Rose Madder by Stephen King Page B

Sisters, but she had a feeling she would be moving soon, probably the next time a room turned up vacant on what the residents at D & S called Anna’s List.
    A shadow fell across the open hotel doorway, and before she could even think where she might hide her half-eaten banana, let alone get to her feet, Pam poked her head in. “Peek, baby,” she said, and giggled when Rosie jumped.
    â€œDon’t ever do that, Pammy! You almost gave me a heart attack.”
    â€œAww, they’d never fire you for sitting down and eating a banana,” Pam said. “You should see some of the stuff that goes on in this place. What have you got left, Twenty-two and Twenty?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œWant some help?”
    â€œOh, you don’t have to—”
    â€œI don’t mind,” Pam said. “Really. With two of us on the case, we can turn those two rooms in fifteen minutes. What do you say?”
    â€œI say yes,” Rosie told her gratefully. “And I’m buying at the Hot Pot after work—pie as well as coffee, if you want.”
    Pam grinned. “If they’ve got any of that chocolate cream, I want, believe me.”
10
    G ood days—four weeks of good days, give or take.
    That night, as she lay on her cot with her hands laced behind her head, looking into the darkness and listening to thewoman who had come in the previous evening sobbing quietly two or three cots down on her left, Rosie thought that the days were mostly good for a negative reason: there was no Norman in them. She sensed, however, that it would soon take more than his absence to satisfy and fulfill her.
    Not quite yet, though, she thought, and closed her eyes. For now, what I’ve got is still plenty. These simple days of work, food, sleep . . . and no Norman Daniels.
    She began to drift, to come untethered from her conscious mind, and in her head Carole King once again started to sing the lullaby that sent her off to sleep most nights: I’m really Rosie . . . and I’m Rosie Real . . . you better believe me . . . I’m a great big deal . . .
    Then there was darkness, and a night—they were becoming more frequent—when there were no bad dreams.

III
PROVIDENCE

1
    W hen Rosie and Pam Haverford came down in the service elevator after work on the following Wednesday, Pam looked pale and unwell. “It’s my period,” she said when Rosie expressed concern. “I’m having cramps like a bastard.”
    â€œDo you want to stop for a coffee?”
    Pam thought about it, then shook her head. “You go on without me. All I want to do right now is go back to D and S and find an empty bedroom before everyone shows up from work and starts yakking. Gobble some Midol and sleep for a couple of hours. If I do that, maybe I’ll feel like a human being again.”
    â€œI’ll come with you,” Rosie said as the elevator doors opened and they stepped out.
    Pam shook her head. “No you don’t,” she said, and her face lit in a brief smile. “I can make it on my own just fine, and you’re old enough to have a cup of coffee without a chaperone. Who knows—you might even meet someone interesting.”
    Rosie sighed. To Pam, someone interesting always meant a man, usually the kind with muscles that stood out under their form-fitting tee-shirts like geological landmarks, and as far as Rosie was concerned, she could do without that kind of man for the rest of her life.
    Besides, she was married.
    She glanced down at her wedding band and diamond engagement ring inside it as they stepped out onto the street. How much that glance had to do with what happened a short time later was something of which she was never sure, but it did place the engagement ring, which in the ordinary course of things she hardly ever thought of at all, somewhere toward the front of her mind. It was a little over a carat, by far the most