Maybe he had a running tab. Janie didn’t have much time to give it more thought before Mirta placed a tray with two giant mugs of coffee and the fixings on their table.
“Rescue, you say?” Mirta asked.
Maria looked at Janie and wrinkled her nose, as if givingserious thought to the question. “What would you call it, Janie?”
Janie shrugged and picked up her coffee without adding milk or sugar. She needed to taste something hot and strong to convince her she really was in this unusual situation andnotpassed out in her car around the corner from her house. “Serendipity, perhaps.”
“Ooh,” Maria and Mirta chorused.
“That’s a lovely way to describe our meeting.” Maria dropped four cubes of sugar into her coffee and stirred it vigorously.
Janie stared into the darkness of her own drink and considered her own description. “Lovely but perhaps not as accurate as rescue.” How was it she could be honest with two strangers and not her own wife or their therapist? She caught the quick look between Maria and Mirta but chose not to interpret it.
“Pancakes with bacon for two, coming right up,” Mirta said and left them once again.
“It can be both things, Janie. A serendipitous rescue.”
Maria’s quiet delivery and her compassionate expression nearly undid Janie, and she drew in a long breath before taking an overly long drink of coffee to keep herself from dissolving into a hot mess on the comfy chair. “Do you make a habit of getting into the cars of strange women?” she asked, intent on lightening the mood. She’d played along with this crazy caper to get away from the inky blackness of her thoughts and didn’t care to revisit them yet.
“I very much used to when I was in my heyday, but not so much nowadays.” Maria winked. “You should consider yourself a special case. Or very unlucky. Dealer’s choice.”
Janie took a sip of coffee and smiled. The hot bitter liquid wasn’t the only thing warming her insides. “I’ll consider myself very lucky.” She couldn’t particularly reason why she felt that way, or why meeting Maria, and then Mirta, seemed fortunate, but sometimes, on very limited occasions, letting go of all logic was the only way forward.
She sat back in the chair and observed a number of peopleof all ages, colors, and presentations enter the café, enthuse a greeting to Maria and Mirta, and leave with their drinks and baked goods, all without paying.
During a lull, Mirta returned to their table with the most delicious-smelling bacon and pancakes Janie had ever come across. She drizzled maple syrup all over them; she wouldn’t usually drown them, but damn if she didn’t need a pick-me-up today. She tucked in as Maria did the same.
“You said that one of the benefits of being old was that you disappeared,” Janie said after swallowing a mouthful that tasted every bit as good as it looked, “but every single person who’s come in here knows your name, and you theirs…”
Maria picked up a piece of bacon and bit down on it, looking at Janie but not saying anything. She widened her eyes slightly and leaned in a little. “Is there a question in there somewhere?”
Janie shrugged. “I suppose I’m asking about balancing the benefits of disappearing against,” she gestured around the beautifully eclectic space and the steady trickle of people coming through the double doors, “being such an important part of this community.”
Maria crunched her bacon noisily and then exhaled deeply as she nodded. “I’m allowing the two sides of my coin equality,” she said and took another chomp of her breakfast.
Janie chuckled. “You’re going to make me work for this, aren’t you?”
Maria inclined her head slightly. “I don’t think you’re the kind of person who wants the answers handed to them on a plate with their bacon and pancakes,” she said, prodding Janie’s plate.
“I don’t, you’re right.” Janie tried not to dwell on how easily Maria seemed able to read her. In court, she was renowned for her poker face, but here, her guard had crumbled all too quickly. Or maybe she’d been ready for someone to reallyseeher. God knows, Hannah barely did now that the triplets demanded so much of their time and emotional stores. “But I would like to know your story.” She pointed to her car on the roadside. “I didmake your ten-mile journey simple this morning, didn’t I?”
“You did.” Maria caught some errant maple syrup about to dribble down her chin and licked it from her finger. “Though I think you would’ve happily been abducted by aliens too.” She held Janie’s gaze. “Any port in a storm, I’ve heard it said.”
Janie had to look away from Maria’s hypnotic eyes, the dark brown of them reflecting her own darkness and pulling her in. Was her desperation to take a break from reality that obvious?
“I understand,” Maria said. “You’re struggling, and you’re searching. But right now, a little distraction is very appealing, yes?” She waited until Janie gave a slight nod. “This is okay. I’m only mysterious half of the time. The other half…not so much.”
Maria’s laughter filled the large space, bringing genuine smiles to every other person in the café. What Janie would give for that kind of freedom, that kind of natural expression, all while being part of something bigger than herself.
“First,” Maria waggled her finger and then got up, “more coffee.”
As Maria walked to the counter, looking more spritely with every step, Janie took another mouthful of pancake and sat back in her chair. When she’d woken this morning, she could never have imagined ending up in a totally new neighborhood after being gently kidnapped by a woman more than twice her age. And yet, she’d had the inescapable sensation that she was exactly where she was supposed to be.
Strange, given that she’d been feeling like a tumbleweed in a tornado for longer than she cared to remember. She was at rock bottom; she’d left her children, her wife, and her home. Embracing strange was just about the only thing she hadn’t tried in her efforts to connect with her little family…
CHAPTER 3
Solo swunginto the alley beside the garage and hit the dumpster. Normally, that would’ve set off a stream of expletives and had her jumping out of the car to inspect the damage. Today though, her triplets were lined up facing the custom-made maroon leather backrest in the rear of her vehicle, and they were all asleep. Even Tia, and at this time of day, that was as rare as rocking horse shit. But maybe that was down to Janie not being in the house, and after the night Solo and the triplets had endured, the last thing she wanted to do was wake them.
