Bobby's Diner (10 page)

“Oh, I wasn’t actually thinking I
would go, Vanessa. What’s gotten into you?” I turned it around on her. “That
guy really got under your skin, didn’t he?” She rubbed her arms and went back
to the cash register to finish her day and I went back into the kitchen to take
inventory for the next. My gut hurt like someone had punched me. My gut and my
heart.

CHAPTER 15

When Roberta pushed off of the
floor from packing a box her face was beet-red. Vanessa could see how the
divorce had taxed her. She’d lost a lot of weight. Her eyes looked sallow and
empty. It seemed she needed a break from reality, needed to leave the house
that was once hers and Rick’s together. Get away for a while, maybe. Vanessa
knelt on the bedroom floor while her daughter lashed out in front of her.

“She feeds on families like a fox
in a chicken-coop, mother!” A globule of spit flew from her mouth and she wiped
her lips with her arm.

“Roberta, you do have a knack for
the dramatic, dear. I think instead of engineering you should’ve gone into
theatre.”

“Mother!”

“Roberta, your father and I…”

“Were perfect together!”

“Honey, no marriage is perfect.”
She looked up at her daughter’s angry face and thought how much she looked
like
 
Bobby. Vanessa could tell Roberta
knew what she insinuated. She turned away from her mother and walked out of the
bedroom. The strong footfall of each step lessened as Roberta walked further
down the hall, through the kitchen and out the back door. From her daughter’s
bedroom, Vanessa heard the screen door slam and a metal chair scraping along
the concrete patio in the back and then it stopped.

Roberta and Rick lived in the
house for so long Vanessa forgot when and how two people could collect all the
mementos that fill drawers and shelves, crates and hangers, boxes in the garage
and attic, but by the end of today, with her help, they would supposedly cut
the collection in half—half Rick’s, half Roberta’s.

Rick had been commuting for years
to a job in Las Vegas. He’d wanted to move there for years but Roberta would
have nothing to do with relocating away from the town she’d grown up in, her
family, her friends. Also, Rick’s position in another town offered her a place to
get away with him for extended weekends. Rick’s condo in Vegas had a pool and
no maintenance so for Roberta it was like taking a vacation. For Rick, it was still
work. Over the past year, Vanessa would listen to her daughter as she cried
and
 
complained about repeated arguments
and Rick’s insistence
 
for her to move
there completely. In the end, he got his way but had to leave his wife to get
it. He wanted to remain friends with Roberta and she was completely insulted by
the notion. She couldn’t believe she would soon have to check the box
‘divorced’ on applications, or refer to Rick as her ex-husband. Roberta
 
seemed blind-sided by it but Vanessa saw it
coming long ago. Her daughter was self-centered but good-hearted, selfish but
loving, intimidating but kind. She would watch Rick when Roberta talked, he
seemed ill at ease anymore and quick to anger. He’d leave shortly after dinner
and leave the women alone to hide out in his office. They didn’t make love much
in the recent months—he was pulling away and Roberta was sincerely surprised
when a man came to the door to serve her with divorce papers.

Vanessa looked around Roberta’s
bedroom now. She remembered how difficult her own separation had been on
Roberta and now she was living it all over again. Vanessa had
 
survived her divorce from Bobby. But, Roberta
never forgave her father for leaving. Even, by that time a young woman, she
didn’t understand the ways of married people. She definitely was not around
during the initial fall of the marriage at eighteen when she went off to
college. And, she was too busy with her and Rick’s plan to marry not long after
they returned from school. As Vanessa sat on the edge of the bed and looked
around she
 
remembered the sadness upon
accepting the fact that her marriage to Bobby was about to end. It was imminent
but when she came along she blamed it on Georgette anyway. Georgette’s only fault
in the divorce was one of timing. She came too soon.

“Roberta.” Vanessa got up slowly
as her daughter’s name slipped wearily from her mouth. She decided to tell her
now before it was too late.

Roberta sat alone and looked
hopelessly onto the arid landscape. Only a few yucca and crepe myrtle were left
blooming. Every other plant took on its usual olive hue or brown bark. The
cactus garden was filled with thick- skinned
 
prickly succulents of light buttery yellow to dark magenta. Her head was
propped up in one hand on the arm of her chair and her feet were flung up onto
the glass table. The skin on her ankle above her sock was tan and smooth. A
sunbather from long ago, she remembered Roberta had just
 
spent a final weekend with Rick in Vegas ten
days before. Vanessa watched her for a second through the door then walked out
to
 

“Roberta, honey, we need to
talk.”

She looked up at Vanessa and her
hand dropped from beneath her chin. “Grab a chair, mom.” Vanessa pulled another
chair
 
around so it was directly facing
her daughter. She leaned forward. With both elbows on her legs she grabbed her
hands in front of her.

“Honey, I know this is hard. It
was hard for me too.

But, at least I could see it
coming.” “What are you saying?”

“Come on now. You know your dad
and I were living out the decline of our marriage when Georgette came along.”

“No, mother, I didn’t know that.
Are you saying you would have probably gotten a divorce even if dad hadn’t been
fucking around on you?”

“Roberta! Please don’t use that
language around me, I’m your mother, please!”

“Well, what would you call it,
mother? Sleeping?”

“Jesus, Roberta. You can be so
cruel when you want.”

Roberta looked away momentarily
and then looked back. “I’m sorry. I just want you to know that with your father
and me there were signs, big signs. And, I wasn’t blind about it either. I saw.
I saw.

“He didn’t want me anymore, you
know, sexually.

He was at the diner until well
after it closed doing things that could wait or things if he’d wanted to do at
any other time, things we could have done together. But, he didn’t want to be
around me anymore. I changed after you left. I guess I got a little selfish. I
mean, I was getting older and feeling it. So, I went to the salon often for my
nails, for hair coloring, facials, and massages. It wasn’t like we didn’t have
the money, we did. But, I wanted to feel better about my aging,
empty-nester-self. In doing so, I forgot about your father, his needs. He was
working a lot and I was playing. By the time you left, we’d gotten a relief
cook and I was living it up on my time off. Bobby was tired of working too but
he still went in everyday like clock work. I’d take
 
vacations without him because he couldn’t
just shut down the diner. So, I’d go alone—cruises, beaches of Mexico, Canada,
 
wherever I wanted. I thought I deserved it.
Well, he’d been saying for a while how he was thinking about selling, the
diner, that is. He’d bring it up and I’d shoot it down. We wouldn’t have an
income if we sold, not like we did anyway. I just acted like
 
he wasn’t serious but he was. He wanted out
as much as I enjoyed being out. He was stuck, not me. So, I didn’t realize how
serious he was.”

“Mother, it still doesn’t justify
what he did to you.”

“That’s right, Roberta, what he
did to ME. Not you. Your father and I and our divorce has nothing to do with
you. I wish, oh, how I wish, you would get over blaming him for something you
really know nothing about.”

“My god . I’m in so much pain
right now and you’re yelling at me?”

“I was in a lot of pain too,
honey. But, I didn’t have anyone to cry to. So, please stop acting like a child
and get on with your life. Rick’s gone, get over it. Bobby left, I got over it.
But, you? You hung on as if it were you who was married to him, not me. That
was MY divorce, this is yours. Start dealing with it like a grown-up, honey.
The
 
sooner you do, the sooner you’ll get
over it.” Vanessa stood up in front of her awestruck daughter, stepped into
her, patted her shoulder and kissed her on the forehead.

“Call me when you’re serious
about packing up his things. I’ll be over in a flash. Bye, honey.”

Vanessa understood Roberta was
flummoxed by her mother’s forthrightness. She would be angry at first and think
about all the ‘comebacks’ she could say when they saw each other next. She
would manifest scenarios she could play out to some imagined finale. But in the
end, her daughter would understand why her mother confessed her parent’s sordid
past. Vanessa knew she would understand. Vanessa knew this much about her
daughter.

From inside the kitchen window
she watched as Roberta rested her head in her palm, put her feet back up, and
did the thing she guessed she’d been doing a lot of these days, she cried.

CHAPTER 16

Everyone from the gas station to
the grocery store was
 
out in front when
I arrived at work—everyone, including the police. They were hanging yellow
crime scene tape around a couple of the store entrances—the mercantile and the
pet store. I
 
was watching while I leaned
against my car in the diner’s
 
parking
lot. For fifteen minutes people milled about with their hands to their mouths.
Talking closely together, talking in groups of twos, then threes… milling,
talking, going up to the police, heading back to their group of two or three…
milling. José drove up in his rusted-out Toyota Sentra. Dirt powdered up and wafted
like a ghost off in a breeze when his car rolled from the paved road onto the
gravel parking lot. I turned my head away to avoid the dust while still keeping
my eye on the fuss going on. He parked next to me in front of the diner. Our
sign was bigger than the other signs down the strip and teal blue with red
lettering. It never failed to make me laugh when I saw that sign, like it was
screaming to passers- by to pull off the road and come in.

“What’s happening, Mrs.
Carlisle?” Only at that moment
 
did it
strike me that José must have called Vanessa ‘Mrs. Carlisle’ too.

“I don’t know, José.”

“The police are there?”

“Yep. I wonder what happened.”

“Would you like me to find out,
Mrs. Carlisle?” “Let’s find
 
out
together.” We walked together not speaking for about two hundred yards where
the commotion was. We approached Markus from the gas station first. He didn’t
see us walk up at all.

“Hey, Markus.”

“Oh, hey, Georgette. Can you
believe this?” “What happened?”

“Vandals. They ransacked a couple
stores and set fire to one of the stock rooms.”

“Oh my god .” Vanessa was going
to flip out.

“They think they might have
latent prints so they’re going to take them back to the lab and see if they can
find a quick match. They got one off the back door— they axed it
 
down.” He sounded like a wanna-be lawman.

“They axed it??”

“Uh huh. Wanted in pretty bad I
guess.” Markus looked at me sternly. I could hear concern behind his words.

“Did anyone get hurt?”

“No. No, thank the Lord, huh? No
one got hurt, it’s a blessing really. A blessing.” Markus wandered away
muttering about how good it was no one got axed to death in the process. José
shadowed me as I worked my way in closer to the action.

Then, Willy, one of the police
officers came out carrying with him a plastic bag. A orange sticker on it read
EVIDENCE. He tried to cloak it under his jacket.

“Hey, Willy.” I acted like I
didn’t notice.

“Hello, Mrs. Carlisle.” He hadn’t
called me that since Bobby’s funeral. He wanted to sound professional. “Willy?
Did anyone see the person responsible for this?”

“Person, Georgette? Do you know
something you want to tell me?” He asked more hopefully than accusingly.

“No, that’s not what I meant.
Person, people. Did anyone see anyone?”

“No one’s come forth with any
information yet. Why do you ask, Georgette. Did you?”

“No.” I started chewing on a
fingernail. “No, I didn’t see anything, Willy.”

Willy walked to one of the police
cars and when he pulled out the baggy I could see it contained two tiny dead
animals but couldn’t tell exactly what they were - blood was smeared on the
inside and made it difficult to tell for sure. At the same time I noticed, I
heard José gasp.

“Come on, José. We’d better get
to work. There’s nothing here we can do.”

As I turned him away, José
whispered, “Oh, Mrs. Carlisle, those poor little animals. Were they dead?”