Robyn Carr - Runaway Mistress

This place hadn’t seen a renovation in a long time yet was clean and well kept. Since there was a Starbucks on the main street, she supposed this diner was seeing less action than it used to—there was only one customer. With the stools at the counter, booths covered in Naugahyde lining the wall and Formica tabletops, it had the look of a fifties greasy spoon. But a nice, warm one. It reminded her of a place she used to go with her grandpa when she was small.

The bell jingled as she entered. “’Morning,” a man called from behind the counter.

She took a stool right in the middle of the completely vacant counter. The man in the booth at the back of the diner had a newspaper spread out in front of him.

“’Morning,” she returned. “Coffee?”

He had a cup in front of her in seconds. “Cold and wet out there, ain’t it.”

“Freezing,” she said, pulling her jacket tighter.

“It should be a lot warmer by now. There’re buds on the trees and the grass is greening up. Spring’s ’bout here. I’ll let you warm up a little, then we’ll talk about some breakfast,” he said. She looked up at him. He squinted at what he could see of her face under the bill of her hat. For a moment she was confused, and then she remembered she had no eyebrows. With a self-conscious laugh, she plucked the cap off her head and exposed her bald head and naked brow. He almost jumped back in surprise. “Whoa. That’s a new look now, ain’t it?”

“Shocking,” she supplied, putting her cap back on.

“Cold, I take it.”

“That’s for sure.”

He was a big man around sixty. Overweight, with a thick, ornery crop of yellow-gray, strawlike hair and square face and rosy cheeks—like a sixty-year-old little boy with big ears. She saw a face she could only describe as accessible. Open. He had friendly blue eyes set in the crinkles of age, a double chin and an engaging smile—one tooth missing to the back of the right side. “I got biscuits and gravy,” he said proudly.

“I’m not really hungry,” she said. “Just cold.”

“You been outside long?”

Oh-oh. He suspected she was homeless. The army surplus fashion, the backpack, the ball cap. “No. Well, maybe a little. I’ve a room at that roadside place about six blocks from here and I woke up freezing. No heat. And the motel office wasn’t open yet.”

“Behind that scrap heap and junkyard?”

“That’s the one.”

“Charlie is not generous with his guests,” the man in the booth said with a heavy Spanish accent. “You should say he give you the night free.”

“He should,” the man behind the counter said. “But he won’t. They don’t come much tighter than Charlie.”

The man in the booth folded his paper, stood up and stretched. Then he took an apron off a hook and put it on. Ah, the cook, she realized. “Um—are you done with that paper?” she asked him.

“Help yourself, mija.” He proceeded around the counter to the grill and began heating and scraping it. The sounds of breakfast being started filled the diner and soon the smells followed. Jennifer settled herself into the same booth so she could spread the paper out in front of her.

A little while passed, then the owner brought the coffeepot to her. “Have any interest in breakfast yet?” he asked.

“Really, I’m not very hungry.”

“You don’t mind me saying so—you look a little on the lean side.”

“I’m just lucky that way.”

“If it’s a matter of money—”

She was startled. “I can pay,” she said, maybe a little too proudly. Truly, if he had any idea how much money was stuffed inside the Kate Spade bag that was stuffed inside the backpack, he’d be stunned. Not to mention the jewelry. The dawning came slowly. Don’t protest too much, she told herself. It was perfectly all right if people thought she was a little down on her luck. And it wasn’t as though she didn’t know the role—she was intimately acquainted with it. “I might have something in a while. I just want to warm up. And have a look at the paper.”

“Sure thing. Just say the word when you’re ready. Adolfo has started breakfast.”

She drank two more cups of coffee while she combed the paper and found nothing about the Nobles or herself. How long would Nick get away with pretending his wife was out of the country? Surely someone would begin to miss Barbara! Her masseuse, for example.

But who would miss you, Jennifer? she asked herself. Would her boss raise an alarm? Ah, her boss actually introduced her to Nick, whom he would probably call. “Nick,” he would say. “Jennifer didn’t come back to work. Do you have any idea…?” “Oh, Artie, my fault,” Nick would say. “I should’ve called you. She skipped in Las Vegas with most of the cash in my wallet. Met someone with a bigger yacht, I guess. You know these bimbos.”

And the women in the office who didn’t like her would be just as glad she was gone. She had eschewed the friendships of women to avoid the inevitable jealousy. And, to be free of the commitments friendship brought so she could be available at the whim of her current gentleman friend. Nick, like the others before him, didn’t like to plan in advance; he expected her to be ready at a moment’s notice. She had kept herself virtually friendless. For the first time in ten years, she regretted that.

Oh, why didn’t I go to the police right away! Too afraid. Afraid that, unable to prove anything, they wouldn’t believe her. They wouldn’t protect her, and before very long she would meet with some unfortunate accident. Or maybe she’d leave the country, like Barbara Noble….

A shadow cast over her newspaper caused her to jump, and there he was again, coffeepot in hand. “Ah, I maybe ought to say I’m sorry. Didn’t mean to make light of your—you know—hair. Was it, ah, chemo? Something like that?”

She had a momentary temptation to pretend to have had cancer, but she didn’t dare tempt fate that far. Her head bald, her eyes red-rimmed from crying, she probably looked horrible to the old guy. What to tell him? But then, did she have to admit to anything at all? This was a diner, for God’s sake. Not a shrink’s office or police interrogation.

The look on his face was so sweet. “You just worry about people all the time, don’t you?”

“No, I—” He stopped and seemed to gather himself up. “I worry about people,” he admitted.

“Don’t worry about me. I’m not sick and I’m not homeless.” I am merely a brainless bimbo on the run from a murderer, she wanted to add.

“Good,” he said. He warmed her coffee again before turning away.

The drizzle outside suddenly turned into a relentless splatter against the window. She walked to the front of the diner to look out and was startled to see an elderly woman with a walker and a dog struggling up the curb. The wind and rain lashed at her so hard she almost lost her footing. Jennifer bolted out the door to help her. She hadn’t even given the dog a thought, and maybe that was a good thing because she might’ve hesitated. The dog growled, but not convincingly. Jennifer grasped the woman at the elbow to steady her and told the dog to hush.

The other thing she hadn’t thought about was letting the dog in the diner, which she also did. Well, the dog was with the old woman and both were drenched. Adolfo came running with a couple of dish towels and some rapid-fire Spanish, but he wasn’t fast enough. The dog, an old and overweight yellow Lab, immediately gave a vigorous shake.

“Aiiee, Alicia,” he said. “I’ll be mopping all the morning.”

“Oh, Alice, you’re going to get us kicked out of here for sure. Morning, Buzz.”

“Louise,” he said. “Don’t you have a lick of sense? You shouldn’t be out in this weather.”