The Love Boat Diner

Vanilla Milkshake

   

                                                                         – PART 1 –

   IF THERE WAS ONE THING Phee Mathers couldn’t stand, it was public displays of affection.

   She tried to concentrate her stare outside of the bus window while the couple beside her devoured each other. She tucked her hair behind her ear and risked another look. It was getting pretty heated. Noises and straddling were involved, and Phee was approximately ten seconds away from whipping around and offering them both birth control. Not that she had any, but the way these two were going at it, it seemed like the polite thing to do.

   Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t that she was bitter, and she wasn’t one of those steadfast man-haters, either. It was just that today was Valentine’s Day; she was on a bus in her pyjamas and hadn’t had a proper night’s sleep in almost three days. Phee yawned. Mostly the sleep thing.

   The bus doors beeped as she got off at her stop and waved to Ronnie, the bus driver. It was obvious (even to Phee) that when the night driver was the person you’d seen most this week, it was likely you had a problem. She pulled her coat tighter around her shoulders in a bid to hide her cupcake pyjama pants and cursed her insomnia.  

   The dead of night was cold enough that she could see her breath swirl in front of her face. She dipped her hand into her coat pocket as she knocked shoulders with people walking in the streets, and let out a breath of relief as her fingers traced the weathered, leather spine of her book. She didn’t bother to look in both directions before she crossed the road.

   It was late, and the only people who were still out on Valentine’s Day were the ones who hadn’t begun the night with a date. A piercing whistle sounded as Phee made her way past ‘The Crimson Ribbon’, and it was loud enough so that passer-by’s hesitated a moment to stare. The Crimson Ribbon was a drag club, whose booming musicals and fishnet stockings guaranteed a night of scandal and debauchery, both of which often spilled out onto the streets at midnight like an overturned glass of wine... mostly in the form of men dressed as Hollywood icons.   

   “Phee, sweetheart!” A man with heavily-lined cat eyes and scarlet lips waved her over with one hand and dangled a cigarette from the other. His blonde wig was pin-curled to perfection and his white dress flared at the hem.

   “Hi, Marilyn.” Phee smiled and plucked the cigarette from his hand, extinguishing it beneath her boots. “Nice night for some fresh air, isn’t it?”

   Marilyn gaped at his fallen comrade and huffed. “Phee, darling, when I told you I wanted to quit smoking this year, I didn’t really mean it. Nobody means their resolutions!”

   Phee raised a brow.

   “Besides,” Marilyn fluffed his hair and pouted. “I need the cig for Marilyn, so it’s all part of the gig, you see.”

   Phee had known Marilyn since the very first moment she’d set foot in the diner, and to this day, still had no idea what his real name was. He was just Marilyn to her, and hard to miss if you crossed paths in the street. Unlike the friends he’d introduced her to (Cher and Shirley Temple), Marilyn never changed personas. Perhaps it was because he was so much like the real Marilyn anyway... a flighty ball of contradictions that extended far past the fact that he was a man in a dress and scarlet lipstick.    

   Phee waved over her shoulder and continued walking. “I’ll be in the Love Boat if you need me!”

   “You practically live there, sweets.” Marilyn drawled. “I know where to find you.”