Vinnie's Diner

by Jennifer AlLee

  Behind Vinnie, Einstein shakes his head, setting his hair to bobbing to and fro. “It certainly does not take a genius to figure out why that did not work.”

  No, it doesn’t. Morris went way beyond calm. He was closer to comatose. And extremely practical. He didn’t like a fuss being made over him. He thought money belonged in the bank or invested in the stock market, not being spent on frivolous things like birthday celebrations or Christmas presents. Since this made perfect sense to him, he expected it to make perfect sense to his wife, as well. Unfortunately, Mom and Morris didn’t talk about fiscal responsibility until after they were married. Once she understood his family spending policy, his days with us were numbered.

  I put his picture gently on the stack. Morris wasn’t a bad guy. He was just from another planet.

  There’s still a good sized stack of pictures in my hand. I look up, my gaze moving across the faces of the people who surround me. “Should I go on?”

  Norma Jeane’s eyes are round as film cans as she points at the stack. “She didn’t marry all of them, did she?”

  I shake my head. “No. Mom went on a lot of dates after she showed Morris the door.”

  “Oh, good.” Norma Jeane fans herself, then waves at me. “So what are you waiting for, honey? Keep going.”

  I quickly flip through a dozen or so photos, all of different men. Mom isn’t one to discriminate so they come in all manner of shapes, sizes, ethnicities, and professions. There’s Lance the cable installer, Raul the bartender, Max the corrections officer, and Alexi, who had a promising career in animal control until he had to endure a round of rabies shots after that crazed squirrel took a chunk out of his finger. This one liked jazz music, that one liked classic rock. Most of them were older than Mom, but at least one was so young he couldn’t buy a six pack of beer without showing his fake ID. If you put them all in a room together, chances are they’d have nothing to talk about. But there is one thing that they all have in common; all of them said they loved my mother, but none of them found a compelling reason to stay with her. Some were around for months, others for just weeks, but in the end, they all left.

  “Let’s see,” I say, wiggling a photo back and forth, “this is Jin, the female impersonator.” I wave the picture at Judy Garland to get her attention. “He did one heck of an impression of you.”

  She puts her hand flat against her chest and starts to laugh, a wavering warble that seems to get stuck and circle around and around in her throat. I think that means she’s pleased.

  “How old were you when he was dating your mother?” Vinnie asks.

  I think back. I remember it was after the movie Chicago had come out because Jin tried to put together a Catherine Zeta-Jones impression. It wasn’t bad, but it was no Judy. “Hmm, I think I was about fourteen.”

  Fourteen. A chill runs through my body. I let go of the photograph and watch it fall in slow motion from my fingers, hanging in the air for a moment before it lands with the others.

  “What’s wrong?” Joe asks me this, even though we all know he doesn’t need to.

  “That’s the last of the boyfriends.” Suddenly, it’s become very hot in the diner. Perspiration pools under my arms and slides down my back. Even my hands are sweating. “Is anyone else hot?”

  They all ignore the question. Joe points at my hand. “You’ve got one picture left.”

  I start fanning myself with the photo, wanting to do something constructive with it. Wanting to do anything but talk about it. I look at Vinnie. “Can you turn down the thermostat or something?”

  He shakes his head slowly. Then he reaches across the table and grabs my wrist, stilling my frantic movements. He pulls my arm out with a gentle tug and looks down at the photo. I’m holding it so tight, the bottom edge is creased.

  “We’re coming up to another stepdad, aren’t we?” he asks.

  My whole body tenses. I want to pull my arm away from Vinnie, jump out of the booth and run out the front door. I want to get away from this crazy diner, away from all these questions. All these memories.

  “Please.” My eyes squeeze shut as I shake my head in quick, sharp movements. “I don’t want to see him again.”

  Vinnie’s thumb rubs across the top of my wrist in a comforting gesture. He doesn’t speak, but when I open my eyes and look from Vinnie to Joe, I know that begging won’t get me anywhere. I can’t run away from this.

  My eyes drop back to the photograph of Ethan Lansing and I draw in a long, deep breath.

  “Yes, it’s another stepdad. The last one, actually.”

  And this one’s the worst of the bunch. Because this is the one that broke my heart.

  14

  Southern California

  This time, it’s different.

  This time, I’m suspended in a foggy, swirling vortex of images and thoughts. I’m like Dorothy Gale, sitting on the bed in her Kansas farmhouse, caught up in the eye of the tornado, and watching out the window as pieces of her life fly by.

  And the first thing to fly by is Ethan.

  Mom met him at church, if you can imagine that.

  My Aunt Bobbie had recently had a come-to-Jesus moment, and she thought it would be good for me to have some kind of spiritual upbringing. Mom said no to the idea, of course, and continued to say no every time it came up. But Aunt Bobbie refused to back down, which was totally out of character for her. Not only does Aunt Bobbie do everything she can to avoid confrontations in general, she also tends to defer to her older sister. But in this case, she was like one of those annoying little rat-dogs, always yipping about church, nipping at my mother’s ankles, tugging on her sleeve. It finally wore mom down. In a moment of weakness, she caved and we ended up at Blessed Redeemer Community Church.

  I liked the idea of going to church, but the reality was a whole other matter. At fourteen, I was already feeling unsure about myself. My body was changing, but not in the way or at the speed I wanted it to, and my emotions were all over the place. Stepping into a new setting, with kids who had mostly known each other forever and were happy with things the way they were, was difficult. There was little room for a new girl trying to make friends. So I sat in the corner during the youth Bible study hour, trying to keep to myself, and observing the other teens as they interacted. I felt like Jane Goodall studying the social interactions of gorillas.

  See how the male puffs out his chest and struts for the female while she pretends to ignore him? Fascinating.

  The worship service itself was a mixed bag. Sometimes the sermon was interesting and made me think about how I could apply it to my life. Sometimes I zoned out and found myself pondering other important things, like what I should wear to school the next day, how I’d look with a French manicure, or whether I should grow out my bangs.

  Out of the whole church experience, my favorite part was the music. The BRCC praise band was really good, and the songs were much more interesting than the hymns I had expected to be singing in church. Somehow, the words and the music began working together, speaking to my heart in a new way. I started to feel that when I was singing about God, he might actually be out there, and he might even start to notice me.

  As it turned out, the singing is what made Ethan notice my mother. He came up to us after the service one day, smiling warmly and reaching out to shake our hands, first mine, then Mom’s. He held her hand longer than I thought he needed to, and looked into her face as he talked.

  “I was sitting behind you during service and couldn’t help but notice what a beautiful voice you have. Have you ever thought about joining the choir?”

  Mom did have a nice voice. Whenever we were in the car, she’d crank up the radio and sing along. And from her dancing days, I knew she had rhythm. But she was strictly a casual vocalist. As far as I knew, she’d never tried to read sheet music before, couldn’t tell one note from the other. That wasn’t enough to stop her, though. Not when a nice looking man showed some interest.

  Ethan was a tenor. The following Wednesday, Mom
found out she was an alto when she showed up at her very first choir practice.

  Mom and Ethan dated for six months. At first, I treated him the same way I treated all the other men in my mother’s life. I was pleasant, but distant. Never rude, I still didn’t let myself get too close. There really was no point when I knew he was just a temporary fixture, like a lamp she’d get tired of and replace when it was time to mix up the décor.

  Most of the men who’d visited our apartment in the past were fine with my approach. They weren’t any more interested in a kid than I was in them. But Ethan turned out to be different. He actually talked to me. At dinner, he’d include me in the conversation. He’d ask me about school and my friends. He enjoyed it when all three of us played board games or watched movies together.

  And he never spent the night. Not that he didn’t have the chance. One time, he’d taken both Mom and me to the San Diego Zoo. By the time we got home, it was well after midnight. We were all exhausted, but Ethan still had to drive across town to his place.

  “I hate to think of you getting back in that car. Why don’t you stay here?” Mom suggested.

  He smiled, but shook his head. “We’ve talked about that, Georgie. You know I can’t.”

  “No, I meant on the couch.” She dipped her lashes and, for a moment, she actually looked innocent. That’s an expression I wasn’t used to seeing on my mother.

  “Thanks for the offer, but it just wouldn’t look right. Besides,” he gave me a gentle chuck under the chin, “we don’t want to set a bad example for this one.”

  That night, he impressed me on two levels. First, he made it clear to my mother that they wouldn’t be sleeping together. Then, even more miraculous to me, was the fact that he thought about how it would make me feel. I was absolutely sure none of her other boyfriends had ever let my feelings come between them and their male urges.

  Little by little, Ethan was winning me over, and I was starting to think that having him around was a pretty cool thing.

  The grainy mass of memories swirling around me slows. It dissolves until there’s nothing left and I drop with a thud. Looking around, I realize I’m in the apartment my mother and I lived in while she was dating Ethan. And there I am, the fourteen-year-old version of me. Just an oblivious teenager doing homework at the kitchen table.

  The doorbell rings. She goes to the door. Looks through the peep hole. Then she takes a step back and opens the door. Ethan’s on the other side.

  “Hey, Allie.” He looks over her shoulder, past her and into the little apartment. “Did I beat your mom home?”

  She nods. “She’s still at work. She probably won’t be here for another half hour at least.”

  “Good.” A slow smile spreads across his lips. “Because there’s something I want to ask you.”

  She sits on the couch and he sits beside her, close enough to talk but not so close that it would make anyone feel uncomfortable.

  “Here’s the thing. I love your mother.” His voice wavers a little. He sounds nervous. “And I think she loves me. I want to ask her to marry me, but before I can do that, I need something from you.”

  Allie’s forehead wrinkles in confusion. “What?”

  “Your blessing.” When Allie doesn’t say anything, he just goes on. “I want to marry your mom, but only if you think it’s a good idea.”

  I remember how I felt that day. Shocked. Surprised. And strangely powerful. I held my mother’s future in my hands.

  “Why does it matter what I think?”

  He smiles. “Because you and your mom have been a team for a long time. If you’re not happy, she’s not happy. And I want to make sure you’ll be happy if I’m your stepdad.”

  Clearly, he had no understanding at all of how my relationship with my mother worked, but that wasn’t important. At that moment, the only thing that mattered was that a really nice guy was asking if it was okay to be my stepdad. It was almost like he was proposing to me.

  He puts his hand on Allie’s leg, just above her knee. His thumb moves back and forth, slowly, once, twice.

  As I watch him, cold anger spreads its sharp fingers across my body. I should have known right then. It’s so obvious now. But then, all I could think about was that finally, finally here was a man who loved me enough to talk to me, to ask me how I felt. A man who made my mother happy and wanted to take care of her. And if mom was happy, maybe some of that would spill over to me and I really would be happy, too. All I could see was that this man might be the answer to the hesitant prayers I’d started praying to a God I’d just recently considered might actually exist.

  On the couch, Allie is smiling. “Of course I’d be happy. You’ll make a great stepdad.”

  “Great!” He gives her knee a final, quick squeeze and pulls his hand away. “So, how was school today?”

  We sat and talked until Mom got home twenty minutes later. She seemed suspicious, almost wary when she first discovered that Ethan was alone with me. But when he asked her to marry him, she cried and laughed and cried some more. She even smiled at me. Then Ethan took both of us to Sizzler for a celebration dinner.

  The scene around me fades. The fog swirls. I catch glimpses of my life after that. Mom in a wedding dress. Me being part of the wedding party. Again.

  Mom had previously been married in a night club, in Las Vegas, and in two different courthouses. Her wedding to Ethan was her first in a church, and it was beautiful. While they were on their honeymoon, I stayed with Aunt Bobbie. And when they got back, the three of us started our new life together in Ethan’s house. Only now, it was our house. I finally was part of a normal family, with a mother and a father, and it was wonderful.

  Until two months later.

  On a Thursday.

  On my fifteenth birthday.

  The world around me becomes sharp again. I’m standing in our house, by the front door. Across the room, Ethan stands on a folding chair, taping party decorations to the ceiling.

  The door beside me opens. Teenage Allie walks in and looks up at the balloons and pink and purple streamers hanging above her. She shuts the door and Ethan looks over his shoulder at her, eyebrows raised and eyes wide.

  “Hey, you caught me!” He steps down and walks over to her.

  I had always liked Ethan’s smile. But that day, there was something wrong about it. It was a little too wide, a little too stiff. And why did he sound surprised that I was home? He knew what time school got out. Even then, not knowing everything I know now, the situation made me uneasy.

  “Why aren’t you at work?” she asks him.

  “I told my boss I had something very important to take care of. And what could be more important than celebrating my favorite girl’s birthday?”

  He pulls a small, wrapped box out of the front pocket of his khakis. “Here. This is for you.”

  She looks at the gift, then looks back at him. Then she looks over her shoulder, expecting to find her mother somewhere nearby. But she and Ethan are alone. “Shouldn’t we wait for Mom?”

  He licks his bottom lip and gives his head a sharp shake. “Not this time. This is a special gift.” He hesitates, his mouth curling up every so slightly at the corners. “Just from me to you.”

  Something is very wrong. Allie knows it. A voice inside her head says to stay as far away from Ethan as she can. But it makes no sense. He’s only trying to give her a gift. It would be rude if she didn’t accept it. So she ignores the voice.

  Allie takes the present from him. She carefully peels the tape off each end of the box, removes the paper, and lifts up the lid. It’s a delicate gold cross necklace, very pretty and sweet, lying on a bed of stark white cotton.

  “Thanks. I love it.”

  It’s a lie. She doesn’t love it. It’s nice, so she likes it. But she can see it’s really important to him that she loves his gift. So she tells him what she knows will make him happy.

  Allie starts to put the lid back on the box, but he catches her wrist and stops her.

 
; Watching the scene unfold in front of me, seeing the look of fear etched in Allie’s face, I want to do something to stop it. I want to hurl myself at Ethan, pull him away, tell him to leave and never come back. But all I can do is watch, ghostlike and ineffective, unable to change the events that are coming.

  Ethan leans down, his face close to hers. “No, don’t put it away. I want to see how pretty my present looks on you.” He takes the box from her, removes the necklace, and opens the clasp. Holding the ends of the chain apart with the cross dangling in the middle, he says, “I’ll help you put it on.”

  He moves behind her, draping the necklace around her neck. “Pull your hair back,” he says, his lips so close to her ear that she can feel the heat from his breath. She does as he asked. He fastens the chain. Then his hands slide down either side of her neck to her shoulders. “So beautiful.” And then his lips are on her skin.

  I can’t stand by and watch anymore. I hurtle forward, my hands outstretched. I try to pull him off, but it’s no use. My fingers grasp nothing but air. And then I collide with myself.

  The whole scene shifts. I’m not watching from my safe, detached vantage point anymore. Now, I’m in it. Reliving every repulsive sensation, every emotion.

  I pull away and twist, but he grabs me. Tugs me hard against him. Smashes his lips down on mine.

  His breath pours over my face, sour and hot. “I’ve been waiting for this since the first day I saw you.”

  The first day. In church.

  “What about Mom?” The question tears out of me, ragged and raw.

  “Mmm, she’s a sweet one. But what man can resist two helpings of sweet meat under the same roof?”

  My stomach lurches, and I wish I could throw up all over him. Instead, I fight him, struggling to pull free. But he jerks me sideways until I fall over the arm of the couch with him on top of me. I’m pinned beneath him, unable to breathe, unable to believe what is happening, as he touches me in places no one has touched me before.