He received a shrug in response from Cole, but Zaney was much more exuberant. “Great!” he shouted at Jake. “Me and the Colester are having a grrreat time!” Jake gave Cole a glare sufficient to remind him he was still in a world of trouble and shut the door.
He found Robin seated at the dining room table, showered and dressed in a linen skirt that drew attention to her long, shapely legs. She was on the phone, but smiled warmly and waved him over. He came around to where she was sitting, and she mouthed the word Grandma. “Okay, Grandma. Okay. Okay,” she said, and looked up at Jake, her blue eyes laughing. “Grandma . . . Grandma! I gotta go. I’ll talk to you later, okay?” She clicked off the phone. Then she bounced up to her feet. “Good morning.”
An inevitable smile spread. “Morning.”
“Hey, I’m going out for some coffee. Want some?”
Jake looked out the window at Cole. “Yes.”
“Great! I’m dying for a doughnut.”
“I thought doughnuts were off limits.”
“Oh, they are,” she said breezily, ignoring the incongruity in that, and grabbed her purse. They went out the back door, got into Jake’s truck, and pulled up next to the curb where Zaney and Cole were working. “Keep an eye on him,” Jake called out the window to Zaney.
As Jake rolled up the window, Robin asked, “Is school out today?”
“For Cole. He’s been suspended for cutting class, so he’s getting a taste of the real world today.”
“Oh,” she said and looked back at Cole. “I hope everything is okay.”
He feared nothing would ever be okay for Cole. “The kid has problems,” he said flatly.
“Like what?”
“Like you don’t want to know.”
“Yes, I do! I like Cole.”
Jake glanced at her as he turned north, headed for Kirby. “You’re kidding. He’s surly, he’s rude, he’s impossible to reach—”
“All kids are like that. Anyway, he’s not rude to me.”
“I wasn’t like that,” he protested. “Were you?”
“Of course!” Robin laughed. “Rebellious and moody and very uncertain where I fit in this world. Some might argue I still am.”
“Oh, come on,” Jake scoffed. “You lived behind some huge gate in River Oaks. Are you trying to tell me you were uncertain of where you fit?”
“Are you trying to tell me you are one of those who think money can buy happiness?” she demanded with a snort. “Money just makes everything worse!”
“Right,” Jake exclaimed impatiently “I sure would have liked the chance to have money make everything worse when I was a kid. My folks never had two nickels to rub together, and believe me, it was not a happy time. A little money would have gone a long way toward improving the situation.”
“You think so? My parents fought all the time and would fly off and leave us there with some nanny-type person who called Rachel Raquel. Dad never saw me play softball, he hardly knew the asshole Rebecca ended up marrying, and Rachel, well . . . she was in some little dream world with her drama club. Believe me, I was a miserable kid and I can relate to Cole. So what did he do to get suspended? I bet I can top it.”
She wanted to know? Jake told her. Let the whole, ugly thing come tumbling out. Ross’s troubles, the woman who gave birth to Cole. It was a new and disconcerting experience to talk about things so personal—he’d never been much of a talker to begin with. He had learned with his dad early on that words always came back to wound you. But with Robin, words rolled out of him from somewhere deep inside. Articulate words he didn’t know he had in him, that described his frustration with Cole and his own complete ignorance and ineptitude with a fourteen-year-old brain, in spite of having had one at some point in his life.
But Robin instinctively put him at ease, didn’t interrupt, except to ask thoughtful questions. More important, she didn’t seem to judge him or his family as he had secretly feared. She just seemed genuinely concerned for Cole.
“I can relate,” she said when he told her about going down to the levee to retrieve him.
“You’ve been down there?” he asked, surprised.
“Oh no,” she laughed. “I can relate because I ran away when I was seventeen.” She nodded at his apparent surprise. “Dad was on my case about something—who knows what? And I had this boyfriend, Bo,” she said with a roll of her eves. “He lived down around the Astrodome—you know, on the other side of the loop.”
Oh yeah, Jake knew very well.
“Dad couldn’t stand him,” she continued, “which is why I think I went out with him in the first place.” She laughed at that, and Jake quickly put down the faint little flurry in the pit of his stomach that remark prompted. “So, Bozo had the great idea we could go to Austin to party. I was so stupid, I didn’t even ask with whom. We drove the three or so hours to Austin, went to some house where there was a huge party going on. I didn’t know anyone, of course. Anyway, we had been at this party for a while, and I realized I hadn’t seen Bozo in a while. Like hours. I went looking for him, and couldn’t find him anywhere. He’d left me there. Gone off with a girl, with friends, who knows?”