Saturdays were always fun. As I looked out at the brunch crowd, my eyes bleary and sun-dazed, I frowned and discreetly fixed my lipstick with the tip of my thumb. 

Coinciding with Jo's arrival, we seemed to have become unexpectedly popular. Even though there was no connection, I couldn't entirely rule out the possibility that it had something to do with him (another check for the mermaid prince theory!). 

The crowd was always a mixed bag of the same assorted goodies. Anxious parents with their distracted broods, elders holding dogs with mobility issues, newly gregarious women in their 50s, bodies in tracksuits (doing Juvenal proud), yuppies with broken circadian rhythms, world-renowned portrait artists on the Internet. 

As I returned to the café storefront with a modest stack of empty dishes, I saw Amelia tidying the premises. I dropped off the load, and made my way to the other side of the L-shaped counter to watch her work...and, to look for an opening. 

With quick and precise movements, Amelia carefully swept cake crumbs out of the display case into an adorably tiny baker's dustpan. The crumbs were coaxed by the crumb sweeper down from their lacy pedestal, flecks and pellets of yellow and white and rose. As they fell, her brilliant hazel eyes enlarged, as if her eyes themselves were baskets. 

"Amelia - where, um - what did your parents do for a living?" I asked, leaning on the grid shelf behind us as I did. I tried to make this illogical movement look as natural as possible, and was rewarded with a bout of acute pain. 

The large chromatic eyes flew to me - surprised? Vexed? Her lips visibly rubbed together, like a cricket preparing to sound off, and before she could return my question with one that I couldn't answer, I slid along or rather bumped along the shelf, pretending I hadn't asked. 

...So much for that. Maybe scurrying on all fours would have been faster and more respectable. I'd have to try it next time.

"Better enjoy your last day," I grumbled to myself, when I was back on my run and out of earshot. My entire face was hot, and my long hair clung wet to the back of my neck. I glanced at the reflective surface of the tray in my hand, and a ruddy complexion, like fresh-steamed lobster claw, radiated back at me. "Of all things, why'd you go after her parents? You're a goner."

Thinking out loud - a nasty habit, and a thoughtless one - and I looked around to see if anyone heard. If he had heard me. 

My gaze caught on the usual obtrusion, but something was a little different today. 

Today, Jo was neither fixated on the book nor the stack of magazines. Instead, his attention and the line of his body was turned to a cadre of middle-aged men sitting behind him, who were all wearing uniform black t-shirts. Must have been some type of...sports league, or guerilla improv group...so you'd think. At least, that's what I thought at first. 

Though seated at their own separate table, their bodies were turned to him, too - their black and heavy outlines presenting a necessary bulwark against Jo's hallucinogenic fuschia beach shirt, and his silk pants and quince-yellow loafers. The men's food and drink, and the reeking communal ashtray, laid forgotten on their table.  

As I looked at the mens' anticipatory postures and mask-like expressions, something inside me strongly rejected the idea that they were just another group of our usual customers. 

A shiver cut through the ambient heat and wound its way up my back, as if I was one of those Van Der Graaff machines, and I swore my hair nearly stood on end. 

Jo did not stir. A breeze tousled his curly hair, and tumbled down into the clutches of his thin shirt. The garish palm trees rolled and wobbled against the hard contours of his body. Still, he made no movement. He stared directly at the men, with eyes like ice cubes. 

"I'm getting a headache," he said. And...that's it. It was simply his normal voice, his customary tired and impatient tone. I felt surprised again - a thrill in my chest. How did he manage to control his tone so precisely? 

The declaration was a hard, flat wedge driven through the air. And Jo waited. The biggest of the men, the one whose chair back directly abutted Jo's, gave the slightest of head tilts, and shrugged so that the front of his shirt faintly rippled with muscle and flesh. 

"Free country...or you can piss off," he said evocatively, with a voice like a congested tuba. 

"You've never heard of a good time, Skippy?" The adjacent mustached man piped up, pressing forward in his chair so that the plastic chuffed and squealed. 

"Guy knows about a good time, Rich," the first man retorted, "they've got their parades."

For the past few weeks, Jo had been the picture of cordial indifference. Out on the dock, magazine in hand, he never seemed to notice the bustle or the noise, never cared about the fact that his personal space was being slowly eroded on all fronts. He seemed, frankly, unsurprised by all of it, as if he understood himself to be the tastemaker who brought the masses to his little oasis in the harbor, and also its martyr. 

Today, the martyrdom must be pumping especially hard through his veins, along with the cheap coffee. 

"I'm getting a headache", Jo repeated again, slowly - laying his voice down in just the same way - no different, it seemed, than laying down a second coat of paint on a banister. 

Now the other patrons were starting to catch wind of the atmosphere. A few of the black-clad men glanced at each other discreetly, their expressions difficult to parse. I, too, stared at the scene with fierce surprise - and frankly, a jealous unease. 

Why did I ever think that I would need to be demure and politic, when Jo Lazenby, notorious old crank and writer of airline ephemera, was freely walking the streets of Boston? Why, when he could say whatever he liked to whomever he liked, without providing any rationale or even trying to understand the other party? 

Unlike me, Jo never lost sleep over whether he knew his enemy. (Or his friends, if he had any.) His discomfort - his dislike - was sufficient justification for declaring all-out psychological warfare. Clearly, there was nothing holding him to the unwritten rules that governed the rest of us. 

The large man and the mustached man looked at each other - an invisible, instantaneous transference of thoughts. Then, they looked back at Jo. Something seemed to ease in the expression of the first. It didn't go as far as a smile, but some definite change had occurred. From where I stood, I could even feel it. 

Was Jo spared? Or was it merely punishment deferred? 

"Suit yourself," the large man said, shrugging his flesh once more. And slowly, over the course of several lingering seconds and exchanged glances, all of the black-clad men reverted to their positions around their own table, closing in like a lotus flower retracting in the dark. 

It felt unbelievable. In the small, staid, and self-contained universe of the café, calling what happened a miracle would not have been hyperbole. 

Attentions dispersed, conversations relaunched and redoubled. Jo returned to his own table after a moment. And I found myself rushing towards him, propelled forward by nervous energy. 

"You gave them hell!" I said, underneath my breath, but loud enough so that he could hear. This time, I couldn't contain myself. 

Jo looked at me - come on, he had to be able to recognize me by now! - and rapidly blinked several times. His eyes were both blue and somehow gold in the brilliant glare of the sun - two quizzical marbles flashing back at me. 

"You heard what I just said to those guys?"

I fiercely nodded. 

He stared at me a moment longer. It was a look of genuine confusion, and I fluttered, sensing that perhaps a second miracle was imminent. Then - as if all it took for something good to happen to you was wishing hard enough - Jo Lazenby smiled irresistibly back at me.