Vinnie's Diner

by Jennifer AlLee

  Vinnie’s Diner

  Other Abingdon Books by Jennifer Allee

  The Pastor’s Wife

  The Mother Road

  Last Family Standing

  A Wild Goose Chase Christmas, Quilts of Love Series

  Nashville

  Vinnie’s Diner

  Copyright © 2015 Jennifer Allee

  ISBN: 978-1-68299-825-0

  Published by Abingdon Press, 2222 Rosa L. Parks Blvd., P.O. Box 280988, Nashville, TN 37228-0988

  www.abingdonpress.com

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form, stored in any retrieval system, posted on any website, or transmitted in any form or by any means—digital, electronic, scanning, photocopy, recording, or otherwise—without written permission from the publisher, except for brief quotations in printed reviews and articles. The persons and events portrayed in this work of fiction are the creations of the author, and any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

  Macro Editor: Jamie Chavez

  Published in association with the MacGregor Literary Agency

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been requested.

  Printed in the United States of America

  1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 / 20 19 18 17 16 15

  To my son, William, the finest man I’ve ever known.

  Acknowledgments

  My thanks to my agent, Sandra Bishop, who actually signed me after reading Vinnie’s Diner. Several years and seven books later, we finally did it!

  To Ramona Richards, who encouraged me way back when she wanted the book but was unable to acquire it, yet continued championing this story until she could give it a home. Thank you so much for believing in Vinnie.

  God has blessed me with so many wonderful, supportive people in my life. I want to mention each and every one of you, but I hate the thought of leaving someone out. So, let me just say that every interaction, every relationship, every touch of a hand, every smile, and every tear have shaped the person I am today. For those who have joined me on the journey thus far, and those with whom I continue forward, I give you my thanks and my love.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Group Discussion Guide

  Want to learn more about Jennifer Allee?

  Sample Chapters from Last Family Standing Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  1

  Interstate 15, somewhere between Baker, CA, and the Nevada state line

  It’s a little known fact that flying tire rubber can kill you. But I’m a master of little known facts, and the road I’m on is littered with the stuff.

  I grab my water bottle and take a swig while still keeping my eye on the road. Right now, it’s pretty much deserted. I can make out a semi-truck in the distance, but other than that it’s just me and an assortment of highway litter: Roadside scrub adorned with pieces of paper, plastic bags, and empty snack food wrappers; Crooked signs marking off the miles or announcing how far it is to the next rest stop; A beat up loveseat with one slashed cushion and covered in questionable stains tipped sideways in the ditch between the north and southbound traffic lanes; And a whole heck of a lot of tire rubber.

  The theme from Rocky starts playing, triggering an automatic smile. That’s my aunt’s ringtone. I shoot a quick look at my purse out of the corner of my eye. A moment of hesitation, and then I reach over and dig the phone out of the outside pocket. It’s illegal in California to talk on your cell and drive at the same time, but who’s going to know out here on a nearly empty highway?

  My dog, Grimm, sits up in the back seat and barks, chiding me for my reckless behavior.

  “Don’t worry. I’ll be careful.” I call back to him, then tap the front of my phone screen. “Hey.”

  “Hey, sweetie. Have you made it to the hotel yet?”

  Aunt Bobbie has attended all my matches until now, despite her illness and work schedule. She loves trivia just as much as I do, so it’s no hardship for her, and I think she lives vicariously through my victories. Whether it’s local matches in bars, regional competitions in VFW halls, or the semi-finals at the Long Beach University auditorium, she’s been at all of them. The only reason she’s not joining me this time is because she couldn’t get away from work. She’s my biggest supporter. Actually, she’s my only supporter. But she’s enough.

  “I’m still in California.” I look around for a mile marker, but don’t see one. “I passed the big thermometer about half an hour ago.”

  Her affirmative “ahhhh” makes it sound like she knows exactly where I am. “That’s in Baker, so you’re out in the middle of nothin’ right now. It’s a good thing I made you those tapes. They’ll help pass the time.”

  I take in a guilty breath at the mention of the tapes. I haven’t played any of them yet, but I don’t want to hurt her feelings. “Yeah. They’re great.”

  “They’ll keep your mind sharp. Okay, honey, I’ll let you concentrate on driving. I just wanted to make sure you were doing all right.”

  We exchange our mutual goodbyes and I turn off the phone, then toss it on the passenger’s seat where it hits an open cardboard box full of cassette tapes. Aunt Bobbie gave them to me the last time I was at her apartment. “To help you keep the gears moving while you drive” she’d said.

  Cassette tapes. She must have hunted all over to find those. But if she wanted to record something for me, cassette tapes are the only way. My car is so old, the cassette player is considered an upgrade.

  I reach over, grab a random tape, and pop it into the player. After a few scratchy seconds, Aunt Bobbie’s animated voice emanates from the one working speaker in the driver’s side door.

  “What was Whoopi Goldberg’s birth name?” There’s a pause to give me time to answer.

  “Caryn Johnson,” I say out loud.

  “Caryn Johnson.” Her voice confirms that I did indeed answer correctly.

  “How old was Stockard Channing when she played 17-year-old Rizzo in the movie version of Grease?”

  “Thirty-two,” I say.

  “Thirty-two,” Aunt Bobbie says.

  “Who was originally cast in the role of Marty McFly in the 1985 movie Back to the Future?”

  “Eric Stoltz.”

  “Eric Stoltz.”

  This goes on for a while, her recorded voice coaching me through overly easy trivia facts that we both know I already know. It’s doubtful the drill is helping at all, but it was a sweet gesture, and at least now I can honestly say I used her study aids. Besides, it’s a long, boring drive to the city of neon lights, and Grimm is not what I’d call a sparkling conversationalist. At least this provides a distraction.

  “Tire rubber.”

  Aunt Bobbie’s voice pulls me back to the moment. I’d z
oned out so I don’t know what the question was, but the answer sends a chill skittering across my shoulders. It reminds me of the episode of CSI, the one where the go-cart driver—who had no business driving that thing on a highway, let alone behind a semi—has his head ripped off by a piece of flying tire rubber. It takes on even greater significance now because, in my desire to hurry up and get where I’m going, I’ve turned into quite a lead foot and I’m coming up entirely too fast on the semi-truck which is now right in front of me.

  Two staccato barks sound in my ear. A quick look in the rearview mirror gives me a glimpse of the ugliest beast in all of California, and most likely the entire West Coast, who is now pacing back and forth across the threadbare backseat.

  “Cool it, Grimm.”

  He whines, definitely not pleased at my indifference to whatever he’s trying to communicate. Grimm, so named because he bears more of a resemblance to a creature from a fairytale than a dog, doesn’t give a very good first impression. In fact, he looks like he’d be happy to rip a hole in your throat just for the fun of it, which is why he’d been at the shelter so long that he’d ended up on doggie death row. But the minute I saw him, I knew he was the dog for me. You have to really look, but there’s a beauty beneath the beast.

  If only my excellent judgment of character extended to humans.

  “The next rest stop I see, we’ll get out and walk. Promise.”

  The word walk should have gotten a reaction out of him somewhere on the scale between happy and spastic, but instead, he just keeps pacing, a low growl rumbling in his throat.

  “Crazy dog.” Time to pay attention to what I’m doing.

  I lift my foot from the gas pedal and back away from the truck a few feet. Up to now, the traffic has fluctuated from heavy (when in a populated city) to almost nonexistent (when driving through miles of nothing). At the moment, I happen to be in a pocket of emptiness. There’s no one else on the desert road between Baker and the Nevada state line. Just me and the pokey truck. This would be a good time to go around the guy.

  I’m thinking about the CSI episode, when I hear a pop. A puff of smoke shoots out from behind the truck, and it shimmies like Grimm does after a bath.

  “Oh no.”

  A moment later, something big and black crashes against the windshield, and an explosion rocks the car.

  Instinctively, I push my body back, yanking the steering wheel hard to the left. At the same time, fifty pounds of Grimm barrels through the front bucket seats and jams himself between me and the wheel. The wind is knocked out of me and I turn my head away, trying to escape even though there’s nowhere to go. The whole world looks like some bizarre mosaic through the spider web of cracks spreading across the windshield. The car veers toward the side of the road. Through my window, it looks like a good five foot drop into the wide expanse of dirt and desert scrub between the north and southbound lanes. I’ve got to stay away from the edge.

  Turn into the skid.

  The memory of half-listened-to advice plays in my head. You better believe I listen to it now, turning the wheel in the opposite direction, despite the growling mutt in my lap. The car starts to straighten itself. It’s working. But then I see a flash of something in front of me.

  Something tall with black material flapping around it like the tail ends of an old-fashioned duster. Long, straw-colored hair. A scraggily goatee.

  A man?

  What’s a man doing by the side of the road in the middle of nowhere? And why’s he just standing there? Why doesn’t he get out of the way? Not that any of it matters. There’s no way I can run into him. I yank the wheel back the other way and the car swerves around him.

  And heads straight off the road.

  For a split second I have the impression of being weightless. Then the front end tips forward and rams into the ground. The glass loses what little cohesion it had left, raining down in silvery shards. The roar of the impact fills my ears as my body tilts sideways. All sense of equilibrium vanishes as the car rolls once, twice . . . I don’t know how many times. Grimm’s growling has turned to high-pitched whines. My head jerks violently from side to side, then lurches forward, hitting something soft. At the same time I’m pelted with loose objects—CDs, my purse, a water bottle—as if they’re all as frantic to get out of the car as I am.

  Finally, the world stops bouncing and metal groans as the car settles.

  Am I up? Down? I don’t have a clue. A weight presses against my chest, and when I reach up to move it, my hand hits stiff hair and a strip of leather. I realize it’s Grimm. One of the water bottles must have opened, because his coat is wet. An eerie quiet closes in on me, only to be replaced by a sound like the waves of the ocean amplified a thousand times. I squint, and through the empty place where the windshield should be, I make out the foothills.

  But they’re all wrong. They’re lying on their sides.

  The waves pound harder against the walls of my head until the noise is deafening. I try to keep my eyes focused, but everything blurs around the edges. The waves ebb, and I hear a crunching sound, like boots on gravel. Straining to see, I barely make out . . . What is that? A flag? No, it’s that flapping black material. I think it’s the man I swerved to miss.

  A sweet, melodious voice makes its way through the undulating roar in my ears. “Let me help you.”

  I strain to see. Help. Yes, I need help. I lift my hand toward the sound. Then a crash, like the sound of two enormous cymbals slamming together, explodes right above my head. A flash of bright, blinding white light commands my eyelids to slam down against its assault, and my hand jerks back to my chest.

  The white light is replaced by black silence.

  Then nothing.

  2

  Interstate 15

  My roommate, Sandy, is standing in the middle of our now empty living room. She looks around her at the beige-colored indents on the gray carpet, showing where our furniture has sat for the last four years. Then she looks back at me. “Well, I guess that’s everything.”

  Her voice is drawn out and several octaves lower than it should be, like a sound recording played at super-slow speed. Now her face contorts into an unnatural frown, and she says, “You don’t look so good.”

  Funny, I was thinking the same thing about her. Sandy doesn’t look so good. She bends and quivers, becoming a reflection in a disturbed pool of water. She holds up one crooked arm and waves. “Take care of yourself, Allie.”

  Her image is almost gone now. Don’t go. I try to call out, but the words stay locked in my head. Thick darkness tucks itself around me, moist and heavy like a wet wool blanket. From somewhere in the distance, Sandy’s voice sends me one last warning.

  “Watch out for flying tire rubber.”

  Tire rubber.

  I suck in a shocked gasp, but the air is hot and scalds my lungs. Panic prickles across my skin, and my heart pounds so hard it feels like Ricky Ricardo is using my chest for a conga drum.

  Think, Allie, where are you? What were you doing?

  What was I doing? I packed up my car this morning and left my old apartment for the last time. I was on my way to Las Vegas to compete in the US Trivia Challenge Championship. I was driving behind a truck, and Grimm was going crazy. There was a blow out, and then . . .

  This is not good.

  I crack open one eye, but the blistering pain that sears through my forehead forces me to squeeze it shut again. That’s okay. I can work with this. Maybe I don’t need to see to get out of the car. I try to reach out with my left hand, but my arm is pinned against something. I bring up my right hand, and it occurs to me that something is missing. Grimm. He’s not on top of me anymore, and I don’t hear him moving around. He must have found a way out of the car. Well, if he could do it, then so can I.

  Reaching across my body, I feel for the door, but my fingers meet something coarse and dry. I stretch further, hoping to feel air, but it’s just more of the same: sand, rocks, and something crunchy. Dry plants, maybe. Nothing is whe
re it should be. After a bit more fumbling, I acknowledge that the Braille approach isn’t going to work. I need to see what I’m doing.

  I force my eyes open. White hot lasers burn their way through my retinas, drilling into my skull. This kind of pain deserves a scream, but all I can do is whimper.

  I want to call for help, but no words will come. Even if they did, what good would it do? I’m in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by a whole lot of nothing. I could very well die out here, all alone. Even my dog has deserted me.

  Help me!

  “Hold on!” A male voice calls out from somewhere above.

  Who is that? The overdressed stranger? No, the voice is different than before. Rougher. Maybe it’s the truck driver. That makes more sense. Of course he would stop to help me. Relief oozes through my aching body as I force my head in the direction of the voice. It takes way more effort than it should. Above me, the silhouette of a person leans down into the car through the gaping hole that used to be the passenger window. It looks like he’s diving straight at me.

  “Can you undo your seatbelt?”

  I feel around with my free hand until I find the button. I press it, but nothing happens. I give it a few more tries, jabbing at it as hard as I can. The catch finally opens, and the webbed belt snakes lazily across my lap. My hips slide sideways, hitting the door, jarring my body and shooting a fresh wave of pain through my skull. It’s like someone decided to use my head for a soccer ball.