Chapter Fourteen WES
Chapter Fourteen
W ES
The phone rings for so long, I’m almost positive it’s going to go to voice mail, but just before it does, someone answers.
“Yeah.”
I clear my throat. “I’m looking for Sonia?”
“Oh, you are, huh? And why the fuck should I let you talk to her?”
Licking my lips, I rest my palm against my forehead and close my eyes.
“I’m her son.” I try to keep my voice calm.
There’s a pause, and the guy grunts before I hear footsteps and shuffling. Then my mother’s voice comes across the line.
“What.”
I instantly know she’s sober. She’s only angry when she’s sober.
“Hi, Mom.”
“Look, I don’t have a lot of time. Troy and I have things to do.”
“I just wanted to check in.”
She snorts. “I don’t need you to check in. I’m the mother here.”
Sighing, I squeeze my cell phone in irritation.
“All right. I was thinking about heading into the city to see you.” My stomach roils with every word. “Maybe I could take you to lunch.”
I know exactly what’s going to happen if I meet up with my mother in San Francisco and take her to lunch . She’s going to end up having me meet her at some roach-infested corner store and try to hustle me out of money instead of eating with me. Because this is what happened the three times I met up with her before I moved to Chicago, and my mother is nothing if not predictable.
“I don’t know if I’ll have the time,” she finally tells me. “But if you let me know when, and I’m free, I’ll meet you somewhere close to me.”
“Where are you now?” I ask. “Still near Union Square?”
She’s roamed around quite a bit over the years, but she’s most consistent about staying within certain neighborhoods with a larger homeless community. Even when she finds ways to put a roof over her head, she tries to stick in the same area. It really just depends on how dark things have gone in her mind.
“I’ll let you know where I’m at when I want to,” she answers, her voice suspicious. “I don’t need you and your lazy-ass brother getting into my business.”
“’Course not, Mom.”
She makes a noise like she doesn’t believe me, and then I hear her talking to someone else. Maybe the guy who answered the phone ... Troy? He yells something and then she yells something.
I wince, feeling helpless. I truly wish there was something I could do for her that could change this devastating recurring pattern of her life.
But addiction is complicated. I’d like to get her into rehab. I’d like to be able to set her up with an apartment. I’d like to get her away from whoever this guy is that sounds like an asshole.
Hell, I’d like to believe anything she says to me, ever.
But Ash and I have tried the rehab road. We’ve tried the apartment thing. We’ve tracked her down in cities and offered to help, tried to get her out of whatever toxic relationship or environment she’s settled into. We’ve tried countless times to reach into the drunken hole she likes to bury herself in and support her as she climbs her way out.
None of it has worked.
I don’t know if it ever will.
“Mom.” I try to get her attention again. “Mom.”
I hear her mumble something, and then the line goes dead. I pull the phone away from my ear on a pained sigh.
I can’t call anyone to go check on her because I don’t know where she is. The only person who might is my brother, but when I call him, it goes straight to voice mail. I leave a message letting him know about the chat with Mom and then send him a text to call me.
Instead of heading to the shower and bed, I sit for hours on the porch in the cooling night breeze, worrying about my mother.
Like I’ve done on so many other nights throughout my life.
“Thank you everyone for joining us this evening,” Memphis says to the crowd of people seated in the restaurant’s dining room on Sunday evening. “Chef Hart has been hard at work perfecting his menu for our opening, which is happening this coming Friday!”
My stomach dips as the room breaks into applause. I put on a smile as I stand at his side.
He has no idea how close I was to ripping my entire menu apart yesterday, but thankfully I was able to calm down long enough to realize how foolish that would be.
I’m still waffling over a few things, but the way I plan to organize the menu allows for those little last-minute adjustments.
That’s what I’m hoping, at least.
“Tonight, we’ll be getting a sneak preview of what we can expect from Chef Hart and this season’s menu. Chef, is there anything you’d like to add?”
I lick my lips and clear my throat.
“Everything you’ll be served tonight is farm to table, with the majority of the produce coming from the Trager farm.” I give Keith Trager a nod where he sits at a table with his family—his wife, Brooke, and who I’m assuming is his daughter, Quinn, if the very pregnant belly is a giveaway.
I’d been surprised to receive Memphis’s final number of attendees two days ago, as it was nearly twice the size of what I’d been assuming.
The dinner had originally been just for the Hawthorne Vines restaurant and vineyard staff. That’s twenty people. When Memphis let me know I’d be serving dinner for over forty guests, my entire plan for the evening had to be rethought, not to mention the fact I needed to make sure I had all the supplies necessary.
We might have a fully functioning kitchen right now, but it’s far from fully stocked, and it will stay that way until we get our first major delivery on Wednesday.
Thankfully, everything fell together without too much fuss, but Memphis and I had exchanged some terse words.
“When I was coming up in the food industry,” I continue to our guests, “I was lucky enough to have a mentor who preached the values of fresh ingredients and supporting local food producers. It was a principle he tried to uphold in any restaurant he was involved in, and I have vowed to do the same. Not only will our patrons get the best of our local farms’ organic produce and other offerings, I get the joy of designing our rotating menu around seasonal ingredients. I have done so this evening, and will continue to with pleasure, because restaurants who source locally cause less harm to the environment and play an important role in supporting the local economy—the very neighbors and community who are likely to frequent the establishment.”
I glance to Memphis and give him a smile. “Memphis and I were fortunate enough to share the same vision, and I’m thrilled to have been able to execute a portion of that for you this evening. If you take a look over to the windows, you’ll see tables of food set up for you. While the restaurant will be sit-down service, tonight we’ve opted for buffet style so that you can test and try the entirety of the menu. Bon appétit . ”
At my final words, everyone begins chitchatting and rising from their seats to explore the long line of tables Murphy, Memphis, and I set up earlier today.
I’m not nervous that they’ll like the food. I know I’m a good chef. An amazing one, actually. I didn’t win a James Beard Award by being average.
But the feedback tonight is important. There’s a level of pressure that comes along with the start of a new restaurant. I never know what people are going to prefer, what they’re going to critique, what might go wrong. There’s constant scrambling to keep operations afloat, even in the most successful establishments, and it’s difficult to keep all the pieces straight and organized.
In the past, though, someone else was always making the major decisions, either a manager or a restaurateur who oversaw the nitty-gritty of things.
Here, I’m acting as both head chef and manager. There’s a lot more than just the menu to oversee, and it has been quite a challenge learning how to navigate it without asking constant questions.
The last thing I want is for Memphis to lose confidence in me, especially because I’m sure that I’m capable of handling it all. There’s just a learning curve when taking on more responsibility than I was expecting.
Like tonight. I was expecting a dinner that I could cook entirely on my own. Sit-down service. But timing is everything. Once I realized how many people would be here, I knew it was unrealistic and I had to pivot to the buffet.
I also assumed I would just be in the back, cooking and bringing out food the entire time, that all the speaking would fall on Memphis. Then he let me know this morning that he’d like me to make a speech to welcome everyone and talk more about my plans for the restaurant.
And then there’s Murphy.
God, I’m starting to forget all the reasons why staying away from her was supposed to be the smarter choice.
We were setting up the tables and serving station earlier, and she was telling me this story about a night when a reality TV star rented out her restaurant for a private party and informed the staff that a group would be hounding the front door trying to get in, but that the staff shouldn’t worry because they’re paid fans.
It was a weird story, and every time she stopped to imitate this pseudo-celebrity, she tried to do an accent. I think it was supposed to be a New Jersey accent or New York or something, but she’d scrunch up her face to try to pull it off, and I just couldn’t stop laughing.
It’s been so long since I’ve been able to laugh like that. So freely.
Seeing her laugh is just as satisfying, too. It makes me want to reach out and take her face in my hands and kiss her until she’s not laughing anymore.
“Grab a plate, Wes,” Memphis says, nudging me slightly with his elbow as he passes by me with his own plate full of food. “There’s a spot for you next to me.”
I make quick work of loading up with pesto pasta, a chicken slider, mashed potatoes, and the vinaigrette salad I was struggling with a few weeks back. I finally perfected the dressing yesterday. The missing ingredient turned out to be mint.
“This salad is wild,” Naomi says as I take a seat between her and Memphis. “Who knew that peaches would taste good in a salad?”
I spear my fork into my pasta. “I’m glad you like it.”
The sound of the restaurant door opening has the entire room turning to look, and my stomach flips when I see Murphy walking in.
My throat goes dry.
She looks . . . incredible.
She always does, whether she’s wearing little sleep shorts or sweaty from an hour-long walk in the blazing-hot sun. But tonight she’s wearing a gauzy summer dress that makes her look ...
Wow.
When Murphy finishes grabbing her plate, she takes the empty seat across from me, and I can’t help but watch her. Her smile is wide, and her eyes are bright.
“This really is incredible, Wes,” Jack says, snagging my attention away from Murphy and over to where he sits at the head of the long table. “I can’t remember the last time I had such a delicious meal.”
Then he raises his glass.
“To the chef,” he says, and then everyone is lifting their glasses and echoing him.
I lock eyes with Murphy as her glass is in the air, and she gives me a soft smile I’m not expecting. “To the chef,” she says, her voice low and raspy.
I smile back because looking at her means I can’t not.
“You know what this calls for.” At the other end of the table, Keith Trager is setting down his wineglass. “A little music. What do you say, Murphy?”
“Oh yes, please,” Brooke says, her face lighting up. “Murphy, you’ve always played so beautifully. Especially that one song you wrote. Something about mistakes or—” She snaps a few times. “You know the one. You played it at The Standard when they first started doing those open mic nights.”
When I look to Murphy, there’s a panicked look in her eyes. But then she blinks a few times and it’s gone.
“‘Sacrifice,’” she says with a tight smile. “But I don’t have my guitar with me.”
“Why don’t you go grab it from the house, Murphy.”
Her head whips to the side at the sound of her father’s voice.
“It’ll only take a couple minutes. And”—he looks around, then back at his daughter—“I think everyone would like to hear you play.”
Something passes between the two of them—a tense, uncomfortable look, like Jack doesn’t really want to ask her but is doing it anyway—and a few seconds later she stands, crosses the room, and exits out the front door.
“That’s why she moved to LA, wasn’t it?” Brooke asks Jack. “To play music?”
There’s a pause before he replies, “Yeah. She wanted to be a singer.”
“She had the best voice in choir,” Quinn announces, one hand resting on her stomach and a big smile on her face. “And it wasn’t just me who thought so. Everybody did.”
“She really was something,” Brooke adds. “And it’s just the neatest thing that she tried to make it big. You know, so many of us have these huge dreams, and we’re never brave enough or lucky enough to go after them. And she did it. I bet she has a million stories.”
Jack doesn’t say anything else, and everyone goes back to their meals and conversations.
Soon enough, Murphy’s back, holding a black guitar case and setting up a chair in the corner. She tugs a beautiful old guitar out and slings the strap around her shoulders. She plucks at the strings for a few seconds while she tunes it up.
“Sorry, it’s been a little while,” she says, her voice breathy.
But then she clears her throat and begins to strum the keys more intentionally.
“How about a little Mumford & Sons?” Without waiting for an answer, she begins to strum a slowed-down version of a familiar song.
It’s clear she’s incredibly talented, her fingers moving adeptly over the strings.
Then she starts singing, and I’m stunned. The raspy quality to her voice settles over the room, like rough velvet, burrowing its way under my skin.
The words go in one ear and out the other, but the sound of it vibrates through me.
As she gets further into the song, the bit of shakiness she began with starts to flake off, revealing the true confidence of who she is as a performer. Her smile begins to emerge, and she makes these little faces when she hits certain notes.
I don’t think I’ve ever felt so captivated by a performance.
Of course it feels like it’s over before it even really started, and we all burst into a round of applause.
I search the table, gauging the reactions from my fellow listeners, and I’m unsurprised to see everyone looking at her in awe.
Except her father.
He glares at her for too long, and when Murphy looks to him and sees his expression, her gaze dims.
Jack turns toward the table, giving his back to his daughter, then digs almost angrily into his dinner.
“Great job, Murph,” Memphis says as she lifts the guitar strap from around her shoulders. Then he bumps his father, and I watch a stare down between the two of them.
Something is happening, but I don’t fully understand what.
The only thing I know for sure is that the woman who stood up there singing was incredible. An absolute showstopper. And her father didn’t offer a single note of praise.
I’m grateful that the other dinner guests don’t seem to notice the unease in the family. I’m flooded with relief, for Murphy’s sake and mine, when the evening’s agenda comes to an end.
“That was really something, sweetheart,” Brooke says to Murphy as the Trager family rises from the table, all of them exchanging hugs as they prepare to go. “Next time you come by the farm, make sure you give me a hello. I’d love to hear about LA.”
I wince. It’s doubtful Mrs. Trager will get the same story I did.
It makes me wonder if Murphy has shared how things ended in LA with any of her family. I can’t imagine she’s told her father. He’d probably say I told you so , if I had to guess.
There’s a small possibility that she’d talked to Memphis about it. My money’s on Micah, though. She’s said she’s much closer with her younger brother, and that he was the only one to visit her when she lived in Venice Beach.
“I didn’t know she could sing like that,” I say to Memphis a little while later as we’re reclined in Adirondack chairs on the patio, looking over the vineyard.
He takes a swig from his beer. “She’s always had that killer voice. She’d never admit it, but she really was the star of her high school choir. People might have shown up for their own kids, but it was Murphy they wanted to hear.”
I chuckle, then take a sip from my own bottle. “Why’d she go to LA?” I already know the answer, but I’m curious to hear her brother’s thoughts on it.
It takes him a while to respond, and when he does, I’m surprised at his answer.
“She wasn’t happy here. Never was, and I don’t know if she ever will be.” He stares out over the vines. “Besides, she’s got way too much talent to be stuck here. She’s just gotta figure it all out.”
I ruminate over his answer long after he’s left the restaurant for home.
Murphy seems like a generally happy person, but there’s definitely a side of her that seems a little lost as she tries to navigate whatever life will look like for her now that, according to her, the dream she’s always had is no longer an option.
Feels like just another reason that I’m so drawn to her.
There’s something inside of Murphy’s soul that mirrors my own.
That sense of loss.
Of all that hard work, gone.
This restaurant, being here and working as the head chef, creating the menu and building myself back up ... that’s my redemption for everything I went through. Everything I did.
Murphy just needs to find hers.
When I finally push out of the kitchen, I’m surprised to see Murphy standing just outside the front door, peering in through the glass.
I cross the room and unlock it, opening it wide so she can come in.
“Sorry,” she says, giving me an embarrassed smile. “I forgot my phone.”
She scans the room, locating the phone sitting on the chair she’d sat on when she performed. She glances at the screen and then closes it out, her attention turning to me.
“You were incredible tonight,” I tell her, unable to keep how I really feel about it to myself.
Murphy gives me a shy smile. “Thanks.”
“No, I mean”—I walk toward her, wanting so badly to communicate to her the way hearing her sing impacted me—“ really incredible.” I shake my head, coming to a stop a few feet away. “I mean, no wonder you went for it in LA.”
At that, her smile turns slightly sad, and I want to kick myself for bringing up that lost dream.
“Clearly it wasn’t enough.” She shakes her head slightly, and some of her hair falls forward from where it was tucked behind her ear. Like she’s trying to hide behind it.
“That’s not who you are.” I take another step closer and push her hair back so it doesn’t cover her face. “You’re not the one who doesn’t believe you’re enough.”
She looks at me, so much emotion swirling behind those beautiful golden eyes.
“You’re that brave girl who went after her dreams, remember?”
“It doesn’t feel very brave when you flee back to your hometown with your tail tucked between your legs. I don’t feel strong or brave or anything like that. I feel like a failure. Like I had to come back home because I couldn’t hack it on my own. Now I have to face the family that never believed in me and show them—” Her voice cuts off and her eyes pinch shut, a single tear finally breaking free. “Show them that they were right all along.”
I reach forward and take her face in both my hands, wishing with everything inside me that I could make her understand exactly how amazing she is.
“You wanna know why you’re wrong about everything you just said?” I swipe my thumb over the wet streak trailing down her face. “Because you were brave. And you are strong. You took on the world, you faced down someone who held your future in their hands, and you refused to cower. That is bravery. That is strength,” I say, wishing she had any idea just how deeply I know that truth.
Murphy doesn’t say anything, she just looks up at me. I lean in, still holding her face, and brush my lips against one cheek, and then the other, erasing the trail left by her self-doubt and turmoil.
When I pull back to look at her, I find her gaze locked on my lips.
It’s the final straw, the last movement to communicate to me that she wants to be kissed again just as much as I want to be the one kissing her.
So I lean down and press my lips against hers.
It’s somehow bigger than the kiss we shared on the tailgate of my truck weeks ago. It tastes like magic, and it feels like all the breath has been stolen from my lungs. I’d been captivated by Murphy that first night, but this is something else entirely. I don’t remember kissing ever being like this before. Or ever feeling anything like this before.
I dip my tongue into her mouth and twist with hers. I want to melt into the floor when I hear her quiet moan.
Her hands move, resting lightly at my waist as the two of us continue a slow, lazy, sensual kiss unlike anything I’ve ever experienced. And then she nibbles on my bottom lip and I nearly come unglued.
We separate, our heads pulling back, and I revel in the way her cheeks are flushed and her eyes are glazed.
She smiles.
Even though I know we’ve broken some rules and probably made a mistake to give in to our desires, I can’t seem to muster up an ounce of me that cares.