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‘I love you,’ I said, a lump lodging in my throat.
‘Esther?’ There was a dead pause. ‘You will be in touch, won’t you?’ The lump swelled to a pulsing tumour.
‘I promise, Mum. I promise I will this time.’
‘I’m glad.’ She seemed to perk up a bit at this. ‘It really is good to hear from you but suppose I should let you go if you’re short on money? You’ve probably other things to spend it on.’
‘Yeah,’ I said, thinking about all those miles between us. ‘I’ll be in touch next week about your trip. Bye, Mum.’
I hung up. My eyes glazed with tears. I could almost smell Mum’s perfume. The sedative scent of lavender. The imagined aroma was so strong I half-expected to see her round the corner in one of her loud, floral dresses. A big, chunky necklace clinking as she walked. But the street was littered only with strangers. I sighed and nodded. It wouldn’t be this way forever, I promised myself. It just couldn’t be.
Not forever.
Chapter Five (#ulink_28a2a57c-0f5e-5acc-9852-d0fe841e843a)
‘Heads-up,’ said Mona, as I frothed the milk for the millionth cappuccino that morning. I turned for just a second and then whipped back to face the coffee machine again, doing all I could to make myself seem nonchalant from behind.
‘Morning,’ said Faber’s now-familiar voice. I pursed my lips and feigned a deep fascination with the milk steamer.
‘Mornin’ how’re you doin’ today?’ said Mona. There was a pause. I saw Mona look at me out of the corner of my eye. The air around me thickened.
‘Alright, thanks,’ the actor replied.
‘Pretty darn peachy,’ said a chirpy woman’s voice.
‘Esther,’ said Mona. ‘You can serve Jack, can’t you? I’ve got to sort tomorrow’s bakery order.’
I glowered. She didn’t have to do that job right then. She knew it and she knew I knew it. But I couldn’t make a scene. Serving people was, after all, my job. Fastening a smile to my lips, I turned to see him perched at the counter next to Walt.
‘Good morning, what can I get for you?’
Jack looked into my eyes. His expression unreadable. It’d been three days since I’d seen him and now it appeared that he had a woman in tow.
‘This is Angela,’ said Jack, ignoring my question. Tearing from his steady gaze, I looked at her. It was the same young woman who asked for his autograph the day we met. Studying her face, I realised I’d seen her in the diner a couple of times before. Somehow I managed to hold my smile in place and nod. She was holding hands with Jack. Her fingers entangled themselves with his on the counter top, similar to how mine had a few nights ago. I moved my eyes upwards again. Jack was looking at me, looking at their hands.
‘So what can I get for you?’ I tried again.
‘I’ll have the fruit salad,’ said Angela.
‘No problem.’ I concentrated hard on writing down her order. Anything to distract myself from her shiny hair, or her manicured nails or that she was holding hands with Jack. ‘Can I get you a drink with that?’
‘Um. No I’ll just stick with some water, thanks.’
‘Are you sure that’s all you want?’ Jack asked her. ‘I’m definitely having pancakes.’
‘No, I’m good with the fruit salad.’ Some dark part of me spat silent slurs about her ultra-virtuous menu choice. Good job neither of them were psychic. It wasn’t her fault Jack asked her out. Or that I was so lonely. Like everything else, it was Mrs Delaney’s.
‘Pancakes? What toppings?’ I asked Jack. He paused before replying, forcing me to look at him to prompt a response.
‘Strawberries, please.’ He smiled. I didn’t reciprocate. You don’t get to call me a psycho and have me smile at you. Those two things are mutually exclusive.
‘Right, and to drink?’
‘Er…’ He looked at me. I glared back, tilting my head and tapping my notebook with the end of my pen. He looked at the pen and then back at my irritable face.
‘Just a coffee. Thanks.’ He put an arm around Angela.
‘Coming right up,’ I said, all but snatching the menus from them.
‘Hey Esther.’
‘Hang on, Walt. I’ll just get this order into the kitchen and I’ll be right over.’ I reasoned the sooner I served them, the sooner they’d be gone. Thus, the sooner I could stop watching her bury her head into his shoulder, or him, pulling her close and kissing the neat bow of her lips. She was polished and prim alright. Jack had followed my advice to the letter.
On delivering their order to Lucia, I caught my reflection in the small, round window of the kitchen door. My blonde hair was scraped back any old how into a ponytail. In this light, my skin looked almost sallow and, even in the air-conditioning, I was sweating with the effort of running around after customers. In short: I looked a mess. I’d looked a mess for months, but for the first time in a long time I wished I’d gone to the effort of at least moisturising before leaving the flat. Out of nowhere, the door swung towards me. Mona stepped through it.
‘What are you doin’ stood right there? Nearly knocked you out.’ She shook her head.
‘Er, nothing.’ I propped my glasses up on my head for something casual to do. ‘Sorry. Lapsed into a daydream. Must be tired.’
‘Well, Walt’s itchin’ to ask you today’s clue. And he needs a top up,’ said Mona.
‘I’ll go and sort him out.’
‘You OK?’ Mona tilted her head as she looked at me.
‘Why wouldn’t I be?’
‘It’s just. Well…’
‘What?’ I heard the defensiveness in my voice but pretended not to.
‘Nothin’. I can see Mr Faber and his lady friend ain’t botherin’ you a jot.’
Other than a weak smile I didn’t offer a response. In the land of the free, Jack could eat pancakes wherever and with whoever he wanted.
Marching back out into the diner, I carried a coffee jug over to Walt. From there I had unparalleled views of the happy couple. Angela was giggling at a joke Jack had just made. His hands were in her hair.
‘Want a top up, Walt?’ Though his body still faced Angela, Jack looked at me out of the corner of his eye.
‘Yeah –’ Walt grinned ‘– but more importantly, there’s a clue for ya.’
‘Alright, I’m listening,’ I said, pouring a drop more coffee into his cup.
‘Pen name used by Sylvia Plath for her first and only novel, The Bell Jar.’
‘Ooh,’ I said. ‘That is a tricky one.’ Walt’s face dropped. He’d never asked me a clue question that’d given me pause. ‘It’s been a long time since I read any Plath but I think the name she used was Lucas. Victoria Lucas. Does that fit?’ Walt made a small calculation and smiled.
‘It’s a fit. 17 across and 21 down.’
‘You know so much,’ Angela said; Walt’s question had distracted her from Jack’s lips.
I shrugged. ‘Well, I’ve been on the planet a lot longer than you so I’ve had more time to absorb.’ She laughed but Jack didn’t find my comment so amusing. He’d sussed that although I was being kind to Angela it was also a sly dig at his choice to date a woman who was, at a guess, a good ten years his junior.
Mona came over with Jack and Angela’s breakfast. I had to admire Angela’s willpower: next to Jack’s pancakes, the fruit salad looked paltry. Still, she had her reward. Her waist was tiny. She chewed her food in small, mousey movements that betrayed a certain self-consciousness about eating in public, despite her enviable figure.
Mona smiled as the doorbell chimed. ‘There’s my man.’ Her husband, Alan, always came to visit on Wednesdays, taking a short break from his beat along Broadway. She glided over and gave him a peck on the lips.
‘Mornin’, jelly bean. How about some coffee?’ Mona stroked his beard, which was trimmed close to his face, took off his hat and laid it on the counter. Alan, I’d gleaned from Mona’s numerous rants, had a tendency to bring police business home with him and the removal of his hat was a well-worn ritual between them that signified he was off duty. Shop talk was off limits.
‘I’ll get that for you, Alan,’ I said, desperate for a distraction from the almost non-stop smooching Jack and Angela were engaged in. Alan took a seat next to Walt. I poured his coffee.
‘Heard you got mugged last week,’ Alan said.
I stiffened. Mona had spoken to him even though I’d told her not to.
‘Alan Montgomery,’ Mona interjected, laying her hands down heavy on the counter. ‘Where is your hat?’ Alan looked like a school boy who’d been caught stealing the milk money.
‘On the counter.’
‘And what does that mean?’
‘I was askin’ for purely personal reasons. I care about Esther so it don’t count as shop talk,’ he tried.
Mona pursed her lips and put a hand on her hip but Lucia called out one of her order numbers so she was unable to monitor the situation any longer.
‘So, what happened?’ Alan hissed at me with wide eyes. Jack looked over at this. I caught his eye and wondered if he was thinking, as I was, about the morning we met.
‘I’m not encouraging you,’ I whispered, checking to see if Mona was stood anywhere behind me. ‘It was nothing anyway. Just some kids.’ I rubbed my head where the cut was still healing.
‘You know you should have reported it,’ he said, feeling bold enough to raise his hiss to a murmur.
‘Come on, Alan.’ I smiled. ‘I know you’ve got better things to do than look for the eighteen dollars they took from me.’
‘It’s not just that. If they’re doing it to you they’re probably doing it to others.’ Then he added with a smile, ‘Maybe folk who aren’t as scrappy as you.’ I let out a short laugh whilst wracking my brain for some surreptitious way to change the subject.
‘Really Alan, it’s not worth your time,’ I tried again, unable to think of anything else.
‘Did they hurt you?’
‘No.’ Jack still had an eye on me. Was that concern imprinted on his face? ‘One of them hit me across the head but it wasn’t designed to knock me out. Or if it was they need to lift a few more weights. They were just trying to scare me so I’d hand over what I had.’
‘Were they armed?’ Alan glanced over to the kitchen. There was something adorable about the fact he looked down the barrel of a gun without a second thought but was scared of his wife who was a mere two inches taller than my modest five foot three stature.
‘Only with knives.’ I gave him the loosest shrug in my armoury.
‘Well, that’s bad enough. You should still report it.’
‘OK, Alan, I’ll think about it.’ There was no way I was going anywhere near a police station of my own accord but I had to find a way to pacify him.
‘Good.’ He sipped his coffee and, aware that Mona would be walking past any minute, changed the subject of his own free will. ‘How’s it goin’, Walt?’
‘Alright,’ he said, and then pointed his thumb at Jack and Angela who’d resumed kissing. ‘Except this gal over here might need surgery. She’s got some guy stuck to her face.’ Walt looked at me with a sparkle in his eye and erupted into a bout of childish laughter. His hooting was so infectious I wound up joining in, releasing some of the inner-tension Alan’s probing had stirred.
Our outburst scattered the lovebirds.
‘I didn’t know it was even possible you could laugh like that,’ Jack remarked.
‘Well,’ I said, straightening my face after his dig, ‘maybe I don’t find you so funny.’
‘Mona! Esther!’ Bernie shouted from his perch. ‘Would you come over here and stop clowning around? I’ve got matters to discuss.’ Mona, who’d come back over to find out what the commotion was, exchanged a look of tetchiness with me before we sauntered over to where he was sitting. Lucia was due a night off, which meant he’d have to work the late shift in the kitchen, a fact guaranteed to make him even more of a grouch than usual.
‘What’s up, Bernie?’ asked Mona.
‘The week after next, instead of working here I’m taking you to get fitted for the hop. Let’s say the Thursday, that’s the 22
. It’s usually quiet in the afternoon so we’ll shut up shop for an hour and head up to midtown.’
‘Sorry, what do you mean fitted?’ I asked. I knew about the annual event Bernie hosted at the diner. A night where all the chairs and tables were cleared away to make dance space for a vintage party, during which he piped fifties music over the jukebox until late. Bernie made more in one night than he usually did in two weeks. I’d no idea, however, there were any special requirements of us as waitresses.
‘Every year Bernie buys the waitresses a new dress for the hop. You get to keep it. They’re cut in the fifties style so they’re always glam. It’s sorta like a bonus,’ said Mona.
‘That’s really kind, Bernie.’ I smiled thinking about how long it had been since I’d had anything new that wasn’t a second-hand book.
‘Well, people spend more on the night if there’s a bit of flesh on show,’ Bernie explained.
‘Flesh?’
‘Don’t you worry, honey. He’s talking in comparison to our diner uniforms. Modest amount of cleavage. A flash of leg. Nothing you wouldn’t put on show if you were going to any other party,’ said Mona before looking back at Bernie. ‘You payin’ for our hair and make-up this year? I loved the way they curled my hair last time.’
‘You’ll get the works,’ Bernie replied without a smile. ‘Just make sure those tickets sell out by the end of the week.’
‘Not a problem.’ Mona did a quick calculation in her head. ‘We’ve only got ten left.’
‘When is the hop, Mona?’ asked Jack who, having extracted himself from Angela’s lips, had been listening in.
‘It’s two weeks today, Saturday 25th. Tickets are twenty bucks.’ she replied.
Jack turned to Angela. ‘Do you want to go?’
‘Sure. Fifties music is so cute and retro.’
Jack nodded and pressed his lips together. ‘Can I buy two tickets, Mona?’
‘Sure honey, I’ll add it to your cheque.’
I looked over at Jack and Angela and thought ahead to the night of the hop. They’d come together. I’d have to watch them laughing and dancing, knowing that if things were different I might have taken her place.
It was in this not so very special moment that I hatched a plan to avoid anymore suspicion from Mona over my feelings for Jack. She could see my strong aversion to him was a cover-up for the fact I found him… well, intriguing. The obvious solution was to stop being so sensitive about it. If Jack was in a relationship with someone else, there wasn’t any danger of anything happening between us. And if there was no chance of him making a move then what harm would it do to be pleasant? He had a gorgeous twenty-something at his side and, in his own words, thought I was psycho. He wasn’t interested in me – which made things easier and meant I could get Mona off my back.
