Secrets and Fries at the Starlight Diner Read online

  ‘I was just gonna ride the subway till daybreak.’ I shrugged. Pretending it was no big deal. Like I wasn’t terrified of being mugged and beaten by a stranger – or worse, by someone who knew exactly who I was. By someone who was looking for me.

  ‘Blue…’ He half laughed. ‘You can’t do that.’

  ‘My name’s Bonnie, alright? Didn’t anybody ever warn you not to name a stray? Once you name a stray, you want to keep it.’ I said. A lame attempt to get off the subject but the cold seemed to have spread to my brain so it was the best I could do.

  ‘Yeah well, you stay out in the cold all night and Blue’s gonna be a more appropriate nickname for you than you’d like. News just this mornin’ was about some guy who died of hypothermia. Froze to death on his own driveway, shovelling snow.’

  ‘For real?’ I looked at Jimmy sidelong. ‘Wait, how old was this guy?’

  ‘Well, you know, not young – but the point is it’s cold out. Too cold to be riding around on the subway all night. I mean what are you? Twenty-five? Young girl, out on her own all night. That ain’t right,’ he said.

  Actually, I was twenty-seven, but Mama always told me not to correct men when they thought you were younger than you were.

  Jimmy sighed and scratched the side of his jaw. ‘You got no money at all?’

  ‘Sorta spent the last of it on the Greyhound to New York. I thought Esther’d be here. Thought I’d stay with her.’

  ‘Maybe you shoulda called first.’ Jimmy’s mean leer reared its head again.

  ‘You’re right. That was dumb,’ I said, leaning one shoulder against the framed subway map.

  Except I couldn’t call first. I couldn’t risk Esther suggesting I go back home to my folks or finding some other friend to bail me out. You could put the phone down on a person real easy but turning them away face to face was a lot more difficult. At least, that’s what I’d been counting on when I came to New York to find Esther.

  ‘No family in the area? No second cousin living out in Williamsburg?’

  ‘No. No family. I’m kind of a loner,’ I said, and at this Jimmy’s leer dissolved.

  It was quite a journey back to Grosse Point and I wagered I was pretty much the last person my old man wanted to see right then. His biggest disappointment. That’s what he’d called me last New Year’s Eve. The last time we spoke to one another.

  That fight had been a long time coming. I’d got sick of the sly digs over the dinner table and my Dad handing me the employment section of the local newspaper, before he even said hello to me, whenever I came to visit. Not once did anyone in that family ask about my job or how it was going. Probably because they were still sore about the fact I was making a decent living at it. That I didn’t come crawling back home with my tail between my legs after a couple of weeks of trying to make it in the music business. Explaining that their Princeton-educated daughter played at a scuzzy Atlantic City casino every night was more embarrassment than the folks could handle during holiday get-togethers with the neighbours. So why go ruining the 1990 Brooks family Christmas when they didn’t give a damn about me anyway? Though I’ll admit to listening to ‘So Doggone Lonesome’ on my Johnny Cash cassette more in the last year than I ever had before, I was better off without them. They didn’t understand me or my dream. Never had.

  Jimmy rubbed his chin with the flat of his left hand, thinking.

  ‘Look, I can’t just go home tonight, knowing you have nowhere to go. There’s a sofa at mine that’s perfectly comfortable. You should just stay there tonight.’ He said that last part quick, perhaps in the hope I wouldn’t notice how bold a suggestion it was.

  ‘I can’t do that. I can’t.’ I looked up into his eyes. It was my own stupid fault I couldn’t accept what was unto itself a kind invitation. If I hadn’t teased him back at the diner about the outfit I used to wear in the Sexties, I probably could’ve just said yes to him and not had to worry. But no. I had to have my fun, and now this guy was probably expecting me to do more than just sing for my supper if I followed him home. I’d sunk pretty low already but prostitution was not on my agenda. No sir.

  ‘Well, I know it’s a little weird but these are desperate times here,’ said Jimmy.

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘Alright. I’ve known you about two minutes and even I can see you want to accept but something’s buggin’ you about it. Why? Why can’t you just accept the offer?’

  A mind reader was about the last thing I needed in my life right now and, again, I thought about feeding him a lie but there was no dodging around this guy. Besides, he was being kind to me, when he really had no reason to be. Lying to him wouldn’t have been right.

  ‘I can’t accept because… I can’t go home with a guy I don’t know. You can understand that, can’t you? I don’t know you. Or what…’ I looked from his eyes down to the grey, concrete floor of the subway station. It was littered with cigarette ends and sticky, empty Coke cans, pushed along by the biting breeze drifting down from street level.

  ‘Or what?’ Jimmy asked with a frown.

  ‘Or, what you want from me.’

  Jimmy snorted, at last understanding my reluctance.

  ‘Relax, Blue, I prefer brunettes.’

  ‘I am a brunette,’ I said. ‘Usually.’

  ‘Well, I prefer full-time brunettes then, if we’re going to get all technical about it. Look, we can stand here arguing about it till daybreak but we both know you don’t want to spend the night riding the subway, and I don’t wanna spend the night thinkin’ about you riding the subway when I got a sofa just sitting there. So, for God’s sakes, accept the offer. So we can go home and go to sleep. I’ve got a dog to feed and an early start in the morning.’

  ‘So, you’re helping me out the goodness of your heart? Just like that?’ I said, wondering how long it’d been since anyone had done that. Esther was probably the last person, and I hadn’t seen her in ten months.

  ‘Let’s just say, I’ve got a little bit of experience in this area.’ Jimmy’s eyes darted downwards. ‘Of spending the night out in the city with no place to go. And trust me when I say you don’t wanna do that.’

  I looked at him and thought about the cold weather that awaited above. Easily six inches of snow and more was falling this very minute. I’d already had more than my fill of the cold while hunting for the diner. Must’ve taken me damn near two hours to find the place from Penn Station. I spent the whole time shaking in my black leather jacket, glancing behind me at every street corner to be sure nobody was tracking me, hovering over the grills where warmth wafted up from the subway tunnels and, whenever I could handle it, pulling my hands, raw with the chill, out of my pockets to read the street map. The idea of facing that again in the early hours of the morning, alone, on no sleep, wasn’t a tempting proposition.

  And then something else hit me. There was little point deliberating over these pretty insignificant decisions. Not right now. The horrible truth was, I probably wasn’t gonna last much longer anyway. If I really thought about it, if I was really honest with myself, it was only a matter of time before one of Frankie’s guys caught up with me, and when they did, that’d be that. Sure, I could fight off Jimmy if I had to – I probably outweighed him by at least ten pounds – but when it came to Frankie’s guys, well, they’d be experts. They’d be big and strong and the one or two moves I still remembered from the self-defence classes my old man paid for before I left Grosse Point for the East Coast wouldn’t be enough.

  Though Jimmy was pretty much a total stranger, I was probably safer at his place than out on the streets.

  At long last, I let out a meek ‘Alright, thank you.’ I didn’t really know what else to say to a guy who’d known me less than an hour of my life and in that time had shown me more kindness than my own family had in the last year.

  Jimmy didn’t say any more either. He just nodded, picked up my luggage again, walked over to the turnstile and threw a couple of subway tokens into the machine for us.

 
; I followed after him, trotting down the steps to the platform. Waiting for him to show me the way.

  Chapter Three

  A woman was screaming.

  No. Strike that.

  I was screaming, and somebody had hold of my arms. Gripping tight. Shaking me.

  ‘Bonnie!’ a voice said, over and over. ‘Bonnie. Bonnie. Bonnie.’ I started to struggle against the grip of whoever held me. My eyes jolted open, looking first into a set of brown eyes before darting around the unfamiliar room.

  To the right was a bulky TV set, standing in front of a long window hung with drapes in a sort of muted orange colour. To the left, a tall silver lamp stood in the corner, the bulb weak, leaving most of the room in shadow. On the wall up in front was a large framed map of New York State. Somewhere, far away, sirens sounded out, and a faint scent of damp hung in the air.

  It was then I noticed a little grey terrier that was panting, whining and nudging to get closer and see what all the fuss was about. Its fur hung heavy around the eyebrows and snout, giving him the look of an old man with a big bushy moustache.

  That was Jimmy’s dog, Louie.

  Jimmy was the man I was struggling against.

  Pushing out a long, slow breath, I steadied myself. My eyes flitted down to the strip of brown hair on his bare chest and back up again. He was only half-dressed, wearing a pair of Levis he’d no doubt yanked on after hearing me holler out in the middle of the night.

  I’d been having a dream. Well, a nightmare.

  Even in my sleep I wasn’t safe from those vacant eyes, the colour of copper. Once again, they had stared at me out of the darkness, all the memories and hopes sieved out of them. Drained out of the bullet hole punched through his right temple.

  I whimpered and my body slackened in Jimmy’s grasp. My heart was still hammering at the thought of what I’d just relived.

  What I’d witnessed four nights ago.

  Even now, the gunshot still echoed in my ears.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ was all I could think of to say to Jimmy, who was crouching in front of me, his hands still resting on my arms.

  ‘For what?’ he shook his head.

  ‘Just, everything,’ I croaked. ‘For waking you up. For being a wreck. God…’ I put a hand over my mouth to hold in the disturbing truth loitering on the tip of my tongue.

  ‘I’ve seen worse.’ A soft smile displaced the hard lines on Jimmy’s face. I took in a deep breath, and then another, realising there was a hint of mandarin in the atmosphere and that it was coming from Jimmy. He’d showered off all of that musty cologne before going to bed. Now he just smelled fruity. And soapy.

  ‘You gonna tell me what’s goin’ on here?’ Jimmy stared at me.

  I swallowed hard. But didn’t say anything. If I did, it could mean his life.

  ‘Nowhere to go. Nightmares. A makeover from the beauty school of Cyndi Lauper. You’re clearly in some kinda trouble. Don’t need to be good at reading people to see that.’ Jimmy scratched his head. ‘Maybe I can help… Who’s Frankie?’

  I started and looked back into his brown eyes. Neat. I couldn’t even keep my trap shut while I was asleep. He moved from his crouching position and sat on the arm of the sofa I’d been sleeping on. It was upholstered in fabric the shade of chewy caramel, but wasn’t nearly as soft as it promised to be. Still, it was better than the sidewalk or a park bench, which is right where I’d be without Jimmy.

  I sat up properly, but kept my feet covered with the yellow sheets and stared up again at the map of New York State hanging on his wall.

  Perhaps confiding in Jimmy would make me feel better. He was a reporter. He probably had connections. But what if he told me to go to the cops about my situation? I’d already tried that back in Atlantic City, and had nearly died doing it. If I didn’t go to the police myself, maybe Jimmy would and I didn’t know for sure how far Frankie’s influence stretched. It could be limited to Atlantic City, but I doubted it. He’d been around long enough. I had to assume he had informants on this side of the Hudson.

  Peeling my eyes away from Jimmy’s wall art, I looked over at him.

  ‘Don’t take this the wrong way or nothing, but I can’t tell you what’s going on. There is somethin’, obviously, but I really can’t say what it is,’ I said, running my fingers through my hair and straightening out a knot I found in the back. Flattening it down as best I could.

  ‘You don’t trust me.’ Jimmy lowered his gaze down to the lime-green carpet, which seemed to line the floors of every room in the whole apartment, save the kitchen area behind the sofa where he’d had wood-effect lino fitted.

  ‘It’s not that. If I tell you, it could be dangerous. It’s better you don’t know.’

  ‘Maybe you oughta let me worry about myself,’ he said, staring back at me.

  ‘I can’t. If anything happened to someone else because of me, well, I just can’t risk it.’ I shook my head and looked down at my fingernails. They were painted with black nail polish that was chipped to hell from strumming my guitar.

  For once Jimmy didn’t have some wisecrack to make but I heard him sigh and could see him shaking his head out of the corner of my eye.

  I had to get him off this subject quick.

  ‘You got a record player?’ I asked, tilting my head to one side. He paused, frowning at the question.

  ‘Yeah I got a record player, I’m not a caveman.’ He reached a hand down to Louie who’d been whining off and on and gave the short fur on his head a ruffle.

  ‘Mind if I play a record or two?’

  Jimmy squinted his eyes just enough at the corners to let me know he was well aware I was trying to throw him off the scent. Then he looked at his watch, which I guess never left his wrist since he’d just jumped out of bed. ‘It’s three in the morning.’

  ‘Music always makes me feel better,’ I said, with a small pout to my lips. Something about the way I did it must’ve amused Jimmy because a smug-looking smile came over his lips.

  ‘Alright,’ he replied.

  Pushing aside the sheets, I stood in my purple plaid nightshirt and walked barefoot over to the corner with the lamp where I’d left my suitcase about three hours ago. Louie scampered over to join me and I gave him a quick pat whilst kneeling to open the clasp on my luggage. Lifting the lid, I pushed aside the sweater dresses and T-shirts I’d thrown in before bolting for Atlantic City bus station. Underneath my toothbrush and my notebook, where I wrote down all the song lyrics I never shared with anyone, was a small pile of 45s. A modest selection of the best records from the last three decades.

  I felt the heat of Jimmy’s breath on my neck as he squatted down near me. He was looking over my right shoulder and goosebumps pushed up through my skin at the thought of him being that close. It’d been too long since I’d had a guy that close to me. For the last few years my major concern had been making enough money to pay rent. But showing my parents I could make it on my own had been harder than I’d thought it would be and, as a result my love life, had been sort of on the back-burner.

  ‘That’s what you choose to pack in an emergency? Records?’ said Jimmy, waving a hand at my suitcase.

  ‘Yeah, just the essentials,’ I said, turning in his direction and trying again to look at his face rather than his chest.

  ‘Any good ones?’

  ‘Only the best ones.’ I made a show of looking insulted.

  ‘Alright, let’s hear one.’

  ‘Hmm. This one.’ I passed him a record in an orange sleeve. He took it and held it close to his face to read in the dim light.

  ‘“Concrete & Clay” by Unit 4 + 2.’ He shook his head at me. ‘Never heard of it.’

  ‘Then you’ve never heard really great music.’ I smiled. ‘Play it.’

  With a shrug, Jimmy walked over to a small nook near the TV I hadn’t spotted before. It was stacked up high with old, folded newspapers but once they were lifted away a small music centre appeared underneath, complete with a record deck on top. Jimmy blew the d
ust off it and set the record in place. I walked over to the window and drew back the orange curtains, gazing down to the empty Brooklyn street four storeys below. Tinged yellow by the streetlamps, from this angle the world outside was a jigsaw of fire escape ladders, blacked out windows and water hydrants.

  There was nobody out there. Not that I could see, anyway.

  The scratch of the record sounded out, followed by the metallic chime of a cymbal right before the sprightly rhythm kicked in. I turned back to face the room and leaned with my back against the wall, running my fingertips over the cheap woodchip. Closing my eyes, I let the music surround me and at the sound of Tommy Moeller’s rich, smooth voice, my shoulders loosened, the tension bleeding out of me.

  As the first chorus played out, Jimmy said, ‘That is a good record.’

  I opened my eyes. Jimmy stood a few paces away at the record player. Still shirtless, and apparently confident enough about his body not to think about it. Still, he looked, to me, somehow vulnerable in his part-unclothed state. So much softer than I’d first thought him in the diner, when he was making suggestive comments and ogling everything south of my chin.

  ‘Actually, Esther is the one who got me onto these guys. They’re a British band from the sixties. I was feelin’ kinda low about singing in the Sexties one day. It’s not exactly a dream job, musically speaking, and she said I should hunt out this record. Said it was one her dad used to play before he died, and it was impossible to listen to it without smiling.’

  ‘I didn’t know, about her dad. But, I guess I’ve gotta give her credit for her taste in music, even if I don’t rate her taste in men,’ he said, while fussing Louie who was play-tearing at Jimmy’s trouser leg with his teeth.

  What was this guy’s deal? Why did he have so much to say about who Esther was seeing, and how the hell had he got on the wrong side of her? She was nothing short of reasonable with me, even after the way I treated her. He must’ve really struck a nerve for relations to still be awkward between them.

  And yet, this guy, the same guy that had somehow mortally offended Esther, had taken me in without any real reason to trust me, and definitely without any benefit to himself. My own parents would’ve kicked up more of a fuss about inviting me in out of the cold than he had. Something about him just didn’t add up. I guess we had that in common.