Dee put her hands on Jeff’s shoulders and looked him in the eye. Since he was almost a foot taller than her five-two height, this required neck-craning on her part. “That’s why I want you to make a lifestyle change with me. You’re always complaining about how expensive the Bay Area is and how you’re over being a systems analyst and want to do something more creative. If you come into business with me, you can do two creative things: We’ll work together to transform the Golden into a motel everyone wants to visit, and you can set up a business as a freelance web designer and app creator. You’ve wanted to do that for forever. Now you’ll have the time.”
Dee could see Jeff was conflicted, which she considered progress. He hesitated. “The thing is, we don’t know anything about the hospitality business. I don’t even make my own bed. I don’t know how, which is going to make it a little tough to make the beds for”—he silently counted the rooms in the motel—“ten guest rooms and however many cabins.”
“I’ve been watching videos by motel owners and signed up for some online classes. I’ll teach you what I learn. And once the Golden starts generating income, we’ll hire a room comfort specialist. I just made that up as a better name for housekeepers. Do you like it?”
“I do.”
“You see? We’ll be job creators. And hospitality innovators.”
Jeff gave a snort. “Innovators. Nice way of saying amateurs.”
“Yes. But we do have useful skill sets. You have your creative side, but you also have the tech talent to turn the Golden into a smart motel with a vintage feel but state-of-the-art everything. And if there’s one thing fifteen years of working in writers’ rooms has taught me, it’s how to deal with personalities, from nice to horrible. So I can manage guests. And we can brainstorm on marketing.”
Jeff pondered this. “What are the guest rooms like?”
Dee, excited, did a little bounce up and down, her sneakers leaving indents in the wet, mossy ground beneath her feet. “Wait until you see them. They’re totally mid-century woodsy time capsules.”
A pinecone dropped off the tree above them and beaned Jeff. “Ow!” He winced and rubbed his head.
“You’ll live. Come on.” Dee darted across the street. Jeff followed, massaging where the pinecone made contact.
The two traipsed through overgrown brush to the window of a guest room. A broken venetian blind hung askew, allowing a glimpse inside. The walls and ceiling were covered with knotty pine paneling. The centerpiece of the room was a double bed with a western-style carved and whitewashed oak headboard. Matching nightstands adorned each side of the bed, and a red-plaid quilt topped it. A desk of the same oak design claimed one corner of the room, while a club chair upholstered in forest green Naugahyde sat across from it. A rag rug covered a small section of the wood floor. Lamps with bases made of stacked horseshoes graced the desk and both nightstands.
“You’re right,” Jeff said, awed. “It’s like time just stopped in the forties or fifties. Whenever this place was built.”
“In 1941, over eighty years ago. People all over the country are buying mid-century motels like this and restoring them. I want to breathe life back into the Golden and make it a must-visit destination. And I want to do it with you.”
Jeff closed his eyes. He inhaled a deep breath of the fresh mountain air, scented by the omnipresent pine trees. Then his eyes popped open. “The bathrooms. Have you seen them? If the plumbing’s bad—”
“The plumbing’s good.”
“Are they dated?”
“Yes, but in a cool way. Cleaned up and with fresh linens, they’ll look great. Same with the bedrooms.”
Jeff stroked his chin stubble. “If it goes well,” he said, “we could expand. There are probably motels like this all over the state. The country.”
“Yes. Exactly.” Dee pressed her lips together to contain a swell of emotion, then released them. “I follow this social-media site called R.I.P. Mid-Century. It shows before-and-after photos of places like this, the ‘after’ being when they’ve been abandoned. It breaks my heart. I don’t want that to happen to the Golden. It needs us. And we need it.”
Jeff gave his head an amused shake. “You’ve always been a rescuer.”
He gazed at the Golden, brow furrowed. Once again, Dee waited.
“Okay,” Jeff finally said. “I’m in.”
Dee let out a happy shriek, startling the squirrels in the ponderosa pine, who chittered a scolding. “Yes! Whoo-hoo! I’ll call the selling agent. It’s a probate sale through the state, since the owner died without a will or heirs. I know they’ll be thrilled to unload it, so we can negotiate a good deal. Then we can go over every inch of the place and work up a list of the three R’s—Repair, Restore, Replace.”
Jeff gave her an affectionate grin. “Did you make that up too?”
“I did,” she said with pride.
A loud buzzing drew their attention to the motel neon sign. The letters G, E, and N sputtered, then completely burned out. “I guess we’ll soon be the proud owners of the OLD motel,” Jeff said, his tone wry.
“That will go on the list under Repairs.”
Jeff raised an eyebrow. “Why do I have the feeling we’re going to be looking at some very long lists?”
“Getting the Golden up and running will definitely be a challenge,” Dee admitted. “But with Team You and Me, I know we can work through every obstacle we come up against.”
“I like your optimism,” Jeff said. “Hopefully, my accountant will share it.”
He headed back to his car, careful to avoid low-hanging pinecones. Dee gave the guest room interior a parting glance. She was about to return to her own car when she heard what sounded like leaves crunching under footsteps.
Dee froze. Her heart thumped as she listened for sound again. It came, only slightly more distant, like it was moving away from her. She relaxed slightly. Probably an animal. Nothing to be scared of. I’m perfectly safe here in the country. Perfectly, perfectly safe.
But as she made a quick jog up to the road, she couldn’t shake the feeling she might be wrong about that.
CHAPTER 2
With Jeff on board—although his accountant, not so much—Dee managed to quickly close the deal for the Golden, making them the proud possessors of twenty-two rusty old keys: twenty for the guest rooms and cabins, one for the main office and lobby, and one for the owner’s apartment, where Dee would reside. Jeff chose the one-bedroom cabin closest to the motel as his new home. Tiny as it was, it beat the single bedroom he’d been renting in a San Francisco home for a jaw-dropping amount of money.
Dee had rented out her Studio City condo fully furnished, so she welcomed the furniture that came with her new digs, all of which were in the same woodsy style as the guest rooms. Her living space was comprised of a bedroom and bathroom, down a short hall from the main room, a large open space housing the living, dining, and kitchen area. The ancient avocado stove looked like an accident waiting to happen, but proved functional. Even better, Foundgold served up unexpectedly strong Wi-Fi, which was coming in handy as she sat working on her laptop at the living room’s oak desk, researching the discouraging cost of repairing the neon sign, as well as the Golden’s pool.
The room was warm. Her tortoiseshell glasses began a slide down the damp bridge of her nose, and she pushed them back. She rested her feet on one of several ancient trunks filled with the late owner’s belongings, which had come with the property. Dee hoped a thorough search of the trunks would unearth historic relics she could sell on the internet to help fund the motel venture.
“I hate how much it’s going to cost to deal with the pool, but we don’t have a choice,” she said to Jeff, who was splayed out on the green Naugahyde sofa, working from his phone. “We have to make it a top priority. Aside from the fact it’s in terrible shape, the condition it’s in right now makes the Golden look abandoned. We could fix up every room in the motel and people would still drive right by.”
“That won’t be a problem,” Jeff said. “I crunched the numbers for what it would cost to get all the rooms ready to go and forget a big grand opening. With the cost of new mattresses, air conditioners, linens, mini fridges, and microwaves for each room, we’ll have to rehab and book them one by one. And do all the cleaning and maintenance ourselves for longer than we originally thought. We’ll still have to live off our savings for a couple of months, but it’s our only option.”
