Helen Cox - Starlight in New York

‘Nothin’…’ He continued to cut his omelette into small pieces, looking at me over the top of his glasses.

I pressed my lips together and switched on the blender. The blades clattered and churned. Once pulverised, I delivered the milkshake to a sulky kid who didn’t even have the manners to say ‘thank you’.

‘Might’ve told him you like books but he could have guessed that for himself,’ Walt admitted once I was back behind the counter.

‘Look, I don’t interfere in your personal lives so I’d appreciate you paying me the same courtesy.’ I glanced between him and Mona.

‘Well, excuse us.’ Mona put her hands on my shoulders and gave me a little shake from side to side. ‘We were just concerned that if we didn’t interfere you might never have a personal life.’

I looked at her, fighting a smile. ‘The wall-punching egotist with no understanding of personal space, that’s your idea of boyfriend material?’

‘What makes you think he’s an egotist?’ said Mona.

‘All actors are egotists.’ Our resident lady in red glanced over again from her corner. She had the hood pulled up on her sweater but I could still see her face was drawn, like she’d been fretting over something for a long, long time. As soon as she realised I’d noticed her, she again lowered those deep, green eyes and stared into her coffee. She wasn’t a regular. Knowing my luck she was also an actress and I’d just lost my tip.

‘Really? You’re protestin’ an awful lot,’ said Mona, drawing my attention away from the stranger.

‘Mona, come on… I’m serious.’

‘Hey Esther. Here’s one for you.’ Walt scanned along the crossword clues with the nib of his pen. The tip of his tongue poking out of his mouth as he did so.

‘You think after you gave sensitive information to the enemy I’m going to give you crossword answers?’ Quite a cruel thing to say to a Vietnam veteran, I admit, but a point had to be made. Hard as it was being alone, my life was complicated enough without these two stirring things up. ‘He didn’t even torture it out of you,’ I added.

Walt’s face contorted. ‘No. He gave me twenty bucks,’ he admitted.

‘What?’

‘He gave me twenty bucks to tell him what I knew about you. And I don’t know that much so, if you think about it, I played your enemy for a fool.’

He tried to snigger but I wasn’t amused. What kind of person paid an old man to get information about somebody they’d just met? Nice try, Faber. The drawbridge was up so you went in search of a rope to throw over the wall. Of course, I was already hiding behind the parapet, poised to cut you down with my sharp tongue. ‘Alright,’ I said, as Walt was starting to pout. ‘What’s the clue?’

‘Novel. 1938. First line: Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again.’ The conspiratorial smile returned to the old man’s face.

‘Oh, come on, Walt. You must know that one,’ I said. ‘Haven’t you watched any Hitchcock films in your time?’

‘Too busy watching baseball. You know it, don’t ya?’ He pointed his pen at me.

‘ Rebecca .’ Walt checked the spacing in his puzzle and nodded.

‘What’s your story, kid? One day you gotta tell me.’

‘Once upon a time I lived in England.’ I replenished the napkin holders along the counter as I spoke. ‘Then I got a job cooking omelettes in an all-you-can-eat-buffet in Atlantic City. Then I became a waitress in New York. The end.’

‘Gotta be more to it than that.’ He squinted, taking a sip of his coffee.

‘Well, knowing how cheap it is to buy information off you it’s best I keep the rest to myself.’

Walt grunted and returned to his crossword.

‘What’s with you?’ said Mona. ‘Why you so cagey ’bout everything? Particularly round fellas. You haven’t had one date since you moved here.’

‘I’ve got my reasons.’

‘Yeah, I’m listening.’ Mona stared at me hard. Waiting.

‘I’ve seen what men can do. That’s all.’ Mona raised an eyebrow, and my shoulders tensed. I knew that look. That eyebrow wouldn’t budge till I spoke again. ‘I knew someone, alright? Back in England. A woman. And her husband hurt her, really bad.’

‘Gawd, what he do to her?’ said Mona.

‘She died because of him.’ I folded my arms. Something about that last sentence wasn’t quite right. Wasn’t true. But it felt it. Deep down.

‘That’s awful.’ Mona shook her head. The lie scuttled down the back of my neck, making the hairs stand on end.

‘Yeah. She should’ve got out. I mean, she tried but she should’ve tried harder. Sooner.’ In fairness to Mrs Delaney, she did struggle the first time. But never again. Never again until the day she died.

‘That’s real sad, it is,’ said Mona, ‘but honey, not all men are like that, y’know?’

‘Why risk it?’ I said, catching sight of Walt’s paper. The city murder rate hit its peak that year and the headlines grieved the dead in black, dismal ink. Most of us had learnt to numb out the latest atrocity but that day’s story wasn’t the kind you just shrug off. Printed on the front page of The Times was a picture of a little girl. Back then we knew her only as Baby Hope. The image was a reconstruction of what experts thought she looked like. No one could tell from the corpse alone. It’d been a month since the police found her body decomposing in a cooler. They still hadn’t identified her. I read her story. Each word, a punch in the gut. Before her murder, the four year-old had been tortured, and raped.

I scrunched my eyes shut and leant on the counter. Blistering tears burned behind my eye sockets, and for a moment the world seemed darker and far away.

‘Er, Esther? You alright?’ I heard Mona say. I nodded. The bell above the doorway chimed. Only then did I risk opening my eyes, swivelling to see who it was. My shoulders relaxed when I realised it was just Julie-Ann, a wannabe writer in her forties who, thanks to three separate alimony pots, was a self-made lady of leisure. She came to the diner a few times a week to gossip and to work on her novel. In my limited experience gossip always took precedence. According to Mona, she’d been working on her book for over six years. The consensus was she’d never finish it.

‘Hi Julie-Ann,’ I called over trying to blot out what I’d just read, and felt. ‘Can I get you some coffee?’

‘Oh, yes please. Definitely need a caffeine hit this morning. Had a late night – if you know what I mean.’ She took a seat and toyed with the ends of her hair which was permed into corkscrew tendrils and dyed with a colour she called ‘Deadly Nightshade’. To me, it just looked black. She was somewhat dishevelled which was unusual for her. The silk of her purple jumpsuit was creased. Her thick eyeliner blurred at the edges.

‘Was last night the night?’ Mona butted in. She was always first in line for customer tittle-tattle. ‘You even been home?’

‘I needed a coffee first.’ Julie-Ann gave in to an impish grin. She’d known she could cause a stir if she added the diner to her ‘walk of shame’ route map. ‘Last night he took me out to Staten Island for Mexican food, then we sat out looking over the water beneath the stars.’ Julie-Ann beamed. ‘I tell you, this is love. I feel like Barbra Streisand, you know, and Robert Redford in that movie.’