Part 1

        Robin stared at her bowl of cereal. Fruity pebbles.  The colors started to merge together as  the flakes soaked in the milk. It was almost too gross of a color to eat. Almost. She scraped the last few pebbles onto her spoon, took a last bite and slurp, left the table, and went to set the bowl noisily down in the sink. The perks of having a roommate who had left to visit her family for 2 weeks were many, she thought as she threw the spoon over her shoulder to land, again, noisily in the sink that had a few bowls peeking over the edge. She didn't have to do the dishes every two seconds like Kate, her roommate,  always wanted her to do.  Robin was of the opinion that things took priority over a spotless environment....And Kate was not in agreement with Robin's opinion.

Robin walked back into her room and sat down on her little twin bed with a white fluffy comforter. She  picked up an edge of the comforter and squeezed it tight. After a minute, she let go of the comforter and stood up. She walked over to her closet, pushed a few hangers around, and walked back to the bed.  She flopped down and stared at her white ceiling. She didn't think she could make it to work today, it just didn't seem possible. She had been at the same restaurant for a year now. The old soul everyone always said she had was turning into a decrepit soul because of cranky 30 somethings complaining about their turkey burgers not being cooked the way they wanted or that the wine that Robin recommended didn't go with their food. She sighed. She would be late to work if she didn't get her butt into gear soon though. Decrepit soul transformation or not, she needed the money. Robin forced herself to stand up, did a few stretches, and walked back over to the closet. She put on her waitress uniform that made her look remarkably like a penguin, one of the great perks of working at a 5 star restaurant.

A few minutes later she ran out the door and into her little beat up brown honda accord.  She slammed the door, spilled a little coffee from her coffee mug on her knee, set the coffee and her brown leather purse down on the passenger seat and turned the key in the ignition. It groaned. No, no, no, no, was all Robin was thinking. Please not now. Please not now. She pulled the key out and tried again. It groaned with some energy this time, but nothing started. She had already had a little incident a few weeks ago of accidentally giving a kid with a nut allergy something with almonds chopped up in it. She hadn't done her homework on the ingredients for the summer dishes. He was fine thankfully but  one more little problem, the managers had told her, and she was out.

She reached for her phone, knocked the coffee cup over in the process, and started frantically looking through her contacts while she attempted to ignore  the swirl of coffee and creamer dripping from the top of the passenger seat to the mat below. She had been in this little town in Virginia for about a year now but she really only had 2 good friends in the area, both of whom worked earlier hours than she did. Public transportation didn't run in hickville and she certainly couldn't afford a taxi with about $40 total in her bank account... Ian. She would have to call Ian. She grimaced as she dialed the number and made the sign of the cross as it started dialing. Please pick up.

"Hello?"
"Hi. It's Robin. I need help. I know you don't want to talk to me right now. But..could you do me  a favor? Would you take me to work? I won't even talk."
"Yeah, sure. Be there in 10."

She set her phone down on the dashboard and started to clean the coffee up with some old crumpled Dunkin Donuts napkins. She wasn't sure she could handle seeing Ian Blackley just yet, but if it was between that and getting fired, she'd take Ian. She finished cleaning the coffee up and stuck the wet napkins in one of the cupholders. She turned her audio book that was in the cd player on,  leaned back,  and closed her eyes. “I had rather hear my dog bark at a crow, than a man swear he loves me," the soft British narrator's voice read. Much Ado About Nothing was Robin's comfort book in pretty much every situation in life. She had played Beatrice in college and had fallen in love with her character.There was something so comforting in a story of someone that finally learns that love is the right choice.  As life seemed to be crumpling in on her slowly and steadily these past few weeks, she had bought the audio book version to listen to as she drove back and forth to work.