‘Who?’
‘You know who.’ She leaned against the work surface and folded her arms. ‘That dreamboat who was trying to talk to you and who you was bein’ rude to. Didn’t recognise him myself at first, on account of that beard he was wearing.’
‘I was not rude,’ I said, playing with the strings on my apron. ‘I was…curt. Maybe.’
‘Well, you was just curt to Jack Faber.’
‘Is that name supposed to connote something to me?’
‘Connote?’ Mona shook her head. ‘That’s another one for the chart, Lu.’
When I started at The Starlight Diner five months ago, ‘Esther’s Fancy Word Chart’ was imaginary. A joke between Mona and Lu about the snobbish English woman Bernie had hired. Over the months, however, the chart had evolved into a real thing. Or, at least, into the back of an old bakery invoice tacked to the wall.
‘This Faber guy famous?’ Lucia asked once she’d scrawled the latest ‘fancy word’ on the chart. ‘Knew I shoulda put make-up on this morning.’
‘No make-up required, Lu. Our Esther don’t wear even a lick of mascara. She got his attention alright.’ Mona grinned but I refused to rise to her teasing.
‘Connote has two Ns,’ I said to Lucia. She grunted and made the correction.
‘He’s an actor,’ Mona said, trying to re-establish my attention. ‘Got his first big movie out soon, read about it in New York Magazine, it’s called…Without You.’
‘Ugh,’ I groaned, ‘that sounds terminally sappy. Anyway, he’s out of luck. I don’t fraternise with actors. It’s unsavoury. Pretending to be somebody you’re not. Wanting other people to look at you all the time.’
‘What do you mean, actors? You don’t fraternise with anybody,’ said Lucia, she and Mona looked at each other and twittered.
‘I’m a busy woman,’ I said, glaring.
‘You’re a waitress,’ Mona replied. I half-smiled and looked at the floor. I didn’t have an answer to that. They didn’t know what was really going on, deep down.
Never could.
I was about to pick up Walt’s omelette when, just beyond the kitchen door, a man started shouting. Mona and I grimaced, edging closer to see what the ruckus was. Lucia sidled up behind us and, together, we peeped through the small circular windows. It was the frowner.
‘I don’t care…’ he growled at whoever was on the other end of the call he was making on the payphone we had out back. ‘I won’t be held hostage. This is it!’
There was a short passage between the diner and the kitchen only just shielding the customers from his rage. ‘That’s insane!’ he shouted, his face red and contorted.
‘What’s this guy’s deal?’ Mona hissed. I shrugged and shook my head.
‘No. No. No. What the hell?’ He paced and pushed a hand through his hair. ‘No. You end this. You do what you said you would, and don’t bother calling till you do.’
Faber slammed down the phone. He pressed his hands flat against the wall and bowed his head between them. I looked at Mona and Lucia. Should we do something? Say something? Before we had a chance, he raised his head and looked at the wall. Narrowing his eyes, he dealt a single, thunderous punch to the red paint, which was already flaking. It crumbled further at the point of impact. I raised both hands to my face, gasping at the blunt thud. Jack wrung his hand for a few moments, shook his head in what seemed like despair and stalked back out into the diner.
I didn’t let on that my heart was racing as Mona and Lucia spent the next fifteen minutes dissecting this event. That something buried deep was surfacing.
By the time I escaped the kitchen to deliver Walt’s omelette, the actor was gone.
After the jolt of the mugging, and the sheer weirdness of the Jack episode, clearing my head was at the top of my to-do list. And so, the following day, I hopped on a subway to Coney Island, New York City’s own Avalon. My diner shift didn’t start till four which meant I’d time aplenty to relax at the edge of the Atlantic. To gaze out at the indigo horizon and listen to the jolly screams of visitors braving the Cyclone: an aged, wooden rollercoaster which rattled around a precarious track. Maybe I’d even have my fortune told on the Zoltar machine, if I was feeling adventurous and had a dollar to spare. Yes, Zoltar was a nodding puppet in a turban but I’d wager even he had a better idea about what was good for me than I did just then.
The hard stare of the Manhattan streets faded the second the salt air hit my lungs, even if it was somewhat fouled by the sweaty scent of grilled hot dogs, and before long I was strolling the length of the promenade. All around, folks made the most of the blossoming weather: some lazed out, priming their already medium-rare skin with tanning lotion. Others queued for The Wonder Wheel to the soundtrack of cawing gulls.
Nobody else was here alone.
They’d all come in family groups or in couples. Most were too caught up in their own frolics to take note of a lone, unkempt woman slobbing around in a T-shirt and a frayed pair of Jordache jeans. But those who did notice, looked at me a moment longer than I’d like. Were they wondering why I had no companion? Staring at them, staring at me, I speculated what they’d say if I told them the answer.
Further along the boardwalk, tight clusters of tourists dotted the shoreline. A bronzed, bare-chested twenty-something lifted his girlfriend in a way not dissimilar to how Jack had, without any effort, lifted me the day before. I sighed. Despite my efforts to shut him out, the actor had sauntered into my thoughts. And not for the first time. Watching those young lovers, I felt again his hands, firm and secure around my waist, and an unfamiliar warmth stirred just beneath the skin.
Oh Esther, don’t be drawn. How could you so soon forget what men do?
No. I hadn’t forgotten. Jack was just the first handsome face to take an interest since… since…
I shook my head. That’s all these thoughts were. A raw, physical reaction to the tone of his arms.
What rippled beneath that smooth surface, Esther?
More than just muscle. A savage. Unless he had a medical note for that weird, wall-punching tic. A brute. Another one.
Overcome by both the heat and the odd cocktail of emotions, I sheltered in the shadow cast by a billboard for Nathan’s hot dogs. The beach stretched out along the peninsula as far as I could make out. Sandwiched between the blue waters of the Atlantic and the jubilant roar of the amusements. Looming tall above all else was the derelict Parachute Jump ride: a fearsome, steel skeleton that mushroomed into the sky. The fact people once thought it prudent to launch themselves off the top of it was incredible. Even more incredible was that it’d achieved status as a New York City landmark, preventing developers from demolishing it and building condos. The only other obelisks on the skyline were apartment blocks, which stood in military procession beyond multi-coloured parasols and rows of refreshment bars. They’d been built in a brick that was meant to be in sympathy with the sand but were too muddy a brown and thus looked as awkward as I felt against the otherwise jaunty palate of the sea front.
Recovered from the heat, and more than aware that a two-minute stint in the shade wouldn’t cure my permanent sense of being somehow dislodged, I ambled out along the pier. There, I planned to sit out and read the copy of Homage to Catalonia I had stowed in my satchel. Though my life had taken a disturbing turn in the last few years, I clung to the comfort I found in books. Orwell, in particular, was an author who set me at ease. He wrote like he was speaking just to me, as though he was sitting in some nearby corner recounting