Bobby's Diner (11 page)

“Come on, José. Don’t look.” He
kept looking over his shoulder with a look of terror and sorrow all mixed
together.

***

Vanessa was a half-hour late to
work. Roberta was with her tailing her and saying she was wrong to have done
it! By now, I was becoming accustomed to Roberta’s outbursts and
 
overreaction to everything. She was nearly
forty—my age—but she acted (in my estimation) much younger than that. Since the
advent of her divorce she was on ‘high-alert’. No one was comfortable around her
lately and now she was carrying on again.

Vanessa rolled her eyes and
walked in front of Roberta past me and into the office. “Mother! This is really
not cool!”

“Oh, Christ, Roberta. Give it a
rest. It’s done and you have no say in this matter anyway. So, please quit
acting out.” She huffed out of the office with Roberta tailing her still.

“I may not have any say in this
but… but…” She looked around at me and continued, “but, Georgette does!”
Nailing her mother by using me in that manner. Vanessa’s shoulders
 
dropped
 
and she turned slowly back to face her daughter.

“I really hope you’re leaving
now.”

“Well, ask her mom. Ask her if
she thinks it’s a good idea.”

Vanessa took a deep breath and
turned to me. I was still standing in the doorway between the restaurant and
the kitchen. I shrugged my shoulders and raised my eyebrows and made some
helpless motion with my hands not understanding the problem. Vanessa walked up
to me square in the face.

“I bought a gun, you mind?”

We were standing face-to-face but
the showdown was between Van and her daughter. She looked weakened by the
confrontation and I knew she needed a cohort in this so-called crime.

“Oh, good. You got it?” So, I
lied.

I winked at her so Roberta
wouldn’t see. Vanessa smiled smugly and turned to look at Roberta and opened
her hands as if to gesture, see? Then, all hell broke loose.

“You’re okay with this?” Roberta
rushed up to both of us but directed her ire at me.

“Your mother and I both make
decisions around here,

Roberta, you know that. A gun
will give us a little added
 
protection.
What, with all the burglaries and whatnot it seems
 
like a fine idea.” I looked back at Vanessa,
“Just like we discussed, right, Van?” Her mother was beaming like she’d seen
the second coming of Jesus or something.

“You two don’t fool me. I know
you didn’t know anything about it, you’re just lying for her. What a kiss-
ass!” The pendulum had swung the other way and now the wrath was upon me.

“Roberta, watch your mouth.
Please, darling!”

Roberta stormed out.

After we heard the front door
slam shut I turned to Vanessa.

“You bought a fucking gun? What
the hell has gotten into you?”

The mood broke and Vanessa was
flailing her arms and this’n and that’n and all and I shook my head when she was
finished because I knew she wasn’t about to take the thing back and get a
refund. She was scared. She reacted because she was scared.

“Let me see it.” As we walked
toward the office she sounded like a kid in a candy shop.

“It’s sweet, Georgie, it’s pretty
too, pretty and powerful, a .357 magnum. Shiny as a new bike.”

And, she was right. It was
pretty... pretty dangerous and I was fretting just to have it near me.

“Do you know how to use it?”

“I used to go shooting with my
father. He’d take us not too far from here to Ben Avery’s Shooting Range. If I
recall correctly I wasn’t all that bad too.” Hearing she had a brother again made
me realize how little I knew about Vanessa. Was he still alive? Was he Dead?

“Well, I’ve never even seen a
real gun let alone shoot one.”

“Then, we’ll have to get you some
lessons. It wouldn’t hurt me any to take a refresher course either. We can go
out and shoot it together. It’ll be fun. Really.”

I couldn’t believe how giddy she
was acting about this stupid gun. Guns had always been taboo with my momma.
She’d seen a man shot down in the streets of Milledgeville and
 
she reminded me every time the subject of
guns came up whether on TV or in politics. So, I was always a little afraid of
them… respectful, if you will.

“You’re a woman among women, Van,
I’ll hand you that.”

CHAPTER 17

The diner’s garden had grown into
a jungle of colors, smells, and tastes. Plants were growing at nuclear rates.
We had knobby squash, beefsteak tomatoes, curly-leaf lettuce, just about
anything we needed (or wanted) on a dish, we had growing in back of the diner.
José had come straight from Manzanillo, Mexico: way down in south Mexico, where
he was as a gardener at some shi- shi resort for tourists. He had a green thumb
the size of a melon and when he wasn’t bussing tables inside you could find him
outside weeding, turning soil, pulling ripened edibles, and talking to his
‘bambinos’ as he called them. José would sing
 
Mexican folk tunes while he worked the garden. He said, “Hace que crecen
grandes y fuertes!” Which means, his singing makes
 
his babies grow big and strong. Over the
years, José taught me lots of Spanish. In fact, after working with him for a
couple years when we’d see each other we’d go right into the conversation of
the language. I will always have José to thank for helping me learn another
country’s native tongue and expanding my mind, not to mention, my horizons.

José never missed a day of work
except when his momma died. But, aside from that, he never missed a single day,
never came in late, and didn’t ever call in sick. He loved working here—in the
garden.

Then, came one of the saddest
days ever. I didn’t make the connection at the time. It had been about a week
after that young man from Chariot came offering to buy our little business—our
booming little business, the one worth $2.5 million dollars.

***

“Mrs. Carlisle!” Josés voice
sounded frantic over the telephone line.

“Yes, José. What is it?”

“Oh, Mrs. Carlisle. Something
terrible, just terrible.”

As quick as a thumb snap José reverted
to his native tongue.

“Slow down, José. Tell me what
happened. In English.”

“I came to work and found the
most awful thing.”

“What is it, José?”

“The garden, Mrs. Carlisle, the
garden has been destroyed.”

“What?”

“It’s true, Mrs. Carlisle.
Someone has destroyed our precious little garden.” He sounded like he would cry
if I didn’t say something quickly.

“Okay, José. Don’t worry. I’ll be
right there. I’m still in bed. So, give me a couple of minutes. Okay?”

“Yes, Mrs. Carlisle. I’ll be here
waiting for you.”

For a moment, I sat back in bed
not believing what I’d just heard. Gangster moved off my chest and nuzzled deep
into the
 
pillow next to me. The phone
call had disturbed his morning slumber. The clock’s red digital display told me
I had two more hours before it became critical to get out of bed. Then, I
decided I should call Vanessa, too. She wasn’t going to like hearing my voice
this early in the morning.

***

Vanessa was already there by the
time I got to the diner. It’d had only taken me twenty minutes to get out of
bed, make some instant coffee, wash my face, brush my teeth and feed the cat.
She was standing outside the diner waiting for me. My car skidded when I
pressed hard onto the brakes. I jumped out.

“How bad is it?”

“Bad. Come on.” We walked quickly
behind the restaurant toward the garden.

My heart fell. It looked like
someone had driven a truck over a portion of the picket fence enclosure and
then did
 
spin-outs on top of the plants.
Tire treads crossed and recrossed the entire spot running east to west then
north to south. José didn’t utter a word. He’d been crying and his eyes looked
red and swollen. There were streaks down his cheeks where his tears had dried.
Vanessa walked around
 
inside picking up
bits of fencing material. She walked over to the now leaning garden shed. As
she walked up to it I could see one of the corners of the building had been
demolished and looked like someone had taken a huge bite out of it. She
disappeared inside for a second and resurfaced with a rake and began cleaning
the mess. José followed suit— disappearing
 
momentarily then reappearing with a wheel barrow. I was frozen. Still
taking in the sacking the garden had endured, I couldn’t believe. Why? The
question kept repeating in my head. Why?

“You gonna help or what?” Vanessa
had a no- nonsense way about her.

“You think we should call the
police?”

“Do you think they’ll help us
clean this up and get the diner ready in time to open for lunch?”

“I mean, maybe they can help us
get whoever did this.”

“Georgette, we have less than
five hours to get this mess cleaned up and prep for lunch. I’ll have to go back
home to shower and change.”

“I don’t need to take a shower.”

“Oh, nice. We’ll have all sorts
of wonderful smells emanating from the kitchen.” José chuckled at Vanessa’s
snide implication. It was the first time he’d uttered a sound since we’d been
there. Walking over the wreckage of our garden reminded me of one of those news
reels on TV when reporters walk through rubble explaining the destruction of a
sacred land. I retrieved a black landscape bag from the shed and began sifting
through debris, collecting. In
 
the
furthest sunniest corner was another potato bin Bobby had made for the
restaurant, for me. He’d taken special pride in building that one. The one at our
house was a trial run, but he’d perfected the diner’s. It was split apart and
adolescent potatoes bled between broken slats of wood that
 
spilled out earth and peat. My legs felt weak
and finally I
 
could stand no more. My
knees hit the ground first, then my hands. I heard Vanessa say something soft
to hold José back. And, they just let me alone until I was done crying.

CHAPTER 18

After twenty minutes of washing
dirt from around my face, neck, wrists, and ankles; and redressing in the extra
chef’s
 
uniform, my nails still needed a
good scrubbing and I realized the only way to make my hands appear clean was to
trim off my scrappy-looking nails.

Both José and Vanessa had gone
home to get cleaned up and I’d just barely finished organizing myself and the
kitchen when the first customer strolled in. By then José had returned but
still no sign of Vanessa and now I started envisioning something terrible
happening to her too. Sandy, one of the waiters, came in and voiced her
concerns as well, just not as eloquently as say, I would have.

“The other misses is late!” She
sniggered gruffly at her poor taste and picked up her drink order before I
could have a go at her and she must have barely passed by her when Vanessa
walked in.

“Sorry I’m late. I went over to
the gun shop and got some bullets. I think tonight would be a great night to
start your lessons.”

“Whatever. Get out there! We have
customers already.”

Vanessa scrambled to pin her
nametag on her blouse and smoothed back her hair. She looked at me, cocked her
head, raised her eyebrows and went to work.

***

Shooters
begin
.
The firing monitor called out the instruction over the loudspeaker. Vanessa
picked up the gun and reassembled it, loaded it, and handed it to me. Within
seconds gunfire cracked and exploded all around us. Single
 
steady shots. Quick and repeating shots. I
jumped. It seemed second-nature to her the way she managed it. But, I pressed
my arms firmly by my side.

“Take it! Just listen to me. I’ll
talk you through it.

Stand like I showed you.” She
shoved the gun toward me and I took it reluctantly. She glared at me to begin.
“Now hold it gently like an egg, okay?” She handed the gun over to me and my
heart started to pound like a bongo, my hands were shaking and sweaty.

“I don’t know about this, Van.” I
turned to the target out in the field and with my right foot in front of my
left and my arms steady out but not locked stiff, I took the stance.

“Good. Good. Now, loosen your
grip. You’re not trying to strangle it.”

I looked at her with squinted eyes
and when I did the gun went off. I screamed. It nearly blew me off my feet. A
carbon-smoky smell filled the air and some of the gun powder kicked out into my
face and eyes. They began to water instantly.