.” He took my hand andpulled me toward him, making heat quiver in the depths of my stomach. He smelled irresistible—a masculine combination of soap and the subtlest hint of cologne. “That way, if you decide to get rid of me, nobody would be any wiser.”
“I would,” I said, a little too breathlessly. I couldn’t fathom getting rid of him. Not in a million years.
He placed
I escaped into the adjoining room with cleaning supplies in hand. Up until the early sixties, the room was just another unit. But then Aunt Ingrid did some renovations, one of which involved transforming this particular unit into a gathering place for motel guests, something most motels lacked at the time. Thus, the hospitality room was born—not only a place to serve complimentary coffee and muffins, but a place to highlight the motel’s rich and interesting history. It eventually became The Chest’s most lucrative attraction.
Though empty now, the room had once brimmed with knickknacks. Gerald had handcrafted a large trophy case, only instead of putting trophies inside, Ingrid had lined the shelves with relevant memorabilia, most of them Monopoly related. She had covered two of the walls with framed photographs—black and whites of the motel when it was La Tresor Motel, an eight by ten of Frank Sideris shaking hands with Charles Darrow, and poignant pictures from the end of the Great Depression and World War II. Wall three became the wall of fame, highlighting all the celebrities who had stayed at or visited The Chest since its inception. And then my personal favorite, the fourth wall. A wall Ingrid invited guests to sign, doodle notes, scribble jokes, or scrawl their favorite quotes. She called it the wall of wisdom.
As a girl, I memorized nearly every single word, so that now, as an adult, I could quickly find my favorites.
Dead center:
Phillip Peppergree was here
. I liked the sound of his name so much I named my first and only cat after him.
Further to the left and up a bit:
John 3:16. Life
. For the longest time, I thought that was the person’s name—Life. And what a funny name it was. Until I looked up the verse in Aunt Ingrid’s Bible and realized it wasn’t a name at all, but a statement.
A hand’s width below:
Soul Mates, Helena and George, 1962
. I used to wonder if they were still alive, if they were still in love, if they had children or grandchildren.
Down to the right, so low as to almost be on the ground, was my childhood favorite:
Life is worth living as long as there’s a laugh in it
. That used to be my absolute favorite quote from
Anne of Green Gables
. Whoever wrote it didn’t leave a name, but one thing was obvious. We were kindred spirits. Now, as an adult, my mind recalled a much different line from Anne’s story.
My life is a perfect graveyard of buried hopes
.
I shook the words away, then pressed my hand over some obscure initials scrawled inside a tiny heart, right near the center next to Mr. Peppergree—
CB + WG
. A memory pulsed beneath my palm.
“We’ve only been on one date,” I’d told Ben. And as amazing as that date had been, this was the wall of wisdom. Whatever a person wrote couldn’t be taken back.
Ben had given me a disapproving look. “Aren’t you a pessimist.”
“I’m just saying, once you put us on the wall of wisdom, it’s there forever.”
Shaking his head, he drew a skinny, slightly lopsided heart—nothing feminine or bubbly about it. Everybody who would see it ever after would know it was a man’s heart.
“I’m serious,” I said. “You could be jinxing everything.”
Ben brought the marker down to his side. “Okay then, how about a compromise?”
“What do you mean?”
Inside the heart, he scrawled the initials CB, and below that, WG, adding a plus sign in between.
I squinted at the letters. “Who’s CB and WG?”
“Us.”
“Those aren’t our initials.”
“Sure they are. Cabana Boy plus Weather Girl.” He took my hand andpulled me toward him, making heat quiver in the depths of my stomach. He smelled irresistible—a masculine combination of soap and the subtlest hint of cologne. “That way, if you decide to get rid of me, nobody would be any wiser.”
“I would,” I said, a little too breathlessly. I couldn’t fathom getting rid of him. Not in a million years.
He placed
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