Secrets and Fries at the Starlight Diner

by Helen Cox

  ‘Oh, hi, Nick,’ I said, putting a hand up to my hair to flatten down any stray strands as best I could. ‘How’s it going?’

  ‘Better, all of a sudden.’ He smiled and leaned on the shelf so he was almost leaning right over me. His cologne had an enticing, spicy kick to it that sent a tingle across my skin.

  ‘Oh really?’ I said, trying to ignore the effect his scent was having on me, shoving a couple of tins of pineapple into my basket and turning to walk towards the check-out. ‘Thought you’d have forgotten all about me by now. In fact, I thought you might’ve been clawed to death by a gang of New York alley cats.’

  ‘Thought, or hoped?’

  I turned back to see a shimmer in his grey-blue eyes. He smiled down at me.

  ‘Thought. I think.’ The temptation to smile back at him was strong but I held it in. Best to try and play things just a little bit cool, otherwise I’d scare him off, like I had Jimmy.

  ‘I’ve been busy at work is all. Haven’t had another chance to swing by the diner and see you. This new job I’ve taken on is a lot more work than I was expecting, but I hadn’t forgotten about you,’ he said, following me as I went to pay for my items.

  ‘Paper or plastic?’ the shop assistant asked as I dropped my basket down in front of her. She was a short, frail woman with grey hair scraped back into a tight plait. Her voice was louder than you’d expect given the size of her.

  ‘Paper, please,’ I said. The woman grunted and started chucking potatoes into a brown bag, one after the other, as though she was mad at them for the fact that life hadn’t turned out quite how she’d dreamed.

  ‘Have you got far to go with that bag? I’m on a break so I can give you a hand if you want,’ Nick said, and at this comment I glanced down at his hands, which were certainly hefty enough to carry a shopping bag. There were one or two other uses I could think of for them too.

  ‘Uh…’ I said, trying to adjust my train of thought. Playing it cool, remember? Besides, tempting as that offer was, Esther was really cagey about new people and would probably go nuts if I brought Nick back to the apartment on a second meeting. ‘That’s kind and all but the apartment is insanely close. It’d be a crime against feminism to make you walk around the corner with one shopping bag that isn’t that heavy anyway.’

  ‘Oh, sure. Well, alright,’ Nick said, looking more stung about my response than I’d have expected.

  ‘I really appreciate the offer though,’ I said, a bit too quickly. ‘Think you’ll have time to swing by the diner tomorrow?’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ he said, frowning at me, and who could blame him given the mixed signals I was giving off? ‘Some point this week probably, but not tomorrow.’

  ‘Twelve bucks,’ the shop assistant announced, cutting through the awkwardness growing between Nick and me.

  I counted out the twelve bucks and picked up the bag. The assistant didn’t say anything else, she just scooped up the bills and hustled them into the till. I raised an eyebrow at Nick and the smile returned to his face as he followed me out of the shop.

  ‘You sure you can manage that bag?’ he asked again once we were outside in the cold January air.

  ‘As far as Ludlow Street? Yeah, I can manage,’ I smiled.

  ‘And you don’t want any company?’

  Looking deep into his eyes, I found myself letting out a little sigh. I didn’t know the guy well enough to let him know the real reason behind my cautious behaviour, but he was so sweet it seemed unfair not to give him something. ‘Look, Nick, you’re a real nice fella and all but—’

  ‘Wow, this has to be some kind of record for how quick I’ve got the brush-off.’ He chuckled but it had a nervous edge to it.

  ‘Oh, no, that’s not what this is.’ I shook my head and put a hand on his arm.

  ‘It isn’t?’ He looked down at my hand and shuffled closer to me.

  ‘No. It’s just… Things are a bit complicated for me right now.’

  Yeah, Bonnie, just a bit complicated, like the fact you could go away for murder in less than three weeks’ time.

  ‘It’s that guy from the other day, isn’t it? Is he your boyfriend or something?’ Nick asked, shoving his hands into his pockets to keep them warm.

  ‘Guy from the other… Jimmy? Oh no, that’s really not going to happen.’ I forced out a laugh, even though those words caught at the back of my throat.

  ‘Then what is it?’

  ‘Look, you seem a nice fella, and I’m not giving you the brush-off. I’m just saying I can’t leap into anything right now, with anyone. I need to take things slow. Like, glacial.’ I hugged my bag of groceries tighter against my chest as I spoke.

  ‘Alright,’ Nick said, staring at me, ‘so we won’t pick names out for our kids just yet, I’m cool with that.’

  Noticing the glint in his pale blue eyes, I laughed.

  He smiled at having caught me out with the joke. ‘But would it be OK if I swung by the diner this week, just to say hello to you?’

  ‘Sure, that’d be nice,’ I said.

  ‘Well, I happen to be walking past the end of Ludlow Street back to 2nd Avenue, so I’ll escort you that far at least. Unless that’s too forward of me?’ he said, grinning.

  ‘I guess I can trust you that far.’

  ‘You worked at the diner for a long time?’ he asked as we started walking.

  ‘No, I actually just started there. I’m a musician but, uh, money’s been a little tight lately and Bernie offered me a few shifts to make ends meet.’ This wasn’t a total fabrication so, at least to my mind, I sounded pretty convincing. ‘How about you? You always been in the security business?’

  ‘Sounds kinda funny when you put it like that,’ he said, a glint in his eyes again, ‘but in a way, yes. Done a whole bunch of jobs around New York along those kind of lines. But this job was better paid than anything I’d ever done before so I took it. Even though I have to trail down from the Bronx every day.’

  ‘You live in the Bronx?’ I raised an eyebrow at him.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Isn’t it kinda dangerous there?’

  ‘Well, I guess, but I’m tough. I don’t scare easy.’

  I looked at him out of the corners of my eyes. He was doing the same to me and a smile wavered across both our lips. Maybe he suspected what was going through my mind – that I had no problem with him being on the tough side. I was absolutely fine with those toned muscles that bulged in just the right places under his work shirt.

  ‘Wish I could say the same. I didn’t expect New York to seem such a scary place after growing up in Detroit,’ I said, shaking my head.

  ‘Well, it’s not the easiest place to get along, but you don’t need to worry. If you want, I’ll look out for you,’ he said.

  ‘Good to know.’

  We’d reached the corner of the street quicker than I was expecting. I stopped and shuffled my weight from one foot from the other. I wasn’t really ready for this romantic interlude to be over. I needed something else to get me through another night of Miami Vice reruns.

  ‘Did you not need anything from the store?’ I asked, suddenly realising that he’d not picked up anything for himself.

  ‘Oh my God, what a dumbass.’ He put his hand over his mouth and chuckled. ‘You see, this is your fault. You and your blue hair are a terrible distraction.’

  I giggled. ‘I’d say I was sorry, but that would be a lie.’

  ‘Well, I appreciate an honest woman,’ Nick said, edging his feet closer to me, while I wondered how honest we were talking here. A pang of guilt churned in my stomach but I tried to shake it off. You don’t have to be one hundred per cent honest on a second meeting, Bonnie. Besides, not disclosing something is not lying, it’s just being selective with the truth – or that’s what I tried to convince myself.

  ‘I’m really glad I ran into you today,’ Nick said, his dark hair creating a beautiful border around his strong cheekbones.

  ‘Me too,’ I said. ‘But, sadly, I do h
ave to get home.’

  ‘Well, alright.’ Nick leaned forward and gave me a lightning-quick peck on the cheek. ‘But it’s dark now so I’ll watch along the road to see you get in alright.’

  ‘Wow, you were being literal when you said you’d look out for me.’

  ‘I’m a man of my word.’

  ‘Alright, goodnight, Nick,’ I said, giving him one last lingering stare before turning down Ludlow Street and making my way to Jack’s apartment, thinking about what an unexpected treat it’d been, running into Nick. Tall, gentlemanly, understanding and definitely no stranger to the free weights, this guy was almost too good to be true. Sure, he’d entered my life at the worst possible moment but if I could keep him in a holding pattern for just three weeks then who knew? Maybe this could be the start of something special.

  On reaching the door to Jack’s building, I looked back to the end of the street and saw Nick standing just where he promised he would be. Watching after me, just like he said. Smiling, I waved goodnight to him and he returned the wave. I pushed open the door and hurried in out of the cold. Thinking warm thoughts.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Know how some guys will promise you something and then it never happens? Well, pretty quick, Nick made it clear he wasn’t that kinda guy at all. Work might have got in the way since we’d first met but the morning after our Thursday night meeting at the grocery store Nick made a point of coming into the diner for breakfast. Glancing over as casually as I could, I saw him take a seat next to Walt at the counter. I was serving another customer when he walked in, but that didn’t stop him flashing that smile at me. My eyes flitted over to Mona, and I saw her nudge Angela, who was sitting at the counter next to Walt. She looked Nick up and down with zero subtlety and then raised both her eyebrows at me. Though he hadn’t even opened his mouth yet, Nick clearly had Angela’s approval.

  That said, since Ryan had flown back to England a couple of days ago I guess she had no choice but to live vicariously.

  ‘Hey, miss, are you listening to me?’ asked the guy I was serving. Judging by the way he was dressed, and the yellow hard hat sitting on the seat next to him, he worked in construction and was ordering pancakes and bacon to set him up for the day.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ I said, my heart sinking at the idea that Mona would get to Nick before I did, as serving him food was such a great excuse to talk to him and at the same time keep things casual. ‘What kind of toast would you like?’

  ‘No,’ he sighed. ‘No toast. I don’t like toasted bread. Just eggs, over easy, bacon and home fries.’

  ‘Alright, that’s my mistake, I’m sorry. I’ve got that now and it’ll be over to you soon. You alright for coffee?’

  The man issued an indistinct grunt. I figured it was a ‘yes’. It seemed like if there was something else this guy wanted from me I’d soon know about it.

  I whipped the order in to Lucia, who was well and truly in the zone, frying bacon and stirring pancake batter faster and with more efficiency than I’d ever seen.

  ‘Got an order for a number seven, no toast,’ I said to her, pinning the order to the magnetic board we used to keep track of what food needed to go out where.

  ‘No problem,’ she said, flipping an omelette and punching the air when it landed neatly back in the pan.

  ‘Oh, and I thought you might like to know,’ I said in a mock-casual voice, ‘remember that guy Mona told you about? Nick?’

  She giggled. ‘The muscleman with the Irish accent? Yeah, that wasn’t a description I was going to forget in a hurry.’

  ‘Well, he’s in the diner, right now.’

  ‘Ooh, ooh, ooh.’ Lu dropped the pan she had in her hand back on the stove and scurried over to the small, circular windows in the kitchen doors. ‘My, my, my,’ she said, shaking her head slow and hard. ‘You want to hold on to that one.’

  ‘Yeah, well. I don’t know what the odds of that are given my current predicament.’ I sighed, taking in the broadness of Nick’s shoulders again. ‘I’m surprised I even caught the eye of a guy who looks like that.’

  ‘Well, I wouldn’t leave him unattended for too long if I were you. A guy with such a strong a jawline ain’t going to sit lonely for too long.’ Lucia giggled but then added with a touch of impatience, ‘Well, go on.’

  I shook my head at her and pushed back through the swing doors into the diner where ‘Yackety Yack’ by the Coasters was blaring out over the jukebox.

  It seems Mona had kept Nick waiting, making sure she was just that bit too busy to serve him, so that I could be the one to go over and take his order. I gave her a little smile as I scooched past her.

  ‘Good morning,’ I said to Nick, flipping over to a new page on my waitress pad.

  ‘It is that.’ Nick stared into my eyes and without warning, took my hand and kissed the back of it.

  ‘That’s very forward,’ I said to him. ‘You trying to give me a reputation?’

  ‘Now that would never do, would it?’ He grinned. ‘I’ll behave myself from now on.’

  ‘That would be a shame,’ said Mona, who’d sidled up to pour a little bit more coffee into Walt’s cup, even though he didn’t really need the top-up.

  Nick chuckled at Mona’s sass and then said, ‘Well, perhaps being the bad boy now and again has its charms, maybe even its advantages.’

  ‘Heads up, Bonnie, you’ve got a live one here,’ Mona cackled while I raised an eyebrow at Nick.

  ‘Alright,’ I said. ‘What would this bad boy in the making like for breakfast?’

  ‘I’d like eggs sunny-side up and some wholewheat toast, if it’s not too much trouble.’

  ‘Any diner waitress who considers bringing eggs and toast to a customer too much trouble is probably in the wrong line of work.’ I chuckled and Nick joined in. ‘Anything to drink?’

  ‘Coffee. Always coffee. It’s the caffeinated curse of any shift worker,’ Nick said with a grin while I poured his drink.

  ‘Nasty business,’ Walt said to Nick, tapping him on the shoulder and then waving a hand at his copy of the Times. ‘Did you know the guy?’

  ‘What business is that?’ Nick frowned down at the paper.

  ‘Says right here a Metropolitan Transport Agency security guard was found dead in an alley not four blocks from here last night. In a dumpster, of all places,’ Walt said.

  ‘Could you set your volume a little lower when talking about corpses?’ Mona said. ‘Some folks are eating their breakfasts around here.’

  ‘Must have pretty strong constitutions if they’re eating the stuff you serve,’ Walt sniggered.

  Mona’s eyes widened. ‘You just let Lucia hear you talkin’ like that. See where it gets ya.’

  ‘C’mon, you know I’m kiddin’. How long I been eatin’ almost every meal here for?’ Walt nudged Mona’s arm, trying to bring her back on side.

  ‘Sadly, I’ve worked here so long I actually do know the answer to that. It’ll be seven years next autumn.’

  ‘Did you know that guy, the one they found?’ I asked Nick. Walt hadn’t exactly broken the news gently and although Nick didn’t look distraught, he was definitely brooding over it.

  ‘My manager mentioned the fact the body had been found as I was coming off shift this morning, but I didn’t know the guy. Not that that makes it any less sad. A guy I work with said he’d shared a couple of shifts with him, and that he was a damned hard worker.’ Nick’s forehead creased with a deep frown.

  ‘Worst part is he’d been there for a good few days before anybody found him. His wife had reported him missing but nobody knew where he was,’ said Walt, while Mona and I glared at him. Walt, I’d gathered in the very brief time I’d known him, was a Vietnam veteran and perhaps because of this he was more matter of fact about the topic of life and death than the rest of us. Something that I, for one, could’ve done without just now, as the eyes of the dead Reeves stared back at me whenever I closed my own. I knew it wasn’t my fault he was dead – like Jimmy said, I didn’t pull the tri
gger – but the thought that Frankie might get away with his murder kept me awake at night. The empty eyes of Donald Reeves wanted justice just like I did. Who knew if either of us would get what we wanted?

  ‘Just tragic that he has left a wife behind,’ Nick said. ‘I don’t think the guy was that old either.’

  ‘Naw,’ Walt said. Only in his late twenties.’

  ‘Was the fella into drugs or something?’ Mona asked.

  ‘Says in the paper there’s no clear motive. Just a random killing,’ said Walt.

  ‘Neat,’ I said. ‘So now people have given up even pretending they have an excuse to kill each other? Gotta love this city.’

  ‘According to Alan the murder rate is actually down on last year,’ Mona said.

  ‘Could’ve fooled me,’ I said, and then added, ‘I’ll go put your order into the kitchen, Nick. You just shout if you need anything else.’

  ‘You can count on that.’ He smiled and then took a sip of his coffee.

  Bursting into the kitchen again, I caught Lucia dancing around to ‘The Grease Megamix’ and singing into a spatula. I say ‘caught’, but Lu didn’t stop when she turned round to see me standing there with my hands on my hips, watching. If anything, having an audience led only to a more exaggerated performance.

  The song was playing out of the small transistor radio Bernie let Lu keep in the kitchen. The volume was supposed to be kept down but I noticed it always seemed to creep up a notch or two when he wasn’t around.

  Lucia screeched out the final notes to ‘Summer Nights’ in a way that made me wince, just a little bit. Then breathless, with her hands still in the air, she asked, ‘You know what your future husband wants for breakfast?’

  ‘Don’t be marrying me off just yet, thank you. I don’t even know any of the essentials about him,’ I said, pinning up Nick’s order on the board.

  ‘What’s left to know with a physique like that?’ Lucia giggled and cracked a couple of eggs onto the grill.