It didn’t take much for Destiny to get Robb Ellis to use his credit card for a weekly room at the Starlight Motel on West Sixth Street.
The place had a movie-star theme, but they were silver-screen heroes from long ago. Robb and Destiny didn’t recognize any of them, and not just because the pictures pinned up behind the registration desk were really faded.
No movie actor or TV personality or even Internet sensation had ever set foot in the motel.
The original owners had put the names of their three favorite stars in the now cracked concrete walkway in the courtyard. Small pebbles spelled out the names Burt Reynolds, Donna Mills, and Richard Chamberlain. The little rocks were the size of jelly beans, and more than half of them were missing.
Destiny’s room was in front of the pitted Donna Mills star. The accommodations featured a room with one tiny window and a bed that pretty much took up all the space, because you couldn’t even open the door all the way without hitting the corner of the yellowy mattress.
Robb Ellis was creeped out by the whole place, but Destiny looked very happy and said that she’d pay him back once she got her first paycheck from the restaurant.
She also said that he could spend the night whenever he wanted.
He couldn’t believe that part.
And so he went straight out the door to the front office and had the twitchy woman behind the desk charge him for two weeks, not one.
He’d think of something good to tell his parents when the credit-card bill came.
Like maybe that he helped a homeless person, because that was the truth.
And that got him thinking about whether this was something he could put on his college applications.
Maybe he would start a foundation to encourage teenagers to find ways to shelter homeless people and get them off the streets. If they were all as hot as Destiny, he imagined he could find lots of his friends to be part of the program.
But the first night didn’t turn out the way he’d planned.
After they’d picked up Destiny’s stuff from the dorm and moved it into the Starlight, she didn’t want to strip down to her leopard underwear and roll around on the bed, like he’d imagined.
She said that she was too hungry.
So they went for cheeseburgers at Gary’s Burger Shack. They brought along a six-pack of beer from the market and somehow finished it all. Then Destiny said she was too tired to do so much as keep her eyes open and that she’d see him in the morning.
Before he knew it, Robb found himself outside, on the Donna Mills star. The light switched off in her room, and it was so dark that he couldn’t see anything through the motel window.
As he walked to his SUV he decided that it was a good idea to take things slowly.
Robb looked up into the night sky, and right above him was a shooting star.
And he felt certain it was meant just for him.