Helen Cox - Starlight in New York

‘I can wait.’ Walt again waved his hand. I glared at him. He smirked, lowering his eyes back to the paper. Sighing, I turned to the frowner; I raised both eyebrows and tilted my head, signposting to this socially blunt individual that if he had something to say, he should say it now.

‘I just wondered what brought you to New York?’ His tone was airy and he leaned in close as he spoke, the way an old friend might. The scent of bergamot emanated from his body. It was distracting.

‘The affordable housing and the predictable weather,’ I replied. He laughed. I didn’t. ‘Look, I’m busy, OK?’

Busy trying to hide. Busy trying to breathe and smile and forget.

‘Oh. OK. Suppose I might see you tomorrow.’ His gaze was steady but at these words my eyes flared wide.

‘Tomorrow?’

‘Yeah, this is my new local place,’ the frowner explained. ‘I just moved in on Ludlow Street.’

‘Well, the restaurant where they shot the orgasm scene in When Harry Met Sally is just a few doors down. Maybe that should be your new local place.’ I gave him a patronising pat on the arm. He looked down at my hand which sat content just below his elbow. I followed his gaze and then snatched my hand away. Making physical contact. How could I be so stupid?

The frowner smiled. ‘Actually, I think I’m going to stick with the diner where the waitresses feel comfortable saying the word “orgasm” to a total stranger.’

‘Well,’ I said, collecting empty glasses off the counter, ‘I think that says a lot more about you than it does the waitresses.’

He rubbed the side of his jaw, no doubt trying to think of some dazzling retort.

‘Hey Esther,’ Walt butted in, ‘here’s one for you.’ He looked down at The Times crossword and read, ‘Generally accepted as Shakespeare’s longest play.’

‘ Hamlet ,’ I replied without a blink. Walt checked the paper and then pointed his pen at me.

‘How’d you know that?’ He looked at me sidelong.

‘It’s a very well-known fact,’ I said. ‘Probably helps I’m from the same country as Shakespeare. It’s the sort of thing that seeps in through the amniotic fluid.’

‘Ugh.’ Walt grunted. ‘Do you have to talk about all that woman crap when I’m about to eat?’

‘All part of the service.’ I smiled. The frowner chuckled, joining in the joke. I’d almost forgotten he was there. My smile faded and I tried to dodge around him. I moved left and so did he. I stepped right and still he was in my way. After a few moments of this uneasy dance he placed both hands on my arms and lifted me clean off the ground. There wasn’t time to shrink away or sidestep. My whole body stiffened in the time it took him to plant me on the other side of where he was standing.

‘That is the weirdest thing anybody has ever done to me,’ I said, breathing harder than I’d like and adjusting my glasses back into their usual resting place.

‘Well, you haven’t been in New York very long.’ Walt cackled. His laugh had a sort of clatter to it, like an old, broken washing machine on full spin.

‘Can’t be any weirder than getting mugged. Are you OK?’ asked the frowner.

At his question, I once again felt the sickening lurch of being shoved to the ground. The knife, pointing at my throat. I should’ve been scared. Should’ve cried. Should’ve begged. But instead, I just remembered… Would I ever forget? The things he did to her . Rubbing at the small, white notch she’d worn into my ring finger, I thought again about Mrs Delaney. Hours she’d stood, in the doorway of their living room, twisting the gold around and around. Whilst he’d slouched in his armchair, watching Saturday afternoon darts on TV, she’d pictured the miraculous day when she’d slip her twenty-two carat collar.

I glanced into the frowner’s eyes. There was a velvet softness to the blue of them I’d been doing my best to ignore.

My hands were shaking.

I looked down at them and his eyes lowered too, watching them jitter.

‘I’m sorry, I…’ he began.

‘I’m fine,’ I snapped.

‘You’re not fine.’ His voice was firm but there was no mistaking his concern. ‘You’ve been mugged and you haven’t so much as sat down. You need help. You’re shaking…’

He thought it was because of the mugging. Well, what else would he think? I let my eyes stray once again into his.

‘Order up!’ Lucia, our grill girl, shouted.

‘I’ve got to get on. I’m busy.’ I turned and walked away.

‘Hey!’ The frowner called after me, and I sighed. ‘I’m Jack by the way.’

I nodded and pointed to my name badge in response.

‘So I’ll see you tomorrow?’

‘Oh-kay.’ I whirled into the kitchen, safe in the knowledge I was working the late shift, rather than breakfast, the next day.

‘Walt wants his usual,’ I called over to Lucia, who was a big, square block of a woman. She was fiddling with a small transistor radio which, in a fifties-themed diner, was our only portal to modern-day chart music. Bernie only permitted it if we kept the volume low so as not to ruin the ‘illusion of stepping back in time’. Lucia clapped and giggled to herself when she found a station playing New Kids on the Block. Not my favourite but preferable to hearing Sinead O’Connor warble out ‘Nothing Compares 2 U’, yet again. It had to be one of the most depressing songs ever written and radio stations loved it. Especially early on a Monday when they knew you’d already be in the depths of misery.

Mona pushed through the swing doors with a knowing look on her face.

‘What?’ I asked. I knew what and so did she. Nothing got past Mona.

‘You don’t know who that was, do ya?’ Though she was only three years my senior, Mona had a way of standing that made me feel like she was my mother. A hand on her hip and a slouch in one leg.

‘Who?’

‘You know who.’ She leaned against the work surface and folded her arms. ‘That dreamboat who was trying to talk to you and who you was bein’ rude to. Didn’t recognise him myself at first, on account of that beard he was wearing.’

‘I was not rude,’ I said, playing with the strings on my apron. ‘I was…curt. Maybe.’

‘Well, you was just curt to Jack Faber.’

‘Is that name supposed to connote something to me?’

‘Connote?’ Mona shook her head. ‘That’s another one for the chart, Lu.’

When I started at The Starlight Diner five months ago, ‘Esther’s Fancy Word Chart’ was imaginary. A joke between Mona and Lu about the snobbish English woman Bernie had hired. Over the months, however, the chart had evolved into a real thing. Or, at least, into the back of an old bakery invoice tacked to the wall.

‘This Faber guy famous?’ Lucia asked once she’d scrawled the latest ‘fancy word’ on the chart. ‘Knew I shoulda put make-up on this morning.’

‘No make-up required, Lu. Our Esther don’t wear even a lick of mascara. She got his attention alright.’ Mona grinned but I refused to rise to her teasing.