Second Floor, Front

She'd arrived with one worn suitcase, a Bible, a wind up alarm clock and a $50 dollar bill her daddy had slipped into her pocket when he hugged her and told her goodbye at the ferry.  And now she lived in a small room in a neglected boarding house - second floor, front - with a view of Main Street that stretched all the way to the breakwater.   Sometimes in the evenings, she would sit by the window and look out at the ocean, dreaming and imagining and wondering where it had all gone wrong.

There was a single bed with a flowered coverlet, one comfortable chair, a scarred old table with two somewhat rickety chairs, a tiny dressing table with a free standing, cloudy old mirror, a bathroom with a broken door. She had saved for weeks to buy the unpainted shelves where she kept her books and her make up and her little radio.  The icebox, scavenged for the bargain price of $5 at a sad, sidewalk sale, hummed and squeaked pretty much non stop but covered with a slightly tattered piece of chintz she'd recovered from the boarding house trash, it made a suitable place to keep her one set of dinnerware and silver.  She kept a green soda bottle on the battered old table and every few afternoons would add a new bunch of daisies, change the water, and just as her mother had taught her, drop in a single aspirin to keep them fresh.  When it was all simply too depressing and drab, she would cut pictures out of the travel magazines her landlady threw away and tack them to the walls - she liked for the first thing she saw each morning to be a faraway place where she could almost hear a waterfall and feel a warm breeze.

She was, she liked to remind herself, very lucky to have gotten this particular room - second floor, front - it's previous tenant had died the very day she'd come looking for a place to stay, otherwise she'd no doubt have been given something on the back side of the boarding house, someplace with no light and a view of the alley.
Here at least she could see the ocean, wave to the townspeople as they passed under her window, breathe the salty air and feel the warm breeze.  She was nineteen and alone, independence hadn't turned out quite the way she'd imagined and she missed everything about home but couldn't bring herself to give up, not yet anyway. She wanted so much more than the life she'd left behind, she'd confessed to her motherly landlady during a moment of weakness, more than marrying a local boy, more than a houseful of children and a factory job, more than an ordinary, dull life.  

Mrs. Lasseigne had given her a kindly smile and and an encouraging hug then offered to cut her weekly rent for help at mealtime.

Twelve rooms and all of them taken, Margaret, dear, she'd said cheerfully, If you've a mind to lend a hand, I can certainly give you one free week a month!

She'd jumped at the offer, thinking it uncommonly generous and quietly glad for the distraction after a full day of housekeeping duties at the big hotel.  She and Mrs. Lasseigne partnered easily and the arrangement suited them both admirably well.

Many hands make light the work! the landlady commented often and Margaret would smile and nod.

The rest came about by an accident when the widow landlady descended the stairs one Monday washday with a basketful of linens, tripped and took an undignified tumble down and onto the landing.  The laundry cushioned her fall and probably saved her life but still she wound up in hospital with a broken hip and a badly dislocated shoulder.  

Spit and tarnation, Margaret, dear, she was said to have announced from her hospital bed, It's up to you now.

And so evolved a partnership.  Margaret hired a two of the hotel girls, one to help cook and one to help clean, quit her own job and took over the running of the boarding house as if she'd been born to it.  Mrs. Lasseigne taught her how to collect the rents and keep the books, how to negotiate with the tradesmen, when and who to call when something went amiss.  Not a single boarder was lost and by the time the widow landlady was able to return, the boarding house was newly painted, gently organized and prosperous.  The partnership was legalized and made permanent and with Mrs. Lasseigne's death many years later, the boarding house passed solely to Margaret, who ran it quietly and well for the remainder of her life.

Her second floor, front room was rented in no time and she left it for the three room apartment on the top floor and a better view.  It wasn't exactly a dream come true, she admitted, but it became her own.