Sunrise in New York

I pulled my head away from her chest and dried my eyes on the sleeve of my sweater dress.

‘You were married?’ Even though Jimmy had already let this slip last night in the diner, I thought it best to look surprised. If Esther found out Jimmy had been talking about her private life behind her back it’d only upset her and that’s the last thing I wanted.

‘To a bad guy,’ Esther said. ‘On the surface, he seemed to be everything a good husband should be. But when nobody was looking he did unspeakable things. To me and to himself.’

‘I’m sorry.’ I rubbed her right arm at the elbow.

‘It’s alright, I’m alright– or, at least, I’m on my way to alright. But what I’m saying is, I’ve lived a life of “shoulds”. In fact, in a weird way, that’s something Michael – my late husband – and I had in common. And it’s not a guaranteed route to happiness. In fact, often it’s quite the opposite.’

I offered a limp smile. ‘Are you saying Jack isn’t the kinda fella who gets too hung up on what he should be doing?’

Esther shook her head and after a minute smiled too. She always had a war with herself over raising a grin. I never did understand that about her.

‘Jack’s impulsive and unpredictable and has a complicated history, if we’re going to be polite about it, but he’s not alone on that score, and he makes me happy. Not everything about our life as a couple is certain, but it doesn’t matter because we’re together and to us that’s all that really matters,’ she explained.

‘So all I gotta do is find true love? That it?’ I smirked at the idea. True love was some far-off, mythical figment right then. She might as well have told me to go off and hunt for a unicorn.

‘No.’ Esther chuckled. ‘You have to decide what you want, that’s it. A relationship with someone else might play a part in that someday but your relationship with yourself is more important. In fact, it’s by far the most important thing.’

‘Difficult to have a relationship with someone you barely know,’ I said, scraping both hands through my hair.

‘Maybe this is your chance to find out who you are.’ Esther raised both eyebrows. ‘Maybe this is a chance to become who you want to be. Rather than some sexed-up persona on the casino stage in Atlantic City.’

Esther had heard me talk so many times, after too many beers, of how I felt I was hiding behind the words and truths of other people. Put me on a stage, give me a song to sing, and I could be somebody. Not myself, but somebody. But take me out of my costume, let me come up with my own words, and I didn’t know who I was or what to say. Off stage, I wasn’t anybody at all. Other than a person nobody really wanted around.

‘Don’t remember you dishing out these philosophical nuggets when you were frying omelettes at the Crystal Cavern Buffet. When did you get so wise?’ I eyed Esther in mock suspicion.

‘Only about two months ago,’ she said. ‘Oh, and please, don’t remind me about that buffet job. People used to waste so much food, and dangle lengths of bacon into their mouths as if they were starving mongrels. Used to make me sick.’

‘People can be pretty disgusting. Especially in a place like Atlantic City,’ I said with a little shiver. Though ‘disgusting’ didn’t even come close to what I saw that night.

‘Hmm,’ Esther agreed, and then shifted her voice back into the business-like tone she’d used with Jack earlier when she was instructing him on what to buy at the store. ‘Right, Jack’s clearly gone shopping to Timbuktu. How anyone strings out a trip to a shop less than a block from the flat the way he does, I’ll never know. Why don’t you get a hot shower whilst you’re waiting? You can borrow my dressing gown and by the time you’ve got yourself sorted I’ll probably have a cup of hot chocolate ready for you. Assuming Faber hasn’t frozen outside in the blizzard.’

‘That all sounds incredible,’ I said, swooning at the very thought of feeling warm inside and out. ‘Except the part about Jack freezing to death, of course.’

Just then, Esther held out her hand. It was such a small gesture. She couldn’t have known what it meant to me. Looking at her hand, I noticed a scar I’d never seen before, just on the inside of the palm where the thumb and the forefinger meet. A dull, red line that marked out some past pain I didn’t know about. Tact may not have been my most obvious quality but I knew better than to ask about it. Instead, I put my hand in hers and she gave it a squeeze. The lower half of my face wobbled but I managed to keep it together this time. I’d cried a lifetime’s worth of tears in the last few days. Enough was enough.

‘Alright.’ Esther jumped up off the mattress, scuttled into the bedroom and returned with a cotton bathrobe in cornflower blue and the softest-looking towels I’d ever seen in my life. ‘Go and relax in the shower, and in the meantime I’ll hunt out some spare bedding for this thing,’ she said, tutting at the way Jack had arranged the cushions and reorganising them into what would, I had to admit, be a far more comfortable formation.

‘Thanks,’ I said, a little smile creeping across my face at how much Esther was enjoying the mothering aspect of this scenario. She smiled in return and rubbed my right arm.

Scooping up the yellow towels and the robe, I headed off to the shower, locked the door behind me and started when I caught my reflection in the mirror.

‘God damn it,’ I said, putting a hand on my heart as if to push it back into the correct position. Would I ever stop seeing a stranger with a blue bob in the mirror? It’s not that it didn’t suit me – it actually looked kinda cute, even if I did say so myself – but I’d had almost twenty-eight years of looking into a mirror and seeing a face framed with flowing brown locks. Before all this I was almost sensible-looking, when I wasn’t on stage. But since – what had Jimmy called it? – my makeover from the Cyndi Lauper school of beauty, I looked a lot more like the wacky idiot I probably was deep down.

I rested my hands either side of the sink and looked my reflection dead in the eye, trying to see past my weird disguise down to the person I really was. A pair of wary green eyes stared back at me. They had an emptiness to them, a despair.

I turned to the shower for a moment, switched on the faucet and sighed at the soft pattering sound the water made. A sound that meant refreshment and relief. That gentle burbling banished the awkward silence that’d been growing between me and my reflection.

I kicked off my shoes and was about to pull my sweater dress over my head when I paused and sighed again. This time, not out of relief. Lowering my arms, I turned, leaned on the sink and looked into the glass.

‘I’m real sorry for gettin’ you into this,’ I said to the woman in the mirror. ‘I’m sorry for so much that I’ve done to you. I haven’t exactly treated you right the last twenty-seven years. Fact is, all I’ve done is hurt you. By being ashamed of you.’ The woman’s eyes came over all watery. ‘But I’m going to change that,’ I said to her, quick as I could, before she turned on the waterworks. ‘It is going to change, Bonnie.’ The woman in the mirror flinched at the sound of me speaking her name out loud. ‘Something has to. You deserve better than what you’ve had.’

I put my hand over my mouth to smother a weak chuckle and I shook my head.

Neat. Talking to yourself in the mirror. That’s always a sign of spectacular mental health.

I looked down into the endless blackness of the plughole and then back up at my reflection, searching for something, any clue to who I really was and what my next step should be.

But the woman in the mirror was giving away nothing.

Maybe Esther was right. That somehow this was an opportunity disguised as a disaster, a wake-up call. Oh boy, it’d been that alright.

I could never go back to my old life in Atlantic City, and I wasn’t wanted back in Detroit. What I was meant to do now, I had no idea.

Chapter Six

The next day at sundown I headed straight to the Starlight Diner as per Esther’s military instructions. She’d made it clear that straggling around Manhattan on your own after dark wasn’t a safe thing to be doing. Said she’d even been mugged once in broad daylight not three streets away from the diner. She’d no idea that I had bigger problems than being ambushed by some two-bit crook after the change in my pocket, but she meant well and, in spite of everything, it was sort of comforting to know she was looking out for me as best she could with the information I’d given her.

Though it was still cold, the snow had stopped falling long enough for me to busk under Washington Square Arch for the best part of the day. There, families had gathered to build snowmen and throw snowballs at each other. I’ll admit, given my own family circumstances, watching loving fathers roll around in the snow with their fresh-faced, moon-eyed daughters was about the last thing I needed. Still, it had been quite a lucrative session in terms of dollars in my guitar case, so I guess I shouldn’t complain. There are certain songs you can play in cities like New York that are bona fide crowd-pleasers, guaranteed to make people stump up a few more bucks for you. ‘Downtown’ by Petula Clark was one of them and ‘Tom’s Diner’ by Suzanne Vega was another. Anything that glorified the urban ant farm they had going on here was sure to boost donations to the Bonnie Brooks Reinvention Fund. I sang my heart out, on and off, for eight hours and made just shy of seventy bucks. Not too shabby for a day’s work.

By the time I reached the diner, it was nearing half past five. Esther’s shift didn’t finish till seven and Jack was in rehearsals for his next movie, some bubblegum action flick called Nowhere Left to Hide. The shoot was mostly happening in a studio lot, somewhere on the Upper East Side, instead of a studio in LA like I would’ve expected, but according to Jack rehearsals often overran and he couldn’t promise what time he’d get home. Thanks to a key shortage, I’d been directed to wait for Esther to finish her shift and walk back to the apartment with her.

The dinnertime rush was in full flow when I walked in. Man, was it ever noisy in there at busy times. I could barely hear the tinny wail of ‘Good Golly Miss Molly’ playing out over the jukebox for all the chattering and cackling of customers having a jolly old time. Esther was buzzing around the joint with arms full of plates while Jean, a waitress with a halo of black curls and a nose speckled with pale freckles, was permitted to carry only one item at a time. This, Bernie had discovered, was the only way of making sure Jean didn’t drop whatever she was carrying before it reached the table. According to Esther, Jean had been on ‘probation’ longer than any server in the history of the Starlight Diner but Bernie didn’t have the heart to fire her.

Despite the rush, Bernie was sitting at the end of the counter near another older gentleman who was engrossed in a copy of the New York Times. To my surprise, the diner owner waved me over. I traipsed across the lino to see what he wanted, lugging my guitar behind me.

‘Bonnie, right?’ said Bernie, his eyes staring just to my left rather than straight at me. They were brown eyes, the colour of hazel, but they didn’t catch the light the way some people’s eyes did. Quite the reverse. There was a dullness about them that was too depressing to look at head on.

‘Right.’ I smiled at Bernie but he didn’t smile back.

‘Esther tells me you’re trying to get a few bucks together and that you know how to play good music.’

‘Yeah, well, I like to think so,’ I put my hands in my jeans pockets and swung my hips round from side to side, not sure why – coyness I guess. Esther liked me to sing to her but she’d always had a glass of gin or two before asking so I’d never been sure if she really took pleasure in what she heard or if it was just a fun distraction after a couple of drinks. Truth be told, she wasn’t that hot at handling liquor.

‘Esther said you play sixties tunes?’ Bernie squinted at me.

‘Well I can play a lotta things. But yeah, I played sixties tunes back in Atlantic City.’

‘Swell. What’re you doing New Year’s Eve?’

‘Uh, probably being evicted from Esther’s apartment for outstaying my welcome, why d’you ask?’ I smiled again, hoping this was funny enough to make a crack in Bernie’s face of stone, but his lips remained level and showed no signs of budging. Was smiling against this guy’s religion or something?

‘Well, we have a little get together at New Year, for staff and regulars only, you understand. Beats going up to Times Square and getting caught up in the crowds. And I… Well, it’s not like I’ve got anything better to do.’

I looked at him and nodded, hinting that I understood what he was getting at there. New York, it seemed, was a city built to house the lonely. I’d visited the city a few times during my studies at Princeton, but the place had a different feel to it when you were busy partying with college buddies, blowing the savings your Dad had squirreled away for books and equipment on cocktails and clothes. Beyond the parties and the nightlife there was a different side to this place. For reasons I couldn’t figure out, it was like a magnet for lost souls. And I was one of them.

‘Anyhow,’ Bernie continued, recognising I didn’t really know how to respond to his last comment. ‘I thought it might be a nice touch to have some live music at the party, if you fancy playing a couple of sets. Sixties music would be a change of pace for us all. The staff get sick of hearing the same songs coming out of the jukebox, they make a point of telling me that every chance they get. Do you think you could play for us?’

‘Sure, sounds like fun.’ I shrugged.

‘How much?’ Bernie’s eyes narrowed for a second time.

‘What?’

‘How much will it cost?’

‘Oh, uh, well obviously I’d give you the friends and family rate. Seventy-five bucks?’ I would take fifty but best to start the haggling high.

‘Seems reasonable,’ Bernie said, though his tone made it seem as though he didn’t think the terms were reasonable at all.

‘Well, alright, great. You got some particular songs in mind?’

‘I’ll write a list and pass it on to Esther tomorrow. That’ll give you about three days to practise before the party. That enough time?’ he asked.

‘It should be plenty, I probably know them anyway. Any I don’t know, I’ll practise them when I’m out busking.’ Though he didn’t invite me to do so, I didn’t have anyone else to sit with and decided to take the seat next to his.

As I did, the other older gentleman to my left piped up. ‘Excuse me, did I just hear you’re a musician?’

‘Uh, yeah,’ I said, shaking off my leather jacket.

‘Bonnie, Walt, Walt, Bonnie,’ said Esther, who’d come over, notebook in hand, probably to find out what I wanted to eat.

‘Can you tell me the answer to this crossword question I couldn’t get this morning?’ said Walt, looking at me over the top of his spectacles. ‘It’s about music.’

‘Well, I can try.’ I smiled, wondering if the guy started all his conversations this way. He moved a veiny hand over to his paper and his finger hovered over the words as he read.

‘Debut single by The Police released 1978. Seven letters.’

‘One word?’

‘Yup.’

‘Well, that’ll be “Roxanne”.’

‘Oh yeah,’ Esther said, and stared hard at Walt. ‘You ask me the book questions and Bonnie the music questions. Do you do any of that crossword by yourself?

‘Sure I do. The sports.’ Walt chuckled whilst carefully filling in the word ‘Roxanne’ in neat block capitals.

Esther rolled her eyes and shook her head at the same time. This was her ultimate non-verbal put-down, but Walt seemed unfazed by it and she soon turned her attentions back to me. ‘You want something to eat? Lucia’s nearly on top of all the orders we’ve got and I can get yours in the queue.’

‘Yeah, I’ll get a hamburger with a side of fries.’ I said, thinking about how good it had tasted to sink my teeth into Jimmy’s burger the first night I came here. And then a little collage of images flickered through my mind, replaying my time back at his apartment. In particular, the moment he pulled my body so tight against his…

‘Are you alright?’ Esther asked, raising an eyebrow at me. ‘You look very red in the face.’

‘Do I?’ I said, pressing my knuckles flat against my cheeks to check my temperature. Oh God. So now just thinking about Jimmy made me go traffic-light red? Life really wasn’t being fair to me lately. ‘That’s weird, I don’t exactly feel overheated after a day out in the snow.’

‘I hope you’re not coming down with something,’ said Esther, a hint of suspicion still lingering in her voice.

‘Oh, I’m sure I’m not,’ I said, and although I wouldn’t have thought it was possible I could feel myself getting redder. ‘I just need a hot drink to warm up properly. Could I get a coffee too?’

‘Alright, anything for you two?’ Esther looked between Bernie and Walt but they both shook their heads so she trooped off back towards the kitchen.

Bernie looked at me a moment and then stared down at the counter. He shuffled in his seat and fidgeted with a ballpoint pen. Alright. Looked like I was going to have to do the heavy lifting when it came to conversation around here.

‘So Bernie, how long have you had this place?’ I asked, starting with something simple.

‘Opened her up in sixty-four,’ he said and then zipped up his mouth again.

Boy, this was going to be hard work. Still, I had some time to kill. Esther’s shift didn’t finish for another hour and a quarter.

‘Fifties places must have been something of a rarity in the sixties,’ I said, frowning at the idea. Something about it seemed a little screwy. But then, something about this guy seemed a little screwy too.

‘Oh yeah, a few people thought I was nuts opening a fifties joint not even five years into the next decade,’ he shrugged.

‘But you did it anyway,’ I said, looking around at the rows of milkshake glasses sparkling on the shelves and the refrigerator stocked high with pies.

‘Yeah, well, the early sixties was what you might call a turbulent time, and I just got a feeling, the way a guy gets sometimes, that things weren’t gonna get any better. And for the most part I was right. Looking back sure is a lot easier than looking forward.’

‘Both seem equally painful to me.’ I said, without even thinking about it. My shoulders stiffened. I looked at Bernie out of the corner of my eye. He was staring at me, hard. Damn it, Bonnie, couldn’t you just talk about something light, like how bad the Lions were faring this season?

‘Esther says you’re from Detroit,’ Bernie said, the way so many people did. It was no secret that the golden age of Motor City was well and truly in the past. The city’s reputation for violence was second to none, which made people a bit wary when talking about it. They never offered an opinion on the place, as it was likely to cause offence.

‘Born and raised.’ I issued my standard response, shaking a second sugar packet, ripping at the seal and pouring it into my drink. I wouldn’t normally take so much sugar but it had been sub-zero outside and I needed some kind of energy boost.

‘You not got any folks out there?’

‘Oh yeah, they’re out there.’ I took a sip of my coffee even though it was still too hot to drink and winced at the sting.

‘You didn’t wanna spend the holidays with them?’

Alright, this was getting real personal, real fast. How’d that happen? I turned my head to look at Bernie square on. His brown eyes shifted from side to side; it was like he didn’t want to be seen. I could relate to that well enough and looked away, staring at an old tin advert for an ice-cream float telling me to ‘add some flavour to my day’.

‘It’s not that I don’t want to be there.’ I pressed my index finger to the top of the coffee cup and followed the edge right around until my hand had travelled a full circle. ‘It’s more that I’m not exactly welcome at the moment. My old man ain’t too keen on having a failing musician as a daughter.’

‘Who does he want? Madonna?’

‘No.’ I chuckled without expecting to, but then the whole area around my mouth tightened. How did I make this sound casual? That I’ve never really quite been the person my Dad hoped I’d be. Not even close. ‘My little sister, Karen, she’s a pharmacist,’ I started, trying to find a way into the topic and hold myself together. ‘Draws a regular wage. Married a grocer by the time she was twenty-four as though it was the easiest thing in the world. She just slots right in without even thinking about it. Guess lightning doesn’t strike twice in the same family.’ I squeezed my lips hard against one another, desperate to make sure the talk about why I couldn’t run home to my family didn’t turn into talk about what I was running from.

It was at Karen’s wedding the summer before last that I started to realise just how much of an outsider I was, even in a room filled with my own blood relatives. I’d always felt it on some level, of course, but that day it was made explicit. My own mama asked me to lie to people about what I did for a living. Asked me to tell folk I was a music teacher, not singing in some seedy casino bar every night. It was then I realised that the thing I was most afraid of in the whole world was actually true: my own family were ashamed of me. It wasn’t at all what they had planned for me when they packed me off to Princeton to study music. They were embarrassed by their own daughter, and last December I’d finally had the guts to confront them over it. That was the last conversation I’d had with them and right now it felt like the last conversation I would ever have with them.

‘Well, I don’t know much about family, kid. Not in the blood sense of the word anyways,’ said Bernie.

‘Your parents not around anymore?’ This was a pretty personal question, but I’d given this guy quite a lot. Certainly more than he’d given me. His whole face tensed and for the first time since the conversation started, he looked at me straight. Level. No darting eyes or fidgeting with his pen.

‘Papi died in Korea. Mami didn’t live to see the seventies. She did live to see me get married but me and Rita ain’t together no more.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘So am I.’

‘You didn’t have any kids?’

‘Naw, never got a chance.’ I looked at Bernie out of the corner of my eye. He gulped and his face was clouded with whatever he was thinking about.

‘Tell me to mind my own business, anytime. I won’t take it to heart. I seem to be an expert at saying the wrong thing, but… I’ve never really been sure about marriage, though I’ve never really been in a position to wonder about it. Are you glad you got married?’

Bernie turned and looked at me again, and then his eyes were back on his pen. ‘I don’t regret it, if that’s what you’re asking. It was the right thing to do.’

‘How did you know it was right?’

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