Chapter 23 #2
I hear AT&T’s telltale jingle. “The wireless customer you are trying to reach is unavailable. Please try your call—”
“Gonna try your mom,” Merrick mutters, but I hear it. He’s worried.
Jesus Fucking Christ.
“I’ve gotten through to voicemail on Hattie’s phone, but not every time,” I tell them.
I don’t confess just how many times I’ve tried.
“Beck, h-hold on,” Margaret says. “I’m gonna try to add her to the call.”
“Right,” I manage.
She puts me on hold.
If Hattie’s just avoiding me, surely, she’ll answer her sister. Margaret even has her own musical ringtone.
And with that thought, I’m back to lying on the grass in Moncus Park, holding Hattie in my arms on our first date.
Fuck me, but I knew it then.
I knew I didn’t want our time to end.
I’ve never wanted it to end.
Not a kiss. Not a phone call. Not either of the two nights I’ve slept beside her. Not even the one when she was so drunk, I moved the trash can to her bedside in case she needed to throw up again.
I want to see her. I want to hear her voice, make sure she’s safe.
God, please let her be safe.
“Beck—” Margaret’s voice comes back over the line.
I hear relief. “She didn’t answer, but it went to voicemail.
Her phone is on, charged, and taking calls.
I left her a message, but I’m going to call around.
My dad’s secretary should know where they are.
He wouldn’t be able to just… just vanish without… ”
She doesn’t finish. I don’t think she can. But she’s said enough to give me hope. She’s right. Her dad’s absence would be noticed at his office. On Day 1.
“Right.” I nod, mentally backing away from the ledge of madness. “Right.”
“I’ll call you as soon as I know something,” Margaret promises. “I’ll call you in fifteen minutes even if I don’t know anything. I swear.”
“Yeah,” I manage, suddenly wrecked and worthless. “Thanks.”
I hear the screen door creak behind me just as we end the call. Then the klunk of Pop’s walker.
I don’t look back at him. I’m not in control of my expression. Or my limbs.
But I feel him when he crosses the porch and stops at my back.
He grunts. “You’re shaking worse than I am.”
My face flushes hot.
I shouldn’t have room for fears beyond those for Hattie. Yet, I’m still worried about shaming the old man.
I swallow hard. “Do you think I’m being ridiculous? Working myself up over a girl I’ve known for just over a month?”
I hate the words even as they leave my mouth. How dare I utter them?
Why should I care what he thinks?
I may not have known Hattie long, but I have no doubt what I feel for her is real. Real and lasting.
So why does my heart sink when I hear my father’s walker stomp away?
But then one of the porch rockers gives an epic creak.
“Come sit with me, son.”
Stunned, I turn, push to my feet, and settle into the rocker beside him.
I glance over, but he’s not looking at me, not waiting for me to explain myself. He’s just staring out over the fields.
I follow his gaze.
The sweet potato harvest is almost behind us. The first tracts we harvested are already carpeted in green with alfalfa, our late fall rotational crop.
The ground we’ve harvested this week is churned up, a rich chocolate brown. Cow egrets strut on their stilt-like legs, picking at exposed insects. We help them by turning the earth. They help us by keeping the pests down.
We’ll start harvesting alfalfa almost as soon as we’re done curing, and most of it will go to cattle farms in the area. Who will also provide us with manure for the spring.
And so it goes.
This cycle is as familiar and easy as my own breath.
But right now, it threatens to suffocate me.
“Did I ever tell you when I knew I wanted to marry your mother?”
I jerk my head to Pop.
“Uh…” I search my memory. Mom was the only one who talked about their early days. She said he’d proposed after they’d dated for one year. “No. I’m guessing a few months before you asked her?”
His chuckle is gruff. “On our second date.”
I blink. “Your second date?”
This I’ve definitely never heard.
Mom told me and Grif about their first date probably a million times. It was December. They were both nineteen. Pop didn’t have a lot of money, so he took her to see the Christmas lights at Acadian Village. They ate poboys, rode the carousel, and got hot chocolate.
“He walked me to the middle of the bridge where you could see all the Christmas lights around the village dancing on the surface of the pond,” Mom used to tell us, blushing as she smiled. “And that’s where we had our first kiss.”
Grif and I grew up cringing and groaning at that story, but it hits me that it sounds a whole lot like my first date with Hattie.
Coffee. Beignets. Kissing by a pond.
I guess the apple doesn’t fall far.
But I shake my head. “I’ve never heard about your second date.”
Pop grunts. “Wasn’t much of a date. I was supposed to take her to Prudhomme’s for a nice dinner, but we’d had a hard freeze the night before.
Once it thawed, a pipe burst and flooded the main storehouse.
Your grandfather and I were up to our ears in freezing muck.
” He scowls, shaking his head at the memory.
“I called to let her know I had to cancel. She turned up twenty minutes later with waders and a shop vac.”
Pop’s scowl melts before my eyes. “Cutest damn thing I ever saw.” His grumble softens, as does the look on his face. It’s the look of a time traveler. He just traveled back thirty years, and I hold my breath, not wanting to intrude on his trip.
Then he blinks and looks back at me, almost surprised to find me still here. He clears his throat hard.
“Knew I’d never find a better or sweeter woman in this life or the next.
I just had to spend a year convincing her that she wanted to cast her lot with a grump like me.
” Pop’s chuckle is rough. “So don’t expect me to warn you away from falling hard or fast. Seems to me your Hattie is the kind of soul who’ll brighten even your worst days. ”
He’s right. I knew that the day I met her.
And not knowing where she is or if she’s safe? My days have been pretty dark.
“Right now, I’d settle for knowing she’s okay.”
Pop grunts. “Got a feeling she’s just fine.” He sniffs. “But if I had to guess, she’s none too happy, wherever she is.”
“What do you mean?”
“From where I sit, she’s as crazy about you as you are about her,” Pop says, a twinkle in his eye. “My hunch is she’s with her parents, but she’d rather be with you.”
As much as I’d like to believe his hunch, I can’t make sense of it. “Then why doesn’t she call me—”
My phone rings. The way my heart clenches with hope is just too cruel.
Because it’s not Hattie.
It’s Margaret.
Still, I waste no time answering. “Hey—”
“Beck, they’re okay,” she says in a rush. “I don’t know much. Some of it is confusing, but Miss Gayle, Dad’s secretary, said he came in on Monday and had her book plane tickets for him, Mom, and Hattie to San Diego. They flew out on Tuesday—”
What the fuck? “Tuesday?”
“Mom and Dad are flying back now. In fact, their flight from San Diego to Dallas took off about an hour ago—which is why they aren’t answering their phones—” Margaret sounds almost giddy with relief.
“Wait. What about Hattie? Isn’t she—”
“That’s… That’s the confusing part… Gayle said Hattie’s return ticket was open.”
I blink. “Open?”
I’m a farmer. I don’t take many trips. The only time I’ve ever flown anywhere was to Austin for Grif and Kennedy’s bachelor weekend.
“She has a ticket home,” Margaret says, uncertainty in her voice. “Just no set return date.”
The meaning of her words sinks in.
“So Hattie’s in San Diego, and we don’t know when she’s coming back?” If I didn’t know it was me, I’d think the person asking was being strangled.
“That’s… that’s what we know so far. But Mom and Dad will land in a couple of hours. They have a ninety-minute layover. They’ll have time to call me back and explain—”
“But they just left her?” It suddenly hits me that Margaret doesn’t sound too worried. “Do you know where she is? Do you have family there? Is she—”
“I don’t know where she is,” Margaret says, but I hear it. She’s hedging. “I need more information.”
“Well, where do you think she is?”
“I—look, Beck—” Margaret sighs. “I have a guess, but I really need to wait to hear from someone. Either Hattie or my parents. But, I swear to you, I’m not worried. Not about Hattie’s safety, okay?”
I frown. “Not about her safety? Then what are you worried about?”
The line goes quiet for only a few seconds, but it’s an infuriating few seconds.
“Margaret?”
“Beck, I will tell you more when I know something for sure. Okay? I will call you back in three hours, tops. Good enough?”
No, it’s not fucking good enough.
“Why won’t you—”
“Three hours, Beck. Just give me three hours and know that she’s okay.” She doesn’t give me time to argue or agree. “Talk soon.”
Then she hangs up.
“Fuck!”
“That good?”
I turn to find Javier on the steps, a look of open curiosity on his face.
I haven’t shared that Hattie’s ghosting me, but he knows something’s wrong.
And since he already knows about the bind the farm is in, he’s guessed out loud that my mood this week is due to the tightening noose on my prospects.
I haven’t corrected him and I’m not about to do it now.
“We gettin’ back to it?” he asks, thumbing over his shoulder toward the fields.
I glance at my watch.
Shit.
Our lunch break ended twenty minutes ago. I’m paying the crew to sit on their asses.
But before I can answer Javier, Pop does it for me.
“You got a man on your team who can step up as foreman for today?” he grumbles at Javier.
Javi frowns at me before looking back at Pop.
“Yes, sir. Gui can take over for me. Why?”
“Because you’re going to take over for Beckett. He needs the afternoon off.”
I know I’m truly fucked when I can’t even argue.
I’m in no fit state to drive a harvester. My head is 1600 miles away.
When the phone rings two hours later, it’s not Hattie.