Authors: Susan Wingate
“Hi, honey. Want some lunch?”
Vanessa beamed at her daughter. But, Roberta’s face remained hard. She didn’t
say anything and so I decided it was better to leave them alone.
“She acts like she owns the
place!” Roberta huffed quietly.
“Well, she does, Roberta.”
Vanessa kept counting her till.
“Not all of it. That’s how she
acts.” Her scowl accentuated her words.
“She owns half, Roberta. I think
that gives her the right to act the part, don’t you?”
“She’s a bitch.”
“Christ, Roberta. What’s eating
you today? Keep your voice down.”
Roberta huffed and set her purse
on the counter.
“Aren’t you supposed to be at
work?” It was a Wednesday—the middle of the week.
“I took the day off.” Roberta
fidgeted inside her purse and then pushed it forward nearer the cash register.
“I heard a big corporation is looking to buy some land around Sunnydale. They
want to put in a fancy tourist attraction along this corridor. Right here too.”
“What are you talking about? I
haven’t heard anything.”
“That’s because you hide your
head in the sand. You don’t watch TV, you don’t read the local paper. You never
go out! You do a great impersonation of an ostrich, mother.” Her face looked
accusatory.
Vanessa reacted in her own
defense. “TV is all commercials, sex, and violence; and the newspaper here is
like a
high school paper. Anyway, why
are you picking on me all
of the sudden?
Get off my back Roberta. Talk to me like an adult or else leave.”
“I just heard about the land and
wondered if you had heard anything.”
“No. I haven’t. And, until I hear
otherwise I’ll just believe its some rumor. Now, I’m busy. Go for a walk or
something,
Roberta. I can’t believe you
took the day off to talk to me about this.” Vanessa’s voice rose in a way
that sounded more like a question than a
comment. Roberta
pulled at her purse,
grabbed a folding mirror out of it and
checked her face. She wiped at the corner of her mouth and coughed
slightly. She closed the mirror and slipped it into the zippered compartment of
her handbag. Roberta looked solemnly into her mother’s eyes.
“Rick and I are splitting.”
“What?”
“He told me last week when he
handed me separation papers and a property settlement. I just left the
lawyer’s.
His office is close and I thought
I’d stop by.” “Oh, honey. I’m so sorry.”
“Yea. Me too.”
“Why didn’t you say something
before?”
“I don’t know… Oh, mom. I feel
just awful. I want to die.” Roberta began to get emotional.
I walked in and Vanessa and
Roberta were locked in a
meaningful hug.
Roberta broke from her mother’s embrace
when she saw me and turned away. From behind her, I could see she was
wiping her eyes. With her back to me, she grabbed her purse, and quietly said
“good-bye” to her mother, and walked out of the diner. Vanessa turned and saw
me standing there.
“Oh, sorry, Vanessa. I didn’t
realize.”
“What? You didn’t realize what?”
She said it as though she were pissed at me. She pressed a couple of buttons on
the key in the cash register, it made a ding and opened up.
“I’m just sorry, that’s all.”
“You know, Georgette, it’s funny
how history repeats itself especially within a family. Bobby left me, and now Rick
is leaving Roberta. I don’t know why I didn’t see it coming. I guess I just
hope that somehow things will end up differently, you know? Like when Bobby
started fooling around with you. I thought it was a silly phase or something. I
never believed that this many years later I would be alone. I wonder sometimes,
if you’d never come here at all, if things would have worked out the same way.
Probably not.”
I didn’t know what to say. We
were at work having, the restaurant was packed and we were having this
muffled
conversation by the register. I
began to feel smaller and smaller. I was disappearing and in clear view, all at
the same time. I just stood there and let her have her say. Inside I knew I’d
been waiting for this moment for years. I thought I could stave it off longer
somehow. But, here we were face to face talking about the plaid elephant in
front of us, how I stole Bobby away from her. Vanessa seemed so much
bigger
now, stronger, righteous. And, I
felt like a used shoe. It wasn’t over yet.
“You walk around here like you’ve
done nothing wrong.” She was picking up momentum and feeling good about finally
letting everything out. “But, in fact, you ruined my family—split us up! You
took everything away from me and Roberta. And, here we stand discussing it
finally. And, for what? Nothing. Nothing. It doesn’t
mean one goddamn thing. You know, Georgette,
I have a mind to walk out of here. Let you know how it feels—to be left
entirely alone. Maybe I’ll sell my half of the diner to someone else. I’m sick
of this place anyway, sick of the work, the long hours, and honestly,
Georgette, I’m sick of you!” Vanessa slammed the cash register door.
I just stood there with nothing
to say, feeling like every eye in the joint was on me, expecting us to resort
to fisticuffs. She looked at me with a hatred that had started growing in her a
long time ago. What could I do? Bobby was the only man I’d ever loved and the
only man
Roberta had ever loved. When I
didn’t respond she looked at me with disdain, shook her head, and quietly said,
“please,” like
she wanted nothing more
than to be hundreds of miles away from me. It was an hour since our lunch shift
had started and she walked out.
***
After the rush was over and the
wait-staff left, I grabbed a bottle of red wine that had been opened. I poured
it into a tumbler and sat down on the floor. The wine went straight to my
head. I hadn’t eaten since earlier that
morning but the cabernet felt warm when it hit my stomach and I didn’t care
after a
few more swallows. With no
dinner that evening I would take a small holiday, granted, it was only for a
few hours but still, the unwinding would do me good, and it did.
When I got home the cat was
yowling as if I’d left him with no food for days. I usually returned home from
the
diner after lunch around two-thirty
in the afternoon. It was close dinner time and Gangster was having a fit but
the cemetery had called to me. I needed to talk to Bobby again. It had been
several days since I’d gone and I felt guilty.
As soon as I got to his grave I
sat on the ground and began to cry. I still had a full glass of wine I’d taken
from the restaurant and lord forgive me, I was driving with it. Albeit, only a
mile but still it’s illegal.
The rug of grass was still short
and green and smelled like a freshly mown carpet. The heat steamed low along the
top of it and I kicked my shoes off to rub my feet in its carpet.
“Hey, Bobby. I sure do miss you.
Things aren’t going so good right now, but I guess you can see that!” I
couldn’t hold back my tears and had no tissue to wipe my nose so I used my
shirt sleeve. “Your family hates me so much. I understand why but, it still
hurts, you know? Why’d you have to leave so soon, honey? There’s not a day that
goes by I don’t think about you, about us. Things were good and, now, I have
nothing.” I took a long slow sip from my glass. “You are my only friend, I have
no one else. You were the only real family I ever had—ever. When momma died I
was totally alone. Not that me and her were exactly close, not after I was
grown anyway. That’s why I left and when
I found you—I found my only true family. So, you see, now, I have
nothing.”
For two hours I stayed there just
sitting and sipping my wine, wiping my nose, and feeling sorry for myself. Two
hours came and went and not one other solitary soul was there besides me—no landscapers,
visitors, preachers, mourners, no one. It was sad a place.
After two hours, I thought about
leaving—getting out of Sunnydale, once and for all. My plan was to sell my half
of the restaurant to Vanessa, or Roberta, or both. I had no one there anymore
who meant anything to me.
Maybe I could find a place where
people wanted to become friends, close friends maybe even so close they might
consider me part of their family. I was going to set off on a quest in hopes of
finding what I’d always longed for as a child—lots of people
milling around the table on Thanksgiving,
piles and piles of
toys at Christmas
time, family reunions, fifty-year anniversaries with parents, things I’d only
experienced as a very young child and now could barely remember. By Bobby’s
grave I formulated how I would do all of this. I’d have to find a brand new
location maybe near water
again, sell my
interest in the business, sell the house, pack up the cat, get a mover, and
disappear. It would be the noblest
thing
to do. I was not only reminded daily at the diner of Bobby, but I reminded
Vanessa about Bobby daily as well. It
was the right thing. I knew then what I had to do.
CHAPTER 10
Even though the world had
successfully entered the twenty-first Century, Helen Pyle still wore clothes
reminiscent of the 1950s—cotton tight-wasted, button- down dresses with flared
skirts. She kept her hair neatly sprayed tightly twisted and pinned to the back
of her head. Her horn-rimmed glasses added to the flavor of the time. She kept
to herself, for the most part.
As the days neared summer one
warm spring afternoon while the mayor was in Phoenix on business, Helen walked
into the diner for lunch and ended up staying for dinner. It was a night we
didn’t serve dinner, but later that evening we fixed her some anyway. It was
the least we could do.
I’d only seen her with her
husband or alone at the mercantile so this night stood out for me, and Vanessa
too. She wore her usual throwback outfit and shrinkingly entered the restaurant
pulling off her sunglasses. Few people were still around when she walked in.
Aside from two
other tables she had most
of the place to herself. She ordered a patty-melt and onion rings which she
loved but rarely ate
because the mayor
said it caused her to have bad breath and didn’t like it. She started out with
a coke and by the end of lunch was on her second glass of wine.
Because so few people were there
Vanessa was kind enough to sit with her off and on and talk to her a little
between working. Then, everyone but Helen was gone and she was getting a little
tipsy. She’d been there for two hours and didn’t appear to be leaving anytime
soon. The husband was away and she was relishing her time alone. I’d always
felt sorry for Mrs. Pyle. She seemed nice enough but she never got a word in
edgewise when the mayor was around. She was a backdrop to him.
The giggling started after her
second glass of white zinfandel and after lunch hour Vanessa poured herself a
glass of chardonnay and sidled up in the booth
across
from
her.
The
kitchen
was
nearly cleaned when José poked his head in
and whispered, “You really have to see what’s going on out there.” He
sniggered a little, shook his head, and was
heading out
the back to work in his
garden before heading home. As he walked out he said something in Spanish and
chuckled a
little
louder just before pushing through the door.
I untied
the
back of my apron and hung it from a hook and
peeked out the kitchen door’s window. From my vantage point it looked like the
girls were ripping it up. Helen’s hands
were waving and she was belly-laughing. Vanessa’s head was dropping and
her shoulders were shaking
from
laughter.
I
couldn’t
imagine
the conversation and boldly went out to see what the hell was going on.
Helen’s tight bun
looked loose and
strands of hair poked out of her bun in wisps around her wine-reddened cheeks.
Her eyes took on a sexy glaze and sparkled as she spoke.
“Ladies.” When I said it, they
busted up. “Having some fun, are we?”
“Georgie, sit down. Helen and I
were sharing a glass of wine. Care to join us?”
“Why not?”
“Why not, indeed!” Helen roared
when she repeated my statement.
“I’ll get some cab, I’m a
red-wine woman myself.” When I got back to the table with my glass I had to make
a decision where to sit. I could sit with Helen but I really didn’t know her,
or I could sit with Vanessa. I turned to get one of the other chairs at another
table behind me, but heard a thick slap on the booth’s seat. It was Vanessa’s
hand. She scooted over and motioned for me with her patting hand to sit next to
her.