Checking In

As David Graham is making his way over to the place he's staying in town, the reader gets an idea of where he'll be staying:

Graham had found the name of the place – Ma Carter’s Boarding House – using an online yellow pages service. There were no franchise motels in Graphite and all the other accommodations had ended with "Bed & Breakfast" – generally a no-no when traveling on the magazine’s dime.

Reluctantly, Graham had booked three nights, expecting a lumpy mattress smelling of its previous occupant, faded blue and white striped wallpaper peeling on the walls and a dresser only wide enough to hold his change, keys, and – not that he actually owned one – a long straight black plastic comb with several teeth missing. He dreaded what the shared bathroom would look like, imagining a single bare light bulb dangling from the ceiling, cracked tile and enamel in and around the tub, strange hairs clogging the drain.

The name of the place had suited Graham’s editor just fine. Its name and low price made the editor smile as he signed an expense voucher. The fact it had no website helped confirm his feeling he was sending a writer off to stay somewhere that would make a boot camp barracks seem like Heaven.

But is it the right idea? Hmmmm....

(daily word count: 1,723 words; total word count: 10,976 words; words remaining: 39,024)