Vinnie's Diner

by Jennifer AlLee

  “I knew you could do it. I just knew it!” I hear Norma Jeane’s voice and strain to see her, rising up on my tip toes. But when she finally makes her way through the crowd, I see she’s changed, too. Her now platinum hair frames her face in short, stylish waves and she’s wearing a shimmering, white halter dress and silver high heeled shoes. While I was gone, she morphed into Marilyn.

  Looking around, I see the same kind of transformation has taken place with all the others. A very young and trim Elvis saunters through the kitchen door. His jet black hair is slicked back in a neat pompadour, his sideburns are trimmed, and he’s abandoned his fry cook get up. Now he’s wearing a white suit and blue shoes which I have no doubt are suede.

  Beside the jukebox, a young Judy Garland stands fresh faced and happy, clapping her hands. Her dark hair is pulled back in two low, thick ponytails and she’s wearing a sweet white dress and red sequined shoes. Sitting on the floor next to her, Lassie looks the same as always, except for the big white satin bow tied loosely around his neck.

  I look sideways at Vinnie, who still has one arm draped over my shoulders. He’s decked out in a vintage white three-piece suit with an ice blue silk dress shirt underneath. Without the suspenders and the paper hat, he reminds me a little of John Travolta in his Saturday Night Fever days.

  “What’s with all the white, Vinnie?”

  “It’s symbolic. To commemorate the next step of your journey.”

  I look around again. They all look like a bunch of celebrity angels. No, it couldn’t be . . . I step out from under his arm and scrunch up my nose. “This isn’t heaven, is it?”

  Vinnie roars with laughter. “No. Not even close. And before you ask, it’s not what some people call limbo, either. This is simply the place where you decide what your next step will be.”

  At that, the mood in the room comes down a bit. Everyone’s still smiling, but they’re more subdued now that they realize the celebration’s almost over. They move away from me, going to booths and stools on the outer edges of the diner, until it’s just Vinnie and I standing together in the middle of the room.

  “Way to kill a party, Vinnie.”

  He gives his head a slow shake. “There’s that sarcasm, again.”

  He’s right. It’s time I got serious. Whatever’s coming next, I’m ready. “What do I have to decide?”

  “If you live or if you die.”

  I forgot, he still doesn’t know about that part. “I already did that,” I answer seriously. “I chose life.”

  Vinnie is beaming. Literally. The light filling the room seems to come from all directions, and it bounces off him like he’s a disco ball. “Yes. You chose eternal life. So now, your soul is safe, no matter what your next choice is.”

  “Now I’m safe. Meaning . . .”

  “Meaning that now, you’re a child of the King. Eternal life in heaven is yours, whether you die today or sixty years from today.”

  The gravity of what I’ve been through settles on me. That time in the drive-in was more important than I’d known. “You mean, if I had died before all this, before the showdown with Ba’al, there would have been no eternal life?”

  He doesn’t speak, just nods gravely.

  “I would have gone to hell?”

  Another nod.

  So when Ba’al offered me a way out, he hadn’t been trying to help me at all. Of course he hadn’t. He’s a demon, and demons aren’t in the business of helping people. But I hadn’t realized until now just how high the stakes were. It had been his last desperate attempt to secure my soul. And he almost succeeded.

  “In the drive-in, with Ba’al, I was so tired,” I tell Vinnie, “and I was in so much pain. I just wanted it all to stop. I almost listened to him. I almost let go.”

  Vinnie reaches out and squeezes my shoulder. “But the important thing is, you didn’t let go. You knew what to do. You cried out to God for help, and he heard you.”

  I cross my arms in front of me and narrow my eyes. “How do you know that? I thought you were worried about me because you didn’t know what happened.”

  “I was.” He points at the ceiling. “But I got an update right before you got back.”

  I should’ve figured as much. “That’s some grapevine you have.” A wave of exhaustion hits me, and for a brief second, my vision grows fuzzy. I may be stronger now, but I’m still not functioning at full capacity. “Can we sit down?”

  Vinnie extends his hand to the booth we were in before. I fall onto the seat with a sigh, relishing the give and squeak of the cushion beneath me. “What a day. Or I guess it’s been several days in the real world, huh?”

  “A little over a week, actually.” He sits across from me and clasps his hands together on the table. “You’re still in a coma. Your family and friends have been taking turns staying with you. And no one knows exactly how severe your brain and spinal injuries are. They won’t know until you wake up.”

  I gape at Vinnie. After all this time of trying to pry information out of him, did he just volunteer some? He can be very succinct when he wants to be. “So what should I do?”

  “That I can’t tell you. But I can make a suggestion, if it’s all right with you.”

  Now he starts asking my permission? I have to laugh. “I wish you would.”

  “When you make your choice, don’t just think about yourself. Think about how it will affect the people who care about you.”

  I look down at my hands and consider Vinnie’s words. I chew on my lip. Wiggle my foot under the table. He’s right, I should consider my family, but I can’t help but think about myself first. I remember the pain I started to feel in the drive-in. No doubt it was only a shadow of what I’ll experience if I decide to go back to my physical body. It would be so nice to leave that behind, to say goodbye to trauma and discomfort. How I wish I could spend more time in that peaceful, pain-free field, sitting on the grass with Jesus and blowing dandelion seeds to the wind.

  But what if I do choose to give up? I think of Freud, who in his life had hung on until the pain was so great that he couldn’t bear it anymore. Would letting go now make me like him? Of course, what happened to me was an accident. I hadn’t planned on flipping my car. But he hadn’t planned on having cancer, either.

  This isn’t just about me, though. Like Vinnie said, if I die, it will affect the people who love me.

  I lift my head and search Vinnie’s face for an answer. “If I decide I’m done, if I choose to...” I can’t bring myself to say the word.

  “Die,” he fills in for me bluntly.

  “Yes, die, thank you. If I choose that, I don’t know what it would do to my Aunt Bobbie. We’re very close. And she’s gone through so much already.”

  Vinnie nods. “Yes, she has. But she’s stronger than you think. She gave her life to the Lord years ago. Still . . .” He hesitates, looks away, then looks back. “It’s hard to know how a person will react when they lose someone they love. It could shake her faith to the point that she walks away from it. Or, she could find strength in her faith, cling to it, and come out even stronger.”

  I look over Vinnie’s shoulder. Elvis stands loose and relaxed, leaning one hip against the counter. Our eyes meet and one side of his mouth curls up in his slow, lopsided grin. Aunt Bobbie would pass out if she could see him. Not to mention Marilyn. To have both of them right there in front of her, standing side by side . . . I think of all the hours Aunt Bobbie and I have spent watching old movies, playing Trivial Pursuit, watching Jeopardy and racing to see which one could shout out the answers first. It was Aunt Bobbie who got me interested in trivia in the first place. She was the one who encouraged me to enter my first tournament. She quizzed me to help me get ready. She made me those study-aid cassette tapes for the championship. If it hadn’t been for her—

  I jerk my head back toward Vinnie. “If it hadn’t been for my aunt, I never would have been on that road going to a trivia championship. And if I hadn’t been on the road, I wouldn’t have been in the acci
dent. If I die, she’s going to blame herself. Especially since she figured out why I was so determined to win the thing.”

  “She might,” Vinnie agrees with me.

  “That would be terrible.” I plunk my elbow on the table and rest my chin against my fist. But what if I go back and my physical condition is so bad that it’s a constant reminder of the accident? What if she can’t stand to be around me? “The alternative might not be any better.”

  “That’s true. But she and Jake know what kind of condition you’re in. They’ve been told the possible prognosis. And they’re still praying for you to come back.”

  Jake.

  “If I don’t come back, it will hurt Jake, but he’ll be okay.” He’s young and incredible. He’ll find someone else. Not that I want him to. Right now, the thought of him moving on without me hurts more than I expected. Ironic how it’s taken a choice between life and death to make me realize how much I want to be with him again.

  “What about your mother? How do you think she’ll feel if you die?”

  “Relieved.” The word comes out of me with no thought. It’s just there at the front of my brain. The truth of it is like a steel-toed boot to the gut.

  I sit back, putting distance between Vinnie and I, but he just leans farther forward, invading my personal space. “Why do you say that?”

  “My mother can’t stand me.”

  “Are you sure? From what I’ve been told, she’s pretty upset right now.”

  I think back to what I heard through the drive-in speakers. She admitted to not doing a great job at mothering. She’d said she wanted another chance. But that’s now, when emotions are running high and the situation is dire. People say a lot of things they don’t mean in times of high stress.

  “I’m sure she’s upset that I’ve been hurt,” I say slowly. “But if I go back, it’s still not going to change the reality of how she sees me.”

  “And how’s that?”

  My breath catches in my chest. It’s not like I haven’t thought about this before. There was a time when it was all I thought about. And then, I got to the point where I refused to think about it. But speaking it out loud . . . that’s new territory for me. “I’ve never been what she wanted me to be.” I hold up my hand and pull back one finger at time, ticking off the ways I’ve been a disappointment. “First, I was an accident. She never wanted to have kids. If she hadn’t been married when she got pregnant, I’m sure she would have gotten rid of me.” My mind jumps back to our conversation about the abortion when she all but admitted it. I blow out a short breath and continue. “Then, after she was forced into having me, I had the nerve to be a girl. She always said my dad would have stayed if he’d had a son.”

  “Do you think that’s true?”

  I shake my head. “I used to think so, but not anymore. After remembering the day he left, seeing my mother and father together . . . it wouldn’t have mattered if I was twin boys. He left because of what was going on between the two of them, not because of me.”

  “You’re right,” Vinnie says, his voice soft. “What happened between your mother and any man was between the two of them. None of it was your fault.”

  “I know, but she thinks it was. She blames me for every breakup she ever had. And she blames me that she never made anything great out of her life. How could she, being strapped down with a kid like me?” I had felt the responsibility of my mom’s failures every time a man left her. It rained down on me in her bitter tears, flailed me in her wail of despair, cut through me like buzz saw blades in the angry looks she threw my way.

  Vinnie’s palms are flat on the table, his thumbs rapping out a beat as he digests what I’ve just told him. “Did it ever occur to you,” he says slowly, “that the way she treats you might really be her response to the way she was treated and the way she sees herself?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Think of how she felt when she discovered what her uncle was doing do her sister. The anger, the betrayal, the guilt. She has never let go of it.”

  Even after seeing what happened with my own eyes, I hadn’t really considered the long term effects that day might have had on my mother. But now, it’s starting to make sense. She must have loved her uncle. To find out he was violating her sister like that, and to have her mother not believe anything she said . . . it changed her life. I had seen it happen. Right there in that living room, her shoes covered with her uncle’s blood, she decided to use men before they could use her. It had colored every choice she made from that day on. And when she ended up with me, another person—another girl—to take care of, she panicked.

  “She wasn’t able to protect Aunt Bobbie,” I say, thinking it through out loud. “So maybe she was afraid that she couldn’t protect me, either.”

  “It’s possible. And maybe putting emotional distance between herself and you was the only way she knew of coping with it.”

  “And when Ethan attacked me—” I gasp. I can see my mother’s face clearly, as if it’s happening right now. So many emotions play across her features. Her despair, her pain, and something else, something I never noticed before . . . resignation. As though she’d known all along that something like this was going to happen and there was nothing she could do to stop it.

  Vinnie shakes his head sadly. “Her worst fear came true.”

  “But there’s something else I don’t understand.” I reach my fingers out toward Vinnie, as though begging him to put the answer in my hands. “If she’s so distrusting of men, why does she keep marrying them? Why didn’t she end up more like Aunt Bobbie?”

  “How can we measure the damage done by a broken heart?” He weighs his words carefully. “Your aunt endured not only emotional, but physical abuse. She also has a different kind of personality, more pliable, less adept at confrontations. It’s why the uncle went after her and not your mother.”

  I cringe at the thought. “Because he could get away with it. My mother would have fought back.” My mother probably would have killed him.

  Vinnie nods. “Yes. And it’s why she’s so angry now. But remember,” he holds up one finger, waving it slightly, “only someone who cares deeply can feel so much rage. I think the reason your mother keeps dating and getting married is because she desperately wants to believe that love exists for her. It does, of course. She’s just looking in the wrong places.”

  My heart breaks, but this time, it’s not for me or for how hard my life has been. For the first time ever, my heart breaks for my mother. It breaks for the happy teenager who watched her world tilt on its axis and split in half at her feet. It breaks for the bitter woman she became. And mostly, it breaks for all the time she and I have wasted over the years.

  I lean forward, hands gripping the edge of the table. “But Vinnie, my mother is who she is. I can’t go back and change her past. She’s always going to look at me and see everything that went wrong in her life.”

  Vinnie’s lips turn up in a slow smile. “It might surprise you to know that your mother has been at your bedside more than anyone else.”

  My heart lurches at this new revelation. “Really?”

  “Really. She hardly ever leaves. She even made the nurses put a cot in there for her. I think the accident may have given your mother a new perspective on her relationship with you. I can’t say how that will pan out if you decide to go back, but it’s a start.”

  Had my father been right? Does my mother really need me after all? And could almost losing me in this accident make her see that? It’s wild to think my mother and I could ever be anything but antagonistic toward each other. But then, I never thought I could be forgiven for some of my life choices. I’ve been given a second chance . . . maybe it’s time I gave her one, too.

  “If I go back, what can I do for her? Is there any way I can help her?”

  “You can pray for her. Love her. Show her that you’re not like everyone else. Let her know she can trust you. That you’ll be there for her even if she’s awful to you. That’s re
ally all you can do.” Vinnie levels his gaze at me. “But you can’t do any of that if you’re dead.”

  True. So I need to go back for my mom, and for Aunt Bobbie. Which brings me back around to Jake. What about him? “You really don’t know how bad my physical condition is?”

  Vinnie raises his hands in surrender. “I really don’t.”

  “What if I’ve got brain damage? Or I’m partially paralyzed?” I start chewing on the end of my thumb nail.

  Vinnie reaches across the table and nonchalantly pulls my hand away from my mouth. “What if you are?”

  “Jake will want to stay with me. He’ll want to help me. What if that happens, and he gets tired of being responsible for an invalid? What if he starts to resent me and has an affair with a hot blond at the office and then he leaves me?”

  Vinnie shakes his head in confusion. “Where did the blond come from?”

  I wave my hand. “It’s something . . . someone told me.”

  “Someone. Someone like Ba’al?”

  I don’t answer him right away, but finally I admit it. “Yes.”

  He wags his finger at me. “Allie, I told you he would twist the truth and lie to your face. Let’s take this one piece at a time. First off, you don’t know how bad things are. There may be nothing major wrong with you, or you might just need a little therapy. Or you could be paralyzed from the neck down and have severe brain damage. The point is, we don’t know. We also don’t know what’s going to happen with Jake. But there’s one thing we do know with absolute certainty.” He pauses to make his point and looks me straight in the eye. “You can’t base any decision on something you heard from a demon.”

  His statement is such a bald face truth it lifts the huge weight that’s been sitting on my chest and pressing the air out of my lungs. I take a deep breath, reveling in this new sense of freedom. “How can I argue with you when you put it that way?”

  “You can’t.” The smile comes back to Vinnie’s face. “So, have you made your decision?”

  I look around the diner, at the young, eager faces of the people standing against the wall and sitting at the counter and in the booths, and I nod. “Yes, I have. But there’s one more thing I need to do first.”