Triptych

“Top you off?” the waitress asked, but she was already filling John’s mug with coffee.

“Thanks,” he mumbled.

The door opened and he glanced up into the mirror behind the counter to see Robin standing with her hands on her hips, looking around for a table. The restaurant was fairly busy, so she didn’t notice him staring.

John fought the urge to turn around. He wanted to call her over, point to the empty stool beside him and listen to her talk. Too much was going on now, though. He had blood on his hands, guilt in his heart. He looked back down at his mug, staring into the murky liquid, wishing it could show him his future. Would there ever be a woman in his life? Would he ever find someone who knew what had happened to him, what he had done, and not run away screaming?

“Hey, you.” Robin slipped onto the stool beside him. She was dressed differently. Her hair was in a ponytail and she was wearing jeans and a T-shirt instead of her usual hooker garb.

“Hey,” John returned. “Off the clock?”

“Yeah,” she said, turning over her coffee cup and signaling for the waitress.

Something else was different about her, but John couldn’t pinpoint exactly what that was. It had nothing to do with the way she was dressed or the fact that she wasn’t wearing a pound of makeup. If he knew her better, he might say that she was nervous.

She said, “You ever think that you just hate your job? That maybe you should just run away from home and never look back?”

He smiled. He had considered ru

She nodded, then gave him a sly smile. “Are you stalking me? First the hospital and now this.”

He looked around. “You own this place or something?”

“This is my regular breakfast hangout.”

“Sorry,” he apologized. “Just looked like a good place to sit awhile.” He’d had money in his pocket for the first time in forever and he’d wanted to treat himself.

She said, “I lied to you.”

“About what?”

“My first kiss,” she said. “It wasn’t my little brother’s best friend.”

He tried to make a joke of it, even though his feelings were hurt. “Please tell me it wasn’t your little brother.”

She smiled, poured some cream into her coffee. “My parents were speed freaks,” she said. “At least my mom and whoever it was she was banging were.” Robin picked up her spoon and stirred the coffee. “The state took me away from her when I was a kid.”

John didn’t know what to say. He settled on, “I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Yeah,” she said. “I was in and out of foster care for a while. Met a lot of foster dads who were real happy to have a little girl living under their roof.”

John was silent, watching her stir her coffee. She had the smallest hands. Why was it that women’s hands were so much more attractive than men’s?

“What about you?” she asked. “Did you come from a broken home, too?”

She had said the words sarcastically. John had met plenty of felons who claimed they were victims of circumstance, their dysfunctional families forcing them into a life of crime. The way they told their stories, you wouldn’t think they had a choice in the matter.

“No,” he told her. “I came from a perfectly normal home. Wonderful, cookie-baking, scout-leading mom. Kind of distant father, but he was home every night and he took an interest in what I was doing.” He thought about Joyce. She was probably on the phone right now working her magic. He didn’t know whether or not Aunt Lydia would do the right thing, but John thought he could live the rest of his life in peace just knowing that for the first time in twenty years, Joyce believed in him.

Robin tapped her spoon twice against the mug, then put it on the counter. “So, what happened to you, John? How’d you end up in jail?”

He shrugged. “”Wrong crowd.“

She laughed, but obviously didn’t think it was fu

She had asked this two days ago at the hospital, and he gave her the stock answer. “Everybody in prison is i

Robin was silent, staring at the mirror behind the counter.

“So,” he said, wanting to change the subject. “Who was your first kiss?”

“My first real kiss?” she asked. “The first guy I kissed who I really wanted to kiss?” She seemed to think about it. “I met him at the state home,” she finally said. “We were together for twenty-five years.”

John blew on his coffee, took a sip. “That’s a long time.”

“Yeah, well.” She picked up her spoon again. “I fucked around on him a lot.”

John choked on his coffee.

She smiled, but it was more for her own sake. “We broke up two years ago.”

“Why?”

“Because when you know somebody that long, when you grow up with somebody like that, you’re just too…” She searched for a word. “Raw,” she decided. “Too vulnerable. I know everything about him and he knows everything about me. You can’t really love somebody like that. I mean, sure, you can love them-he’s like a part of me, part of my heart. But you can never be with them the way you want to. Not love them like a lover.” She shrugged. “If I really cared about him, I’d leave him so that he could get on with his life.”

John wasn’t sure how to respond. “He’s crazy to let you go.”

“Well, there’s more to it than my side of the story,” she admitted. “I’m a real bitch, in case you hadn’t noticed. What about you?”

John gave a startled “Me?”

“You have a girlfriend?”

He laughed. “Are you kidding me? I went in when I was sixteen. The only woman I ever saw was my mother.”

“What about…” Her voice trailed off. “You were a kid, right? When you got to prison?”

John felt his jaw work. He nodded without looking at her, trying not to let his mind conjure up the image of Zebra, those black-and-white teeth, those hands clamping down on the back of his neck.

If she saw his acknowledgment, she didn’t comment. Instead, she blew on her coffee and finally took a sip, saying, “Damn, it’s cold.”

John signaled for the waitress.

“How y’all doing here?” the woman asked.

“Fine, thank you,” John told her, letting her fill his cup with more coffee. He wasn’t used to so much caffeine in the morning and his hands were sweating. Or maybe he was just nervous because Robin was here. She was talking to him like they knew each other. John couldn’t remember if there had ever been a time in his life when he’d had a conversation like this.

The waitress said, “Y’all let me know if you need anything.”

Robin waited for the woman to leave before asking, “So, John, what have you been doing since you got out?”

“Reco

Robin looked over his shoulder at a man sitting alone in the corner booth. John checked the guy’s reflection in the mirror, wondering if he was one of her Johns. The man was wearing a three-piece suit. He was probably a lawyer or a doctor with a family at home.

“John?” He looked back at Robin. She surprised him by asking, “What kind of trouble are you in?”

“No kind of trouble.”

“You said somebody was blackmailing you.”

He nodded. “I did.”

“Who?”

John put his hands on either side of his cup. He wanted to answer her, to tell her everything that had happened, but Robin had enough in her life without him adding to the burden. What’s more, he didn’t have Joyce’s optimism about Aunt Lydia doing the right thing. Michael was still her son, even if he was a sadistic murderer. There was no telling what he was capable of doing. John wouldn’t be able to live with himself if something bad came down on Robin because of him.

He told her, “I can’t get you caught up in all of this.”

Her hand went to his thigh. “What if I want to be involved?” John’s breath caught as she moved her hand higher. “I know you’re a good guy.”