“No. I started to tell you how I got the worm. After I got the job in the restaurant, well, I made more than twenty dollars a week, really, with the tips, although most of the people who come in there aren’t rich, just caddies, people like that. And there’s a Finnish man, he always gave me a dollar even if he only had a cup of coffee. I’ve gotten to hate Sibelius though. I didn’t eat there except for a sandwich late at night when the Greek closed up. And I developed this craving, oh, it was terrible! For hamburgers. I found a place called Tips. The hamburgers were thirty-five cents but, even now, just thinking about it, I want one. They had about ten different ways of making them. One was with mayonnaise and pickles, and I could have eaten ten. As it was, I used to have two for lunch. The waiters laughed at me, but I was like a hog in a dream, I couldn’t ever get enough. I thought about them the moment I woke up and—when I realized I had enough money to really buy them for lunch! Then I began to try other places, drive-ins and drugstores and diners. That’s how I must have gotten the worm. I lost weight, and I felt strange, and the girl who works at the Greek’s told me I was beginning to look like a nun, that white papery look. I couldn’t ever get enough to eat. Sometimes the Greek let me finish the shrimp cocktails and even cook myself a steak on the grill after everyone had left, early in the morning. I ate and ate and ate. I was going crazy with food. But it was the taste for the ground meat—everything else was secondary to that. And finally the girl sent me to a doctor. I took him a specimen and he said I had a tapeworm. Listen…when he told me what I had to do, I couldn’t make myself do it. I didn’t know which was worse, to have the worm or to get rid of it. And then, a few days ago, I fell down carrying a tray to a table, and spilled catsup all over a customer. So I took the pills.”

“I think you want to sleep,” he said.

“I could sleep, I think.”

“I’ll stay with you.”

She rose somewhat unsteadily and he helped her to the bed where she lay down. He covered her with a blanket and went to the chair. She was asleep almost instantly.

His vigil lasted until late that evening. She awoke all at once, her eyes opening, coming to rest on him. She smiled. “You never believe terrible things will be over,” she said.

“I saved a sandwich for you. It’s a little stale.”

She took it and ate it all.