Milkshakes and Heartbreaks at the Starlight Diner

by Helen Cox

  ‘I don’t even remember anything about our little Vodkageddon,’ I said. ‘Maybe I should read the papers so I can fill in the blanks.’

  ‘You don’t remember anything?’ Jack asked, sitting up, staring at me hard.

  ‘No. I black out when I drink that much vodka. Well, that much of anything really. Kool Aid would probably have the same effect in that quantity.’

  ‘Oh.’ He rubbed along his eyebrows with his left hand and looked down at the bed. Was that disappointment? I didn’t remember anything but I’m far from suave after the second drink hits. A blank in the memory was surely for the best? Maybe he was disappointed he didn’t have a blank in his memory.

  ‘Why don’t you come and sit down?’ He patted just in front of him. I looked at the bed, then at him.

  ‘I’m alright.’ I couldn’t think of a worse idea than getting cosy on my bed with a freshly-single Jack Faber.

  ‘Come on.’ He gave me that same roguish smile I’d seen the day we met. ‘I’m relatively trustworthy.’

  ‘Relatively.’ I gave into the small smile, tugging at the corners of my mouth. He gestured again at the bed. I rolled my eyes at his insistence, meandered over and sat in a sort of lolling position. Propping myself up on my elbows. He sighed. I presumed because I’d sat as far away from him as I could without sitting on the floor.

  ‘That reporter claimed the milkshake-related attack was unprovoked,’ said Jack.

  ‘Ugh.’ I threw my head back on the bed. ‘Unprovoked, sure, because every waitress in Manhattan is just waiting to pour milkshake over a customer’s head for no reason.’

  ‘Actually, I think some of them might be,’ said Jack. I smiled up at the ceiling, looked at him out of the corner of my eye and then diverted my gaze back to the yellow coving that had moulded at the corners.

  I frowned. ‘He was going on and on about this investigation he was doing into your life.’

  ‘Investigation? About what?’ The bed shook. Jack edged closer.

  ‘He didn’t say. It was probably just a way of trying to get information out of me. You’re lucky I’m not as cheap as Walt when it comes to being paid off as a source.’ I raised an eyebrow at him and for the first time since we met I saw a look of genuine horror on Jack’s face. I smothered a chuckle.

  ‘Walt…er. Walt told you about that?’

  ‘Discretion and diner customers aren’t exactly compatible concepts, I find.’

  ‘Well, if you weren’t so evasive maybe a man wouldn’t have to go to such lengths to get some answers.’ Jack looked hard into my eyes.

  I resented that comment but tried not to show it. ‘Well, if perfect strangers weren’t so pushy maybe I wouldn’t have to be so cryptic. Boyle found out what happens to men who can’t take “no” for an answer,’ I said, again remembering how he’d looked when I gunged him in milkshake. A wry smile formed on my lips.

  ‘What do you mean?’ Jack was sat cross-legged. Right next to me.

  ‘Oh. It was weird. When I wouldn’t answer his questions he sort of started coming on to me.’ I rubbed my wrist where a small, purple bruise told the story of a struggle.

  ‘What? What did he do?’ Jack’s voice was fiercer than I would’ve expected.

  ‘It was just creepy. He kept asking me to go to dinner with him and wouldn’t shut up about it. He grabbed hold of me at one point.’ Jack was silent. I held my wrist up and showed him the bruise. He ran his finger along the blue mark, pushed his lips together tight and then jerked away as though my skin had delivered an electric shock. ‘Hey, are you OK?’

  ‘Yeah. I just hate men like that.’ He flexed his fists. ‘He’s lucky I wasn’t there. If I’d seen him doing that I’d have punched him.’

  ‘That would’ve been great for your career. Boyle’s already out for dirt on you. I’m not sure punching him in the face would have been the most stellar idea,’ I said. And whilst we were on the subject of punching, was now the time to ask why he’d punched a wall the day we’d first met? It was an act that had long puzzled me but if I asked him a question he might expect me to answer some in return.

  ‘I wouldn’t let anybody hurt you,’ he said, ‘nobody.’ I held eye contact with him for a moment before looking back up at the flaking, beige paint above. It was too late for that, Jack. Far too late. Of course, he didn’t know that. He was busy, stroking through the ends of my tangled hair. My breathing deepened. He inched closer but I kept my eyes fixed upward. If I turned my head our faces would be so close. Too close.

  ‘Esther.’ His voice was a low murmur. I moved my eyes in his direction but not my head. ‘I’ve tried so hard not to want you. Don’t think I haven’t tried.’ My eyes widened. He laid his head down next to mine. His breath warm against my cheek. ‘Esther.’ I tilted my head towards him.

  ‘Jack?’ He didn’t respond. I felt his eyes on me but he said nothing. He was waiting for me to look at him. I turned my head again, staring at his beard and the lips part-hidden beneath. My gaze followed the path along the bridge of his nose until our eyes met. He must have seen in them everything I didn’t want him to see. Dread. Desperation. Desire. I couldn’t hide it any longer.

  ‘Esther,’ he whispered. His fingers traced the outline of my mouth. I closed my eyes, breathing in the scent of bergamot radiating from his body, trying to zone in on how it felt to have his hands on me. A moment later, his mouth followed the lead of his fingers, pressing first against my upper lip, and then the lower. The breath I’d taken in, quivered out. I looked into his eyes. Opened my mouth wider. Again, he kissed my lips one by one but this time our tongues merged, dredging a moan out of both of us. And then, something wild was awakened, triggered by his beard brushing against my skin.

  ‘Jack, oh God,’ I managed to whisper as he kissed down to my chin, along my neck. Running my hands from his shoulders, down along his chest, I began to pull at his shirt. My hands in tight, tense fists, clinging to the material. Holding on to him, and the moment. His fingers journeyed from my hair down to my shoulders before skirting the perimeter of my curves. He then took my hands in his and stretched his arms above us. Pinning me down. Our fingers interlocked, and squeezed as I clinched my legs around his waist. The feeling of his weight on top of me was incredible. His body pressed close against mine. Jack paused just for an instant, gazing deep into my eyes. At first I was as lost as he was in the moment but it was thinking time he probably shouldn’t have given me.

  A memory roused.

  An image of other, crueller hands pinioning my wrists to the bed. The acidic reek of his sweat. Her stiff corpse lying beneath him. Silent. Still. And then, out of nowhere, my voice screamed, ‘No. No. Wait. We can’t!’ I struggled to get free.

  Jack, startled, tried to steady me.

  ‘No, I said no!’ I scrambled to my feet, stood at the end of the bed and folded my arms around myself tight.

  ‘Are you…I mean, did…did I do something wrong?’ Jack was still breathing hard, as was I.

  ‘No.’ I shook my head. Tears filled my eyes. The last thing I wanted was for Jack to think he’d done something wrong when in truth that kiss had been far too right.

  ‘I just. I can’t do this, Jack.’

  ‘But it was…I mean, we were…’ He reached out and put his arms around my waist. Looking into my eyes, he kissed along my hand and up my inner-arm. My shoulders began to loosen again at the softness of his lips but Mr Delaney leered at me from some hidden nook only I could see. I took a step backward. Jack’s whole upper body dropped.

  ‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have let that happen.’ I could feel myself congealing on the spot. Jack looked at me, those wrinkles on his forehead knitting together again. ‘The thing is… The thing is…’ I frowned. If I told him the new life I’d hoped for could never be. Not here. I’d live in Mrs Delaney’s mute shadow forever. Or worse, beneath the steel grey of Mr Delaney’s stare. ‘The thing is, Angela’s a friend to me and you guys have just broken up. It’s not right.’

  ‘But it wa
s never serious between me and Angela –’ he narrowed his eyes ‘– and you’ve known her less than a fortnight.’

  ‘I haven’t known you any longer than I’ve known her,’ I said, trying my hardest to present logical arguments. ‘Isn’t it right I show you both equal courtesy? I mean, aren’t you both human beings?’

  He nodded.

  ‘Well, if you feel that strongly I respect that of course.’ He ran a hand through my hair. ‘I’ll wait for you. But I don’t think Angela…’

  ‘You shouldn’t wait,’ I said, shaking my head at the grey, balding carpet.

  ‘Why not?’

  I didn’t answer.

  ‘You know, if I hadn’t kissed you just a minute ago, I’d suspect you didn’t like me. Certainly you’ve given me enough reason to believe that. But you can’t fake what we just shared, Esther. What am I supposed to think?’ He looked at me and his voice dipped in volume. ‘What are you afraid of? Whatever it is, you can tell me.’ I shook my head. There was a weighty pause. ‘Why are you afraid of happiness?’ Jack said at last.

  ‘I’m not. That’s not true.’ That was true alright but I hated the fact he’d worked it out. I hated that he understood things about me without me even opening my mouth.

  ‘Really? Because potential happiness is right here.’ He tapped his chest. ‘But you … you push it away. Why? Just, talk to me. That’s all I’m asking.’

  ‘I think …’ I looked at him square on. My eyes awash with tears. ‘You need to go now.’

  ‘Esther, wait. I don’t want to leave you like this…’ he said, a note of panic in his voice.

  ‘Oh God, Jack you just need to go. I need you to go. Please.’ I could feel the heat in my face. Any second tears would start falling. And I’d throw myself into his arms and blurt out the whole wretched story. And I couldn’t. I couldn’t. I couldn’t. ‘Go. Please,’ I begged again.

  He stared at me for what felt like an eternity before standing up from the bed and walking over to the door.

  ‘This is a mistake,’ he said, his hand resting on the door handle. He didn’t look at me. He just stood there. Waiting for me to say something. Waiting for me to change my mind. And when I didn’t he hung his head and let himself out, closing the door behind him.

  Chapter Eleven

  I spent most of the next morning moping. Between customers, I sat on a stool shading in the sheets on my waitress pad with a pencil. I started at the edges and worked into the centre until there was just a little speck of white hope in the middle, which I then obliterated, turning it slate grey like the rest of the page. Lucia shook her head almost every time I opened my mouth. When I did, it was to issue some depressing statement or other. Mona treated me like the petulant child I resembled, offering no more than a periodic tut in my direction. Bernie punctuated our brief interactions with snide comments about paying me to serve customers with a smile. In short, I was irritating everyone who gave a damn about me but so what? The cold, dark part of me, the part I’d been trying to strangle and subdue for some months now, wanted an argument. After everything, why shouldn’t I just go mad?

  ‘Hey Esther! I’ve got great news!’ Angela breezed in with an over-sized, red gift bag and a wide grin on her face.

  ‘Thank the Lord,’ said Mona, who was polishing and stacking plates at the end of the counter, ‘we could all use some good news today.’

  ‘What’s wrong?’ asked Angela, her smile fading.

  ‘Nobody knows. But something’s put Esther in a mood and it’s beyond me to drag her out of it.’

  I glanced down at the lino, then over to Angela. Could she tell just from looking into my pale-blue eyes that whatever goodness was left had been drained away?

  ‘I don’t get it.’ She put her bags down on the counter and hopped onto a stool. ‘I thought you’d be happy as a clam.’ The sheer weirdness of this sentence given I’d not been so low in a long time caught my attention.

  ‘Why would I be happy as a clam?’ I almost scowled but did what I could to temper it.

  ‘Oh. She speaks,’ said Mona. I gave her a look out of the corner of my eye but then returned my attention to Angela.

  ‘Well…’ She seemed less sure of herself and looked between me and Mona. ‘I thought … didn’t Jack come and see you yesterday?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, still unsure where this was leading.

  ‘Didn’t he tell you we broke up?’

  I looked at her with a mixture of surprise and curiosity. ‘Yes…he told me but …’

  ‘You broke up. Aw, honey, I’m sorry.’ Mona put a hand on Angela’s arm.

  ‘Oh no, it’s OK. We weren’t exactly a match…but I thought…’ She shook her head.

  ‘What, what did you think?’ I was too exasperated with life to have people talking at me in code.

  ‘Aren’t you and Jack going to get together now?’

  My mouth hung open. A croak curdled at the back of my throat. I waited for words, any words, to make the journey from my brain to my tongue.

  ‘Well, no…’ I managed.

  ‘Oh. I’m sorry. I thought… Jack said he was going to ask you out. I must be speaking out of turn. I’m sorry.’ Her cheeks burned.

  ‘He told you he was going to ask me out?’ I said. Why hadn’t this come up yesterday when I cited Angela as the reason for my reluctance? I guess I didn’t give Jack much of a chance to say anything.

  ‘Yeah. I told him there was a guy at work I was interested in and then he started talking about you.’ She smiled. ‘Well, the second he said it I thought how much more sense it made than me and him being together. Didn’t he ask you out?’

  ‘Not exactly.’

  ‘Not exactly?’ Mona repeated. She’d been watching the conversation between me and Angela like it was a rally at Wimbledon. I was amazed she hadn’t helped herself to some light refreshments so she could better enjoy the display.

  ‘Well…’ I wasn’t sure if I was ready to introduce that delicious, private moment I’d shared with Jack, probably the only one I’d ever share with him, into the public domain.

  ‘Well?’ Mona prompted again.

  ‘Well, it was all a bit of a mess. I was in the bath when he called. Then he told me he’d broken up with Angela…’

  ‘Yeah, then what?’ Mona leant across the counter, almost salivating. She was like a bloodhound when it came to gossip. She knew the juiciest morsel was yet to come.

  ‘We kissed,’ I admitted.

  ‘You did?’ Mona’s face lit up. ‘How’d it happen?’

  ‘It just happened.’ I looked at Angela to gauge her reaction. She had a vague smile on her face and didn’t seem upset that I’d kissed her very recently ex-boyfriend at all. I didn’t understand.

  ‘And…?’ Mona prodded.

  ‘Well, it was…’ I looked down at the ground. ‘It was incredible. But I told him it couldn’t happen. I said you were a friend –’ I indicated to Angela ‘– and that you two had just broken up and it didn’t seem right.’

  ‘But Esther, that’s crazy. I’m the one who started the break-up talk. We weren’t serious. We didn’t even…you know.’ Angela waved her hand around in an odd gesture that I assume was meant to symbolise sexual relations.

  ‘You didn’t? Huh,’ said Mona. I rolled my eyes at her, then looked back at Angela.

  ‘You mean you’re actually in favour of this?’ I asked her.

  ‘Well, things weren’t clicking with me and Jack. I mean, he’s handsome and all but there’s no spark there. Not for me. And you’ve been so kind to me, I wouldn’t stand in your way.’ She smiled.

  ‘I thought you’d feel betrayed.’ I brought a hand to my forehead. I didn’t just think it, I’d been counting on it. ‘It doesn’t matter anyway. I told him it couldn’t happen. He stormed off.’ I shrugged in a ‘whatta you gonna do’ sort of a way, a little tic I’d picked up off Lucia.

  ‘Well, I’m sure it’s fixable. Now you know I don’t mind you can just straighten it all out.’ Angela began to sm
ile again. She thought she was helping.

  ‘I can’t.’ I placed both hands on the counter and leant on them for support.

  ‘Why not?’ asked Angela. I looked at Mona and a silence fell over the three of us.

  ‘It’s…’ Angela tilted her head, sensing I was holding back. I’d have to tell her something. She’d been generous enough to remove the sole, logical barrier to Jack and I being together. ‘I, I had a husband…’ I began.

  ‘Well sure, we know that but what’s that got to do with Jack?’ asked Angela. I took a deep breath and looked at her.

  ‘He died. My husband. He died.’ A pained expression crossed Angela’s face. She looked at Mona and then back at me.

  ‘I’m sorry, Esther.’ Tears swelled in her eyes.

  ‘It’s OK,’ I said. ‘I’ll move on at some point. Just, not yet.’

  ‘How did your husband … did he get sick?’ asked Mona. Should’ve known she’d take this opportunity to dig for a bit more dirt. I sighed. Looked out towards the glass frontage of the diner. Not at anyone or anything in particular, just remembering. Really remembering.

  ‘It was a car crash.’ I felt again the violent swerve of the silver Citroen. Hearing … was it her or me who screamed his name? ‘I survived. And he didn’t,’ I said.

  I survived. And she didn’t.

  Tears began to fall. Mona’s arms wrapped around me. She said something I couldn’t hear over the din of my own thoughts. One thought, actually.

  It was you, Esther. You. All of it. Every second. Everything he did to Mrs Delaney, he really did it to you.

  And what did you do, to him?

  And now his face materialised in my mind’s eye, except it wasn’t his face in life. It was the face of the dead man they zipped up in a bag. His eyes wide and unfeeling. His head marbled with blood and bruising. It hadn’t looked like my husband but a stranger wearing his skin. Cold to the touch. I know because before they packed him away, out of sight, I leant forward and gave him one last kiss. A kiss goodbye, and it was joyous. ‘I’m sorry.’ I dried my tears on a napkin. Angela and Mona would assume I was apologising for sobbing my heart out. I was sorry for so much more than that.