The Princess Di-ner

Billie Louise Jones

The Princess Di-Ner was redolent of hamburgers, fried chicken, and onion. A counter ran along one wall and red leatherette booths along the other, with spatter Formica tables in the middle. Crepe paper streamers and balloons hung on the walls and the windows. The streamers and balloons were black and orange; more than just a color combination, black and orange represent a holiday which makes a game of dark, ancient beliefs. Ghosts, goblins, skeletons, vampires, and witches danced along the store fronts of the strip center, off the freeway that ran around Dallas; and the parochial school across the street was lit up and decorated for a Carnival.

When Daisy walked through the swinging door from the kitchen to start the night shift, the radio behind the counter was turned to the Metroplex’s country music station. Dolly Parton trembled through “I will Always Love You.” Daisy paused, tilting her head towards the music. For a moment, her own lips trembled along with Dolly; then her full red mouth widened in a smile that lifted her whole face. In her forties, she had big, champagne blonde hair and very large breasts that were firmly controlled and pointed upward; her figure narrowed down to a little waist and long, slim legs. She wore a short black leather skirt and spike-heeled boots and a shiny orange blouse. Even while she checked out the diner professionally, her bright smile never dimmed down.

“Think we’ll get many trick-or-treaters, Ed?” Daisy called to the owner. Her voice was high but delicate.

“I hope not. Why do they hit businesses? But I got that there cheap candy for them.” He sat behind the cash register working on account books and did not glance up. She saw just his hunched shoulders and balding head.

The night action had not really started. A family was at one of the tables. Daisy took out her order pad and pencil and talked to them with a play of perky expressions. They did not respond to her personality, but she never let her professionalism drop for a moment. The husband and wife, who were very lean, wore expensive roughwear that had never seen a cattle camp. The two little boys had bored faces under long, straight bangs. Daisy pulled a string, and a pumpkin-like ornament she wore lit up. The boys laughed and bounced around and Daisy laughed with them, while the parents glanced at each other.

After taking their order to the cook, Daisy went back to the counter. Glen Hargiss pushed his catfish platter to one side and leaned his elbows on the counter to talk to her. He was a big man in his late fifties, going to pot but with powerful shoulders. He had a grey crew cut that he had worn since he was in the service, in fashion and out of fashion and back in again, indifferently. His uniform, a light blue shirt and darker pants, was a security guard’s uniform that looked at a glance like a patrolman’s. Retired from the Dallas Police department, he was comfortable in uniform.

“When we going dancing?” he said.

“Now, what makes you think I like to dance?”

“The way you step around, I just know you’re a real good dancer.”

“Oh, you!” Her face was less animated, though the smile stayed on; but her shoulders wiggled and the movement rippled down her body.

“They got a good band at Cowboy’s tonight,” he coaxed.

“We got a beautiful friendship,” she began.

A figure darted into the diner, then stopped abruptly. Tight black leather pants, chains wrapped around one leg, spiky hair sprayed livid colors, febrile movements of arms and hands – something destructive was turned loose in the Princess Di-Ner. Then it appeared to be a girl of about seventeen. She had a wasted prettiness, pale face with feverish spots on her cheeks, eyes that were glittering but set straight ahead, a stony face. One ear was pierced for three studs, 666, and the other for a goat and a pentagram dangling on chains. She wore a sterling silver pentagram on a chain around her neck.

Smiling professionally, Daisy went to her with a menu, then stopped in her tracks. Her mouth and eyes made three big O’s.

“Missy Beach! I didn’t know you in your Halloween costume. I just seen you in your school uniform.”

“That uniform is the costume. This is me.”

Missy’s thin hands twitched toward the sound of the radio, Dwight Yoakam twanging “Long White Cadillac.” Her face was intense but blank. “Why don’t you change the station? This is the night for Metallica! Anthrax! Black Sabbath! Judas Priest!”

“None of that devil worship is coming through my radio. I don’t believe in it, but it can still cause you trouble anyhow.”

Missy went to a booth.

Daisy passed behind Glen and whispered, “That’s Missy Beach from your school and stoned out of her mind.”

Hargiss turned on his stool and looked at the girl, then squinted his eyes as if for a closer look. He went over to the booth. She set her eyes on his face, unblinking like a cat yet not quite focusing.

“It’s Mr. Hargiss, isn’t it?”

“Yep. I didn’t know you at first, Missy. That is sure some costume.”

“It’s not a costume. It’s my new clothes.” She laughed witchily.

He saw her hands touch her vest pocket, move away, then flutter near it. He knew what that meant: whatever she had was in that pocket; that was how they gave themselves away.

“Are you coming to the Carnival tonight, Missy?”

“Of course.”

“You oughta enter the costume contest. Looks like you got a real shot at the prize.”

“I told you – “ Her voice spurted intensely like a sudden surge in an electrical current – “it’s not a costume.”

She turned wary and hostile to him. She had turned that way in school, too. Glenn ambled down the hall, his belly preceding him, or he leaned against the wall lazily; his eyes moved over the kids constantly. Missy Beach, a pretty girl even in the plain uniform, long braid down her back, was an honor student, clearly a smart girl, usually quiet. She seemed like any of the quiet, bookish, conventional kids who were honor students – except for some remarks that slanted at an angle away from that type. He thought he saw a change in her behavior, a mall thing, maybe, her eyes becoming too bright and too set, talking out of control, her hands fluttering. Maybe she was just becoming more extroverted. He watched. He saw the change come after she would leave the girls restroom. He knew what it generally meant, and he watched to see if it kept on. She felt his eyes and glared back defiantly. She started a story that Mr. Hargiss was a dirty old man, always watching the girls restroom.

While Glen was trying to talk to Missy, Daisy greeted an elderly woman who walked into the diner alone. Mrs. Skaggs was stooped and wore a mended sweater over a housedress and tennis shoes. Daisy stayed near her, polishing glasses, while she read the menu. They resumed a long-running conversation, and Mrs. Skaggs showed pictures of a cat and kittens.

Glen went back to the counter to finish his catfish platter. He glanced back at Missy. She had propped her head on both fists and sucked up a Coke, so he could not see her face.

Daisy came out of the kitchen with the roughwear family’s salad plates lines up on one arm. After leaving that on their table, she went back to the counter.

“You’re right,” Glen said softly. “I’ll point her out to Mother Mary Martha if she does show up at the Carnival. It should be over by ten – ten thirty. What say I come by and pick you up then? It’ll just be getting started at Cowboys.”

“Sometimes I could almost take you seriously, you old flirt, you,” Daisy cooed. She glanced at the window. “Here comes Father What a Waste. Do you really think he has never ever even once….?”

Father Ramirez was a young priest, not long out of the seminary. He was young enough, tall enough, handsome enough in a dark, mustachioed way for his celibacy to be a challenge to the female sex. He walked past Missy without a flicker of recognition.

“Father Ramirez,” Missy called, drawling it out mockingly, “is this any way to treat your parishioners?”

His head turned, then his shoulders jerked around. For a moment, he was confused what to say and do.

“Missy Beach, is that you?” He tried a genial laugh. “Your costume is a success. I just didn’t know you.”

“This isn’t a costume. This is me.”

He slipped into the booth across from her. He was so concerned to do it right that he was abrupt.

“Missy, you’ve always been an honor student. Suddenly your grades are falling. You don’t do your assignments – you don’t go for the extra credit. You don’t participate any more. I’m very concerned.”

“I know. Mother Mary Martha called my mother – and you know what my mother said.” She gave him a sly, sidelong look. “My mother is going to sue because Mother Mary Martha said I’m a druggie. She talked to a lawyer today.”

“Mother Mary Martha did not say you are a druggie. She spoke of your grades, your changed behavior – and expressed her fear and concern.”

“She told Mother to have me tested for drugs.”

“Is she going to?”
“Of course not, because I told her I never used anything.” A taunting grin spread across her face, and she looked into his eyes as if they knew the same secret and knew what each other knew even though nothing was said. “There is nothing you can do or say.”

Daisy brought chicken plates and hamburger baskets to the roughwear family, and the two little boys squabbled over the mustard squeeze bottle.

“What kind of priest are you?” Missy’s voice was thin as a wisp of smoke. “If there is no evil, there is no good. So – you must believe in evil. You must believe in Satan. Then you must believe in – witchcraft! Whether you want the power or not, the power is there. Believe, and you can plug into this power. Jehovah or Satan – the two powers sources of the universe. You can choose your master. One choice is as valid as the other, but you must choose. Now is the night for such a choice. Choose!”

“I chose many years ago, Missy,” he replied quietly. “Every moment, I rejoice in my choice. We will speak of this again, when you are willing to listen, too.”

Father Ramirez rose with as much dignity as he could muster. He saw Glen Hargiss at the counter and joined him there.

Glen jerked his head back toward Missy. “Stoned out of her mind.”

“Are you sure?” Father Ramirez said. “I don’t always know if it’s that or just behavior. What do you think?”

“Booze and weed. Probably pills, too. Maybe more.”

“I do know that mix is extremely dangerous. I must call Mrs. Beach myself. I will speak to her tonight if she is at the Carnival.”

Daisy brought his veggie plate to the counter. She smiled and joked with both men. Everyone in the Princess Di-Ner watched Missy leave.

At ten thirty, Daisy and Ed began to close down the diner. There were only two couples at one of the tables, finishing pie and coffee.

Missy pushed the door open, then held onto it for a moment. The dark outside – the light inside, the cold outside – the heat inside deranged the chemical experiments in her body. She felt the balance in her body changing moment by moment with every shifting stimulation and the changes surging all through her system. All night, the experiments had teased her sensations up to a peak, then balked. Now, they were rushing up again, needing only – what? – to go over the top to some unimaginable new sensation.

Daisy came toward her, smiling brightly, her eyes searching. “How was the Carnival?”

“Mother Mary Martha kicked me out the minute I showed up. She said it was the way I look. Hell, she got pissed off one time over a simple t-shirt. All it said was, ‘Life is a Beach.’ Bring me a diet cherry Coke.”

Missy went to a booth, stumbling over a shadow on the floor. After Daisy left the Coke and turned away, Missy fumbled a baggie out of her pocket. It held a round black pill.

Glancing out the window, Daisy saw the lights in the school go out. Five minutes later, Glen Hargiss came through the diner door. Daisy put a cup of coffee on the counter for him.

“Midnight show at Cowboys?” he muttered.

“Look there.” She nodded her head toward Missy.

He turned, Ed glanced over, then Daisy cried out. They rushed over to the booth. Missy slumped on the table. Glen lifted her shoulders. Her head tipped back. The face was empty, the body utterly passive, almost lifeless.

“I’ll call an ambulance,” Ed said. He went through the kitchen door to the diner phone.

Glen went to the pay phone up front to call Father Ramirez.

The two couples watched with expressions of growing horror. Daisy tore up their check just to get them out at once. One of the men left a dollar and some change on the table. She swept it into her pocket, then went to lock the door.

Glen hung up the phone and came to her. “Father Ramirez has Mrs. Beach with him now. She found out they wouldn’t let Missy stay at the Carnival, and she’s going to sue for every cent the Vatican has got.”

They looked out the window. Father Ramirez and a tall woman ran across the street in the middle of the block. Mrs. Beach wore a fur coat, though the night was not that cold. Ed held the door open for them.

Father Ramirez saw Missy’s face on the table, unnaturally white with blue shadows like bruises around her eyes. He bent over close, trying to feel her breath on his cheek.

Mrs. Beach started screaming. She went rigid, arms straight down at her sides, clenched fists, eyes squeezed shut, and mouth open, screaming, screaming. She screamed while Father Ramirez tried to find out from Daisy and Ed what they had seen. She screamed when the sound of the sirens drew closer, louder. She screamed when the medics came in with the stretcher, and she screamed while they moved Missy out.

Glen and Father Ramirez each took and arm and led her out. The ambulance lights flashed over the ghosts, goblins, skeletons, vampires, and witches hanging in all the windows; they took life in the nightmare street.

Mrs. Beach tried to throw herself across Missy on the stretcher. A medic pulled her off efficiently.

“My baby, my baby, what are they doing to you?”

“I’ll follow with her in my car,” Father Ramirez said to the medic. “She might be in the way if she rode with you.”

“Really,” the man replied and climbed into the ambulance. It screamed away.

Glen went back into the diner. Daisy sat on one of the counter stools. She was pale and drawn; lines showed around her mouth.

“They’re taking her to Parkland,” he said. “It’s set up better for this kind of emergency than a private hospital.”

Daisy shook her head. “It’s not much use. The way she looked was like someone I once knew. He was mixing drugs and drink. Then he got into a car wreck. He had a head injury. All the stuff in his system just made it worse. Now he’s worse than dead.”

“What’s worse than dead?”

“Irreversible coma. He’s hooked up to one of them breathing machines. It’s been nine years.”

Glen did not know what to say about something like that, but he did see that she was hearing the echo of an old grief. He put his hand under her elbow.

“You don’t want to wait on the bus tonight,” he said gruffly. “I’ll drive you home.”

She nodded.

They walked down the street to his car. Shivering a little, Daisy moved closer to his sturdy bulk.

When Billie Louise Jones was twelve, a book changed her life - Young Bess, by Marguerite Irwin.  She was so intrigued by the sketch of Anne Boleyn that she decided to write a novel for Boleyn herself.  Over time, Jones’ interests changed from historical fiction to, she hopes, insight into life today.  She has been published in Phoebe, The New Orleans Review, Struggle, Primavera, The Long Story, South Dakota Review, Dan River Anthology, Northwoods Anthology, Timbercreek, The Storyteller, and Elderhostel's Anniversary Odyssey.