Chapter Twelve WES
Chapter Twelve
W ES
After we look through the harvest trailers, Keith puts together a couple of boxes of produce for me to take back to the vineyard.
“This will give you a pretty good idea of our crops and the quality we yield,” he says as I look through everything. “Just give me a call if you want to do a single order or if you want to set up something recurring. Jack and I go way back, and I’d love to be able to support this new venture.”
I reach out and shake Keith’s hand, then stack up two of the boxes to carry them out to the truck. Murphy grabs the other two. And then we’re loading up and giving Keith a wave goodbye before pulling back onto the long dirt road heading out to the highway.
“He seems like a nice guy,” I say to Murphy, both of us jostling again over the uneven dirt road.
“Keith’s great,” she says, her gaze wandering out the window.
“You’re friends with his daughter? The pregnant one?”
“Yeah. Quinn and I were in choir together.”
“That’s right ... You can sing.”
She shakes her head, a barely perceptible movement, though her gaze stays fixed on the passing fields. “I used to sing.”
I want to pry, but something tells me now isn’t the time.
We pull out onto the highway heading back to Rosewood, and get about ten minutes away from the Trager farm before I start to notice a little wobble to the ride.
“Shit.” I pull off to the dirt embankment on the side.
“What’s wrong?”
“I think we have a flat.”
Murphy groans. “Seriously?”
I get out and, sure enough, the back right tire is flat.
“Must have popped on that dirt road,” I say as I step back up into the cab. “Looks like you are officially the bringer of flat tires.”
Murphy laughs and pulls her phone out, glancing at it before showing me her home screen. It’s a picture of the beach at sunset, and the time says 1:45 p.m.
I must look at her for too long because she points to the top corner. “No service,” she says. “We can either try and flag someone down who will drive us to the vineyard, we can walk back to the Trager farm, or we can walk home. We’re kind of at the halfway point, so”—she shrugs—“it’s up to you.”
Chuckling, I step back out of the truck. “Looks like we have a bit of a walk ahead of us, then, don’t we?”
“Looks like it,” she echoes, hopping out and eyeing me across the bench seat. “Too bad there isn’t some heroic Good Samaritan ready and willing to help this time around.”
“Oh, I’m willing. I just gave you my spare already.”
We laugh and round to the back, tugging out the boxes of produce and moving them to the cab before I lock up and we begin our walk west. Thankfully the spring weather is still just cool enough that nothing will go bad before we get back.
“You said your mentor was into farm to table,” Murphy says after we’ve been walking for a few minutes. “Have you been cooking that way your whole career?”
I kick the dirt slightly. The question stings a little bit. “I wish. It’s hard to put those kinds of boundaries on a job search when you’re in desperate need of one that pays well. There are plenty of times people are forced to sell their soul in the restaurant industry.”
And that’s not nearly the whole story. Just about everyone I know has been through it. Half make it out alive, the other half get burned.
I’m in the latter group, unfortunately.
“What do you mean?”
I tuck my hands in my pockets, the direction of Murphy’s questions making my palms more sweaty than the sunny walk is.
“Oh, you know. Everyone has their own idea about how things should be run, that’s all. And if you really need a job, you just have to follow orders and bank the experience so you can do it your own way one day.”
Murphy hums, but it sounds like she doesn’t exactly agree with me.
Instead of prodding, I decide to turn the spotlight back on her. We’ll see how she likes all the invasive questioning.
“You were a waitress back in LA, right? You know how toxic restaurant culture can be.”
“I do. It’s rife with big egos and alcoholism, and it’s incredibly incestuous.”
“Incestuous?” I repeat, laughing.
Murphy laughs, too. “Oh, you know what I mean. Everyone sleeps with everyone.” Then she pins me with a look. “And don’t try to deny it.”
I give her a tight grin. “I wouldn’t dare.”
“I wasn’t really that person, though. At my first job, almost the entire restaurant got gonorrhea from one guy, and that was enough of a warning for me to keep my lure out of the company pond.” Then she looks at me again. “For the most part.”
At that, my smile comes a lot easier and something inside me becomes lighter.
I don’t know what it is, but talking with Murphy just makes me want to smile. When her brother isn’t talking down to her, and when I’m not being an asshole pushing her away, she’s a pleasure to be with. Our conversations are relaxed, and I can’t remember the last time I had something like that. Something that felt equal parts fun and good and easy.
That’s what it is. Talking with Murphy is easy .
Hell, everything with her is easy. The laughter, the conversation, the way she turns me on.
I’d tried to be as honest as I could with her earlier without intentionally making things more difficult. For me or for her. Just talking about the other night in the kitchen sends little sparks of need flickering through me. Remembering the way she fell apart under my touch is indelible in my mind. Of course I replayed it at least a dozen times when I was back in my cabin later that night, desperate to relieve the tension.
But Murphy doesn’t need to know those things. If she really knew exactly how interesting I find her, how much she turns me on, how amazing I feel when I’m near her, I’m not sure if she’d let me pull away so easy.
And part of me thinks she feels the same.
She has her own walls up, whether from her family’s issues or whatever she left in LA. I can sense it, and I can’t help wanting to know why.
“What was it like balancing being a waitress with the singing stuff?” I ask casually, hoping she’ll want to open up to me about it.
“Not too terrible. After nine years of trying to get my name out there and trying to make connections, I was starting to feel a little exhausted, to be honest.” She pauses. “I’ve never actually admitted that before. Not even to myself.” She is studiously focused on the dirt and gravel along the side of the road where we’re walking. “It makes me wonder if I wasn’t really cut out for it all.”
When she finally looks over at me, she must not like something in my expression.
“It’s okay, you can tell me you think I was stupid to try to be a singer. Everyone else did.”
My brow crinkles. “What? I don’t think it’s stupid.”
“You don’t?”
I shake my head. “No. I think it’s incredibly brave.”
She looks surprised at my answer. “Well, you’re the only one.”
“Really?”
Murphy nods. “My family thought I was crazy for moving so far away. That I was too young and went too far for a dream that was out of reach.” This time, she’s the one who kicks at the dirt, her foot connecting with a small rock that shoots forward and rolls to a stop about ten feet in front of us.
“Well, they’re wrong. And unless they’re the ones who picked up and moved away, who took on all of the uncertainties and risks that come with striking out on your own, they don’t get to judge your choices like that.”
Her eyes are still on the dirt road, and she kicks the rock again once we reach it, but I can tell she’s listening intently.
“They should have told you what they really thought, which is probably that they were sad you left, and they missed you while you were gone, or that things were more difficult for them while you were away. But most people don’t like to get vulnerable that way because it makes them sound selfish. And it is selfish. It’s selfish to make someone else carry your emotions because they’re a burden you don’t know how to carry yourself.”
Murphy stops suddenly. I come to a halt and face her.
“You know, I’ve never had anyone explain things to me like that before. Are you sure you want to be a chef and not a therapist?”
I laugh, and she does too, before we start walking again.
“God, I wish I had my shit together enough to be a therapist.” This time I kick the rock Murphy has been nudging along. “But alas, I’m just as fucked up as you are.”
“Oh, thanks a lot.” She laughs.
“Everyone’s fucked up, though. We all have trauma and emotional baggage from our past that we wouldn’t wish on our worst enemy.”
At that, I kick the rock a little too hard and it shoots way out in front of us.
“Just because you were starting to feel exhausted in the end doesn’t mean anything except that you were on a hard road. Going after your dreams isn’t supposed to be easy. There are supposed to be challenges and things that knock you off-balance. It’s that line from Tom Hanks in A League of Their Own , you know? ‘If it wasn’t hard, everyone would do it. It’s the hard that makes it great.’”
“Yeah,” she says, her voice suddenly much more quiet and melancholy.
I can feel her wanting to say something else, so I keep my mouth shut, hoping that she’ll get whatever it is off her chest. That she’ll share whatever this thing is that she’s carrying around inside her.
We approach the rock again, but Murphy passes it by without even looking at it.
And the longer we walk without saying anything else, the less likely I think it is that she’ll end up sharing whatever is swirling around in her mind.
We’re both exhausted and sweaty when we finally make it back to the Hawthorne property about an hour after we left our truck on the highway. The back half of our journey was a lot quieter than how it started.
I think Murphy was lost in her thoughts about LA, and I was wrapped up in thinking about the reasons I left Chicago.
“I’d like to go take a shower,” Murphy says as we reach the end of the long drive that leads to their house from the road. “But I can drive you back out to the truck to change the tire if you give me about a half hour?”
I shake my head. “Don’t worry about it, Murphy. I can get one of the grounds crew to help me out. Or your brothers.”
She considers me for a moment. “Are you sure?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay, well ... Thanks for the chat.” Her eyes glimmer in the sunlight, and she seems to have a little more spirit than she did on the last part of the walk. “You’re really easy to talk to.”
I grin at her. “Make sure you call your insurance and see if I’m in your network. These therapy sessions aren’t free, you know.”
She laughs, and I relish the sound. But I can see the cloud of whatever is on her mind still lingering, and I wish there was something I could do to help.
“Have a good afternoon, Wes,” she says with a little wave.
“Later, Murph.”
I watch her as she heads through her front door, wishing there was something I could do to pull her out of the weird headspace.
But with nothing immediate and curative coming to mind, I turn to head on up the path, hoping to bump into someone who can help me load a spare tire and take me back to the truck.
Eventually, I find Naomi jumping onto the ATV at the end of one of the vines, and she gives me and a new tire a lift. But the tire replacement takes longer than I expect, and by the time I’ve returned to the property and get the produce put away, I’ve missed dinner. So I trudge out to my cabin and take a shower, eager to rinse off the sweat and grime from the day.
As I stand under the water, letting the heat pound down on my body, I think back to everything that happened, starting with our conversation in the car.
It didn’t surprise me that Murphy asked about where my head was after we fooled around in the kitchen on Sunday evening. But it was surprising how talking to her about it made it seem more manageable. Like having her know that I’m concerned about my job has now released me from solving the problem of my attraction to her on my own.
And maybe that’s why I love talking to Murphy so damn much.
I thought it was easy earlier, as if having simple conversation and some good laughs were the highlights.
But that’s not it at all.
I love talking to Murphy because it feels like we’re both coming to the table with heavy burdens, excess baggage on our shoulders, and sharing some of that with each other takes away some of the stress, even a little bit of the pain.
It’s not that things with Murphy are easy. It’s that simply being around Murphy makes things easier.
I’ve heard it said before, but trauma bonds people. I’ve always assumed it needed to be a shared trauma. But really, it’s just the ability to look at the other person and acknowledge that you’ve both been through some really hard times.
Because you can look at the other person and know you’re not alone.
That night, I get a text from Murphy. Her name popping up on my screen sends a surprising shot of excitement through me.
Murphy: Any chance you’re heading to the bench tonight?
I’d been planning to go for a walk, absolutely. I don’t think I’ve gone a single night here when I haven’t taken advantage of the wide-open space to clear my head, but the added appeal of getting to bump into Murphy has definitely changed the way I anticipate that time.
I try not to reprimand myself for how quickly I respond. My desire to see her and spend more moments together isn’t something I’m willing to address just yet.
Me: Yeah. I’ll be leaving in a few minutes.
A thumbs-up bubble shows up in the corner of my message, and I set my phone down to search my cabin for a clean pair of socks.
Ten minutes later, I’ve got my shoes on, a bottle of wine in one hand and two glasses in the other. For the first time, Murphy is already there when I arrive, and I can’t help the way my chest swells when I see her eyes brighten at my approach.
“Hey.”
She smiles. “Hey.”
I take a seat next to her and hand her a glass, before making quick work of pouring each of us a glass of Syrah.
“Cheers,” Murphy says, clinking hers against mine before taking a long sip.
I follow, placing my nose to the edge and inhaling first, then tilting the glass back and enjoying the way the tannins burst across my tongue.
“Thanks for coming out tonight,” she says, after we’ve been sitting silently together for a few minutes. “I’m sorry for being such a downer earlier. We were having a fun conversation, and I just got kind of lost in my head.”
I reach out and place my hand on hers, squeezing gently.
“You don’t have to apologize. Life is hard and sometimes reflecting on it is even harder.”
She nods, and again, like earlier, I get the sense that she wants to keep talking, that she has something important to say.
“And if you want to talk about it, I’m happy to listen,” I add.
Murphy looks at me, and something softens in her face for just a brief moment, before a glimmer of sadness begins to creep back into her expression.
“I went to LA to become a singer, right?” she starts, her voice quiet.
She shifts where she’s sitting, so her body is angled facing forward, and I get the feeling she’s putting a barrier in place. As if it’s safer to tell me her secrets without looking me in the eye.
“For years I worked every shift I could, lived in shitty roommate situations, and dealt with asshole coworkers and nightmare customers. For nine years, I sacrificed. And then, right when I was this close to my dream”—she lifts her fingers up and pinches them together—“it got snatched away by this fucking ... misogynistic creep .”
She sets her glass on the bench next to her and shakes out her hands, like even thinking about it is too much to handle.
“I was signed to an agent. Paul was a real, honest-to-goodness agent with a really great record label. It was literally the dream. There was another girl ... Dierdre. We’d crossed paths at various gigs around Hollywood, and we got along okay. So when Paul called us in together to talk about ‘our futures,’ we went together and sat in the waiting room and talked about what this could all mean for us and ...” She takes a deep breath and lets it out long and slow.
“He called us in together and the conversation started simple enough. Expectations. Attitude. Performance. ”
I wince when she says the last word like that, something icky creeping into the back of my mind at where this is going.
“And I guess I was a little more naive than I thought because he literally took his dick out and started stroking it while he was talking, and when I looked over at Dierdre, absolutely horrified, she looked like nothing was wrong. You know? Just a penis out, no big deal.”
She growls then, her anger and frustration and whatever happened coming out in a guttural noise.
“And then he let us know that if we expected to get anywhere in the music world, we’d need to get used to knowing how to get ahead . The unspoken part of that sentence was ‘by giving head.’”
My nostrils flare, my own anger beginning to course through my body at the idea of some gross prick talking to her like that.
“Dierdre walked up to his desk and dropped to her knees, right there, with me in the room,” she continues. “I nearly vomited on the floor, and I told Paul he was a disgusting asshole and didn’t he know that men like him couldn’t get away with shit like this anymore.”
Her voice hitches, and that’s when I realize she’s crying.
“And then he looked me in the eyes with this ... glint, this smug fucking glint, and said, ‘Watch me,’ and then tilted his head back as Dierdre ...”
She stands then, walks a few feet away, and kicks at a stick on the edge of the grassy hill where we are, sending it flying into the vineyard stretched before us. Her hands are balled into tight fists, her eyes closed. Her posture feels like a contained scream, and I swear it echoes in the open space around us.
I want to hug her or something. Pull her into me and take her pain away. But I know I can’t fix something like this. This kind of manipulation and abuse of power is ... so wrong.
Murphy stares out into the distance and wipes at her face before she turns to sit next to me again.
“He called me the following day,” she continues, her voice returning to that quiet, melancholy state. “Told me the label had decided they were going to pass, and that I was a cunt who would never have a singing career.” She turns and looks at me. “He blacklisted me, so I came home.”
I run a hand through my hair, my anger at the injustice she faced melding with my frustration at the fact I can’t do anything to fix this.
What I’d like to do is find this Paul guy and wring his neck.
I shift over, bringing my body up next to hers, and wrap my arm around her shoulders. It’s the only thing to do right now, and the idea that I shouldn’t be this close to her because of work is like a puff of smoke disappearing in the breeze.
“I did the right thing,” she says, her voice choking slightly. “I refused to do something that felt so ... wrong. All I feel is this sickness in my stomach, like he didn’t just steal my dream, you know?”
I rub her back, trying to be here for her in any way I can. She leans her head on my shoulder, a sob racking her body.
“I thought he signed me because he thought I was talented,” she continues. “He was the first person to make me feel like I could be something, and it was all a lie because he wanted something else.”
“I’m so sorry, Murphy.”
But my words feel hollow and unhelpful, and Murphy continues to cry.
I hold her close and wish there was anything else I could do. Anything else I could say.
Instead, I’m overwhelmed by the feelings coursing through me.
Because listening to Murphy’s story reminds me a little bit of my own. Of a chance I had to get ahead by selling a chunk of my soul.
Murphy looked the devil in the face and told him she wasn’t for sale.
And there isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t look back and wish I’d done the same.