Breakfast

by WGSarah

He'd had the most beautiful brown eyes. They always seemed to be seeing things for the first time, taking in everything they encountered. It was the colors, he'd tried to explain to her once. They were so much brighter than he had remembered them being.

Trudy had asked him about it, what he'd meant by that. He'd just shrugged off the question with a chuckle and asked for another piece of pie.

Moving past the counter, coffeepot in hand, she wondered what had happened to him. He'd started coming into the diner for breakfast a few months ago. She didn't know when exactly, just one day she'd started noticing him as being there, no longer just another bad tipping face in the crowd. He ordered scrambled eggs and coffee and read the paper, nothing unusual about that. He didn't say much, but he always smiled and didn't hassle her over the refills. It was more than she could say for a lot of the creeps who came in the joint. And when he did say something? He looked at you if you were the most important thing in the world. So she started talking to him between customers. How are you today, can you get over the weather we're having, did you see the article about the mayor's assistant in the paper? They weren't friends, but they were comfortable, part of each other's routine. She'd tell him bits and pieces about what she'd done the night before while he'd spin some tall tale about robot men and aliens. She thought he must have been a writer of sorts. Robert Worthington, he'd said his name was, but she'd never found anything by him.

"Hey! Can I get another refill down here lady!?"

"Keep your shorts on, I'm comin'!" Trudy mumbled disgustedly under her breath as she headed back behind the counter. She stopped in front of an empty table and pocketed the few coins that had been tossed on it.

Wouldn't mind hearing one of those stories now, she thought. He'd been decent with advice, too. Just didn't talk about his self a whole lot. Although...one weekend she'd had her family in. They'd messed up her house, pissed off her boyfriend and generally wreaked havoc. Nothing to disown them for, but enough to make her want to complain that Monday morning. He'd listened carefully, while sopping up Bertha's Famous Maple Syrup with his pancakes, then he began to tell her about this family- about the overbearing stepfather he couldn't seem to please no matter how hard he'd tried, his rebellious younger brother who'd died suddenly and about his ex-wife and kids. He talked about the other kids he'd hung around with growing up, a gang, he'd called them. That had surprised her, he hadn't seemed the type. Robert shrugged it off as a symptom of a misspent youth. Funny, she'd mused, it seemed to be the only thing the old man had really approved of.

"About that refill, sweetheart!"

In describing the wife he'd left, he confessed that the only reason he'd gotten so hung up on her was that they'd been forced together all the time. He'd clung to her like a life raft and thought it was love, more than a little obsessed with her. He had freely admitted that he'd screwed things up for himself, and his kids. Not that the kids needed him anymore, he'd added bitterly. Trudy had tried to point out that all kids needed some kind of father figure in their lives, Lord knows she had. He just gave a funny little laugh and finished his breakfast. He was a new man, he'd said with an odd gleam in his eye. He was going to start over right this time.

A couple of days later he asked if she'd patched it up with her family. She grinned and retorted that there wasn't anything to patch. They'd been right about the jerk she'd be dating and had done her a favor. Had he worked things out with his? He shook his head. He was enjoying his freedom too much, he said. They left it at that.

Too bad that it seemed to end about a month ago. Robert had been sitting at the counter, gnawing on a couple of pieces of burnt bacon when a guy walked in and ordered some coffee. He'd been short, hairy, and kinda built, nothing really special, but he made Robert start twitching something fierce. The light in his eyes had dimmed and they'd filled with dread. He threw his money of the counter haphazardly and was rushing toward the exit when the hairball seemed to recognize him. He called him 'Scott'.

Robert bolted.

They both ran out of the diner and began arguing and cursing in the parking lot. She'd stood there a moment and watched, the short one adamant about something, the taller man clearly refusing to go along with him. She'd shrugged and returned to pouring coffee. It wasn't any of her business, but she figured she'd ask him about it in a day or two.

But Robert hadn't come back.

Trudy wandered up the counter and set the coffeepot down in front of the braying customer. Ignoring the glare of the other waitress, she ducked out the back door, she lit up a cigarette and took a long drag, shivering in the cold air.

She wondered about him from time to time, but Robert's face wasn't distinct in her mind any more. She remembered how sad it was that he didn't see his kids, remembered that he'd sat on the third stool from the end, remembered that he'd been a good tipper.

And Trudy remembered his eyes, and how new they had seemed.

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