“You’re the riddle girl, no?”
“Yes.” Robin answered quickly. They had both relaxed as soon as they had seen the speaker. He seemed so comfortable with himself, it put others at ease.
“I’m Tom, Tom Potter. This is my place. I wanted to thank you.”
“Thank me? For what?”
“For the free advertisement. At least a third of the calls I got this week were asking if you’d be here. Attendance is up by more than that.”
Jay nodded. “I only came because of the chance you’d be here.”
Robin twisted to look him. “Seriously? We’ve never met.” Her face took on that puzzled look he’d seen twice before. “Have we?”
He blushed. “Kind of. At Fred’s Root Beer. I didn’t make a very good impression.”
“You. You were the one with the tray? I wondered where I’d seen you before.” She was smiling at him. “You made a better impression today.”
“You must be the solver of the Red Sphinx’s riddle, then.” Tom spoke up again.
“I am. I’m Jay, Tom. And this is Robin. And thanks for not coming out and calling me Oedipus. It makes the girls nervous.” Robin slapped his thigh.
Tom’s laugh was surprisingly hearty. “Pleased to meet you both. If you don’t mind my asking, what was the winning answer?”
“Blue-footed Boobies.” They both answered together. He looked at her chest, at her shoes, then it was Tom’s thigh’s turn to get slapped, by his own open palm.
“Boobies. Of course. The ones that dance like this.” This skinny old fellow did a remarkably solid imitation of the mating dance, long beard waving. “Good riddle, young Robin. Good thinking, young Jay. I’m glad at least some youngsters have a head on their shoulders worth keeping. Not like those three idiots we had to call the constabulary on today.”
“Three?” Jay was worried. “Was one a big porker with a farmer’s, ah, undershirt and shorts tan?
Tom shook his head “Unfortunately, Jay, that describes too many of our attendees.”
“And they all wanted to guess my riddle.”
Tom eyed Robin again. “I have no doubt of that. Do you know Porky’s name, Jay?”
“Vern. Vern Sykes.”
“Yep. That’s the big fellow.”
“Damn. That was my ride.” Jay felt Robin tense at the mention of a ride.
Tom looked surprised. “I wouldn’t have put a bright young riddle solver in a truck with that piece of work.”
“Well, they’re not my every day compadres, but they were too cheap to let an extra ticket go to waste and they dangled the likelihood of a certain intellectually-challenging redhead being here.”
“A challenge you were apparently up to.”
“I’ll say.” Robin added, wiggling back on him emphatically, though he was a little less up since Tom had shown up.
“Tom, you said your name’s Potter.” Something had clicked in Jay’s mind.
“So I did.”
“Tom the Potter?”
The old timer looked at him closely, suddenly appearing more Merlin-like. Like a wizard and a bird of prey. Jay’s dad used to mention a Tom the Potter, an art teacher who’d made a lasting impression. Once or twice he’d gone off to spend a Saturday visiting the man. When he was kid, Jay had spent hours with his dad learning to both hand-mold clay and throw it on the wheel with the heavy kick stone, using techniques passed down from Tom.