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Tongue-Tied
By Collins Harlequin Enterprises Limited
Copyright © 2002 Harlequin Enterprises Limited
All right reserved. ISBN: 0373690991
Chapter One
"Yo, hot stuff, it's almost closing time. Grab some java, make the rounds, and pick up the tab at table two." Al, the short-order cook, barked the orders without looking up as he industriously scraped the metal spatula across the grill. The air smelled of grease and onions, lingering reminders of the dozens of meals Al had fried and grilled that evening at Davey's Diner.
Robin Lee stopped wiping down the wooden butcher block in the back of the kitchen, a chore that was part of her nightly clean-up ritual, and stared at Al. For the four months she'd known him since starting her tenure as kitchen prep at this Denver eatery, he'd reminded her of a Santa Claus gone bad - rotund, gruff and moody. If words were gifts, he gave out few. And of those few, she never thought she'd hear him call her something sassy like "hot stuff." Not quiet, industrious Robin who Al had never seen in anything other than one of her four white rayon, wash-and-wear outfits. Add her white sneakers, fine blond hair pulled back into a ponytail, and a slash of pink lipstick that sufficed for makeup and she was hardly the image of a "hot stuff."
Al typically said it like it was, and truth was a trait she admired above all others. So she chalked up his endearment as an attempt at charm. And hedefinitely needed to slather on plenty of charm - even more slathering than he did with the butter he smeared on everything - if he wanted her to play waitress.
"Move it, hot stuff," he repeated. "With Dottie gone, I need you out dere."
Charm mystery solved. After Al's fight tonight with Dottie, the fifty-something waitress who'd stomped out of the diner while mumbling a few choice words about control-freak cooks, he was obviously trying to butter up Robin by calling her "hot stuff." He needed her to finish Dottie's few tables so they could close. What Al didn't realize was that no matter how many terms of endearment he concocted, no way was she going "out dere." In fact, she wished desperately she'd never come "out here" to Denver because she'd never been comfortable in the big city. An uncomfortableness that bordered on unbearable after what had happened today.
Tonight of all nights, she wanted to keep to herself, do her kitchen thing and not get involved in potential conversations with anyone, especially total strangers slugging down the remnants of their coffee at midnight in a diner. No way, no how. Not after the worst day in the life of twenty-six-year-old Robin Lee.
Okay - just in case she was being overly dramatic, which her mom often accused her of - if this hadn't been the worst day in her life, it ranked in the top five, hands down. As she rinsed the rag she used to clean the butcher block, she mentally calculated, for the umpteenth time, everything that had gone wrong. First, her lifeline to the world - her beloved ten-year-old Jeep she'd nicknamed "Em" for Emily Dickinson, her favorite poet - had been towed because she'd parked on the street-cleaning side of the street. Then she'd spent fifteen precious dollars taking a taxi to DU, Denver University, only to tear into the lecture hall twenty minutes late. But what absolutely skyrocketed today into the top five had been when the professor, who loved to lecture tardy students on the principles of punctuality, decided to make an example out of Robin.
She cringed, reliving the horror of it all. She'd barely sat down before Professor Geller called her to the front of the room and instructed her to tell the class about the key points of last night's homework assignment. She'd read the homework, a novel by Sherwood Anderson, which had been far more than an "assignment" - it had been a privilege because she loved literature. She wanted desperately to earn a literature degree because her goal was to one day be a book reviewer - a lofty goal, but one that got her through life's ups and downs. Got her through being older than the rest of the students - something she didn't regret because she'd wanted to stay home and take care of her mom after the accident - got her through being the painfully quiet girl dressed in funky secondhand clothes.
And, she hoped, it would also get her through this hideous moment, being called upon to speak in front of an auditorium filled with snickering students. She needed this class for her English lit major. After quickly mulling over her options, she decided her best tactic was to approach the professor and whisper her car-towing story, then try to explain that speaking in front of that auditorium would be an extremely painful experience for not only her, but everyone in that room.
But she'd barely whispered the word tow to him when he stepped back and pointed to the podium. Worse, he upped the stakes. In a loud voice, he informed Robin that if she didn't speak, he'd knock her grade down a notch.
She had no choice - she took the challenge. This will soon be over, she reminded herself. In her mind, she assimilated a few facts about one of Anderson's characters and how the author used a small-town spinster to poignantly expose the protagonist's true nature - then Robin would sit down and never, never be late to class again.
She stepped up to the podium, took a deep breath, and leaned toward the microphone. "Sherwood A-A-A ..." The vowel stuck, its relentless repetition making a prolonged, strangled sound that reverberated hideously throughout the room. A sea of eyes looked at her with pity and horror while she just kept stuttering, stuttering ... hopelessly tongue-tied.
She glanced back at the professor. His bushy white eyebrows were pressed together, as though intellectually analyzing how to handle this situation. Jerk. At that moment, in a jolt of gut-deep understanding, Robin realized professors might have the intellect to influence human thinking, but not the common sense to enforce human civility.
Clamping shut her mouth, she scrambled away from the podium, tripping and catching herself as she ran down the steps off the stage. She speed walked up the aisle - avoiding the sea of pitying eyes - made a beeline for the exit and shoved open the doors, gulping lungfuls of fresh, cool September air.
Then she kept walking. She pumped her arms and let her feet smash the dry autumn leaves. Let them crack, crush into nothingness. Just like my dreams. Because she might as well face it now than later ... in a week she was supposed to give an oral report to her psychology class, then there were those "open questions" in her composition class where the professor randomly called on students to verbally respond, plus she had no doubt Professor Geller would make an example of her again if she were tardy ... so why put up with it any longer? Why not just admit she'd never make it through?
Fortified with that brutal awareness, she'd headed straight for the administration office and dropped out of school. Because no way, no how, was she ever going to face the humiliation of speaking - or trying to - in public again.
"Hot stuff, when I said `move it,' I didn't mean just your little pinkie!" Al jabbed a fat thumb at the coffeepot. "Finish serving the tables."
Excerpted from Tongue-Tied by Collins Copyright © 2002 by Harlequin Enterprises Limited
Excerpted by permission. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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