Serious Moonlight

Serious Moonlight

Jenn Bennett



For everyone who feels alone: you’re not.



“You see, but you do not observe.”

—Sherlock Holmes, “A Scandal in Bohemia” (1891)





1




* * *



He’d probably forgotten me already. It was a month ago. Practically forever.

He definitely wasn’t here tonight. Just to be sure, I scanned the diner one more time, from the rain-speckled glass door to the PIE OF THE DAY chalkboard sign near the register, where the owner had carefully written: ANNE OF GREEN GRAPES, featuring Yakima Valley chardonnay grapes and blueberries.

All clear.

For the better part of May, I’d avoided coming to the diner, walking past the windows with my hood up, fearing he’d be here, and if we ever occupied the same space again it would rip open a hole in the universe and create the Most Awkward Moment in Modern History, and the diner—my haven in the city—would be tainted forever and ever.

But he wasn’t here, and just because he worked somewhere nearby didn’t mean he was a loyal patron of the Moonlight Diner. And so what if he was? This was my home away from home. I’d spent most of my childhood living in a tiny two-bedroom apartment directly above it. This booth, with its tufted red leatherette seats? It was my booth. I’d learned the alphabet at this table. Read Harriet the Spy and every Nancy Drew mystery. Won dozens of games of Clue and Mystery Mansion with my mom and Aunt Mona. On the underside of the table I’d drawn crayon portraits of Ms. Patty and Mr. Frank, the diner’s owners.

The Moonlight was my territory, and it wasn’t cursed just because I’d met a boy here and done something stupid.

“I’d like to buy a vowel, Pat.”

I glanced at the woman sitting across from me in the booth, drinking coffee, blinking at me through gold-tipped fake lashes. “Um, what?”

“I’m trying to solve this Wheel of Fortune puzzle in the elusive but always intriguing category of ‘What is Birdie thinking about?’ But I’m missing too many letters,” Aunt Mona explained, gesturing like Vanna White at an imaginary game board with long fingernails that featured decals of bumblebees. They matched her 1960s yellow go-go dress (so much fringe), black lipstick, and towering golden beehive wig, complete with tiny winged bee pins.

Mona Rivera did not do anything halfway. Not when she was my mother’s best friend in high school, and not now, at the ripe age of thirty-six. Most of her elaborate outfits were cobbled from vintage pieces, and she had an entire wall of wigs. She was somewhere between cosplayer and drag queen, and one of the best artists in the Seattle area. She was the bravest, most original person I knew and the most important person in my life.

It was very hard to keep secrets from her.

“You told me you weren’t nervous about starting this job tonight, but if you are, it’s totally normal,” she said. “All your training has been during the day, and working at night is going to feel completely different. Graveyard shift is not for the faint of heart—trust me—and if you’re worried about staying awake and worried about your sleep issues—”

“I’m not worried,” I argued. Mostly not anyway. On one hand, I was a night person, so graveyard didn’t bother me. On the other hand, it was my first real job. The first time since my grandmother died this past Christmas that I was allowed to take the ferry into the city alone. I would be spending the entire summer working in downtown Seattle, and I was excited. And a little nervous. And extraordinarily caffeinated—which, in hindsight, was probably a mistake. But on the Alertness Scale, which is a scale I just made up, I lean heavily toward the Always Sleepy side, as narcolepsy runs in my family, along with a slew of other weak genes. My mom used to joke that our Scandinavian ancestors must have gone through an inbreeding phase a couple of hundred years ago.

Aunt Mona frowned. “You haven’t been listening to a word I’ve said over our celebratory Endless Hash Browns dinner, which is the finest of all the Moonlight’s food groups.”

“Agreed.”

“So why are you watching everyone that comes through the door and making your Nancy Drew face?”

“I’m not making my Nancy Drew face.”

“Squinty eyes, super alert. Ready to nab a criminal. Oh. I believe I know your Nancy Drew face, especially since I’m the one who coined it.” Her gaze darted around the diner. “Who’s the suspect? Are we talking robbery or murder?”

I’m a mystery fiend. Detectives, criminals, and clues are my catnip. When I was younger, Mona designed noir-style case files for me to fill out on my vintage Smith Corona typewriter, so that I could keep track of my ongoing neighborhood investigations. Case of Mr. Abernathy’s missing garbage can? Solved. Case of the broken streetlights on Eagle Harbor Drive? Solved and reported to the city.

Case of why a sheltered, nerdy girl decided to flirt with a beautiful stranger who was way out of her league?

Completely unsolved.

If I had to profile myself, it would look something like this:

Suspect: Birdie Lindberg

Age: 18

Medical conditions: (1) Sleep problems, possibly inherited from grandfather. (2) Hospital phobia. (3) Bookworm disease. (4) Possible addiction to watching old Columbo, Midsomer Murders, and Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries episodes.