Tongue-tied. Colleen Collins

Got her through being older than the rest of the students—something she didn’t regret because she’d wanted to stay home and take care of her mom after the accident—got her through being the painfully quiet girl dressed in funky secondhand clothes.

      And, she hoped, it would also get her through this hideous moment, being called upon to speak in front of an auditorium filled with snickering students. She needed this class for her English lit major. After quickly mulling over her options, she decided her best tactic was to approach the professor and whisper her cartowing story, then try to explain that speaking in front of that auditorium would be an extremely painful experience for not only her, but everyone in that room.

      But she’d barely whispered the word tow to him when he stepped back and pointed to the podium. Worse, he upped the stakes. In a loud voice, he informed Robin that if she didn’t speak, he’d knock her grade down a notch.

      She had no choice—she took the challenge. This will soon be over, she reminded herself. In her mind, she assimilated a few facts about one of Anderson’s characters and how the author used a small-town spinster to poignantly expose the protagonist’s true nature—then Robin would sit down and never, never be late to class again.

      She stepped up to the podium, took a deep breath, and leaned toward the microphone. “Sherwood A-A-A…” The vowel stuck, its relentless repetition making a prolonged, strangled sound that reverberated hideously throughout the room. A sea of eyes looked at her with pity and horror while she just kept stuttering, stuttering…hopelessly tongue-tied.

      She glanced back at the professor. His bushy white eyebrows were pressed together, as though intellectually analyzing how to handle this situation.Jerk. At that moment, in a jolt of gut-deep understanding, Robin realized professors might have the intellect to influence human thinking, but not the common sense to enforce human civility.

      Clamping shut her mouth, she scrambled away from the podium, tripping and catching herself as she ran down the steps off the stage. She speed walked up the aisle—avoiding the sea of pitying eyes—made a beeline for the exit and shoved open the doors, gulping lungfuls of fresh, cool September air.

      Then she kept walking.

      She pumped her arms and let her feet smash the dry autumn leaves.Let them crack, crush into nothingness. Just like my dreams. Because she might as well face it now than later…in a week she was supposed to give an oral report to her psychology class, then there were those “open questions” in her composition class where the professor randomly called on students to verbally respond, plus she had no doubt Professor Geller would make an example of her again if she were tardy…so why put up with it any longer? Why not just admit she’d never make it through?

      Fortified with that brutal awareness, she’d headed straight for the administration office and dropped out of school. Because no way, no how, was she ever going to face the humiliation of speaking—or trying to—in public again.

      “Hot stuff, when I said ‘move it,’ I didn’t mean just your little pinkie!” Al jabbed a fat thumb at the coffeepot. “Finish serving the tables.”

      Al’s barked command punctured this morning’s painful memories. She’d lost enough today—she couldn’t risk losing this job, too. Robin glanced over the grill into the dining room. There were only two occupied booths, one by a couple and the other by a guy. She squinted. Funny, for a moment he looked like Johnny Dayton, the megahunk from her small Colorado home-town of Buena Vista. Johnny had been her older brother’s pal, the tough kid from the “terrace”—the county-subsidized apartments for the poor. But everything else about Johnny had been rich—from his dark good looks to his smooth-as-velvet charm. Robin had been six years younger and utterly besotted every time Johnny came over to visit.

      “Let’s mo-o-ve it!”

      Al had missed his calling as a prison guard. Taking a deep breath, Robin yanked off her stained apron, grabbed the slick plastic handle of an almost-full coffeepot off the burner and headed into the dining area with the stoicism of a death-row convict.Soon this will be over. Soon this will be over. Her tennis shoes squeaked as she crossed the cracked linoleum floor. Approaching the booth with the couple, she watched them break a lingering kiss to stare at her feet. Damn these sneakers anyway. When the couple raised their gazes, Robin held up the pot, indicating did they want more coffee? But instead of responding “yes” or “no thanks” the girl squealed, “It’s you! The girl who…”

      The girl who stutters. Robin had dealt with people’s curiosity, and sometimes their rudeness, all her life. Once, when she’d been ten, and a kid had teased her about stuttering, Robin had blurted out that stuttering made her unique and what was his specialty? When she got angry, really angry, her words could flow effortlessly. But getting red-faced livid wasn’t Robin’s everyday style. Unfortunately. Because if it was, things would sure be easier.

      Robin stared into the heavily made-up eyes of Jill Marcum, the popular student who was in several of Robin’s university classes, including Professor Geller’s class today where Robin had humiliated herself in front of a gazillion peers. Jill, the girl who always spoke up in class. Jill, the girl who flaunted her great grades the way she flaunted her great body in flamboyant, form-fitting clothes.

      But tonight Jill had outdone herself. She’d encased her Vogue bod in some sleek leather number that hugged her skin so tight, Robin was amazed the girl could breathe.

      Trying not to dwell on her own shapeless white rayon dress, and determined to get this fiasco over with, Robin forced the corners of her lips to curl upward in what she hoped passed for a professional “May I pour your some coffee?” smile. She raised the coffeepot another notch, a silent gesture to back up the “more coffee” smile. Robin was a master at the wordless gestures. Too bad she couldn’t find a job as a mime.

      “What?” asked Jill, cocking an overplucked eyebrow.

      Darn it all anyway. Jill was forcing Robin to talk. She’d failed in front of Professor Geller’s class, but she refused to now. Refused to end this day feeling like more of a loser than she already did. Robin sucked in a shaky breath.

      “Would you like some more cof-cof-cof…” Her mouth kept moving, stumbling and stuttering over the word, as though somebody else were speaking. These moments were sheer hell—there was nothing Robin could do to stop the stuttering momentum except to clamp shut her mouth, which she did, pressing her lips together so hard they hurt.

      In the following silence, Robin realized her feet were shuffling, as though desperate to walk, run, escape this situation, but no way she’d let Jill see her run away again from a humiliating situation. As Robin’s feet shuffled, her soul shook loose all the feelings she’d managed to suppress—humiliation, hurt, disappointment.

      In her fantasy, she’d eloquently say things to Jill that she’d pass on to the other students. How Robin wasn’t just some shy, awkward stutterer…how she had dreams and goals…that Robin Lee was more than just a quitter. Instinctively, Robin opened her free hand and extended her fingers wide as though reaching for all the dreams just out of her reach, all the things she wanted out of life….

      But the look of pity on Jill’s face stopped Robin cold. She’d already faced a sea of such looks today in class, and no way was she going to look at one more.

      Closing her free hand into a fist, Robin sloshed some coffee into a cup and turned away in frustration, not wanting Jill to see the pain on Robin’s face that said more than a thousand words.

      “Poor thing,” Jill whispered to her male companion.

      Robin headed toward the other booth where the guy sat by himself, not wanting to hear anything else Jill had to say. But Robin would’ve had to be deaf to not hear Jill whisper loudly, “No wonder Robin never had a boyfriend—after all, what would they talk about?”

      Robin squeaked her way to the other booth, wrestling an onslaught of emotions. Just because Robin didn’t wear body-molding clothes and shellac her face with makeup didn’t mean she didn’t have what it took to grab a guy’s attention. Heading toward the man sitting solo in his booth, intently reading