Sunrise in New York

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‘Well, I can try.’ I smiled, wondering if the guy started all his conversations this way. He moved a veiny hand over to his paper and his finger hovered over the words as he read.

‘Debut single by The Police released 1978. Seven letters.’

‘One word?’

‘Yup.’

‘Well, that’ll be “Roxanne”.’

‘Oh yeah,’ Esther said, and stared hard at Walt. ‘You ask me the book questions and Bonnie the music questions. Do you do any of that crossword by yourself?

‘Sure I do. The sports.’ Walt chuckled whilst carefully filling in the word ‘Roxanne’ in neat block capitals.

Esther rolled her eyes and shook her head at the same time. This was her ultimate non-verbal put-down, but Walt seemed unfazed by it and she soon turned her attentions back to me. ‘You want something to eat? Lucia’s nearly on top of all the orders we’ve got and I can get yours in the queue.’

‘Yeah, I’ll get a hamburger with a side of fries.’ I said, thinking about how good it had tasted to sink my teeth into Jimmy’s burger the first night I came here. And then a little collage of images flickered through my mind, replaying my time back at his apartment. In particular, the moment he pulled my body so tight against his…

‘Are you alright?’ Esther asked, raising an eyebrow at me. ‘You look very red in the face.’

‘Do I?’ I said, pressing my knuckles flat against my cheeks to check my temperature. Oh God. So now just thinking about Jimmy made me go traffic-light red? Life really wasn’t being fair to me lately. ‘That’s weird, I don’t exactly feel overheated after a day out in the snow.’

‘I hope you’re not coming down with something,’ said Esther, a hint of suspicion still lingering in her voice.

‘Oh, I’m sure I’m not,’ I said, and although I wouldn’t have thought it was possible I could feel myself getting redder. ‘I just need a hot drink to warm up properly. Could I get a coffee too?’

‘Alright, anything for you two?’ Esther looked between Bernie and Walt but they both shook their heads so she trooped off back towards the kitchen.

Bernie looked at me a moment and then stared down at the counter. He shuffled in his seat and fidgeted with a ballpoint pen. Alright. Looked like I was going to have to do the heavy lifting when it came to conversation around here.

‘So Bernie, how long have you had this place?’ I asked, starting with something simple.

‘Opened her up in sixty-four,’ he said and then zipped up his mouth again.

Boy, this was going to be hard work. Still, I had some time to kill. Esther’s shift didn’t finish for another hour and a quarter.

‘Fifties places must have been something of a rarity in the sixties,’ I said, frowning at the idea. Something about it seemed a little screwy. But then, something about this guy seemed a little screwy too.

‘Oh yeah, a few people thought I was nuts opening a fifties joint not even five years into the next decade,’ he shrugged.

‘But you did it anyway,’ I said, looking around at the rows of milkshake glasses sparkling on the shelves and the refrigerator stocked high with pies.

‘Yeah, well, the early sixties was what you might call a turbulent time, and I just got a feeling, the way a guy gets sometimes, that things weren’t gonna get any better. And for the most part I was right. Looking back sure is a lot easier than looking forward.’

‘Both seem equally painful to me.’ I said, without even thinking about it. My shoulders stiffened. I looked at Bernie out of the corner of my eye. He was staring at me, hard. Damn it, Bonnie, couldn’t you just talk about something light, like how bad the Lions were faring this season?

‘Esther says you’re from Detroit,’ Bernie said, the way so many people did. It was no secret that the golden age of Motor City was well and truly in the past. The city’s reputation for violence was second to none, which made people a bit wary when talking about it. They never offered an opinion on the place, as it was likely to cause offence.

‘Born and raised.’ I issued my standard response, shaking a second sugar packet, ripping at the seal and pouring it into my drink. I wouldn’t normally take so much sugar but it had been sub-zero outside and I needed some kind of energy boost.

‘You not got any folks out there?’

‘Oh yeah, they’re out there.’ I took a sip of my coffee even though it was still too hot to drink and winced at the sting.

‘You didn’t wanna spend the holidays with them?’

Alright, this was getting real personal, real fast. How’d that happen? I turned my head to look at Bernie square on. His brown eyes shifted from side to side; it was like he didn’t want to be seen. I could relate to that well enough and looked away, staring at an old tin advert for an ice-cream float telling me to ‘add some flavour to my day’.

‘It’s not that I don’t want to be there.’ I pressed my index finger to the top of the coffee cup and followed the edge right around until my hand had travelled a full circle. ‘It’s more that I’m not exactly welcome at the moment. My old man ain’t too keen on having a failing musician as a daughter.’

‘Who does he want? Madonna?’

‘No.’ I chuckled without expecting to, but then the whole area around my mouth tightened. How did I make this sound casual? That I’ve never really quite been the person my Dad hoped I’d be. Not even close. ‘My little sister, Karen, she’s a pharmacist,’ I started, trying to find a way into the topic and hold myself together. ‘Draws a regular wage. Married a grocer by the time she was twenty-four as though it was the easiest thing in the world. She just slots right in without even thinking about it. Guess lightning doesn’t strike twice in the same family.’ I squeezed my lips hard against one another, desperate to make sure the talk about why I couldn’t run home to my family didn’t turn into talk about what I was running from.

It was at Karen’s wedding the summer before last that I started to realise just how much of an outsider I was, even in a room filled with my own blood relatives. I’d always felt it on some level, of course, but that day it was made explicit. My own mama asked me to lie to people about what I did for a living. Asked me to tell folk I was a music teacher, not singing in some seedy casino bar every night. It was then I realised that the thing I was most afraid of in the whole world was actually true: my own family were ashamed of me. It wasn’t at all what they had planned for me when they packed me off to Princeton to study music. They were embarrassed by their own daughter, and last December I’d finally had the guts to confront them over it. That was the last conversation I’d had with them and right now it felt like the last conversation I would ever have with them.

‘Well, I don’t know much about family, kid. Not in the blood sense of the word anyways,’ said Bernie.

‘Your parents not around anymore?’ This was a pretty personal question, but I’d given this guy quite a lot. Certainly more than he’d given me. His whole face tensed and for the first time since the conversation started, he looked at me straight. Level. No darting eyes or fidgeting with his pen.

‘Papi died in Korea. Mami didn’t live to see the seventies. She did live to see me get married but me and Rita ain’t together no more.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘So am I.’

‘You didn’t have any kids?’

‘Naw, never got a chance.’ I looked at Bernie out of the corner of my eye. He gulped and his face was clouded with whatever he was thinking about.

‘Tell me to mind my own business, anytime. I won’t take it to heart. I seem to be an expert at saying the wrong thing, but… I’ve never really been sure about marriage, though I’ve never really been in a position to wonder about it. Are you glad you got married?’

Bernie turned and looked at me again, and then his eyes were back on his pen. ‘I don’t regret it, if that’s what you’re asking. It was the right thing to do.’

‘How did you know it was right?’