Starlight in New York
HELEN COX
Published by AVON
A Division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
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London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins 2016
Copyright © Helen Cox 2016
Cover design © Becky Glibbery 2018
Cover illustration © Shutterstock
Helen Cox asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the authorâs imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
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Ebook Edition © March 2018 ISBN: 9780008191832
Version: 2018-03-15
Next time youâre in New York, take a turn off Broadway onto East Houston. Walk on past 2>nd Avenue subway station. Past Russ & Daughters fish shop and Katzâs Delicatessen. Beyond these local landmarks of the East Village, just a skip from where East Houston meets Clinton Street, youâll see it: The Starlight Diner. A fifties throwback joint serving burgers and breakfast foods long into the night.
Thereâs no missing the blare of its blue neon sign. Even from a block away, you can hear the songs of Buddy Holly, Eddie Cochran and, house favourites, Marvin and the Starlighters spewing out of the jukebox. Step closer, and youâll note the modest claim inscribed just above its glass frontage: Best Diner In Town.
Press your hands against the window. Peer in at the long procession of red leather booths, at the aging signs, hanging all around, for vintage sodas, malts and ice-cream floats. Thereâs a refrigerator stacked with vanilla cheesecake and blueberry pie, and the waitresses wear candy pink uniforms with black kitten heels.
Bernie Castillo was just twenty-two when he opened The Starlight Diner. A business decision he made about a week after John Kennedy was shot. Like many others he knew, he wanted nothing more than to return to a time before anyone understood what it meant to see a president gunned down. To a time in which rock ânâ roll reigned supreme and gas-guzzling Cadillacs clogged up the highways. A time when America âstood at the summit of the worldâ. So, the 1950s is still in full swing at The Starlight Diner, and they serve the tastiest milkshakes in the five boroughs.
If thereâs one thing Bernieâs learned in his time managing a diner, itâs that you never can tell just whoâs going to walk through the doorway. But no matter who they are, no matter where they come from â whether theyâre a tourist with a tripod or a local whoâs ordered the same breakfast there for twenty years â theyâve all got one thing in common.
All of them, every last one, has a story to tell.
New York, 1990
That airless, August day I hobbled into The Starlight Diner like an extra from a low-rent zombie movie. A bloody cut oozed across my forehead while âRock Around The Clockâblasted out of the jukebox. Right then, the last thing in the world I needed was Bill Haley singing about an all-night party I wasnât even invited to.
âOh my Gawd, Esther!â Mona, whoâd waitressed at the diner for some thirteen years, had a habit of shrieking in a crisis. A habit even less endearing after a hard knock to the head. âWhat happened?â She stopped pouring a coffee mid-cup, tottered over in her kitten heels and shook her head at the tear in my pink diner uniform.
âI got mugged,â I said, slumping into a nearby stool. At this, a man in one of the counter seats lifted his head and frowned. He was one of several customers gawking at the disturbance but his stare was more intense than any of the others.
Mona put an arm around me. âAw honey, now youâre a real New Yorker. They take anything valuable?â