Countdown to
8/4/06
12 days (and counting to Into the Storm, in stores on August 15th)
When Frank Met Rosie, Part Three
Note
from Suz: Welcome to day number three of the Countdown!
On Tuesday, we had the first of a three part story called "When Frank Met Rosie," and yesterday I gave you part two. If you haven't read those first two parts, you might want to go do that before reading the third and final installment. <g> Click HERE to go to Part One. Or click HERE to go to Part Two.
For those of you who've been waiting for part two... Let's do it!
Part Three
(First a few lines from part two, for reference...)
"I know you aren't going to call me," she said softly.
"It's okay. Don't feel
bad. I know that... Well, maybe in
another lifetime, you know? I
just... I loved last night. I loved
meeting you."
She touched him
then, only briefly, her fingers cool against his face, and then she was gone,
the gilded door shutting silently behind her.
It was for the best.
It was definitely for the best. Those
words drummed through Frank's head as he passed the park where artists and
venders, palm readers and bead sellers had been set up, even after dark, even in
the rain. It was empty now, littered
with trash from the hardcore partying of the previous night.
It was for the best. For the
best.
Motherfucking
fool, motherfucking fool....
Frank
violently kicked garbage -- plastic beer cups -- out of his way.
One wasn't quite empty and it flew through the air, nearly hitting a
woman who still sat by the park's wall, raincoat up and over her head.
Her
wooden sign was still out: Palms
read, five dollars. Blind
Maggie Sees the Truth was lettered in smaller print beneath the picture of a
hand. She started awake -- she'd
been asleep sitting there -- and even though she wore dark glasses, she turned
and looked directly at Frank.
"You
don't have much time," she said, her voice raspy either from age or from
sleeping in the rain, but probably from sleeping on the street in the rain at
her advanced age.
"Not
interested, ma'am." Frank
slowed down, but only to press his spare change and a few loose dollar bills
into her hand.
But
she caught his wrist, running gnarled fingers across his palm.
"She loves you."
For
an old woman, she had a grip of steel. Frank
could have pulled free, but not without knocking her out of her seat and
dragging her down the street.
"You
just met," the old woman -- Blind Maggie, presumably -- insisted.
"Her eyes... She has
such beautiful eyes."
As
did nearly all the women on the planet. Frank
was not impressed.
"She
sees you," Maggie intoned. "She
loves you already -- and you would walk away from such a gift?"
It
was foolish. He was a fool.
He should have thanked her for her advice.
She would have let him go if he'd told her he believed her, and that he
was going to get her five dollar payment out from his wallet.
The dead last thing he should have done was argue.
"She
deserves better," Frank said.
And
just like that, the old woman kicked him -- ow, Jesus!
Right on the shin.
"Fool!"
she used the same word he'd been using to chastise himself.
"What's better than loving and being loved?"
She'd
let him go in the course of delivering a kick with that much force, and he
backed away.
For
a blind woman -- right -- she tracked his movement with unerring accuracy as he
turned and saw -- thank you Lord -- the Sheraton sign.
His hotel wasn't close, but it wasn't that far either.
"You'll
break her heart!" Maggie shouted at him.
"You're going to break her heart!"
Frank
turned the corner, but she kept on shouting.
"You
love her, too and you didn't even kiss her goodbye!"
And
he stopped. Just like that.
Fool.
He was such a fool.
Love her, too? He didn't
know. Was that what this was, this
tight feeling in his chest, this odd grief at the idea of not seeing Rosie
again, Rosie whom he barely even knew. Except...
He
knew her.
They'd
talked for hours, as if they'd been friends for years.
He'd told her secrets, things he'd never told anyone else.
She'd made him laugh, made him dream of a life he'd never dared dream of
before as he'd lost himself in her beautiful dark brown eyes.
And
just like that, Frank started running.
Not
toward the Sheraton. Away from it.
Toward
Rosie's hotel.
He
was out of breath and sweating when he pushed his way into the lobby, and the
clerk at the front desk looked up in alarm.
"House
phone?" Frank panted, and the man pointed to a telephone farther down the
counter.
Frank
picked it up and dialed zero. "Connect
me to Rosie Marchado's room," he said when the operator picked up.
There
was a pause. "I'm sorry,
sir--" Words he didn't want to hear "--we have no guests named
Marchado."
Perfect.
She was staying with friends and had obviously registered under one of
their names.
As
Frank hung up, he saw in the mirror that two of the bellhops -- big, burly
fellows -- had come to surround him. Shit.
Now he wouldn't even be able to sit in the lobby, hoping that she'd come
downstairs early, in the few minutes he had left before he had to catch his own
flight out.
"I'm
not here to make trouble, boys," Frank told them, turning around nice and
slow, keeping his hands up and in sight.
But
the bigger bellhop was smiling. "Chief
O'Leary?" he asked.
Frank
blinked. What the...?
"I
served twelve years in the regular Navy," the man said.
He was more overweight than muscular, Frank saw now.
"I always admired you SEALs."
He cleared his throat, holding out an envelope.
"Miss Rosie asked me to give this to you.
She said you'd be coming by."
Frank
took it. Opened it.
Rosie
had written him a note in her neat, clear hand.
"Suite 312," was all it said.
Short and sweet and all he needed to know.
He
ran for the elevator, pushed the button. It
took too damn long, so he searched for and found the sign for the stairs.
He took them up, three at a time.
And
there it was. Suite 312.
He knocked, knowing that he was probably going to wake up her friends,
but he so didn't give a shit. He
knocked again, even louder, and the door opened.
Rosie
stood there, and for several seconds, neither of them moved.
And then they both moved, and she was in his arms and Jesus Lord save
him, he was finally kissing her.
She
was sweetness and fire, kissing him back so fiercely, that his heart damn near
exploded in his chest. When he
finally pulled away, breathless and dizzy, she was laughing and maybe even
crying a little, too.
"I've
never done anything even remotely like this before."
Rosie told him. "I
just... I don't do this."
Frank
didn't either. Never before this.
And probably, in all honesty, never again.
"I have to go," he told her.
Words she'd hear from him again and again, unless she came to her senses
in the next few hours, day, weeks, months. It
was quite probably going to be months before he could arrange a trip to Hartford
to see her again. And it would take
him far longer, unless he broke into that savings account where he'd stashed his
inheritance from his mother -- all nine thousand dollars of it.
Still,
he kissed Rosie again, longer, slower, deeper this time, loving the way she
melted into his arms.
"My
email address is on my business card," she whispered.
"This
is crazy," he said, touching the softness of her cheek, trying to memorize
her face, her eyes.
She
laughed up at him. "Good-crazy,"
she told him. "Really
good-crazy."
He
kissed her again, both cursing and grateful for her roommates.
If they'd been in her hotel room instead of out here in the hall, their
clothes would already be off. And if
there was one thing he was certain of, it was that she deserved better than a
five-minute fuck, culminating with him running out the door to hail a cab,
hauling up the zipper on his fly, shoes in his hands.
But
Lord help him, because what he wanted and what he wanted
were not the same thing.
And
she was thinking along the same lines. "Do
you want...?"
He
waited, sure this time that she was not going to offer him coffee.
"I
could..." She cleared her
throat. "Come with you to your,
um, hotel and... help you pack your suitcase?"
She
actually blushed because they both knew damn well that neither of them would
pack any kind of suitcase if they went back to his room.
Not that he even had a suitcase. He
always traveled with his seabag, a duffel that he could just throw everything
into -- clean clothes and dirty laundry mixed together, because who the hell
cared?
But
the thing in his chest was swelling even larger.
It was way past his throat now. It
pushed on the backs of his eyes, making him feel as if -- Sweet Jesus -- as if
he might actually start bawling like a baby.
Because what she was telling him was...
"You're
that sure about me?" he asked, his voice coming out no louder than a
whisper.
She
nodded. She was.
"Let
me grab my sneakers," she told him now, disappearing to do just that.
Sneakers.
With sneakers on her feet, they'd both be able to run much farther and
faster. They could get to the
Sheraton in enough time to spend ten
minutes...
"We
should wait," Frank heard himself saying.
"I want to wait."
She
was back in a sneaker-clad flash, looking at him as if he were from Mars, so he
tried to explain.
"I
want to do this right," he told her. "How
about we meet for Christmas? Right
back here, in
"I'd
love to meet you for Christmas," she told him.
"And you're right. We should
wait."
And
there they stood, staring at each other.
Rosie
held out her hand.
Frank
took it.
And
together, Rosie's laughter wrapping around them both, they ran for the stairs.
* * * *
When
Frank Met Rosie
By Suzanne Brockmann
© 2006 by Suzanne Brockmann
That's all for now! Be sure to come back on Monday for the next installment in the Countdown to INTO THE STORM!
(Note from Suz: I'm going to try to post each new day's countdown page before noon eastern time. Please be patient if I'm a little late...)
See you on Monday!