891: At my usual . . .
Leaving Small’s Hotel, Chapter 7 begins
Chapter 7
September 16
Disturbing the Field
AT MY USUAL EARLY HOUR I sat at the computer to do some work on the passage that I would be reading in the evening, but it was Albertine who wrote:
Twenty-one years in the hotel business, and what have I got to show for it? Nothing. Nothing at all. Less than nothing, since we’re in debt beyond our eyeballs. Once I had hopes for this place, and Peter certainly had his dreams. Together we made our plans and hatched our schemes, but little by little it has all slipped away. Now there’s nothing. Nothing but emptiness and exhaustion.
I thought that I would have made this place into something by now. It would be chugging along and it would bring us a reliable income. I thought we would be comfortable now, but we are not comfortable at all. We are both anxious and unhappy, and I am disappointed and angry.
He has a place to go, his past. He can get away from here, and does, for a while every day, but I’m here all the time. It’s a prison. It’s a nightmare. I am isolated, and if I can’t sell this hotel I’m stuck here. Stuck here.
Lately, though, I’ve been thinking about Manhattan. In Manhattan I can get a job. I can get a job, and I’ll be in the world. What job can I get? I haven’t done anything but run this place, if you don’t count the jobs I had as a teenager. I have this idea, that I could teach a course on how to run an inn, a small hotel. Okay, even I laugh at the thought of it, but it’s not as ridiculous as it sounds. I think I would call it “How to Run a Small Hotel” or “How Not to Run a Small Hotel” or “How to Run a Small Hotel into the Ground” or “Do As I Say, Not As I Did.” Maybe it could be a continuing education course. It has been a continuing education course.
IN THE AFTERNOON, I walked up to Albertine at the desk and said, “Let me take you away from all of this, at least for the afternoon.” She protested, pleading work, but I pointed out that with only two guests staying at the hotel, this was the perfect opportunity to refresh ourselves before the hordes arrived for the weekend. I took her by the hand and led her to the dock, and I thought I could feel her spirits lighten as we approached it. I pumped the launch, she started it up, I cast us off, and with Albertine at the wheel we escaped the confines of Small’s Island. She was smiling all the way across the bay.
We drove the Small’s van to Foggy Cove and spent a couple of hours just walking around. We came upon a little Victorian house undergoing renovation, and we daydreamed a bit about getting enough for the hotel so that we could buy the little house outright. Albertine guessed that our living expenses would be tiny. We could relax.
We ate dinner at the Foggy Cove Inn. They had sent me a coupon for a free meal. It was supposed to be good only during the week of my birthday, but I lied and no one questioned me.
We drove back to Babbington, I pumped the launch nearly dry, and we were back at the hotel in time for me to read episode seven of Dead Air, “Disturbing the Field,” as advertised.
[to be continued]
Have you missed an episode or two or several?
You can begin reading at the beginning or you can catch up by visiting the archive or consulting the index to the Topical Guide. The Substack serialization of Little Follies begins here; Herb ’n’ Lorna begins here; Reservations Recommended begins here; Where Do You Stop? begins here; What a Piece of Work I Am begins here; At Home with the Glynns begins here; Leaving Small’s Hotel begins here.
You can listen to the episodes on the Personal History podcast. Begin at the beginning or scroll through the episodes to find what you’ve missed. The Substack podcast reading of Little Follies begins here; Herb ’n’ Lorna begins here; Reservations Recommended begins here; Where Do You Stop? begins here; What a Piece of Work I Am begins here; At Home with the Glynns begins here; Leaving Small’s Hotel begins here.
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