12. Connor
CONNOR
Iused to love everything about this place.
The rows of trees that stretch all the way to the horizon line, the smell of well-fertilized dirt that sticks to your clothes for hours, the feeling of pride I get when our harvest comes in juicy and sweet.
I loved it. As a kid, as a teen, hell probably a part of me loved it up until Delaney came thundering back into town.
But this land feels a lot more like a burden then a blessing these days.
There’s not much to the orchard. Acres and acres of apple trees, mostly standard varieties with a few hybrids my dad calls his other children, and a solitary building that serves as both the office and the storefront.
Everything is well-worn in a way that makes folks from out of town want to take copious amounts of pictures. They say things like quaint, rustic, charming.
All I can see is a money pit that I’ve been tasked to save.
Which is why I’m up before the sun scrambling to finish my to-do list before I leave for the choir trip.
Even though I’ve been in charge for years, I still feel like an intruder in my dad’s office. He was always out here, pouring over the books, analyzing last season’s yield, or ordering new seeds to test out. Now, I do the bare minimum to keep things operating.
The stack of mail mocks me. Newsletters from other orchards that will go straight into the trash because I can’t bring myself to care about maintaining a relationship with them.
Flyers from seed distributers advertising the latest and greatest cultivar.
Invoices from vendors for our upcoming Fall Fest that we don’t have enough cash to cover.
And then, a big manilla envelope. I don’t have to open it to know what’s inside. I get offers on the land every few months and each time, I read it over and let myself imagine a world in which I sell.
No more early mornings fixing equipment, no more sleepless nights worrying about making payroll. I would be happy, but that happiness would cost my dad everything.
I swipe the unopened envelope into the trash.
“And if you need to pee, please refer to the timetable in your trip packet! All of our stops have been perfectly spaced out, so plan accordingly.” Mrs. Crane, tiny thing that she is, somehow manages a very commanding presence from the front of the bus.
“But what if it’s an emergency?” Simon hollers from somewhere in the back.
Cries of “Pee in a bottle!” echo throughout the bus, and apparently that answer satisfies Simon.
I shoot off a text to Delaney.
Me: Where are you? I have no doubt that Crane will leave your ass if you’re late.
I only saw Delaney briefly this morning, and she looked exhausted. From experience, I know it sucks going into a trip like this already worn out because Ridgecrest choir trips are notoriously fast-paced and a little unhinged.
I’m also learning from experience that it sucks worrying about your fake girlfriend in a very real way.
I’m about to double text when a platinum blonde head comes into view, followed quickly by the tray of coffee she’s balancing.
Mrs. Crane beams over at Delaney as she passes a cup to her, and damn, she might’ve cracked the code to keeping the old lady happy: a steady stream of caffeine.
Delaney plops down in the open seat beside me, huffing out a breath that sends an errant strand of hair floating out of her face.
She hands the third cup to me, “I did a little recon, and it seems like the first rule of chaperoning is to stay hyped up on coffee.”
I quirk an eyebrow at her. “Taking this gig pretty seriously for someone who hates being here so much.”
She shrugs. “Never been a fan of sucking at something, even if I’d rather be tucked away in the studio, working on my new album.”
The way she chews on her lower lip, the little twinkle in her eyes… she’s excited.
This is the first time Delaney has talked about her work with anything close to enthusiasm.
I happily take the bait.
“New album? Got any samples I can listen to?”
As a reply, she whips her phone out and pops one ear bud in her ear before handing me the other one.
“This is a rough, rough cut. You're sworn to secrecy, and if it sucks, don’t tell me.”
The bus purrs to life as the track begins to play. At first, it’s hard to hear over the hum of the engine, but then it hits me.
A slow, soulful melody with an almost jazzy beat to it. Delaney’s voice is gritty and sultry, a far cry from the bubblegum pop she’s known for.
She watches me while nibbling nervously on her bottom lip.
“Delaney, this is…”
She cuts me off. “It’s so rough, I know. I just recorded it on my phone with my little keyboard at home. You can tell me if you hate it, just be nice about it.” Her fingers twist together anxiously in her lap.
I reach for her hands, smoothing them out in my palms, trying to unravel some of her self-doubt.
“Delaney, this is incredible. I’ve never heard you sound this…” I search for the right word. Sexy? Raw? Genuine? My English degree is suddenly useless, every word in my vocabulary falling short.
I land on, “I’ve never heard you sound so much like yourself.”
A smile erupts across her face.
“That’s what I was going for. Stripped down, a little funky. I’m sure it’ll never make it on an album, but I love it. I’ve got a few others I’ve been working on. Want to hear?”
“Of course, Lanie. I want to hear everything.”
So we sit like that for the next hour, sharing headphones and leaning into each other, looking more like students than chaperones.
I always knew she was talented, you don’t get where she is without a huge heaping of natural ability, but these new songs solidify it for me. And prove that her current management is holding her back.
This whole stunt, sending her to back to Ridgecrest to play the girl-next-door dating the fucking English teacher is ridiculous. Insulting, honestly. It’s so obvious to me that she’s outgrown the narrow path she’s been forced to walk for years.
I’m about to tell her as much when the bus pulls off the interstate into a rest stop.
“This is a ten-minute stop,” Mrs. Crane rasps over the speaker. “And you are accountable for your seat-mate. We're going with the buddy system, people.”
She hangs the microphone up and turns to face us.
“You two post up outside the bathrooms and make sure nothing funny is going on.”
As we file off the bus, Delaney elbows my side. “Crane looks terrified. Does she really think these kids are gonna try to get freaky in a rest stop bathroom?”
I shake my head with a smirk. “That poor lady. Working with teens has traumatized her.”
Mrs. Crane, head on a swivel, ushers everyone towards the big brick building and points for us to take our stations by the restroom doors.
It’s totally ridiculous, and maybe under different circumstances, I would be annoyed. But as Delaney makes ridiculous faces at me from across the breezeway, I’m starting to realize that I’d happily do just about anything with her.
It’s fully dark by the time the bus rolls to a stop outside of the lodge.
The senior choir has been coming here for decades, long before Mrs. Crane took over the program. There’s an old-school mountain lodge with log siding, smaller cabins, and chalets dotting the property. It’s picturesque, even at night.
“Mr. Majors, Miss James, will you two run in and get the keys to our chalet?”
Delaney rubs sleep from her eyes as the overhead bus lights flicker on. She pushes away from my arm, where she’s been curled up against me for the last hour. I lost feeling in my fingers thirty minutes ago, but there was no way in hell I was moving her.
It reminds me of the summer we were thirteen, when my dad had more or less kidnapped Delaney for a weeklong road trip with my family. Her parents wanted to pack her summer full: tutoring, vocal lessons, etiquette classes. But Dad refused to back down.
“Give her a week to be a kid again,” I overheard him yelling in the backyard one night while Mr. James argued right back.
Dad won. And we ended up having one of the best summers of our lives.
Dad drove while my older sister planned the stops, and we made it to Louisiana and back with no real destination in mind. It was magic. I loaded up all my books, and Lanie brought her beat-up MP3 player, and we spent hours crammed together in the back seat of my dad’s van, lost in our own world.
That was the last summer we really had together. The next one, she stayed so busy I hardly saw her, and right after she turned sixteen, she moved to L.A.
Delaney wiggles in her seat and blinks sleepily at me.
“Let’s go, Sleeping Beauty. We’ve got chaperone duties.”
And she is so beautiful. There are creases pressed into her cheek, her hair’s a mess, and she’s blinking like she can’t quite remember how she ended up on a bus full of teenagers in the middle of the night. This stripped down version of Delany will undoubtedly be the death of me.
Just for a moment, I let myself imagine waking up to this everyday. As suspected, the thought alone takes my breath away.
“This place is so…” Delaney looks around wide-eyed, as we walk into the impressive lodge lobby. Exposed beams and rough wood make up most of the design. “It’s so rustic chic. I’m kinda obsessed.”
A bubbly brunette behind the front desk waves us over.
“Y’all with that bus that just rolled up?”
“Yep. Ridgecrest choir,” Delaney answers as the woman’s eyes widen with recognition.
“Oh my god, it’s you.”
The receptionist squeals at a pitch far too high for this hour.
Delaney flashes her a practiced smile. “In the flesh! I’d love to chat, but we’ve got a bus full of tired teenagers and a very stern choir director. Got our chalet keys for us?”
The woman, Morgan according to her name-tag, riffles through a drawer before hesitantly pulling out a set of keys.
“So…” she starts sheepishly, “the reservation got a little messed up, and we had to move your group to a smaller cabin. It’s just for tonight, then we can move y’all for the rest of your stay! There shooould still be enough room,” Morgan draws out, “Might just be a tight squeeze tonight.”
I feel Delaney tense beside me.
Her words from earlier echo in my mind. She wants to do this whole chaperoning thing right. That’s the integrity I remember from when we were kids. She may have been a troublemaker in little ways, but when it came to things that mattered, Delaney was always trustworthy and steady.
And regardless of what her dad and management team may think, that girl is still in there.
“All good, Morgan!” I say, leaning forward to snatch the keys and cabin information sheet. “I’m sure it won’t be a problem at all.”
We head back to the bus, crunching the numbers and assigning rooms as we go.
There’s two big bunk rooms that will hold most of the students, two bedrooms on the main floor, one for Mrs. Crane, and one for our bus driver. A spare bedroom and pull out sofa in the basement for a group of the girls.
And then that leaves a single futon bed in the loft.
One bed.
For me and Delaney.