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noticed about the motel was that Mr. Suri hung postcards of the Statue of Liberty, his favorite tourist site, over the front desk. There was one picture of Miss Liberty in profile that reminded me of my mother. A strong jaw, full lips, and a nose that came straight down from her forehead. On the back of the postcard it explained that the spikes of her crown represent the seven seas and seven continents. I would like to visit her one day. It looks like a lovely spot, and you can walk all the way up inside her. She has a crown like a queen, even though there is no royalty here.
    After working there for a few months, I learned the Liberty Motel is also something of an attraction. Known in the business as a “short-stay” establishment, it’s a place for lovers in need of privacy. Prostitutes and politicians, traveling salespeople, truckers, and teenagers living at home all frequent the hotel. Money flows easily through such hands. Sometimes it’s all in single-dollar bills. Sixteen dollars and fifty cents per hour paid up front. I treat everyone the same, underworld and overworld. But it’s not always easy to do. Once a prostitute was so badly beaten that I wanted to call an ambulance, but she refused to go to the hospital. I took care of her, and when I removed the ice pack from her swollen eyes and cleaned her makeup, it was only then I realized she was just a girl, sixteen, seventeen. Times like that bring sorrow to my day. But it’s not always like that, not even often.
    Stained carpet, broken side tables, and stale smells from cigarettes and alcohol were the basic decor of the rooms when I first started working here. One day I asked Mr. Suri if he would let me redecorate the rooms. “What’s wrong with them?” he protested. “There is a heart-shaped Jacuzzi in one room that cost me five hundred dollars.”
    “Yes, and when people leave that room, they tell me how much they like it,” I patiently explained.
    “Stalina, let’s leave it at that.”
    “I can make beautiful rooms.”
    “No.”
    “Sixty dollars per room.”
    “No.”
    “Think of the motel sign.” I’d thought about the name before presenting the idea. “Liberty Motel, Rooms for the Imaginative.”
    “What do you mean, imaginative?” he asked.
    “I will make a different fantasy setting for each room for only three hundred and sixty total dollars. Sixty dollars per room.”
    “Three hundred and sixty dollars. That’s only twenty-two short-stay hours, less than one day,” he said and smoothed the corners of his mustache.
    Mr. Suri was smart and good at math, and I’d noticed that he played with his mustache when he was about to agree to something. About forty years of age or so, he had the long, graceful hands of a pianist, and in profile he reminded me of that handsome actor Omar Sharif. He came here eight years ago from India with his wife, their young son, Chander, who was now ten, and his brother Garson. An uncle died and left them the motel. Mr. Suri’s wife left him for another man about a year after they moved here. I had never seen her. She moved to New Mexico with the child. Amalia told me this much. Mr. Suri had pictures of his son dressed as a cowboy in the office, but none of the boy’s mother. I think he was depressed because sometimes he sat alone under the pine trees in front of the motel drawing with a stick in the dirt. He was quiet and did not laugh very often. Garson I hardly ever saw. Whenever they talked on the phone, I heard much stress in Mr. Suri’s voice. Garson was younger than Mr. Suri and had a daughter who worked here at the motel. Mara was the niece; she was seventeen and very lazy when it came to her job of cleaning the rooms. Mr. Suri thought she was saving money to go to college, but I knew she planned to run off with her boyfriend. I’d heard conversations they had over the intercom in the linen room.
    Mr. Suri finally agreed to my idea.
    “I’ll let you do two rooms, and then we’ll see. Don’t