The second she pushed through the swing doors out to the kitchen however, it happened. Tears, thick and salty, forced their way out. My whole body shook with the might of them and I covered my eyes and mouth with my hands in an attempt to block out the world. To forget the fact that I was howling like a kid in a downtown diner, all to the tune of ‘Shake, Rattle and Roll’, which had followed up ‘Earth Angel’ on the Wurlitzer.
‘Hey, you alright?’ a man’s voice said. I jumped at the sound. The guy at the counter with the staring problem. I’d forgotten about him. Just when I thought things couldn’t get any worse. Thanks to my dad accusing me of ‘turning on the waterworks’ whenever I’d wept as a child, I hated to cry under any circumstances, but it was always worse when you had a witness.
And now what was I supposed to say to this guy?
I sucked in as much oxygen as I could, dropped my hands to the counter and turned. Twisting my lips into something that resembled a smile, I tried to stem the flow of my tears. I hadn’t really got a good look at the man before. He had a sharpness to his eyes. They were a deep brown and pretty intense, to the point that he seemed almost angry about something. His hair fell in blonde waves around his face and he might’ve been cute if he only learned to smile instead of leer, and if he halved the amount of cologne he wore. The musty smell caught at the back of my throat even from this distance; I didn’t want to know how it was up close. What did he do, shower in that junk?
His eyes hadn’t left mine. He was still waiting on an answer to his question.
Was I alright?
People were asking me all the hard questions tonight. Not wanting to lie right to his face, I turned away and nodded at the coffee machine behind the counter. The gesture was far too quick to fool anyone, even myself.
‘I’m fine. I’m just…’ I swallowed back more tears. ‘I’m just real tired is all.’
‘Well, if you’re tired, maybe you should be in bed.’
I glanced over again to see the guy was trying to smile. It was still coming across as a leer.
‘I wish I was.’
‘Here we go, hon—’ Mona came breezing back through from the kitchen but stopped mid-sentence when she saw the state I was in. She looked from me to the man at the end of the counter. ‘Oh Lord, what you do to her? I was only gone a minute.’ The waitress put her hands on her hips and glared in his direction.
‘I didn’t do nothing,’ the guy protested.
‘Don’t give me that, you’ve been causin’ trouble, again,’ said Mona, pointing a finger at him.
‘Feel free to step in and defend me any time you like,’ said the man, aiming his words at me. There was a noticeable sting to his voice.
‘He didn’t do anything,’ I said to Mona, realising he was right. It would’ve been polite to jump in sooner than I had to make that clear. Course, Mona must have her reasons for suspecting he’d done something to me. Maybe this guy didn’t deserve to be defended.
‘You sure?’ Mona squinted.
I looked at the guy, his face darkened by the false allegations.
‘Yeah.’ I bit my lower lip, trying to think of a believable cover story for my breakdown. ‘I’m just real tired and it’s cold out and I was really hoping to see Esther tonight, you know. Haven’t seen her in a long time and it all just got a bit much for a minute,’ I said, unsure if this explanation made my howling sound in any way reasonable or if I was coming across as an absolute nutjob to these people.
‘Well, if you’re sure that’s all it is.’ Mona looked from me back to the guy, her eyes still narrow.
‘I’m sure I’ll feel better after a coffee. Once I’ve warmed up,’ I said. It was the truth but also it’d be best for everyone if the conversation moved on. The less they knew about what it was that had me running around New York, trying to find a waitress I hadn’t spoken to in ten months, the better.
‘And I’ll get right on that, honey,’ Mona said, turning to pour the beans into the coffee machine.
‘Hey, Blue, mind if I join you down that end?’ The guy called down the length of the counter.
‘Sure,’ I shrugged. ‘But my name’s not Blue. It’s Bonnie.’
‘Well, you look like a Blue to me.’ He shoved his plate with a half-eaten burger on it down towards me. I was going to protest about his unimaginative nickname but the food suddenly thrust in front of me was far more distracting. I looked at the meat, cooked medium rare so it was pink and juicy in the middle, topped with crisp lettuce and fresh tomato. Mona had her back to me, fiddling with the coffee machine. The guy was turned back towards the stool he’d been sitting on, retrieving his coat and satchel. I saw my chance, took a huge bite of his burger and stuffed three French fries in my mouth, turning my head towards the kitchen doors and making out like I was admiring the decor, so I had time to chew and swallow.
When I turned back the guy was sitting in the stool next to me, grinning.
‘Hungry?’ he asked, pushing his plate towards me as if suggesting I should help myself. Oh God, he’d seen me steal from his plate. It was official. I couldn’t sink any lower.
‘Uh, no, thanks, I just ate,’ I said.
The guy looked at me hard and long, and an almost unbearable blush started creeping up the back of my neck. Then Mona came over and set down my coffee, breaking whatever weird little moment we were having.
‘There you go, honey,’ said the waitress.
‘I’m Jimmy, by the way. Jimmy Boyle,’ said the guy, shovelling in one of the remaining French fries. He chewed with his mouth open and I looked down into the black depths of my coffee so I didn’t have to watch him eat. It wasn’t pretty. I’d been right about the cologne too. Up close it was so strong it was almost difficult to breathe.
‘Like I said, Bonnie.’
‘That accent from the Midwest somewhere?’ asked Jimmy.
‘Yeah, Detroit. Born and raised.’ I cleared my throat, trying to get rid of the taste of his cologne, but somehow that only made it worse.
‘Like the Journey song?’ he said, leering again.
‘Well, that’s South Detroit but close enough, sure.’ As I answered, I turned my head to him out of politeness to find him examining my face. I looked him up and down in return, uneasy and shuffling in my seat.
‘And how do you know Esther?’ Mona asked. Pulling my eyes away from Jimmy, I poured some cream into my coffee and pondered how to answer that question.
‘We worked at the same casino out in Atlantic City.’
Before she left.
It was only partly because of what I did, I think. Esther never liked Atlantic City as much as she thought she would. Called it a ‘city of excess’, and it was that alright. Modesty was a stranger in that town. Order at any bar, and a rum and coke would become a double without you even asking. Wine wasn’t served in glasses but in vase-sized urns. The drunker you got, the greater the chances were of you shoving coins into slots, and that’s all the casino bosses were interested in. No, Esther never felt at home there, and I guess I didn’t either. But that wasn’t so surprising. I’d never felt at home anywhere, not even in the house I grew up in.
‘Oh yeah, Esther did mention something about frying omelettes on the coast for a season,’ said Mona.
‘That must’ve been somewhere between the timely death of her first husband and hooking up with her new actor boy toy,’ Jimmy sneered.
‘What?’ My head swerved in Jimmy’s direction. Esther had been married? She’d