“Maybe you’d like to find another seat. I’ve been waiting two hours.”
Only two hours? How did he get out so fast? That infuriated Robin—she had to wait all night, and this dude was out in two hours? “I was here first,” she pointed out.
“Ah,” he said, nodding. “Clearly, I misunderstood.” But instead of moving, he just settled in.
Robin glared at him. “What do you think you are doing?”
“Like I said, the room is full, so unless you can produce a deed or something that proves you own this bench, I’m not going anywhere.”
“Great,” Robin snapped, and abruptly stood up.
“Nice talking to you, Miss Congeniality,” he said as she started to push her way down the row.
Three or four seats down, she glared at two Hispanic men who, after exchanging a wary glance with one another, moved to make a seat for her.
She squished in between them like a sardine, then glanced down the row just as the jailbird got up and sauntered off. Bastard! But Lord . . . what a saunter that bastard had! Even in her dejected, repulsed, and generally miserable state, Robin could not help noticing how fine he was in his ancient denim jeans and briefly wondered what he might have done to land himself in hell.
He suddenly turned and caught her staring at his backside and flashed her a lopsided, knew-it smile. Robin frowned deeply, turned her attention forward, and did not look again. Except once. Maybe twice. By the time they finally called her name, she had definitely lost sight of him and was in such a hurry to get out of that stinking hellhole that she almost collided with him when she turned from the window, clutching her freedom on a receipt marked PAID.
“Oh man. Well, hello again, Sunshine,” he drawled.
“Jesus!” she exclaimed, holding the hand with the receipt over her flailing heart as she glared up at him. “Can’t you take a hint?”
“Hey, Queenie, I’m just waiting in line like everyone else.”
“Uh-huh, right,” Robin responded irritably and wondered for a split second why men thought women were so ignorant of their motives.
The man all but choked. He stared down at her, his copper-brown eyes wide with surprise. And then he laughed. Laughed. Laughed so roundly, as if that was so hilariously preposterous, that several heads turned in their direction. But he didn’t seem to care—he leaned forward, bent his head until his mouth was just an inch or two from her cheek, and said, “Sunshine, you’re cute” —he paused, lingered there for a tiny moment, his breath warm on her face, so close that she could smell his cheap (but not altogether unpleasant) cologne— “but no way are you that cute. And you’re mean.” He straightened up and calmly stepped around her to the payment window.
Okay. Well. She was now officially in hell. Some . . . jail guy . . . had just dissed her, and it was so unbearably humiliating that Robin beat a hasty retreat out the double glass doors, into the lobby of the processing center, clutching her purse and her receipts like a mad escapee, frantically searching the milling crowd for her grandparents.
Fortunately, her mother’s parents were easy to spot. There was her grandfather, who had the distinct misfortune to have been named Elmer, and the even greater misfortune, in his declining years, of actually resembling Elmer. He was round and squat with hugely enormous feet typically encased in white Easy Spirits, which heralded his arrival a good city block before him. And in fact, it was Mr. Fudd’s shoes Robin saw in the lobby before she saw him.
Her grandmother, Lil, was the physical opposite of Elmer. She was tall and reed thin, and wore big pink-rimmed octagonal glasses that covered her cheeks and eyebrows and made her eyes look like big blue stop signs. She also wore Easy Spirits. The taupe ones.
Grandma spotted Robin and came hurrying like a squirrel across the lobby, darting in and around people in her haste to get to her granddaughter. “Robbie!” she exclaimed, and grabbed her in a bear hold, nearly squeezing the breath from her. “Oh my God, sweet pea! What has happened!”
“Robbie-girl, you all right?” Grandpa asked, rescuing her from Grandma’s grip.
“I’m fine,” Robin insisted. “It’s really so stupid. I’ll tell you all about it in the car, but please, let’s just get out of here,” she urged, ushering them in the direction of the door.
Grandpa had scored a prime parking spot into which he had maneuvered his Ford Excursion, an SUV the size of a small condo. Robin gratefully crawled into the cavernous backseat.
“Buckle in, hon. Now, are we going to hear what you did?” Grandma insisted, fastening her seat belt.
Best to get it over. “I got stopped for speeding—”
“Speeding! Where?” Grandpa insisted.
“On six-ten—”
“Well now, six-ten, that’s just a death trap.”
“—And I guess I sort of mouthed off a little. I mean, I wasn’t doing any faster than anyone else, and I told the cop so.”