Bobby's Diner

by Wingate, Susan

  PRAISE FOR SUSAN WINGATE & “BOBBY’S DINER”

  Finalist Award Winner In The

  2010 International Book Awards

  2009 National Best Book Awards, And

  2009 Next Generation Indie Book Awards

  “BOBBY’S DINER IS A STORY OF A WOMAN trying to find herself in a town where nobody wants her. Imagine a situation where the ex-wife and ‘the other woman’ inherit a piece of property with a business and they are expected to work together. Georgette and Vanessa hold fast to the only thing they have, each other. Georgette’s story tells a tale of life, love, death, grief, pain, loneliness, and redemption. And, she finds her true family with the most unexpected people.”— www.aromancereview.com

  “SUSAN WINGATE HAS SHOWS an understanding of human nature well beyond what is normally seen in a novel. She has a mastery of dialogue that I find refreshing—I felt as though I was right there, listening. It isn’t often I find dialogue so true-to-life. Between her mastery of dialogue and understanding of human nature, Susan Wingate held me captive with this book.”—Joyce Anthony, author of Storm, and moderator of Books & Authors blog

  “Watching the relationship between them at first waring factions of Georgette and Vanessa develop is written in a masterful fashion.I will end this review where I started, whoever labeled this as chick lit is out of their mind! This is a book that has wide appeal. I do not rate books as other sites do, but if I did, this would score 5 stars. I loved the plot, loved the characters, and (this is the book critic in me talking) from a technical standpoint I can find no fault, it has been well constructed, well edited, and the story flows.You can grab your copy from Amazon by clicking on the link above.” — Simon Barrett, BloggerNews Network

  “Readers will recognize their mother, sister or girlfriend in Wingate’s characters. For every flaw there is an endearing quality that draws you into each woman’s story. Bobby’s Diner offers several storylines that force each character to face her fears, find forgiveness, and redefine her life. Bobby’s Diner makes a nice gift for a gal pal and is sure to provide great fodder for book discussion groups.” — M. P. McKinney for APOOO BookClub

  “How many times have you heard a wife or girlfriend say that she never wants to meet ‘the other woman?’ As the book begins, they inherit together. Add to that a conniving land developer, the murder of a dear friend and you have the recipe for a great piece of women’s fiction. Bobby’s Diner could become much more than a simple roadside diner to the people who take the opportunity to go inside and check out the menu.”—Nikki Leigh, author of Widow’s Walk, Lady Lightkeeper,and Lilah and the Locket.

  “ALL THAT’S BEST IN CHICK LIT. Bobby’s Diner is a story that any woman who has ever loved can enjoy. It has memorable characters, strong women, and the theme of perseverance in the face of adversity is one always to be admired. Well written.”—Arline Chase, author of Killraven, Ghost Dancer, and the spirit series, Spirit of Earth, Spirit of Fire, Spirit of Wind, etc.

  “IT’S’ HILARIOUS and good natured while being a good story. It should do well— I’d say more, but I’ve got another 20 pages to read.”—RD Larson, author of Evil Angel, Mama Tried to Raise a Lady, and Doors.

  “SUSAN WINGATE REGALES US with a tale too true to be fiction. When Georgette inherits half of Bobby’s Diner she soon learns she has to share the restaurant with Bobby’s first wife Vanessa. A tale well told, humor abounds.”—Terry L White, author of Mystick Moon, Ancient Memories, Hang Your Head Over, and the Chesapeake Series, Chesapeake Harvest, Chesapeake Legacy, etc.

  “BOBBY’S DINER IS AN AWARD WINNER, mark my words. Susan Wingate gives us a truly great experience. More than just another crime related story, this one is much deeper, more captivating in clashing personalities, more real in the ways of life…spell-binding. Once started, this one demands you finish page by page, word by word, and leaves you wanting more, wanting to share all these personalities shared.”—Carroll M. Jones, author of Murder on Margin and Where Roses Bloom.

  BOBBY’S DINER

  (Kindle Edition)

  by

  Susan Wingate

  ***

  Copyright 2008 by Susan Wingate. All Rights Reserved

  Copyright 2008 cover art Shelley Rodgerson

  ***

  Publishers Note: This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  685 Spring Street

  PMB 161

  Friday Harbor, WA 98250

  Fax: 360/378-4456

  Acknowledgments

  From my beginnings as a writer it became apparent that creating a book was a team effort. Yes, the writing of it is mostly a single-handed task but once the story is complete many hands make it a piece of art. So it goes with Bobby’s Diner.

  Therefore, it’s with great admiration and praise that I give thanks to those who helped see Bobby’s Diner through to its completion. My appreciation goes to those who read the story and gave me feedback. To Mike Conrad, Dennis Logan, Amie Ajamie, Alice Acheson, Nikki Leigh, Connie Augé, and Theresa Mathews. And, a special thanks must go to my dear friend and editor, Monica Van Appel.

  I’m profoundly in the debt and in constant awe of Arline Chase, whose wisdom and knowledge about this industry is stellar. My utmost regard, for the beautiful cover art and actually “seeing the signs,” goes to Shelley Rodgerson.

  Through my life I’ve always felt blessed and being able to work with these people has been a great honor.

  Lastly, I must thank Bob Wingate. For, without him Bobby’s Diner wouldn’t be.

  CHAPTER 1

  For the reading of Bobby’s will, the attorneys sat Vanessa—the ex, Roberta (Bobby and Vanessa’s daughter), and me in a conference room together. I was instructed to bring a lawyer, as were the other two ladies. I didn’t. That sort of thing isn’t in me. Vanessa did. The lawyer read Bobby’s will. It was pretty much as I expected. I got the house we shared, most of the money accounts, Roberta received $200 thousand dollars in a fund her father had set aside for her upon his death. Then, the lawyer read further. Bobby did something none of us expected. He gave me half the interest in the diner and Vanessa, the other half!

  Just like Bobby to be equitable. Finally, the lawyer read a statement Bobby had handwritten before he died.

  The note said something about his guilt for leaving Vanessa, but his great love for me, about Vanessa’s interest of nearly half her life spent building the diner, and my creativity to keep it going.

  Have you ever heard the term ‘livid’ before? Well, Vanessa’s face turned every shade of livid I’ve ever seen. I remember sitting there and imagining her head filling up like one of those water balloons at the fair and exploding right off her shoulders. Her lawyer patted her hand and told her “not to worry.” I giggled to myself at the mess of it all, said my “thank yous” and “good- byes” to his former family and the lawyers, and I left feeling pretty good too considering what had just happened. Financially, I was solid and didn’t need to worry about money for a while, anyway.

  I closed the diner for three weeks.

  When I went back to reopen, Vanessa was there waiting outside the door. She offered to buy my interest. I told her I had no intention of selling and offered to buy hers. She fumed at my boldness and told me she’d never sell. Bobby knew I was stubborn as a mule in a blizzard
and he knew his former wife had some of my same shortcomings.

  “Well, isn’t this a fine mess.” Vanessa threw her hands up and when they came down, they landed on her lap as she sat hard against the window’s ledge.

  “Guess Bobby had the last laugh, huh?” I looked out onto the day with one hand protecting my face from the bright sun. It was early spring then and the cacti were putting on a show that would embarrass the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, gorgeous.

  “Since this place is now legally half mine, I want a key.” Vanessa was indignant.

  “Fine. After José gets here, I’ll have him run up to Charlie’s to get his copied.”

  Vanessa let out a small huff and stood back up. “What are we supposed to do now?”

  “Well, the diner needs managing. I guess we manage it.”

  “Together?” She put her hands on her hips.

  “What else can we do?”

  “It just won’t work.”

  “Why is that, Vanessa? After all these years, do you

  still hate me so much?”

  “Oh, hell, I could care less about you.” She turned away and looked out over the burgeoning desert. “How’s this gonna look to the folks around here? Did you ever think about that?”

  “I just put my husband in the ground. I guess I haven’t had too much time to worry about what people are thinking.”

  “He was my husband too.” She scowled when she looked at me. I couldn’t very well argue her point and decided by the look of her, saying nothing was best. Vanessa turned her head away. “Fuck.” She spoke it like a tire going flat.

  We looked at each other for a few seconds. I’d been sitting on the planter outside the door across from Vanessa the whole time and my ass felt numb, so I stood. Face-to-face with her, it was uncanny how much Vanessa and I looked like each other. She was older, of course, and had severely short, dark copper-colored hair. Her eyes were almond-shaped and emerald green, like mine. She was tall and had some meat to her, like me. Her skin was radiant pink with freckles.

  Here, standing in front of me, was the only other woman Bobby had ever loved. We stared into each other’s eyes. I can only guess what she was thinking. The scowl on her face was worth a thousand words. Time seemed to stall out and we began to feel ill at ease.

  Through it all, a strange feeling welled-up deep inside me. For the life of me, I don’t know why I did what I did at that moment. I stuck my hand out like I was making a deal.

  “So, what d’ya say, partner? Shall we give her a go?” I said it emphasizing my Georgian drawl like an actor in an old western.

  And, Vanessa did quite the unexpected thing. She grabbed my hand and gave it one hard shake downwards.

  As we walked together toward the restaurant’s door, she shook her head in disbelief and grumbled, “Dear God, help us.”

  ***

  Old Spice cologne always makes me think of funerals and vice versa. The scent wafted through our house from my parent’s bedroom down the hallway into mine on the shower’s steam. That smell only lasted until I was about eight years old when Momma and Daddy had a huge knock-down-drag-out. Daddy left the house in a snit and drove his station wagon straight into the face of a telephone pole. He was killed instantaneously and left Momma and me all alone.

  I was just a young girl when daddy died. We lived near the historic district in a small town called Milledgeville. On family outings, we’d take horse- drawn carriage rides through lolling lush gardens and pass by a dead author’s home. We rode the trolley by the Old Governor’s Mansion even though we lived close by, in walking distance. That was daddy’s treat to momma and me at least once a month. He’d repeat the tale about the history of Milledgeville where he was born and raised and where his momma was born and raised, his momma’s momma, hers, and hers the same year Milledgeville was incorporated, in 1804. Daddy was just thirty-five when he died. We moved away from lolling hills filled with scented gardens and ended up in the smelly metropolis of Atlanta. Atlanta! The armpit of Georgia where mother got job after job in crusty bars serving drinks to strangers and taking home a few in the process.

  For daddy’s interment, momma had the coroner dress him in his favorite blue seersucker suit, with a cracked pocket watch, and his cologne on him. I wanted that pocket watch so bad it hurt but momma said it belonged with daddy. The immediate family members were the only ones who could witness daddy’s body before the closed-casket funeral was to begin. No one smiled during the viewing. People cried, in fact, yet made insincere comments about how good he looked.

  You see, puzzling his face back together had proved a difficult proposition for the mortician. The impact of the car coming in contact with the pole sent daddy through the window. Safety glass split his head in more than thirty pieces and after mortaring his bones, seaming his skin, and reattaching his hair, the mortician had to reconstruct his nose and chin, after which he layered him unnaturally in a thick application of foundation makeup. It didn’t look like daddy at all. But, at least, it smelled like him.

  That was the first time I ever got to ride in a limousine.

  Old Spice and limousines—they remind me of funerals.

  Nowadays limos are white instead of morbid black.

  Limo drivers are still tranquil, still wear a chauffeur’s hat, and still help you in and out of the car, but around here the black limo has gone the way of the dinosaur.

  That changed shortly after my husband’s, Bobby’s, death. For the past forty years, I’ve been to far too many funerals. Now this.

  Sunnydale has lost one of its finest people. Earlier this morning, when we pulled up to the graveside it showed. There were swarms of people. Roberta, Bobby’s daughter, said she’d received over fifty bouquets and ten funeral arrangements. That says something, doesn’t it? You must be pretty amazing to have almost the entire town show up for your funeral.

  * * *

  I arrived in Sunnydale, Arizona in the heat of the summer. Stepping off the cold bus into the morning warmth made me wither under my thick cover. A bus ride originating the night before in cool mountain air and ending up in the heat of the desert left me peeling off my day-old sweatpants revealing under them a short summer dress made of thin butter-colored rayon. The inside of my thighs felt dewy.

  A bag lady pushing a grocery cart had dropped her coin purse and instinctively I dropped to my hands and knees to help her collect the quarters, nickels, and dimes that went rolling in all directions. That’s when this trucker noticed me. I could see him imagining me slipping out of my clothes entirely. He had that look. His tongue maneuvered a toothpick around from one side of his gaping mouth to the other and he kind of smirked as he watched me. He leaned on the ticket counter and talked to some lackey who worked behind the desk. Both men saw me. Only one had a use.

  The smell of diesel was oily in the air. My long strawberry curls fell over my face when I pulled the grey sweatshirt over my head. I shook my hair back a little. That’s when I slipped off my sweatpants. That’s when both gentlemen stopped talking. I shoved the garments into my backpack, found a stick of cinnamon- flavored gum and folded it over and over three times with my lips and tongue. It made my mouth water. I walked up to them real smart, chewing my gum. Standing next to them, I could look both men square in the eyes. In Milledgeville, where I grew up, I was one of the bigger girls at school.

  I asked “toothpick” if he had a car or something. He bragged about his big-rig as if it were wrapped inside his zipper—a Peterbilt, no less. I giggled because I needed a lift and it was a little funny. The sound of my laughter carried across the room and the echo bounced- off bright windows and a cold tile floor. The bus terminal sounded like a big tin drum and I was aching to end my journey. With just a couple of hundred dollars in my pocket, a $45 bus trip would have taxed my savings. A cab was out of the question. This guy seemed like a good prospect. He seemed willing. I only had one hundred miles or so left to get to Phoenix.

  I never made it.

  After listening end
lessly to this yahoo talk about his wife and seven boys, and how he’d never do anything to break up their happy home, we neared a little

  nowhere spot along a long dusty highway. He was unzipping his pants while I watched lazily out the window with my hand propping up my head.

  I don’t know if you’ve ever been to the Arizona desert but the heat can melt you. It’s a hell of a lot different from the damp, cool air of a coastal town. I watched mesmerizing waves pulse off the desert basin. A landscape of green saguaros, spiny yucca, curly barrel cactus, and cholla painted the red rocky sandstone. I could smell tar-pungent-creosote baking under the weight of the sun. It seemed to stick to my skin. I remember yawning at the tranquility of it all.

  His droning turned into a nervous chatter and broke me from my spell when he said, “how about a little mouth job.” I almost didn’t hear him, but looked over in

  his direction involuntarily. He’d pulled out his penis and was massaging it to get it hard.

  I screamed.

  “Oh my god . What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

  By then, we were cruising along at about sixty-five when I clamored for the door handle. I don’t know what I would have done—jump? I don’t know. Fortunately, I didn’t need to jump. When I screamed, he nearly jackknifed his precious Peterbilt when he slammed onto his brakes.

  The wheezing hydraulics gasped for air in a high pitch. I thought we were going to crash. Actually, it wasn’t because I screamed that we nearly crashed. It was because when I saw his dick in his hand I grabbed my backpack and started thrashing his lap with it. That’s when I turned to see if I would survive a jump from the semi.