Page 1 of Roulette

Chapter One

Lark

The bills on the kitchen counter were stacking up again. I nudged a few of them aside to make room for my coffee mug, watching the envelopes slide across the laminate like they were trying to get away from me. I didn’t open them. Opening them meant knowing exactly how far behind I was, and some mornings I needed the small mercy of not knowing. The coffee maker gurgled through its final cycle, filling the kitchen with that bitter, necessary smell. I leaned against the counter and waited, listening to the house breathe around me.

The house was small -- one bedroom, a bathroom that barely deserved the name, and this kitchen-slash-living room I’d arranged the best I could. My grandmother’s knitted blanket hung off the arm of the sofa, the edges frayed. She’d made it the winter before she got sick, her hands still steady enough then. Even though I’d had to pack it up and move it here, I hadn’t touched it since then. Shifting that blanket felt too much like admitting she was really gone, and I wasn’t ready for that. Not at six in the morning. Not ever, maybe.

I poured the coffee into the mug with the chip on the rim -- the one I’d dropped the day after the funeral, watching it bounce on the linoleum and thinking, of course. Everything breaks eventually. The coffee was too hot and too strong, exactly what I needed. I took a long swallow and felt it burn all the way down, waking up the parts of me that wanted to stay asleep.

The uniform was hanging on the back of the bedroom door where I’d left it last night, freshly washed and still slightly damp at the hem. Patsy’s Diner was in faded red script across the front pocket. I pulled it over my head and straightened the collar, tucking the name tag -- LARK -- into place with a safety pin. My reflection in the bathroom mirror looked tired, but it always looked tired. I’d stopped expecting anything else. I ran a brush through my hair, twisted it into a loose knot at the nape of my neck, and decided that was good enough.

On my way to the front door, I passed the shelf where the photo sat. My grandmother stood on the front porch of the house she’d raised me in, one hand on the railing, smiling so hard her eyes crinkled at the corners. I didn’t pick it up. I never did. Looking at it was one thing. Holding it was another. I’d learned the difference in the months since she died. Looking let me remember. Holding made the loss feel too close, and there were shifts where I couldn’t afford that.

I looked at her face for three seconds, maybe four. Then I turned away.

Keys from the hook by the door. Wallet from the side table. I checked my bag for my phone before I thought about it. The deadbolt slid into place with a heavy, satisfying click. I tested it twice, pulling the door against the frame to make sure. The house waited behind me… not peaceful. Empty.

Outside, the Missouri morning was already warming up. Late spring had brought the humidity with it, pressing down on the sidewalks and the roofs of the houses I passed. I walked the same route most days because the bus didn’t run early enough for the morning shift, and because gas was too damn expensive when rent was eating most of what I made. The cracked sidewalk had a rhythm to it -- step over the fissure near the Andersons’ fence, sidestep the dip where a tree root had pushed through years ago, avoid the patch of loose gravel that always ended up in my shoes.

The sign at the gas station on the corner flickered even in broad daylight, the fluorescent tubes behind the plastic casing sputtering on and off like they couldn’t make up their minds. I’d given up expecting them to fix it. Someone had mowed their lawn early -- the smell of cut grass hung in the air, green and sharp, and for a second it pulled at a memory I didn’t let settle. I kept walking.

A dog barked from behind a chain-link fence. A car passed, slow enough that the driver might have been looking for an address. I kept my gaze on the sidewalk ahead of me and didn’t wave. People in this town mostly left each other alone, which suited me fine. I’d grown up here, but lately the place felt different -- the same streets, the same buildings, all of it familiar and strange at once, like I was passing through a town I used to know.

Patsy’s came into view at the end of the block, the awning faded to a pale pink, the windows steamed from the kitchen heat even this early. I could already see the outline of someone sitting at the counter through the glass. Regulars, probably. The breakfast crowd. I picked up my pace a little, not because I was late -- I was never late -- but because standing still for too long in the morning made everything behind me feel heavier than it already was.

I reached for the door handle, feeling the old resistance of hinges that needed oil. The bell above the door jingled as I stepped inside, and the smell of coffee and bacon wrapped around me like something close to home.

I grabbed my apron and looped it twice around my waist, knotting it the way I’d learned my first week -- tight enough it wouldn’t slip loose during a lunch rush, loose enough I could still bend for a dropped fork. Order pad in the front pocket. Pen clipped to the strap where I could reach it without looking.

Patsy’s had stopped trying to be anything other than what it was a long time ago. Narrow, with vinyl booths that had been repaired so many times with electrical tape that the original color was just a suggestion under all that black. The laminate counter ran the length of the front window, stools with spinning seats that creaked when you settled your weight on them. Above the pass-through to the kitchen, a chalkboard listed the daily specials in handwriting that hadn’t changed in years. Coffee $1.75. Eggs any style. Pancakes until eleven.

I filled my water cup first, the ritual I’d established my first week on the job and hadn’t broken since. Cold water. Three sips. Then the pot in my right hand, order pad in my left, and I was moving.

He was already there, like he was every morning. Same stool at the far end of the counter, back to the wall, facing the door. Brown hair catching the light from the windows, broad shoulders under a plain T-shirt doing nothing to hide the fact the man was built. But it wasn’t his size you noticed first. It was the calm. He sat perfectly still, hands resting on the counter, as if the room could shift around him and he’d know it without turning his head. Roulette. That was the name the other waitress had given me weeks ago, after he’d been coming in long enough we’d started placing bets on whether he’d ever order anything besides the usual.

I picked up the coffeepot and crossed to his end of the counter. His mug was still half-full, but I topped it off anyway because that’s what I did. Black coffee, no cream, no sugar. He dipped his chin without lifting his head, an acknowledgment requiring no words. I’d stopped expecting words from him a while back.

“Usual today?” I asked, though we both knew the answer.

“Yeah.” One syllable, delivered in a voice that was deeper than it had any right to be.

I turned toward the kitchen and called over my shoulder, “Two over easy, wheat, end of the counter.” Dave grunted from behind the pass-through, and the sound of eggs hitting the griddle followed a second later.

The morning filled up the usual way -- more customers filtering in, the noise level rising, coffeepots making their endless circuits around the diner. I moved between tables with the efficiency of someone who’d done this too many times to count, balancing plates on my forearm, remembering who wanted extra ketchup and who took their toast dry. Through it all, Roulette stayed at the far end of the counter, his attention drifting over the room in slow sweeps.

He registered me without making it obvious. I knew because I caught the brief pause when I passed, his gaze settling on me for a beat before moving on. Some men looked with hunger or entitlement enough to make my skin crawl. Roulette didn’t. He was simply present, subtle enough that most people would miss it.

I checked his coffee three times without being asked. The third time, I caught the corner of his mouth lifting in what might have been the beginning of a smile. It disappeared before I could be sure.

Dave burned the wheat toast. Again. The smell reached me before the plate did, the particular acrid note meaning someone had walked away from the toaster for thirty seconds too long. I set the plate in front of Roulette with a raised eyebrow.

“Dave’s having a passionate love affair with the toaster this morning,” I said. “Apparently, commitment issues.”

That got it -- a half-smile, quick and genuine, creased the corner of his eye before it smoothed out again. He picked up the charred toast without complaint and took a bite. I refilled his coffee one last time and moved on to the next table.

We didn’t talk about anything that mattered. He didn’t ask how my night was. I didn’t ask what brought him to Patsy’s every morning at the same time, sitting at the same stool, ordering the same thing. The comfort between us lived entirely in the absence of conversation -- in never having to repeat his order, in never having to wonder if he’d tip (he always did, and well), in the easy gaps between refills that never felt strained.

By the time the breakfast rush thinned out, he was gone. His plate was cleared, his mug rinsed and upside-down on the drying rack behind the counter where he always left it. A twenty-dollar bill sat under his saucer for a seven-dollar check. I wiped down his section of the counter, feeling the warmth of the laminate under my palm.