That Girl Read Free Page A

thing I noticed while pulling in on the Greyhound was the Hempie Hotel. It’s an old fashioned, rundown dump of a place. It has a swimming pool in the center of it, with a border of one-story rooms around the outside, and one shamble of a larger office with chipping paint. You can tell that back in the day this hotel was the shit. I remember laying my head back on the bus seat and imagining all the rooms with fresh paint, the pool full of blue water, and little flamingos decorating the freshly clipped lawn instead of the white, peeling paint, weed-filled pool, and the litter lying around.
    I took a chance and walked down to the hotel immediately after getting off the bus for two reasons. One, it was only three blocks from bus station with no turns, and two, there was a “Help Wanted” sign in the front window. At the time, I was guessing the sign was old, and the hotel was abandoned.
    Three weeks later, I’m wrong. The hotel is run by Junior Guerro. He’s rarely around and rents rooms out for three hundred dollars a month. The sign happened to be for a waitress job across the street and a maid job for the rooms. Junior and his dad own the Hempie Hotel, Hempie Laund-O-Mat, and Hempie’s Café. They are real original on names.
    Their business motto definitely falls under the category ‘less is more.’ They do the bare minimum to get by on everything. When cleaning rooms, I’m always forced to dilute the cleaning supplies with water, because I only have a bottle a week to use. There have been some construction workers loitering around the motel the last couple days. They’re in town building a new subdivision and strip mall. Absolutely lousy, disgusting pigs, but they are very generous when tipping at the restaurant.
    Junior doesn’t care if I work seven days a week, twenty-four hours a day. There are very few rules and regulations he chooses to follow. The real downside to being employed by him and his father is the quality of food. At my last job, I always looked forward to a hot meal. I don’t even dare try the food at Hempie’s. I’ve seen the kitchen, witnessed what the cook does on break, and have watched the mold cut off bread and cheese. My job is just to smile and serve the food.
    Not that Junior would care, but I use more than my fair share of cleaning supplies on my room. It’s actually a very nice place to live. My room is on the end, and so far the one next to mine has been empty. So there are no unwanted smells to linger and seep into my room. I have two large windows, whereas most rooms only have a small one in the bathroom.
    The one negative is the room next door is where Junior brings all of his lady friends. I can’t tell if he’s a drug dealer, pimp, or just the slumlord of the town. Two nights ago, I found an abandoned lawn chair in one of the rooms and brought it back to mine. I have a mini – and I do mean a very mini – cement patio. Cleaning up the lawn chair and the fake plastic tree in the corner, I made my own little paradise on my back patio. I just had to climb out the back window, pretending it was a sliding glass door. Armed with a bowl of ice cream and a cheap smut book from the thrift store, I was ready to go on vacation in my paradise.
    I had barely sat in the chair and plopped a mouthful of caramel ice cream in my mouth when I heard, “Oh, fuck me harder.”
    Without thinking, I looked to my left and saw Junior’s ass bent over taking it to a blonde. Unintentionally, I let out a gasp, causing the two to turn their attention on me. Complete and utter horror filled my veins. Junior took a step back, allowing himself to fall from the blonde, and that’s when I bolted. Blowing out of my chair, grabbing my book, I dove into my window. Not just any dive, but a leaping, nine star dive. My shorts caught a piece of metal on the window frame, and I heard one very long tear. The sound was deafening, and in that moment I knew my ass was bared just as Junior’s was. Wiggling from the