Helen Cox - Starlight in New York

I shrugged. ‘Well, I’ve been on the planet a lot longer than you so I’ve had more time to absorb.’ She laughed but Jack didn’t find my comment so amusing. He’d sussed that although I was being kind to Angela it was also a sly dig at his choice to date a woman who was, at a guess, a good ten years his junior.

Mona came over with Jack and Angela’s breakfast. I had to admire Angela’s willpower: next to Jack’s pancakes, the fruit salad looked paltry. Still, she had her reward. Her waist was tiny. She chewed her food in small, mousey movements that betrayed a certain self-consciousness about eating in public, despite her enviable figure.

Mona smiled as the doorbell chimed. ‘There’s my man.’ Her husband, Alan, always came to visit on Wednesdays, taking a short break from his beat along Broadway. She glided over and gave him a peck on the lips.

‘Mornin’, jelly bean. How about some coffee?’ Mona stroked his beard, which was trimmed close to his face, took off his hat and laid it on the counter. Alan, I’d gleaned from Mona’s numerous rants, had a tendency to bring police business home with him and the removal of his hat was a well-worn ritual between them that signified he was off duty. Shop talk was off limits.

‘I’ll get that for you, Alan,’ I said, desperate for a distraction from the almost non-stop smooching Jack and Angela were engaged in. Alan took a seat next to Walt. I poured his coffee.

‘Heard you got mugged last week,’ Alan said.

I stiffened. Mona had spoken to him even though I’d told her not to.

‘Alan Montgomery,’ Mona interjected, laying her hands down heavy on the counter. ‘Where is your hat?’ Alan looked like a school boy who’d been caught stealing the milk money.

‘On the counter.’

‘And what does that mean?’

‘I was askin’ for purely personal reasons. I care about Esther so it don’t count as shop talk,’ he tried.

Mona pursed her lips and put a hand on her hip but Lucia called out one of her order numbers so she was unable to monitor the situation any longer.

‘So, what happened?’ Alan hissed at me with wide eyes. Jack looked over at this. I caught his eye and wondered if he was thinking, as I was, about the morning we met.

‘I’m not encouraging you,’ I whispered, checking to see if Mona was stood anywhere behind me. ‘It was nothing anyway. Just some kids.’ I rubbed my head where the cut was still healing.

‘You know you should have reported it,’ he said, feeling bold enough to raise his hiss to a murmur.

‘Come on, Alan.’ I smiled. ‘I know you’ve got better things to do than look for the eighteen dollars they took from me.’

‘It’s not just that. If they’re doing it to you they’re probably doing it to others.’ Then he added with a smile, ‘Maybe folk who aren’t as scrappy as you.’ I let out a short laugh whilst wracking my brain for some surreptitious way to change the subject.

‘Really Alan, it’s not worth your time,’ I tried again, unable to think of anything else.

‘Did they hurt you?’

‘No.’ Jack still had an eye on me. Was that concern imprinted on his face? ‘One of them hit me across the head but it wasn’t designed to knock me out. Or if it was they need to lift a few more weights. They were just trying to scare me so I’d hand over what I had.’

‘Were they armed?’ Alan glanced over to the kitchen. There was something adorable about the fact he looked down the barrel of a gun without a second thought but was scared of his wife who was a mere two inches taller than my modest five foot three stature.

‘Only with knives.’ I gave him the loosest shrug in my armoury.

‘Well, that’s bad enough. You should still report it.’

‘OK, Alan, I’ll think about it.’ There was no way I was going anywhere near a police station of my own accord but I had to find a way to pacify him.

‘Good.’ He sipped his coffee and, aware that Mona would be walking past any minute, changed the subject of his own free will. ‘How’s it goin’, Walt?’

‘Alright,’ he said, and then pointed his thumb at Jack and Angela who’d resumed kissing. ‘Except this gal over here might need surgery. She’s got some guy stuck to her face.’ Walt looked at me with a sparkle in his eye and erupted into a bout of childish laughter. His hooting was so infectious I wound up joining in, releasing some of the inner-tension Alan’s probing had stirred.

Our outburst scattered the lovebirds.

‘I didn’t know it was even possible you could laugh like that,’ Jack remarked.

‘Well,’ I said, straightening my face after his dig, ‘maybe I don’t find you so funny.’

‘Mona! Esther!’ Bernie shouted from his perch. ‘Would you come over here and stop clowning around? I’ve got matters to discuss.’ Mona, who’d come back over to find out what the commotion was, exchanged a look of tetchiness with me before we sauntered over to where he was sitting. Lucia was due a night off, which meant he’d have to work the late shift in the kitchen, a fact guaranteed to make him even more of a grouch than usual.

‘What’s up, Bernie?’ asked Mona.

‘The week after next, instead of working here I’m taking you to get fitted for the hop. Let’s say the Thursday, that’s the 22 nd. It’s usually quiet in the afternoon so we’ll shut up shop for an hour and head up to midtown.’

‘Sorry, what do you mean fitted?’ I asked. I knew about the annual event Bernie hosted at the diner. A night where all the chairs and tables were cleared away to make dance space for a vintage party, during which he piped fifties music over the jukebox until late. Bernie made more in one night than he usually did in two weeks. I’d no idea, however, there were any special requirements of us as waitresses.

‘Every year Bernie buys the waitresses a new dress for the hop. You get to keep it. They’re cut in the fifties style so they’re always glam. It’s sorta like a bonus,’ said Mona.

‘That’s really kind, Bernie.’ I smiled thinking about how long it had been since I’d had anything new that wasn’t a second-hand book.

‘Well, people spend more on the night if there’s a bit of flesh on show,’ Bernie explained.

‘Flesh?’

‘Don’t you worry, honey. He’s talking in comparison to our diner uniforms. Modest amount of cleavage. A flash of leg. Nothing you wouldn’t put on show if you were going to any other party,’ said Mona before looking back at Bernie. ‘You payin’ for our hair and make-up this year? I loved the way they curled my hair last time.’

‘You’ll get the works,’ Bernie replied without a smile. ‘Just make sure those tickets sell out by the end of the week.’

‘Not a problem.’ Mona did a quick calculation in her head. ‘We’ve only got ten left.’

‘When is the hop, Mona?’ asked Jack who, having extracted himself from Angela’s lips, had been listening in.

‘It’s two weeks today, Saturday 25th. Tickets are twenty bucks.’ she replied.

Jack turned to Angela. ‘Do you want to go?’