“Yeah,” Danielle says as she finishes filling Mom’s cup with coffee. “That’s what it says on my name tag. . . . Wait.” She looks at my face and then says, “Oh, my god! Portia Kane? Is that really you?”
“Just add a few dozen wrinkles to your memory,” I say.
“I haven’t seen you for— What are you doing here? I heard you escaped to Florida. Married some . . . is he a movie maker?”
She’s being polite here. Ken owns a company that makes extremely popular porno flicks specializing in spring-break college-girl fantasies. I guess word got around.
I should add that meeting people you know but haven’t seen for decades is quite common in South Jersey diners—they are like time machines that way—but you have to have attended kindergarten through high school in the diner’s school district for the magic to work.
South Jersey diners also have secret homing calls that they send out around the globe, summoning you back to eat unhealthy food.
“Came home to visit my mom,” I say, lying for no apparent reason. “And for a trip to the old Crystal Lake hangover cure.”
“Hi, Mrs. Kane,” Danielle says, but gets no response.
“My mom’s not very talkative,” I say and give Danielle a wink, hoping she’ll just move on.
She nods. “Yeah, well, I’m waitressing here. Straight out of ‘Livin’ on a Prayer.’ I bring home my pay for love. Only my name’s not Gina. And I ain’t got a man. Just a boy. He’s five. Guess what his name is? Tommy. Swear to God. That’s his name. He doesn’t work on the docks. Obviously, because he’s only in kindergarten over at Oaklyn. And I didn’t name him after the guy in the song. I wasn’t working the diner by day when Tommy was born either. Just a stupid coincidence. You must think I’m a moron. But we sing the song together anyway, often during bathtime. Tommy and me. He likes it. My little man. And Bon Jovi—never gets old, right? Classic. Especially for us Jersey girls.”
“Congrats.” I raise my coffee mug to her. “On Tommy and all the rest.”
“Yeah, big winner me.”
Danielle looks so ashamed of her situation that I blurt out mine before I can think better of it. “I just caught my husband screwing a teenager, so maybe you’re doing better than I am. I’ve left him.”
“Oh, my god. Gross. Men are such pigs.”
“No argument here.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Yeah, well.”
“At least he married you. Tommy’s dad just took off when I told him he was going to be a father. Poof. Gone. Simply vanished. Instantly became a sperm donor.”
“I’m sorry,” I say, thinking about my own unnamed rapist father.
“Good riddance, actually. You know what you want to eat? Or do you need some time?”
“Hell yeah, I know what I want.”
“Shoot.”
“Waffles for both of us.”
“Whipped cream?”
“Mom?”
“I’m invisible,” Mom whispers. “No one can see me.”
Danielle Bass raises her pencil-thin dyed red eyebrows.
“One with whipped, and one without.”
“You got it, Portia,” Danielle says as she slides her notepad into her waist apron. “And you look friggin’ great. Like you beat time. No wrinkles either.”
“You’re a beautiful goddamn liar.” I break eye contact and shake my head.
“Your ex-husband’s a moron.”
“You look good too, Danielle. Better hair than Jon Bon Jovi circa 1986,” I say, because she still poofs up her bangs, which seems rather anachronistic here in 2012, even in South Jersey.
“You know, I saw the Slippery When Wet concert at the Spectrum. Jon Bon Jovi flying around on wires high above. My mom got my brother and me seats. She was dating—um, cough, cough, screwing—a radio DJ at WMMR.”
“Lucky you.”
“I would have gladly been the teenage mom of Jon’s baby.” She laughs. “Still have my fringe leather jacket. It even fits. Why did male rock stars look like women in the 1980s? Why were we so turned on by androgynous men back then? Poison. Def Leppard. Mötley Crüe. All fronted by men who looked like women. Remember Cinderella?” She squints, raises an imaginary microphone to her mouth, and sings, “Shake me. All-ALL-all night!”
“Remember how sexist everything was back then? In every video there was a girl dressed in ripped spandex crawling around on the floor like a cat.”
“Ah, bullshit. Eighties hair metal was fun. It’s still fun. God, I miss guitar solos. Where did those go? They were like the orgasm of the song. Why would you ever cut those out? What do teens even do in mirrors now if they can’t play air guitar?”
“Hey, do you remember Mr. Vernon?” I ask, although I’m not sure why. “God, I loved his class. He was a good guy. If ever there was one. You were in that class, right? Mr. Vernon’s? Senior English. Remember those little cards that he—”
Danielle’s face goes slack. “You haven’t heard about Mr. Vernon, have you?”
“What?”
“How could you not have—”
“Danielle, I don’t pay you to talk the customers’ ears off!” a man yells from the other room. He looks exactly like that fat hairy terrorist they kept showing on TV a few years ago, the one in the white T-shirt with the extra-wide neck hole and the carpet of black hair ringing his jowls.
“My boss, Tiny,” Danielle says. “Asshole supreme. I’ll be back.”