South of Superior - Ellen Airgood [138]
“We do it every year,” one of the women told Madeline. “We make a week of it—start out at Big Bay and end Up at Sugar Island. We always stop in McAllaster and this is perfect. We will definitely be back, your place is darling.”
Madeline glowed. Now they’d checked out and she had the rooms to clean. She also had enough cash to pay most of the month’s bills without dipping into the roof fund.
When she was done with the rooms she’d spend the rest of the morning painting. She’d finished a picture of the hotel the week before, framed it, and hung it. She didn’t know if it was good or not, she couldn’t decide, but one of the women in the group of eight had looked at it for a long time that morning. Then she said, “Do you ever do house portraits?”
“Ah—no. But I’ll bet I could.” Madeline smiled in what she hoped was a confident way.
“I’d like a picture of our cottage, it’s down on Lake Michigan but I could give you photos of it. Do you work from photos?”
“I never have. But I think I could.” Madeline was scrambling inside herself. Did she mean this? Did she want to do something as confining as this? Well, yes, maybe. It’d be a job. It’d be income from painting.
“What would you charge?”
“I’d have to think about that,” Madeline admitted.
“Do that,” the woman said. “I’ll leave you my phone number.”
So here was a whole new world of possibility. Ideas crowded into her head. House portraits, dog portraits, advertisements, menus, note cards—maybe there were a hundred things she could do artwork for. Maybe—maybe—this was a way to have everything: the hotel, and painting, and a living too. It was a possibility anyway.
Madeline plugged a radio into the socket in Room One and turned on a rock station out of the Soo, cranked the volume Up to match her mood. She began stripping the blankets and sheets, polishing the furniture and windows, rolling Up the rugs to take outside and shake. She finished Up that room and moved on to the next, bringing her radio and hamper and carryall of cleaning things along. She’d just gotten started when Grand Funk Railroad came on, doing “The Loco-Motion.” One of her favorite songs from childhood, a song to make you feel good. She could see Emmy and herself singing along whenever it came on, doing the Loco-Motion all over the apartment. She turned the sound Up as high as it would go—she was alone, wasn’t she? Who was to see or know?—and sashayed around the room feeling ridiculously happy. She polished the night-stand and sang along with energy, did the chug-a chug-a motion, feeling about ten. What fun they’d had. She could not have had a better mother.
Madeline sang and danced, Using the dust rag as a microphone, safe in the knowledge that she was alone. No one was going to stop by looking for a room on a February Sunday at midmorning (and if they did, they weren’t likely to come Upstairs). Gladys and Arbutus were at church, Greyson was at Ben’s, Pete was probably tinkering away at some project at Mill Street. She belted out the lyrics, pulling the sheets off the bed and bundling them into a wad. She turned to throw them into the hamper that was sitting just inside the door to find a man leaning against the doorframe. She shrieked. “Paul. My God. You scared me.”
A slow smile spread over his face. His dear, dear face. Oh, Paul. He was really there. Madeline stared at him, still clutching the sheets.
“I gotta tell you, I would love to do the Loco-Motion with you,” he said, his brown eyes squinted a little, gleaming with something between merriment and lecherousness.
“Paul.” She felt struck dumb, Unable to come Up with anything beyond this.
“You looked so happy, I didn’t want to stop you. Don’t think I ever saw somebody look so happy over changing sheets.”
“I rented out four rooms this weekend. Four.”
“That’s great.”
“What are you doing here? I can’t believe you are here. How are you, is everything all right?”
“I’m okay. How’s Greyson?”
“He’s okay. He misses you.”
“He always sounds good on the phone. You’re good for him.”
Then they