May Day Read online

  May Day

  Elizabeth Doherty

  To my Mom - For showing me why Bruce Springsteen is so great

  Contents

  1. Jack

  2. May

  3. Jack

  4. May

  5. Jack

  6. May

  7. Jack

  8. May

  9. Jack

  10. May

  Six Years Later

  Saving Grace Excerpt

  About the Author

  1

  Jack

  Jack was flying.

  Not actually flying. He didn’t much like airplanes and avoided them whenever he could. But he imagined flying on his own—without being cooped up in a tube of metal with giant, fiery engines hanging off the sides—would be like this.

  Why did John, Paul, George, and Ringo do all that LSD when they could feel like this after a performance?

  Then again, they had a lot more fame and money than he did when they did those drugs. He didn't know yet how fame would change him.

  Hearing your song played on a college radio station wasn’t the same as having thousands of screaming fans greet you the second you touched down at an airport.

  “We should celebrate.”

  Jack winced at the sound of his friend’s voice, and he crashed to the ground. Not literally; their rickety old tour bus held up well, but the feeling of flying fell away.

  “Dennis, aren’t you tired?” came Henry’s voice from the other side of the bus.

  Jack blinked his eyes open and turned his head. Henry Rose curled in the seat across from him, On the Road by Jack Kerouac lying open on his lap. Yesterday, the bassist was reading The Great Gatsby. Jack bit back a smile. Better not call his friend ‘pretentious.’

  “Are you tired?” Dennis Doyle’s baby face popped up over the seat where Jack sat. He leaned forward on his elbows and shot a heavy glare at Henry.

  “No.” Henry shifted, turning his body so his wide shoulder stuck between the bus seats. “But Jack was sleeping before you rudely woke him up.”

  “Jack wasn’t sleeping.” Dennis clapped Jack’s shoulder so hard he would have woken up if he had been sleeping. “Right, Jack?”

  “Right.” He paused. “I was enjoying the quiet bus ride.”

  Dennis waved a hand. “Quiet is overrated. You know, most bands throw parties on their buses. All-out ragers. They bring their groupies on board and everything.”

  Henry made a sound like Jack’s great aunt Marilyn did when she was scandalized. “We don’t have groupies.” He went back to his book.

  “We might if we had stuck around.”

  Jack tilted his head so he looked at Dennis with a raised eyebrow. “They’re all college girls.”

  “So?”

  “They're in school.”

  “So?”

  A body came crashing into the seat next to Jack. Jack’s best friend, Simon, beamed at them. “Someday you’re going to make twenty special girls very happy, Dennis.”

  “Thank you very much. I’m starving.” All at once, Dennis’s attention darted away. He hobbled to the front of the bus as it rounded a curb.

  “Were you really sleeping?” Simon asked, his voice lowered.

  “Nah.” Jack shook his head. “I was trying to keep the after-show feelings going.”

  Simon nodded. “I know. That was a pretty good show, wasn’t it?”

  “The best.”

  “The best.” He paused. The grin on Simon’s disgustingly handsome face faded. “Do you remember which college it was?”

  Jack thought for a minute, before laughing so loud it knocked Henry’s attention from his precious book. “No. Do you?”

  Simon smirked. “Nope.”

  They’d been to so many colleges in the past few months they all blended together. They played the same set in a high-ceilinged university gymnasium, the same kinds of college co-eds cheering for them. Jack loved every second of it.

  Simon was convinced they’d be famous any day now, and while Jack might have liked a little notoriety, he was more than happy just making music with his friends, even if they’d ended up being forced to do that in his parents’ garage.

  Still, it was cool getting to hear their song on the radio for the first time earlier that day. Jack had blacked out, but just for a second.

  “Another one tomorrow?” he asked Simon.

  “You bet.”

  “Can’t wait.”

  “Hey!” Dennis called back from where he huddled next to the bus driver. “There’s a diner up here. We’re stopping. I’m starving.”

  “Didn’t you eat that huge sub from the school sub shop before the show?” Henry asked.

  “He ate that whole bag of chips too. During the show,” Simon added.

  Dennis rubbed his stomach. “Performing drains all my food storage. A growing boy needs to eat.”

  “But growing in which direction?” Simon muttered.

  Jack guffawed, even as his own gut rumbled. “Dennis,” he yelled out, “this place had better have mashed potatoes. I can’t believe you found the one diner in all of Massachusetts that didn’t have mashed potatoes last time.”

  “I’ll make it up to you. When we hit it big, I’ll buy you a whole swimming pool of mashed potatoes. Maybe even a house of mashed potatoes, although I’m not sure—”

  Dennis couldn’t finish his list of potato presents to Jack, though. The bus halted, and he fell to his butt.

  The quiet of the bus ride vanished as the three other members of Eighteen Times Rock laughed until tears came to their eyes.

  2

  May

  She couldn’t get fired.

  Not now, especially not now.

  But there wasn't anyone in the diner. The phone on the wall called out May’s name, as did the weight of quarters in her pocket.

  She shouldn’t call Lisa. They both needed time to cool down. Except waiting for everything to resolve itself made May antsy. Her mom always said she was a people-pleaser.

  May didn’t want to think about her mother right now either.

  There were so many things she needed to do that didn’t involve sitting in an empty diner right now. Making up with her best friend, who had wanted May to go to the concert with her, was one. Finishing that paper on 1950s literature was another.

  May hated her literature class. She was bad at it. She needed more time to figure out what she had to write.

  Instead, she was stuck here with her boss, who kept to himself in the kitchen but somehow knew if she did anything besides waiting tables. If only she didn’t need the money. If only her parents didn't make her pay her own way because she wanted to go to school for fashion and not teaching.

  May didn’t have time to dwell on the ‘if onlys.’ Not when a bus pulled up at the entrance of the diner.

  Great. A bus of people to serve, and she was the only person on duty. The tips had better be good.

  She took her place by the hostess station and put the most convincing smile she could muster on her face.

  A group of four boys—college-aged, she would guess—burst through the glass doors of the diner. They were all sweaty with mussed hair. One had his arm slung around another. The one at the front clapped his hands and looked around. “Where is everyone?”

  “What?”

  He startled, as if he didn’t see May standing there, and then studied her with gray eyes outlined with the remnants of eyeliner. He blinked a few times before answering. “The people. Don’t people come into diners?”

  “It’s, like, midnight,” she told him, glancing at the clock.

  Four more people came in behind the boys. They were middle-aged, one skinny but the rest with potbellies. And though they talked to one another, they kept watchful eyes on the boys.

>   May stood on her tiptoes, hoping to get an idea of how many more people might come in, but the bus had been turned off and no one else came.

  “Excuse me?” The same boy spoke. He stood closer to May now, his neck jutted forward. “Are you guys open?”

  “Yes, sorry. I was trying to see how many were in your party.”

  “The four of us. Those guys would rather not eat with us.” Another one of the boys stepped forward. He had brown hair and eyes that were a light green color she’d never seen. He flashed her a dimpled smile through the beginnings of a five-o'clock shadow.

  The boy was far too chipper for this time of night. “Okay. Do you need any more than just those two tables?”

  “No. That will be all.” This second boy squinted down at her chest. She felt a little embarrassed by her lack of anything much there until he added, “May.”

  She bristled. “Follow me.”

  Those boys followed her a little too closely, but wasn’t like that time the drunk football players followed her and Lisa as they walked back to their dorms. These boys didn’t seem drunk at all. More like they wanted to be near people. Didn’t they know the Bruce Diner was not the place to go if you wanted to be around anyone? The place was always dead after the dinner rush.

  The first boy spoke again. “I thought college kids always came to diners. Shouldn’t you guys be full?”

  She led them to the table furthest from the hostess station. “You aren’t in college?” She turned to them and motioned at the booth. They all looked to be about her age.

  The four boys shared a look with each other. The one with the bleached blond hair snickered under his breath. When did she miss the joke?

  “Do we look like college students, ma chère?” The first boy who spoke to her, the one with the gray eyes, grabbed her hand, brought it to his mouth, and kissed it.

  May’s hand prickled. She yanked her hand away and threw the red-rimmed menus onto the table. “I’ll be back in a few minutes for your order.”

  As they shimmied into the booth, the brown-haired boy stopped. “I don’t hear about many people named May.”

  She shrugged. “It’s a family name.”

  “I like it.” He smiled at her again. If she didn’t have a million other things on her mind, she might have swooned. He held out a hand. “I’m Jack.”

  The boy with the blond hair grabbed Jack’s arm and pulled him into the booth. “Look at those big eyes. She knows who you are, Jack.”

  She didn’t, actually. And she couldn’t help the size of her eyes.

  One of them mumbled something, and they all threw their heads back in laughter that echoed in the empty diner. The back of May’s eyes hurt from straining not to roll them. She turned her back on them and went to help the older group. Someone’s gaze stayed on her as she walked away.

  But she pasted her smile back on her face. “Right this way,” she told the other group. She led them to a table not too far from the boys, as it seemed like they might want to keep an eye on the younger group.

  She was just about to go warn Bruce that his diner had been invaded by late-night visitors, when a banging sound made her jump.

  Two of the boys—the gray-eyed one and the blond one—banged on the Formica table. May grit her teeth and crossed the diner. “May I help you?” She tried to sound pleasant, to keep her voice light, but that was hard to do when she could barely open her mouth.

  Jack, who had been muttering under his breath to them, looked back at her with a smug grin on his face. He lifted his shoulders for a second.

  The blond man with the full lips spoke, “We were wondering—”

  “Please excuse my friends.” The one who hadn’t spoken yet, the biggest one of the lot, was the only one to offer an apology. “They’re jerks when they’re hungry.”

  The gray-eyed boy banged the table again.

  “Dennis!” cried the big one. “That is not how we behave at restaurants. We’ve been over this.”

  “Thanks, Dad,” the one called Dennis snickered. He looked at May and fluttered his eyelashes. “Ignore Henry. Bassists are always so sensitive, aren’t they? He’s our bassist. And I’m the drummer.”

  “No kidding.”

  If he noticed her deadpan, he didn’t let on. “Where is your secret menu?”

  She gaped. “Excuse me?”

  “Your secret menu. All restaurants have them.”

  “We’re… not a restaurant. We’re a diner.”

  The blond leaned forward and grinned. His smile reminded her of Jack’s, all confidence. His smile, though, was calculated. He knew he was beautiful. “What my friend wants to know is what you have to offer the famous guests. Most places have special offerings.”

  The guffaw came out of her before she could stop it. This little diner was on the road out of a town that held a small state school. They didn’t get famous guests. Even if they did, there was a nice restaurant in an old mansion on the main drag. No one worth anything would end up at this dinky place.

  May should have explained all this to them. Instead, she asked, “You think you’re famous?”

  A shade of darkness passed over Dennis and the blond’s faces. Henry and Jack smirked and looked down at the table.

  “I’m Simon Montrone. That’s Dennis Doyle and Henry Rose and Jack Mueller. We’re Eighteen Times Rock. You might have heard our song ‘Yesterday’ on the radio?”

  While the band’s name sounded a little familiar, the song did not. She shook her head. “Sorry.”

  “We just played at the college,” Jack told her in an even tone.

  Her stomach dropped. They were the band Lisa wanted her to see, that they had fought about when May announced she had to work.

  It all seemed inevitable. Her brain slowed, like it was working through molasses.

  “Oh.” Because they all stared at her, she continued, “I don’t think we have a special menu. Let me ask. I’ll be back in a minute for your drinks.”

  She wasn’t even halfway to the hostess station before one of them—she was pretty sure it was the blond one, Simon—called after her, “And then maybe we can talk about a special date.”

  May froze. It wasn’t even a proper pickup line, and she’d been a victim of a lot of those in her time at the diner, but it filled her with foreboding.

  This night, already so awful, would only get worse. She felt it in her bones.

  3

  Jack

  Jack watched the waitress walk away. He’d wanted to say something while he listened to his friends being rude, but nothing came out.

  Why didn’t he say anything?

  When they started snickering, he rounded on them. “That was not okay.”

  “We’re having fun,” Simon insisted. “We just need to unwind.”

  “If it makes you feel better,” Dennis said, leaning across the table, “we’ll apologize.” He turned on Simon. “The date thing wasn’t cool.”

  “You kissed her hand!”

  Dennis chuckled. “Not one of my finer moments.”

  For a little while, Jack thought everything would be okay. With the crew’s diligent eyes on them, he and the rest of Eighteen Times Rock actually behaved themselves. May, the waitress, took their orders with no further incident. Simon even offered her a ‘thank-you.’ Maybe they did all calm down after the show.

  If only.

  May approached the table, arms laden with dishes. Jack was caught halfway between marveling at her balance and feeling bad that there would be more she had to carry.

  “So really,” Dennis began as she set down Jack’s “turkey dinner” dish (complete with mashed potatoes), “where is everyone? My cousin’s in college on the other side of the state, and he says all the drunk college kids kill for diner food.”

  Her eyes widened, but she kept placing plates in front of them. Somehow, they all made it to the right place. “They go to the bars after concerts. They’re on Main Street, so they’re close to the gym.”

  “Is that where y
ou’d go?”

  “I work. I didn’t go to the concert.”

  Dennis scoffed. “Not worth skipping work?”

  Her eyes narrowed. “Definitely not.”

  “Relax,” Jack muttered at the drummer. “Dennis forgets how to interact with other humans after shows,” he told May.

  “We heard our song on the radio this morning,” Henry told her. “Our egos are inflated at the moment.”

  “Congratulations.” Her voice dragged. She didn’t look at any of them. She didn’t sound happy at all. Not that she should, she was just their waitress, a stranger, but the band all picked up on it. They bristled at Jack's side.

  She turned to go get more of the food they ordered. Jack thought she might make a clean getaway. Until Simon cleared his throat. “I wanted my burger well-done.” His eyes narrowed in the waitress’s direction.

  May didn’t move, not for three whole seconds. When she faced them again, her smile was too bright and didn’t meet her eyes. Those looked strained. “It’s not well-done?”

  Simon tilted his head close to his burger. “A little too much pink for me,” he said, though Jack couldn’t see any pink in the little bits of burger that flaked.

  “He’s fine,” Jack said.

  Simon dropped his burger back onto its plate. “Aren’t I supposed to get a new meal or something?”

  Jack had never seen Simon act like this before. Did their song on the radio affect him so much? Was he tired? “Dude, you don’t have to be such an—”

  He never had time to tell Simon exactly what he was. May was gone, running toward the door. Just before she got outside, Jack saw her hands balled into fists.

  “Nice going.” He smacked Simon’s arm. “What’s gotten into you?”

  Finally, Simon’s expression changed. A crease between his eyebrows made him appear confused. “I just sounded like my rich grandmother, didn’t I?”