Madge Makes Up Her Mind - 10

The surprising thing about Rosa, was how little she had seemed to care about her missing sister once she'd looked around the motel and had her questions answered.  Madge had walked her around the motel courtyard and showed her the rooms, dreading what the girl might see in the room where her sister had disappeared, but when she took her into room number 12, it had just presented itself as a clean, empty room with no sign of any kind of violence, no strange odor, and though Madge held her breath in the silence, no cries coming from inside the walls.  Rosa had been quite impressed with the washing machine, insisting Madge show her how to work it before they continued with their tour, and had stared wide eyed in the lounge at the fancy red pool table, the piano, all the mirrors in their gilt frames on the red walls and the paintings of the matador, the bull and the Spanish dancer.  She'd said she couldn't understand why her sister had run away, because it seemed like a very nice place to work and would she please be allowed to take her place?  Rosa's understanding of English was little better than her ability to speak it, but with Madge's basic Spanish they could communicate well enough and once she got over feeling awkward about the lost Maria and convinced herself there was no need to explain the odd circumstances of her disappearance, Madge found she liked the younger girl.  The motel had been without guests since the last guys to stay had gotten into that terrible fight and shot the hell out of the motel and each other, but there was a whole new gang on the way according to Romeo, so she was really going to need the help.