Once Upon a Summertime Read Online Free PDF

too.”
    â€œRight . . .” She was about to call him on this as well as his other lie, but she noticed the young family coming toward the pool gate. This wasn’t the place for a showdown. Suddenly she remembered something else that had been bothering her since her conversation with Jacob.
    Walking with Mickey as he went to the other end of the pool, she spoke quietly. “Jacob mentioned that you were still on duty when those teenagers were out here last night, Mickey. Is that right?”
    â€œYeah, I was here. The kids weren’t acting too crazy then. Nothing worth calling the cops over.”
    She pointed to the trash can she’d set by the back fence. “Those bottles and cans I just picked up were not all soft drinks, Mickey.”
    He just shrugged as he sprayed the deck.
    â€œYou didn’t notice any booze last night?” She pointed to the sign on the wall. “See the third rule? No alcoholic beverages .”
    He shrugged again, adjusting the hose nozzle to a firmer flow so that the overspray splashed onto her shoes.
    She stepped back. “And you didn’t notice that the kids were underage?”
    â€œWhat is this—the Spanish Inquisition?”
    She just shook her head, then, seeing the family was inside the pool area and within hearing distance, she simply turned and walked away. If she were truly the manager of this fleabag motel, Mickey would’ve received his walking papers long before this. But she knew that wasn’t going to happen. She’d already complained about him to the owners once, shortly after she started work here, nearly two years ago. That was when she discovered Mickey was the owners’ nephew—and that his job as “head janitor” was probably more secure than her own.
    â€œHe’s my brother’s son and he’s had a rough go,” Sharon Morgan had confided to Anna after the meeting. “Cut him some slack, okay? He just needs to know we believe in him. He’ll straighten out in time.”
    Anna had cut him slack. It seemed like she cut him slack almost every single day. And unless she was imagining things, Mickey’s slack was rubbing off on the other employees. It was like a disease of slacking had plagued this motel. Oh, certainly not everyone was affected. A few employees still took their jobs seriously. The Gonzales sisters, for instance—if Anna wanted something done right she would ask Rita or Consuelo to do it. She knew she couldn’t depend on Shawna; although she was head of housekeeping, she was also Mickey’s on-again, off-again girlfriend. Anna could never keep up with the couple. Since Shawna had been even less motivated lately, Anna would wager they were “off-again.” Not that Shawna was ever particularly motivated anyway. Anna couldn’t begin to count how many times she’d spotted Shawna and anothermaid lounging in a room with the TV on and just visiting as if they thought they were on vacation. Shawna’s favorite response was, “Oh, it’ll get done. It always gets done.” Maybe so, but it was the way it got done that really made Anna want to pull her hair out.
    Despite the training meetings Anna had held with housekeeping—trying to teach them time-saving tricks, build up their morale, encourage them toward excellence, and explain that cutting corners could lead to lost jobs—other than the Gonzales sisters and a couple others, the rest just returned to their old bad habits. And some of their bad habits were truly disgusting.
    Anna had learned several things while working at Value Lodge—things she would never do if she were forced to be a guest in this motel. First of all, she would never drink out of a bathroom water glass. She would never walk barefoot over the floors. She would never assume the bathroom was sanitized. Beyond that, she would definitely remove all but the sheets from the bed before sleeping. And that would be