Secrets and Fries at the Starlight Diner

by Helen Cox

  ‘Sure, sounds like fun.’ I shrugged.

  ‘How much?’ Bernie’s eyes narrowed for a second time.

  ‘What?’

  ‘How much will it cost?’

  ‘Oh, uh, well obviously I’d give you the friends and family rate. Seventy-five bucks?’ I would take fifty but best to start the haggling high.

  ‘Seems reasonable,’ Bernie said, though his tone made it seem as though he didn’t think the terms were reasonable at all.

  ‘Well, alright, great. You got some particular songs in mind?’

  ‘I’ll write a list and pass it on to Esther tomorrow. That’ll give you about three days to practise before the party. That enough time?’ he asked.

  ‘It should be plenty, I probably know them anyway. Any I don’t know, I’ll practise them when I’m out busking.’ Though he didn’t invite me to do so, I didn’t have anyone else to sit with and decided to take the seat next to his.

  As I did, the other older gentleman to my left piped up. ‘Excuse me, did I just hear you’re a musician?’

  ‘Uh, yeah,’ I said, shaking off my leather jacket.

  ‘Bonnie, Walt, Walt, Bonnie,’ said Esther, who’d come over, notebook in hand, probably to find out what I wanted to eat.

  ‘Can you tell me the answer to this crossword question I couldn’t get this morning?’ said Walt, looking at me over the top of his spectacles. ‘It’s about music.’

  ‘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?’

  ‘Oh boy,’ Bernie shook his head. ‘That’s a story.’

  ‘Sorry, you probably don’t want to talk about it. It’s fine, I just, I was just wondering is all.’ I shrugged, passing it off as no big deal.

  ‘It’s complicated, kid. Rita was a complicated woman.’

  ‘Didn’t know there was any other kind,’ I said. Bernie looked at me long enough to make me regret making such a stupid joke when the guy had obviously had such a tough time of it. ‘Sorry, shouldn’t have said that. I’m always trying to make light of the wrong things. I wish it could’ve worked out for you.’

  ‘Thanks, kid,’ Bernie’s mouth didn’t smile but there was a gold glint in his eyes that wasn’t there before.

  ‘If I’d had the chance to reason with her, maybe we’d still be together,’ he said.

  ‘What do you mean?’ I frowned.

  ‘One day in seventy-two I got home from this place and our whole apartment smelled of burned meat,’ he said. ‘Smoke everywhere.’

  ‘God, was it a fire? Is that what… I mean, did she…’ I couldn’t finish the sentence but Bernie was looking at me like he had no clue what I was talking about. ‘Did your wife die?’ I whispered.

  ‘No, no no. She’d run away. Hadn’t even switched the oven off before she scrammed. I never seen her since.’

  ‘I’m so sorry, Bernie.’ I scraped my fingernails through the front of my hair, trying to process how that’d feel. ‘That’s just the worst – or near as.’

  ‘Naw. The worst was right after.’ He leaned an elbow on the counter and shuffled around so he could look at me direct as he spoke. ‘Wanna hear something stupid?’

  ‘Always.’ I tried to smile.

  ‘Apartment filled with smoke and I hesitated in turning off the oven. Just for a minute. I don’t even really know why. Can’t figure the logic of it now, but Rita was one of those women who never did anything by accident, and I thought it meant something, the fact she’d left it on. Anyway, that was baloney. Just a sad guy making up stories to make himself feel better. I don’t expect to ever see her again. Not now. It’s been, what? Eighteen years? Jeez.’

  ‘That is a long time, it’s true. But the weird thing about life is you never know how things are going to work out. Sure, it’s been a long time, but honestly, who can tell what’s in our future.’ I had no idea if this was the right thing to say but agreeing with him that he’d never see the woman he loved again was unthinkable. I reached over and put my hand on his arm. Bernie almost flinched at my touch and his whole body seemed to go rigid.

  ‘Here you go, one hamburger with a side of fries,’ said Esther. She stared at my hand on Bernie’s arm before squinting up at my face. I let go and used that hand to pick up a fork instead.

  ‘Thanks, this looks great.’ I stabbed one of the French fries and took a bite, as nonchalantly as I could.

  ‘What’re you two talking about?’ asked Esther.

  ‘Oh, nothing much.’ I waved a hand at her and for Bernie’s sake tried not to turn too red over the fact I was lying. ‘But Bernie’s invited me to play at the New Year’s Eve party – on your recommendation, from what I gather.’

  ‘Well, you’re good. Really good. I know it’ll give the party an edge it wouldn’t have otherwise,’ Esther smiled.

  ‘Yeah.’ I looked down at the counter and raised both eyebrows. ‘New Year.’

  ‘What’s wrong?’ said Esther.

  ‘It’s…’ I looked between Esther and Bernie. ‘It’s nothing.’

  ‘Really? Because your face says otherwise.’ Esther said.

  ‘Well, don’t get mad, OK?’ I said. Esther didn’t make any verbal promises but tilted her head to indicate she was listening. ‘Thing is, I just can’t help thinking about Jimmy.’

  ‘Jimmy who?’ Esther narrowed her eyes in confusion for a moment but then her face dropped into a frown. ‘Boyle?’

  ‘Don’t get mad at me, please. It’s just, I think he spent Christmas by himself. And now New Year is on its way, I hate to think of him spending that alone, too, after what he did for me that first night in New York.’

  And I hated to think of both of us spending New Year alone when we could be spending that night in each other’s arms, forgetting everything else.

  ‘Jimmy Boyle has made his own bed,’ said Esther, while I tried not to look too sheepish about just how much her words were echoing what was going on in my head. ‘If he’s lying in it alone, he’s only got one person to blame,’ she added, though her tone wasn’t a match for her words. It was like she could hear how cruel that sounded, even if it was about somebody who’d hurt her.

  ‘Just wish things hadn’t been left that way between us – after what he did for me.’

  Esther pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose as though taking a harder look at me than she had before. ‘You want to invite him to the party here, don’t you?’

  ‘I didn’t say that.’ I shrugged. ‘But, would it be so terrible if he did come?’

  ‘Yes. Bonnie, I know he helped you that first night you came here, but trust me, Jimmy Boyle doesn’t do anything for anyone else unless there’s something in it for him. More than likely he was just using you to get to me and Jack again so he had something to write about in his newspaper column.’

  ‘Do you really think that’s true?’ I asked, wide-eyed.

  ‘Have to say, kid,’ Bernie chipped in, ‘in my limited experience of him he’s cruel-hearted. Definitely not a man to trust.’

  ‘You can say that again,’ said Walt, who’d lost interest in his paper the moment Esther’s feathers had been ruffled. ‘He’s a manipulator, that guy, make no mistake.’

  ‘Oh…’ I said, unable to stop myself from cringing. My heart throbbed at the idea that I’d been had, feeling bad for a guy who didn’t give two hoots about me either way. A guy who’d made out he was doing me a kindness while all along it was just a calculated scheme so he could get material on Jack. It did make more sense than the idea that he’d taken me in out of the goodness of his heart. He didn’t know me. Had no reason to help me. God, I really was a chump when it came to guys. I must be the biggest sap born in Detroit. Ever.

  Esther’s eyes were on me. I’d gone quiet, too quiet, and had further aroused her suspicions. Bit by bit her eyes enlarged as she looked into mine.

  ‘Did you… Nothing happened between you and Boyle, did it?’ she asked.

  Uh-oh. Busted. If I tried to shirk this off Esther would see right through me, but I had to try anyway. She didn’t have to keep her promise about letting me stay till New Year. At seventy bucks a day it would take a long time to get
my life back on track if I had to afford a motel out of that money.

  ‘No, course it didn’t,’ I said, in the strained tone that came out of me whenever I told a lie.

  ‘Excuse me, miss,’ a woman called over to Esther from one of the tables.

  ‘Yes, ma’am?’ Esther called back, in a voice that was nothing short of sweet. How did she snap her tone around like that?

  ‘Could we get our check please? We’ve been waiting on it for ten minutes now.’

  ‘Sorry, ma’am, I’ll get that for you right now.’

  Esther took the check over to the lady and stared at me in a ‘this isn’t over’ sort of way while the woman took the money out of her wallet. Quick as she could, Esther zipped back to the till, counted out her change and then whipped back around the counter. Walt and Bernie were looking between me and Esther, waiting.

  ‘So you like sports, Walt?’ I said, latching on to the one piece of solid information I had about the guy, and turning to face him square on.

  ‘Bonnie…’ Esther said.

  ‘You must follow the Giants. I follow the Lions, myself,’ I said, trying to ignore Esther’s attempts to get my attention.

  Walt’s eyes glinted as he looked at me. ‘Yeah, I got a good feeling for the Giants in the Super Bowl this year.’

  ‘Walt…’ Esther said, crossing her arms, which he responded to with only a snigger.

  It was no use, I wasn’t getting out of this now. Slowly, I turned and looked back at Esther.

  She sighed. ‘What happened with you and Boyle?’

  ‘Nothing, I…’ I closed my eyes for a moment, hoping this would all go away, but when I opened them, Esther, alongside Walt and Bernie, were still waiting for the truth. ‘I kissed him, that’s all,’ I said. Trying to focus on looking shamefaced instead of thinking about the warm flutter that’d filled my stomach whilst it was happening.