Helen Cox - Starlight in New York

‘Sure. Fifties music is so cute and retro.’

Jack nodded and pressed his lips together. ‘Can I buy two tickets, Mona?’

‘Sure honey, I’ll add it to your cheque.’

I looked over at Jack and Angela and thought ahead to the night of the hop. They’d come together. I’d have to watch them laughing and dancing, knowing that if things were different I might have taken her place.

It was in this not so very special moment that I hatched a plan to avoid anymore suspicion from Mona over my feelings for Jack. She could see my strong aversion to him was a cover-up for the fact I found him… well, intriguing. The obvious solution was to stop being so sensitive about it. If Jack was in a relationship with someone else, there wasn’t any danger of anything happening between us. And if there was no chance of him making a move then what harm would it do to be pleasant? He had a gorgeous twenty-something at his side and, in his own words, thought I was psycho. He wasn’t interested in me – which made things easier and meant I could get Mona off my back.

I looked over to him once again. Shovelling the last morsels of pancake into his mouth. Nodding at something Angela was explaining. He noticed me, looking. Instinct diverted my eyes down to the counter but, realising I no longer had to worry about the little things, I raised my eyes again to meet his, which were still fixed on me. I smiled the smallest of smiles and he mirrored my expression as he chewed his food with a vague grin on his face.

‘Esther? Hello?’ Bernie’s voice sliced through my thoughts. ‘You gonna clear table six, or what?’

‘Yes. Sorry,’ I said, snapping out of contemplation mode. I’d just started stacking the plates onto a tray and washing down the plastic, gingham table cover when, out of nowhere, I heard the last thing I was ever expecting to hear.

‘Mrs Delaney? Is that you?’ A familiar voice sounded out across the diner. I hadn’t been called by that name in almost two years. Everyone at the counter looked my way. I froze, my eyes widened and I turned.

Stood before me, as though collaged into my New York existence, were Sandra and David Rutherford. I’d taught their daughter about four years ago. Isabella struggled with English throughout her secondary education, meaning we’d all sat through a number of parent/teacher conferences to discuss solutions. Now I thought about it, they were the sort of couple who were always tanned from some expensive, foreign getaway. This year, it seemed, they’d chosen to trip off to Manhattan for a few weeks. There they stood, at the till, ordering takeaway coffees from Bernie.

Sandra hadn’t asked for a restyle at the hairdresser’s in the last five years; she had the same mousey, shoulder-length bob she wore back when I knew her in England. She still favoured loose, baggy tops around three sizes too big and her smile was just as placid. She never could quite bring herself to reveal her teeth. In that respect, David was her opposite. His teeth hung too far over his bottom lip making his face lopsided, goofy.

Hi …’ I managed but that’s all I managed. I stumbled forward. The tray of crockery slid from my hands. I heard the shatter. I saw their mouths drop open but couldn’t react myself. The world hazed. A toxic green cloud fell over me and the last thing I remember is reaching out for the back of a chair before everything went dark. Mona later relayed, many times over to anyone who would listen, that I’d missed the chair and fallen hard to the floor. Both Alan and Jack, realising I was going to faint, tried to get to me in time and failed.

The first thing I was aware of after the blankness was the sound of Jack, Walt and Alan discussing how to wake me up … followed by the sharp scent of bourbon.

‘Will this work?’ asked Alan.

‘Guaranteed. If it worked in Nam, it’ll work here,’ Walt replied.

‘She fell so hard,’ Jack said. Their voices were backed by a chorus of chattering customers. All of whom, I could hear, were gossiping about me: the ‘little lady who’d taken a fall’. They didn’t hear me beg but every cell in my body screamed for a way out. Don’t wake me. Please. Let me stay here. Somewhere between this world and the next. Where I don’t have to answer questions. Don’t have to avoid your eye. Or remember. What he did to her. What I did to him …

Then, there was a sting as something strong and alcoholic wafted up my nostrils. My eyes jolted open.

‘Easy, easy…’ said Alan. Squinting up at the three concerned faces staring down at me, I tried to sit up. That was a mistake. I cried out with the pain. ‘Give yourself a second, I know you’re tough but you took quite a fall,’ Alan added. I offered him a feeble smile for talking to me as he would a child who’d braved an injection at the doctor’s.

‘Is my head big?’ I croaked. ‘It feels too big.’

‘You’ve got a bit of a bump but otherwise your head is pretty much the size it should be,’ Jack said. ‘Can you sit up now?’

‘I think so,’ I replied, and, with less grace than I would’ve liked, I did.

Alan smiled. ‘You’re having quite a week.’

‘Yes. I wrote my dissertation on being a magnet for trouble. I’m OK,’ I said as they helped me up into a chair. I put a hand to my head. Dizzy and bruised, not to mention mortified, I sat as still as I could in the hope the room would stop spinning. The Rutherfords stood just yards away, red-faced at being the root cause of this ruckus. ‘I’m so sorry to have frightened you,’ I called over to them. They inched closer.

‘We didn’t mean to shock you,’ said Sandra, taking her time over every word, as though any utterance might send me into another faint.

‘You didn’t. Not at all,’ I lied. ‘I’ve just, I haven’t been eating properly or looking after myself. Seeing you was just an added surprise my body wasn’t expecting. You mustn’t blame yourselves.’ I flashed them my most convincing smile.

‘I almost didn’t recognise you in that uniform,’ said David. ‘Given up teaching, have you?’

‘No, er yes.’ I was conscious of the regulars watching, and listening. ‘I … I decided to take a break. You know, from the responsibilities of teaching.’

‘Oh. After… I mean we heard about –’ Sandra began.

‘Yes,’ I interrupted. ‘Fresh start.’ Sandra nodded. David looked as vacant as ever. ‘So, you in New York for long?’ I asked, hoping the answer was something along the lines of ‘we’re just on our way to the airport to catch a flight home’.

‘Coupla weeks,’ David said. ‘Just on our way to the Empire State Building but we read about this place and thought we’d give it a quick look. It’s rather something, isn’t it?’

‘It is. Life’s simpler in the fifties.’ I smiled. David pointed a finger at me and laughed, then an awkward silence fell over us. ‘How’s Isabella?’ I asked, desperate to fill the silence with something. Sandra understood me but David could start blabbing on about the late Mr and Mrs Delaney in front of the whole diner gang at any moment.

David beamed. ‘Oh, she’s fantastic. She got a graduate position in the city and is busy working her way up the banking ladder.’