short beginning

The desk attendant slid the card across the counter and asked her to fill it out. She hesitated for a moment as she looked at the blank name portion, then decided it probably didn't matter. She wrote her name slowly in the neat flowing cursive she remembered from grammar school. She filled in her grandmother's address, where she's been staying for the past five years, the address on her expired driver's license. She handed the clerk the registration card with two crisp twenty dollar bills. The attendant asked for her license plate number and she lied and said she didn't have her car with her; She was hoping the attendant hadn't seen her walk up to the motel office through the hedge row in the back alley.
         The room was dark, lifeless; The inescapable smell of carpet deodorizer reached every corner. She found her way to the bathroom, placing her handbag on the bottom of the bed as she passed. She turned on the cold water faucet and let it run while she removed a cup from its sanitary plastic container.  She could barely see her outline in the mirror. She was crying.