Here's a short excerpt from my new short story
"7 Lucys"
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| FREE on Amazon! |
Mondays were the worst.
I hated Mondays. The job had
always been boring, so mind-numbingly boring.
That is, until she showed up.
I was drawn to her for some reason. Rolled over the maid’s foot tryin’ to get to
the window. I couldn’t take my eyes off
her. I wondered where she’d come from
and what misfortune had brought her to motel hell. She definitely didn’t fit in with all the
low-lifes who frequented this place or the lost families who wandered in. She was bright and clean and beautiful.
There she was unpacking her shiny car. Corey must’ve checked her in when he was
covering the front desk while I was fixing a toilet in one of the rooms. I searched the sign-in book for her name….
Lucy. She just signed it Lucy. She wrote it in a funny
way: all in fancy cursive caps.
That happens a lot around here. People reluctant to give their real names, I
mean. Signing only their first name or
using a fake name. Corey’s policy is to
look the other way. “Beggars can’t be choosey!” as he would say. In my mind, it isn’t always clear who the
beggars are, us or them? We get
desperate for customers sometimes. There
are times when the motel is deserted, and we’re not sure if we can even keep
the lights on.
I wondered if
Lucy was her real name. Her yellow skirt
fluttered around her shapely brown legs as she walked in and out of Room 27. She was like a fresh summer breeze. I didn’t usually go for brown chicks. I say brown ‘cause from a distance, I
couldn’t really tell what race she was.
She could have been Hispanic or African-American, wasn’t for sure then,
and I’m still not for sure. I’m not
racist or anything. I just can’t tell
you if she was black or Hispanic or both.
It didn’t matter to me. Pretty is
pretty… and she was pretty. I guess the
truth of the matter is that I’ve always been too chicken shit to ask a girl out
if she wasn’t white. They seemed out of
my league somehow. That sounds stupid
now that I’m putting it out there. But,
I suppose we all have stupid voices in our heads that talk us out of going for
what we want, and this wheelchair doesn’t make it any easier for me....
