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‘Be as presumptuous as you like. Whaddo I care? It’s only food.’ He waved a hand in my direction as though he were shooing a pigeon.
‘The way you embrace life so whole-heartedly is an inspiration to us all.’ Walt put down his paper and his face scrunched even tighter. ‘Alright, alright,’ I said. ‘Mushroom omelette it is.’
‘Excuse me?’
Oh great, the frowner had returned. He stood right in my way. Blocking my route to the kitchen.
‘Yes sir, is there a problem?’
‘Er. No, of course not. I … we were just interrupted.’ Though his arms were folded loose across his body, the skin around his eyes was taut with confusion. What did this guy want from me? He’d already picked up a brunette this morning. Did he really need to add a blonde to his collection?
‘Oh, I have to get Walt’s breakfast now,’ I said.
‘I can wait.’ Walt again waved his hand. I glared at him. He smirked, lowering his eyes back to the paper. Sighing, I turned to the frowner; I raised both eyebrows and tilted my head, signposting to this socially blunt individual that if he had something to say, he should say it now.
‘I just wondered what brought you to New York?’ His tone was airy and he leaned in close as he spoke, the way an old friend might. The scent of bergamot emanated from his body. It was distracting.
‘The affordable housing and the predictable weather,’ I replied. He laughed. I didn’t. ‘Look, I’m busy, OK?’
Busy trying to hide. Busy trying to breathe and smile and forget.
‘Oh. OK. Suppose I might see you tomorrow.’ His gaze was steady but at these words my eyes flared wide.
‘Tomorrow?’
‘Yeah, this is my new local place,’ the frowner explained. ‘I just moved in on Ludlow Street.’
‘Well, the restaurant where they shot the orgasm scene in When Harry Met Sally is just a few doors down. Maybe that should be your new local place.’ I gave him a patronising pat on the arm. He looked down at my hand which sat content just below his elbow. I followed his gaze and then snatched my hand away. Making physical contact. How could I be so stupid?
The frowner smiled. ‘Actually, I think I’m going to stick with the diner where the waitresses feel comfortable saying the word “orgasm” to a total stranger.’
‘Well,’ I said, collecting empty glasses off the counter, ‘I think that says a lot more about you than it does the waitresses.’
He rubbed the side of his jaw, no doubt trying to think of some dazzling retort.
‘Hey Esther,’ Walt butted in, ‘here’s one for you.’ He looked down at The Times crossword and read, ‘Generally accepted as Shakespeare’s longest play.’
‘Hamlet,’ I replied without a blink. Walt checked the paper and then pointed his pen at me.
‘How’d you know that?’ He looked at me sidelong.
‘It’s a very well-known fact,’ I said. ‘Probably helps I’m from the same country as Shakespeare. It’s the sort of thing that seeps in through the amniotic fluid.’
‘Ugh.’ Walt grunted. ‘Do you have to talk about all that woman crap when I’m about to eat?’
‘All part of the service.’ I smiled. The frowner chuckled, joining in the joke. I’d almost forgotten he was there. My smile faded and I tried to dodge around him. I moved left and so did he. I stepped right and still he was in my way. After a few moments of this uneasy dance he placed both hands on my arms and lifted me clean off the ground. There wasn’t time to shrink away or sidestep. My whole body stiffened in the time it took him to plant me on the other side of where he was standing.
‘That is the weirdest thing anybody has ever done to me,’ I said, breathing harder than I’d like and adjusting my glasses back into their usual resting place.
‘Well, you haven’t been in New York very long.’ Walt cackled. His laugh had a sort of clatter to it, like an old, broken washing machine on full spin.
‘Can’t be any weirder than getting mugged. Are you OK?’ asked the frowner.
At his question, I once again felt the sickening lurch of being shoved to the ground. The knife, pointing at my throat. I should’ve been scared. Should’ve cried. Should’ve begged. But instead, I just remembered… Would I ever forget? The things he did to her. Rubbing at the small, white notch she’d worn into my ring finger, I thought again about Mrs Delaney. Hours she’d stood, in the doorway of their living room, twisting the gold around and around. Whilst he’d slouched in his armchair, watching Saturday afternoon darts on TV, she’d pictured the miraculous day when she’d slip her twenty-two carat collar.
I glanced into the frowner’s eyes. There was a velvet softness to the blue of them I’d been doing my best to ignore.
My hands were shaking.
I looked down at them and his eyes lowered too, watching them jitter.
‘I’m sorry, I…’ he began.
‘I’m fine,’ I snapped.
‘You’re not fine.’ His voice was firm but there was no mistaking his concern. ‘You’ve been mugged and you haven’t so much as sat down. You need help. You’re shaking…’
He thought it was because of the mugging. Well, what else would he think? I let my eyes stray once again into his.
‘Order up!’ Lucia, our grill girl, shouted.
‘I’ve got to get on. I’m busy.’ I turned and walked away.
‘Hey!’ The frowner called after me, and I sighed. ‘I’m Jack by the way.’
I nodded and pointed to my name badge in response.
‘So I’ll see you tomorrow?’
‘Oh-kay.’ I whirled into the kitchen, safe in the knowledge I was working the late shift, rather than breakfast, the next day.
‘Walt wants his usual,’ I called over to Lucia, who was a big, square block of a woman. She was fiddling with a small transistor radio which, in a fifties-themed diner, was our only portal to modern-day chart music. Bernie only permitted it if we kept the volume low so as not to ruin the ‘illusion of stepping back in time’. Lucia clapped and giggled to herself when she found a station playing New Kids on the Block. Not my favourite but preferable to hearing Sinead O’Connor warble out ‘Nothing Compares 2 U’, yet again. It had to be one of the most depressing songs ever written and radio stations loved it. Especially early on a Monday when they knew you’d already be in the depths of misery.
Mona pushed through the swing doors with a knowing look on her face.
‘What?’ I asked. I knew what and so did she. Nothing got past Mona.
‘You don’t know who that was, do ya?’ Though she was only three years my senior, Mona had a way of standing that made me feel like she was my mother. A hand on her hip and a slouch in one leg.
‘Who?’
‘You know who.’ She leaned against the work surface and folded her arms. ‘That dreamboat who was trying to talk to you and who you was bein’ rude to. Didn’t recognise him myself at first, on account of that beard he was wearing.’
‘I was not rude,’ I said, playing with the strings on my apron. ‘I was…curt. Maybe.’
‘Well, you was just curt to Jack Faber.’
‘Is that name supposed to connote something to me?’
‘Connote?’ Mona shook her head. ‘That’s another one for the chart, Lu.’
When I started at The Starlight Diner five months ago, ‘Esther’s Fancy Word Chart’ was imaginary. A joke between Mona and Lu about the snobbish English woman Bernie had hired. Over the months, however, the chart had evolved into a real thing. Or, at least, into the back of an old bakery invoice tacked to the wall.
‘This Faber guy famous?’ Lucia asked once she’d scrawled the latest ‘fancy word’ on the chart. ‘Knew I shoulda put make-up on this morning.’
‘No make-up required, Lu. Our Esther don’t wear even a lick of mascara. She got his attention alright.’ Mona grinned but I refused to rise to her teasing.
‘Connote has two Ns,’ I said to Lucia. She grunted and made the correction.
‘He’s an actor,’ Mona said, trying to re-establish my attention. ‘Got his first big movie out soon, read about it in New York Magazine, it’s called…Without You.’
‘Ugh,’ I groaned, ‘that sounds terminally sappy. Anyway, he’s out of luck. I don’t fraternise with actors. It’s unsavoury. Pretending to be somebody you’re not. Wanting other people to look at you all the time.’
‘What do you mean, actors? You don’t fraternise with anybody,’ said Lucia, she and Mona looked at each other and twittered.
‘I’m a busy woman,’ I said, glaring.
‘You’re a waitress,’ Mona replied. I half-smiled and looked at the floor. I didn’t have an answer to that. They didn’t know what was really going on, deep down.
Never could.
I was about to pick up Walt’s omelette when, just beyond the kitchen door, a man started shouting. Mona and I grimaced, edging closer to see what the ruckus was. Lucia sidled up behind us and, together, we peeped through the small circular windows. It was the frowner.
‘I don’t care…’ he growled at whoever was on the other end of the call he was making on the payphone we had out back. ‘I won’t be held hostage. This is it!’
There was a short passage between the diner and the kitchen only just shielding the customers from his rage. ‘That’s insane!’ he shouted, his face red and contorted.
‘What’s this guy’s deal?’ Mona hissed. I shrugged and shook my head.
‘No. No. No. What the hell?’ He paced and pushed a hand through his hair. ‘No. You end this. You do what you said you would, and don’t bother calling till you do.’
Faber slammed down the phone. He pressed his hands flat against the wall and bowed his head between them. I looked at Mona and Lucia. Should we do something? Say something? Before we had a chance, he raised his head and looked at the wall. Narrowing his eyes, he dealt a single, thunderous punch to the red paint, which was already flaking. It crumbled further at the point of impact. I raised both hands to my face, gasping at the blunt thud. Jack wrung his hand for a few moments, shook his head in what seemed like despair and stalked back out into the diner.
I didn’t let on that my heart was racing as Mona and Lucia spent the next fifteen minutes dissecting this event. That something buried deep was surfacing.
By the time I escaped the kitchen to deliver Walt’s omelette, the actor was gone.
Chapter Two (#u02a9d526-0e2a-56d7-ae01-0b360232efdc)
After the jolt of the mugging, and the sheer weirdness of the Jack episode, clearing my head was at the top of my to-do list. And so, the following day, I hopped on a subway to Coney Island, New York City’s own Avalon. My diner shift didn’t start till four which meant I’d time aplenty to relax at the edge of the Atlantic. To gaze out at the indigo horizon and listen to the jolly screams of visitors braving the Cyclone: an aged, wooden rollercoaster which rattled around a precarious track. Maybe I’d even have my fortune told on the Zoltar machine, if I was feeling adventurous and had a dollar to spare. Yes, Zoltar was a nodding puppet in a turban but I’d wager even he had a better idea about what was good for me than I did just then.
The hard stare of the Manhattan streets faded the second the salt air hit my lungs, even if it was somewhat fouled by the sweaty scent of grilled hot dogs, and before long I was strolling the length of the promenade. All around, folks made the most of the blossoming weather: some lazed out, priming their already medium-rare skin with tanning lotion. Others queued for The Wonder Wheel to the soundtrack of cawing gulls.
Nobody else was here alone.
They’d all come in family groups or in couples. Most were too caught up in their own frolics to take note of a lone, unkempt woman slobbing around in a T-shirt and a frayed pair of Jordache jeans. But those who did notice, looked at me a moment longer than I’d like. Were they wondering why I had no companion? Staring at them, staring at me, I speculated what they’d say if I told them the answer.
Further along the boardwalk, tight clusters of tourists dotted the shoreline. A bronzed, bare-chested twenty-something lifted his girlfriend in a way not dissimilar to how Jack had, without any effort, lifted me the day before. I sighed. Despite my efforts to shut him out, the actor had sauntered into my thoughts. And not for the first time. Watching those young lovers, I felt again his hands, firm and secure around my waist, and an unfamiliar warmth stirred just beneath the skin.
Oh Esther, don’t be drawn. How could you so soon forget what men do?
No. I hadn’t forgotten. Jack was just the first handsome face to take an interest since… since…
I shook my head. That’s all these thoughts were. A raw, physical reaction to the tone of his arms.
What rippled beneath that smooth surface, Esther?
More than just muscle. A savage. Unless he had a medical note for that weird, wall-punching tic. A brute. Another one.
Overcome by both the heat and the odd cocktail of emotions, I sheltered in the shadow cast by a billboard for Nathan’s hot dogs. The beach stretched out along the peninsula as far as I could make out. Sandwiched between the blue waters of the Atlantic and the jubilant roar of the amusements. Looming tall above all else was the derelict Parachute Jump ride: a fearsome, steel skeleton that mushroomed into the sky. The fact people once thought it prudent to launch themselves off the top of it was incredible. Even more incredible was that it’d achieved status as a New York City landmark, preventing developers from demolishing it and building condos. The only other obelisks on the skyline were apartment blocks, which stood in military procession beyond multi-coloured parasols and rows of refreshment bars. They’d been built in a brick that was meant to be in sympathy with the sand but were too muddy a brown and thus looked as awkward as I felt against the otherwise jaunty palate of the sea front.
Recovered from the heat, and more than aware that a two-minute stint in the shade wouldn’t cure my permanent sense of being somehow dislodged, I ambled out along the pier. There, I planned to sit out and read the copy of Homage to Catalonia I had stowed in my satchel. Though my life had taken a disturbing turn in the last few years, I clung to the comfort I found in books. Orwell, in particular, was an author who set me at ease. He wrote like he was speaking just to me, as though he was sitting in some nearby corner recounting his many philosophies and adventures, and there was an intimacy about that I found solace in. I felt close to this man I’d never known. It was the sole intimacy I allowed myself.
Spare seats on the pier were scarce but after a minute I clocked one on a wooden bench next to an old black man with long, curly hair. He sang to himself. A huge golden Labrador sat at his side. His singing ceased as I settled onto the bench. We remained in silence for a few minutes before the dog edged towards me for some fuss. I obliged, rubbing him behind the ears.
‘He botherin’ you?’ the man asked, looking first at the dog and then at me.
‘Not at all. I love dogs. In fact, I’m quite suspicious of people who don’t.’ I smiled at him before returning my attentions to the mutt.
‘I hear ya.’ At this, the man started singing again. I nodded my head in time and he noticed my approval.
‘That’s a good song,’ he said, still tapping one foot to the rhythm floating around in his head.
I nodded, patting the dog. ‘It is. It’s Wilson Pickett, isn’t it? Or were you singing the Tina Turner version?’
‘Right first time.’ He looked surprised and then a little closer at me. ‘You’re a bit young to know ’bout Wilson Pickett, ain’t you?’
‘Ha. Well, I’m not that young but thank you,’ I said, a touch of shyness creeping in at the compliment.
‘You can’t be older than thirty.’ He stared harder, trying to gauge my age.
‘I’m thirty-three.’ I gave him a flimsy smile. ‘But my Dad liked those songs. They were a big part of my childhood.’
‘Your Dad has good taste.’ The man gave a weighty nod, and pressed his lips together.
‘I always thought so,’ I said. ‘At least when it came to music.’
The man chuckled. ‘Well, daughters and fathers need only see eye to eye on the things that matter, and to my mind music comes somewhere near the top of that list.’
‘I’m sure you’re right,’ I said, stroking the dog’s ears and massaging his neck under the collar. ‘It’s of little relevance now though, Dad died when I was eleven.’
‘I’m sorry,’ he said, and gave me a look I’d seen a hundred times from a hundred different people. Nobody knows how to deal with the topic of mortality. The old man’s tack was to sidestep the subject: ‘You got kids yourself?’
‘No.’ My gaze drifted out to sea and I locked my expression in a state of indifference which I could only hope looked casual. It was the threat of bearing a child, his child, that’d created this whole predicament.
‘Well, you got time for that yet.’
‘Mmm. Relationships are…they’re complex.’ I shrugged. Complex. Is there anything so complex about doing everything you’re told? That was always Mrs Delaney’smethod. ‘How about you? Do you have family?’
