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valarltd“I am good enough. I am on my way up. Nothing can stop me, except for me.” She repeated the affirmation five times and sighed. More corporate bullshit. Affirmations didn't do jack-shit for getting raises or bonuses or performance reviews. Nothing did for those except hard work. She hung out her tan skirt and pink with tan blouse for the next day. She would pack when it was closer to time. How bad could it be, really?
Two weeks later, crammed with five other people in an underpowered minivan that labored up the Ozark Mountains with wheezes and groans and shuddered its way to a break-neck sixty-five miles an hour going down the other side, she rolled her eyes at herself for asking questions to which she already knew the answer.
“Paddle faster, I hear banjos,” Vince from HR snarked at the driver.
“Ignore him, Bill,” Susie from Reception said. “Nothing's suited little Princess Pissypants since we passed the last bar.”
“One more word out of either of you, and you ride on the roofrack,” Bill, the IT guy, growled. Carla sank a little deeper in her seat and turned up her mp3 player. Chris still snored in the back as he had since the last rest break. Jim and Kim were too busy kissing in the back seat to care.
The hills were gorgeous at this time of year, with autumn just coming on. Sumac blazed red among the fading green. A few trees had already started turning orange and yellow.
The motel sat in an enormous gravel parking lot, looking as if it had been forgotten since 1953. The red doors and white walls were freshly painted, but the low-slung building itself looked ancient. Carla shivered.
The shuttered restaurant next door lent an even creepier air to the place. The remaining letters hung awkwardly from the sign that advertised “Ch k n ied ste 3.9.” An overturned building block table lay among the weeds in the dead flowerbed.
“Oh goodie,” Vince sneered. “We're checking into the Bates Motel. No showers, girls.”
Vince wasn't a bad guy, really, Carla thought as he helped her get her suitcase. She knew he always got bitchy when he was irritated or scared. He had taken the camp persona and made it his own, but some people didn't understand and more had fallen victim to his vicious tongue.
“It'll be all right,” she said. “The brochure made the conference center sound a lot more modern.”
Jim snorted as he grabbed his suitcase and Kim's as well. “I just hope this place has hot water and a bed that's not as vintage it looks.”
Two weeks later, crammed with five other people in an underpowered minivan that labored up the Ozark Mountains with wheezes and groans and shuddered its way to a break-neck sixty-five miles an hour going down the other side, she rolled her eyes at herself for asking questions to which she already knew the answer.
“Paddle faster, I hear banjos,” Vince from HR snarked at the driver.
“Ignore him, Bill,” Susie from Reception said. “Nothing's suited little Princess Pissypants since we passed the last bar.”
“One more word out of either of you, and you ride on the roofrack,” Bill, the IT guy, growled. Carla sank a little deeper in her seat and turned up her mp3 player. Chris still snored in the back as he had since the last rest break. Jim and Kim were too busy kissing in the back seat to care.
The hills were gorgeous at this time of year, with autumn just coming on. Sumac blazed red among the fading green. A few trees had already started turning orange and yellow.
The motel sat in an enormous gravel parking lot, looking as if it had been forgotten since 1953. The red doors and white walls were freshly painted, but the low-slung building itself looked ancient. Carla shivered.
The shuttered restaurant next door lent an even creepier air to the place. The remaining letters hung awkwardly from the sign that advertised “Ch k n ied ste 3.9.” An overturned building block table lay among the weeds in the dead flowerbed.
“Oh goodie,” Vince sneered. “We're checking into the Bates Motel. No showers, girls.”
Vince wasn't a bad guy, really, Carla thought as he helped her get her suitcase. She knew he always got bitchy when he was irritated or scared. He had taken the camp persona and made it his own, but some people didn't understand and more had fallen victim to his vicious tongue.
“It'll be all right,” she said. “The brochure made the conference center sound a lot more modern.”
Jim snorted as he grabbed his suitcase and Kim's as well. “I just hope this place has hot water and a bed that's not as vintage it looks.”
