“I’m really sorry, hon, but if you’d called ahead, I could have told you we’re booked solid. It’s still high season, you know.”
“Oh.” Letty’s shoulders sagged and she felt like she’d been kicked in the gut.
“There’s probably rooms back up the road by the interstate,” Ava offered. “I could call Mark over at the Econo Lodge.”
Letty shook her head. “I really had my heart set on this place. I’ve heard so much about it, and I promised Maya we’d be at the beach.”
“It’s that doggoneSouthern Livingarticle,” Ava said. “Forgotten motel, my ass. It’s been five years, and I’m still turning folks away.”
Joe the cop stared at her. “You’re not gonna find anything on the beach this time of year,” he said. “It’s March, and it’s Florida.”
“I realize that,” Letty said, fighting against the urge to kick him in the nuts. She sighed heavily. “I just… well, this place has some very special memories for my family.”
Once again, she’d slid into another persona. Was this the failed actress speaking now?
“Is that right?” Ava asked. “I’ve owned the Surf since the eighties. Maybe I know your family?”
“My mimi and granddaddy honeymooned here, but I guess maybe that would’ve been back in the sixties.” The lie was seamless. “Mimi used to tell us stories about swimming in the ocean… and eating shrimp at the seafood place down the street…”
“It’s the Gulf of Mexico,” Joe cut in. “And we still don’t have any rooms available.”
“Joe!” Ava said sternly. “Don’t be rude.” She knelt down and looked at Maya. “This sweet baby needs to be on the beach, don’t you, sweetheart?”
Maya batted her extraordinarily long, spiky dark lashes. She really had gotten all the very best DNA from the gene pool, Letty thought. “I wanna go swimmin’.”
“What’s your name, sweetheart?”
“Maya Abigail. And I am four years old, and I go to big-girl school.”
The manager was instantly besotted, Letty saw. Maya had that effect on people. Like her mother.
“They have a pool at the Econo Lodge,” Joe pointed out.
Ava stood up and looked around the motel lobby with a sigh. “Maybe the old storage unit?”
“Mom!”
Letty looked from Ava to Joe. “She’s your mom?”
“Guilty,” Ava said, giving her son a warning glance. “Look, we haven’t rented it out in years, because it’s the only efficiency unit in the place, and it’s tiny, but there’s nothing magical in there. Just a bunch of old broken lounge chairs and faded bedspreads and random junk I’ve been meaning to get rid of.…”
“As long as there’s a bed and a bathroom, I’m fine with small. I’m used to small,” Letty said, thinking of all the roach motel rooms she’d rented back in New York. She sounded desperate, but that was because she reallywasdesperate.
“And who’s gonna haul away all that crap in there?” Joe demanded.
“I will,” Letty said.
“In that piece-of-shit Kia?”
Letty really, really wanted to kick him in the nuts. “I saw a dumpster in your parking lot.”
“That’s true,” Ava said. She glanced at her son, and then down at Maya, with her bedraggled stuffed toy elephant.
“Tell you what. If you want to clear it out, and drag all that stuff to the dumpster, you got a deal. I know there’s a bed in there, but I can’t vouch for what kind of shape the mattress is in. The bathroom is nasty, but the last I knew it worked. And there’s a sort of kitchenette. You probably don’t need more than that.”
“I don’t,” Letty said. “That’s enough for us.”
“I can’t spare a housekeeper to help you,” Ava warned.
