Crushing (The Southern California Wine Country Series) (11 page)

“–
You’ll play again.”

“You didn’t see his hand.”

“Maybe something else happened? They have good doctors here, I’m sure you will be able to play.”

“The doctor said the nail brushed near a bunch of nerves. I might not be able to feel anything nor control anything in that hand.” He raised his hand by his elbow.

Amanda watched how his bicep scrunched together, bulging in a way that made her body long for him. She wanted his arms around her. Then a surge of shame washed through her.

“I want to be able to touch you …”

How she wanted him to touch her. Kyle brought his eyes from the window and looked into her face. Despair filled his striking looks. Fear and despair. She said, “You will heal. You will be able to play the guitar. You are meant to play the guitar.”

“But what if I can’t?”

“Then we will find something else. I’ll be here for you.”

“Look at you. You can have any person you want. You don’t need to be stuck to a broke and broken cripple that can’t get any job other than general labor.”

“You might be broke for the moment, but that is only temporary. Same with your injuries. You are strong. You will heal.” Amanda put her hand on his chest. She could feel his breathing and the rumble of his words.

“You don’t need to pretend to be loyal. I’m finished before I ever got started.”

“Don’t feel so sorry for yourself. Even if worst case like you said, this other guy, he is still working.”

“A broken half a man.”

“No, not broken. A temporary injury.”

He raised his hands off the bed, “I work with my hands. Don’t you see? Half of my ability is gone. It takes both hands to play guitar. The guitar is the only thing I have talent for, and now I’m done.” His hands flopped down on the bed and his gaze returned to the window. Two workers in hard hats walked past the window to inspect one of the air conditioning units mounted there. “See, those guys need both hands for those wrenches they use on the air conditioner motors.”

Amanda nodded. “You’re going to get better.”

“But what if I don’t?”

“I’ll be here for you.”

“You don’t want half a man, one that can’t earn decent wages because of permanent disability.”

“You are not disabled. You are only injured.”

“No.” Kyle’s eyes pierced her.

“What?” Amanda stepped back.

“I want you gone.”

Amanda saw how his eyes glistened at the edges, rimmed with tears. “I want you to leave. I will never be able to play. I will always be angry. I resent my situation. None of this will be good for us. For you.”

“–
But we can work it out.”

“No. We cannot. I want you to go –”

“I’m staying.”

“No. You are going. I don’t want to see you again.” He forgot a moment about his hand and crossed his arms. When his right elbow crushed down on his injured left hand, he bellowed and slid his hand out over the empty space of the floor. His face screwed down in pain.

Amanda backed up. She did not know what to do. Tears flooded her eyes and made the whiteness of the hospital bright and confusing. She wiped her face with her hands. “Call me.”

“Don’t wait for any calls. Go!” Kyle rolled his body toward the sliver of window so his back pointed at Amanda.

Amanda’s stomach churned into an empty pit. Her heart lonely with the chill of ice cracking its corners. She realized just how much she loved this man. It was not just her body drunk on his physical being but her heart needed him. Her mind wanted him despite everything about him. She did not know what to do. She left, tears wetting her hands and arms as she fled from Kyle and from hope.

“What happened?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“That bad?”

“Yes.” Amanda leaned against the bar. It was early yet and quiet except for her and Julie in the tasting room. Her nose prickled with new tear preludes. She squeezed the edge of the granite.

Julie watched Amanda’s body move to fight the hurt. “You look like a poltergeist is twisting you to take over.”

“– Still don’t want to talk about it.”

“Then …” Julie arranged the block of empty wine glasses for the third time. Her fingers touching the foot of each glass and nudging them tighter in their military formation as they readied for battle. “Let me tell you about the archeology team I’m joining.”

Amanda saw the ice cubes floating in her tall cup of green tea as it stood wetly under the back lip of the bar. Her shoulders eased back. “Did you get that ship-in-the-ice project?”

“Yes! I am in now! I got the letter yesterday. That thirty-eight gun British frigate that Doctor Cooper located in the Antarctic glacier ten years ago. He finally received a grant – a pharmaceutical company out of Chicago. What they want with an old ship, who knows? For history, though there will be tons of fantastic artifacts. I have been rearranging my fall schedule so I can get on that project winter term. I’m soooo excited!”

“Oooh, swarthy swashbucklers. I’ll bet it is all romantic, messages in bottles, those big flouncy princess dresses –”

“They didn’t allow women on those ships. But yeah, swashbucklers in those fluttery shirts that are barely tied across their muscular chests,” Julie sighed.

“And the treasure. There must be treasure if there are pirates.”

The two of them stared out the grand winery windows as if feeling the salt air from the ocean bursting over the gunwales, a slow ravishing by a returning rogue, or a handsome pirate prince.

Amanda asked, “When are you going?”

Julie said, “Soon. I have to tell Miles.”

“That will be an adventure to tell your grandchildren, for sure.”

Julie giggled.

Amanda hoped her Vampire Pirate might someday change his mind.

Kyle laid on the rear seat of his car under their tree. He would need to get Sardis from the roofing job at five. His guitar remained in the trunk, not played since his hand was injured, surely as out of tune as his soul. A pair of lazy green flies zipped through the open window and hovered around. Leaving and returning. “I’m not dead yet, fly.” Kyle waved his good hand at them, the change in fluid pressure in his body made his hand throb. The last of his pain pills from the hospital tempted him from their package jammed in the cup-holder. He split a pill in half and used that to get some sleep each of the last two nights. He worried that the pain and the doctor’s description of nicking the nerves meant bad things for his still numb fingers, puffy in the bandaging and braces. The flies disappeared out the window only to return. They could be patient in their hunger for his flesh. Kyle decided to ignore them for now.

Images of Amanda shimmered through his thoughts. The smell of her. The touch of her skin. “Why did I push you away?” He could call her. The phone showed a full charge now, sitting on the dash plugged into the cigarette lighter. His heart hurt for her. “Why did I push you away?”

He lifted his wounded hand, scanning the bandages and the dark finger tips the size of hot dogs. “This useless piece of meat.” Memories of his fingers scathing licks up and down the guitar fingerboard, brushing some notes, hammering others, shredding the strings with a peal of rapid-fire impulses. Music that broiled out of his stage amp and seethed across a room packed with dancers. All of that silent now, maybe forever. He turned his head and tried to get sleep.

“What do we do?” Elliot sniffed. His thin brittle blond hair quivered at the sides of his splotchy face, somehow puberty woes had not left him pimple free even at twenty-three. “I need cash to get out of the house, too unbearable with the rules there. If Kyle is out for months –”

Sardis said, “That’s months if the damage is minor, if permanent then we might as well sit on the pointy end of our drumsticks. I’m the same. I need cash. After Haley’s band took all our gear, sold it, and did not split the money as she said … shit. This is screwed up.”

Elliot nodded. “Haley said we should join her band. She doesn’t like her bass player –”

“Because he’s fucking gay. She handles the rest of that band by yanking around their dicks. She is a hot fuck who knows her body like a gold medal dancer and sings half-naked. She rubs up and down on them during the set. That bass player sees right through her though. It’s funny.”

“Yeah, that’s too funny.”

Sardis stared at Elliot, “You think she’s hot.”

“She is.”

“She’s also dangerous.”

“I can use a little of her kind of hot danger.”

“Don’t wet your pants, little girl.”

Elliot smiled and then laughed. His gaze came back to Sardis, “I need to earn cash, and playing bass is my best talent. What do we do? He’s your brother; otherwise I’d be gone already.”

Sardis nodded. His little brother that had been able to kick his ass at music and in the fights they got into, but they were still brothers. “Screw him. We have to look out for ourselves right now. If we hit it big then we can bring him back on to run the tambourine or some crappy single-handed instrument.”

“Put a cow-bell on the broken mic stand and wail on that with one hand.”

“We only have two songs that use a cow-bell.”

“Then he plays two songs every night and does vocals the rest.”

“I know him. If he cannot play guitar then he will not have any of it. He’d rot in a hotel room if we could afford the digs.”

“Then I don’t know. You decide. I’m up for playing bass and making money. The rest … give me a reason to stay.”

Sardis nodded. “I agree.”

“Which wine would you like to taste first? I’m recommending Zack’s Blend Two but there are several excellent wines on the tasting list.” Amanda held a wine glass up for Benjamin.

“No wine for me just yet. I’m looking for an Amanda that works here, about your age, I think.”

Amanda set the glass down and looked at this man. Nothing about him reminded her of anything, nothing remarkable. He did not seem like an executive nor a criminal. “My name is Amanda.”

“Do you get a break I could ask you some questions about your mother? Her name
is
Felicity, right?”

“Y-Yes.” Amanda looked around the tasting room, other than a few customers, none of the other winery staff was in sight. “Let me get Julie to watch the bar and I’ll meet you on the patio.” She pointed beyond the big doors toward the reflecting pools. Benjamin nodded and Amanda walked around the corner to find Julie to cover.

“What do you know about my mother? Is she sick or injured?”

“No. I’m not here if there is any problem like that. I used to be married to her –”

“Benjamin?” Amanda recoiled from the umbrella table that separated the two of them. That only meant one person. All those years of wanting to meet him. Dreading ever seeing him. The list of questions she had carved on metal plates bolted into her mind just flashed to useless vapor.

“I am. I met this girl Haley and she said you worked here. Curiosity made me come. At least to meet you, once.”

“You abandoned me. You left my mom and me. Why talk now?” Fire surged around Amanda.

Benjamin rested his hand on the table, keeping his fingers from shaking. “I – I only left because your mother threw me out. It was not sudden or anything. Your mother and I fought all the time. I was still young when I left. We didn't know how to fix things. Other things happened. I became severely depressed.” He started to rise to leave, “But I see I made a mistake to seek you.”

“No. Stay.” Amanda heard her voice speak for her. Her mind spun in confusion, not sure she should stay. “You left us when I was two years old. I remember empty shoes by the front door and hoping you’d return and wear them.” She studied his face, “But I don’t remember anything else about you. What other things happened? Mom told me you were evil and abandoned us and she was glad you left.”

Benjamin swallowed hard, “Too much to tell. Too many issues. We just didn’t make a good fit.” How could he tell this girl that he caught Felicity with other lovers in their wedding bed? More than one at a time and more than once? How he was never sure if Amanda was really his? How Felicity spilled hate and told him Amanda was certainly not his? Even though he could look at her hands and think he saw the same curl of her thumb as his? “I could not take the constant arguing. Your mother wanted someone to take care of her, be a hundred percent focused on her. I couldn't give her that hundred percent all the time. I had a career to get started. The fighting just pushed me away, and the infidelity. So, I went to the corner store for lottery scratchers and never stopped until I was two states away. I filled up with more gas. Then when my eyes got blurry, I stopped for eggs, coffee, and more fuel. I hit California and ran out of road to be among the rest of the refugees that live out here.”

“What infidelity?”

“I didn’t mean to say that.”

“But you did.”

“Sorry. The truth is your mother had a few friends and I caught her, more than once.”

Amanda considered yelling at him about such a falsehood, but she remembered the string of men that came over when Amanda was young to work on remodeling the bedroom. The bedroom and the bath that were always in disrepair. Then her father had already left them. “What did you do, for a career?"

“I banged around until I found my way into Shokworthe Trucking Company. I drove for years. I often passed your town and nearly stopped at the house every trip.” He looked at those beautiful eyes of hers and saw a happier version of the Felicity he remembered. “You look just like your mother. About a year or so younger than the last time I saw her …” His voice trailed off. Felicity was stunning but Amanda was even more gorgeous.

Amanda worried she might have a curse if she ever tried getting married, her mother’s baggage lurking in her own makeup. More fear for her already shearing soul.

He looked over the precise rows of trimmed vines that surrounded the patio, “The road made me weary. I put on three hundred pounds out there, eating in every truck stop as if I needed greasy salves to heal a wound. Hell, I
was
wounded.” He looked at Amanda, “I knocked around but ended up near Temecula as a golf club greens keeper for two years while I scraped off the pounds the road and the pathetic sorrow put on me. Friends starting up a restaurant in Old Town Temecula who needed help – hard for me to decide if I wanted to be in the food pit like that, but I was stronger by then. After I helped them get running, another trucker friend still driving told me Shokworthe wanted people for their new California office who knew logistics and the trucking industry. So I returned, but now I coordinate truck schedules and customers and stay in the office.”

“You never stopped to see us.”

Benjamin shook his head. “I'm so sorry, Amanda. I would stop at the diner across the street and eat through two meals wondering if I should knock on the door. The window of the diner looked right at the house. I saw you playing in the yard in a princess dress. I never got the courage to overcome the pain with your mother and so I’d have several deserts while I debated what to do. Then I just climbed back behind the wheel and turned the truck toward the highway with a thermos of coffee to get me as far away as my fuel tank would let me.”

Amanda’s body itched. Angry her mother never told her the truth. Sad she never had a father around. A father too frightened to walk across a street and visit, even once. Too late. She needed to leave, to run away into the vineyard, and hide among the vines. Emotions swelled and made her fear tears could leap from her face like the television cartoons at any time. “I have to get back to work. You must leave.” Amanda stood. “I have to use the restroom and I don’t want to see you when I get out. Buy a bottle of Zack’s Blend in the gift shop.” She knew that magical elixir somehow pulled on the emotions; perhaps he would remember something more. “You should not have tried to find me.”

Benjamin said, “I’m sorry.” He shuffled out of the winery to his truck. He climbed back behind the wheel and turned the pickup toward the highway. The long lanes gave him time to ponder his freshly opened wound.

-:-:-:- -:-:-:-

Amanda found Julie, “I need to make a phone call.” She gripped the plastic cup of her green tea with both hands.

Julie said, “I can keep covering the tasting bar. Go.”

Amanda walked along a hall toward a meeting room and from there outside to the grounds. A chunk of concrete sat against a jumble of other rocks in a little garden and she sat down. The sun burned across the clear sky. Amanda dialed her phone, “Hi, Mom.”

“Amanda, how is California?”

Amanda wanted clarity, “What happened with you and Benjamin?”

Felicity rolled with her usual answer, “He left us when we were two. I’ve told you that story a thousand times.”

“And it’s a story. I want the truth. I met him today.”

Felicity’s voice was closer to the phone and more urgent, “He found you? In California?”

“Yeah, apparently that trucking company he worked for when you were married opened an office out here and he works here now. That does’t matter. You told me lies my whole life.”

Felicity asked, “What did he tell you?”

“I’m not going to lead the story. You’ll feed on bits of it like a fortuneteller. You’ll have me believing my ancestors are speaking with me or that my future husband will be some tall dark stranger – because they are all strangers until you meet them.”

“Amanda. Calm down. It was all very simple back then. Your father was gone all the time for work. Like we led two separate lives. Then he never called on any important dates like anniversaries or birthdays –”

“That was Tommy’s dad that couldn’t remember dates. I always thought that was crappy you made such a big deal about it.” Amanda took a long sip of her tea.

“It
is
a big deal. When your husband forgets your birthday it means so much more than an absent mind.” Silence filled the phone for a moment before she said, “You’re right. It was Lars with that problem.”

“Shit!” Amanda’s thoughts meshed, “Was Tommy even Lars’ son? I remember the back hallway in the process of being painted for over a year. How long does crappy paint take to dry?”

“You don’t talk like that.” Felicity’s voice wavered, “Tommy is his. Just like you were Benjamin’s.”

“How certain are you?”

“Very.”

Amanda growled, “I think I might get a DNA test. I want to make sure.”

“No!” Then Felicity’s voice softened, “Don’t do that, Amanda. Those tests are often wrong, and you’ll …”

“– Learn the truth?” Amanda felt tears coming to her eyes. “I’ll learn the truth that the father that abandoned us only left because you threw him out? That he left because he was not my real father? Or he left because you did not know whom the father was? Soooo much better to find out I’m more likely related to some random dude picked up at a bar and shagged for a night, never to be seen again.”

“No. That is not true. You’ll be sad, no matter the test result you get.”

Little mincing chainsaws chewed their way around inside of Amanda, carving her as hollow as a slaughtered animal until numbness overcame her soul, “Felicity, I have to get back to work. Bye.” She pressed the button on her phone. Amanda sat on the hard cement and stared into the distance. This little spot looked over the north side of the winery and the dry river that ran back there with its flood plain. Amanda felt as empty and rocky as that dry riverbed, and as alone.