I waited for Murphy to say she was coming with me, or to plead with me to stay or to take my hand and squeeze it. But none of that happened.
“You know what?” she said. “I’ll stay here with my parents, and they can take me to the Bean in the morning.”
And that’s all she said. Nothing at all about the emergency or me.
“Good thing you let your whiskey sit there, getting watered down,” her father said.
“Good luck,” her mom said with a huge smile, obviously happy to see me go. They didn’t even know me, or want to know me, because Murphy didn’t belong here in Vermont.
Or with me.
31
Murphy
Crawling into bed Friday afternoon, I didn’t even bother getting out of my smelly clothes.
It was three o’clock in the afternoon, and I hadn’t been home since the night before. My parents had dropped me off at the Bean this morning, where I worked my shift in a borrowed T-shirt, dress pants, and expensive heels.
Poor Roderick had gaped at me as I made my grand entrance, thinking I was doing the walk of shame. “Rough night?” he’d asked, raising an eyebrow.
“I’m sure you’re hoping for something salacious,” I said while finger-combing the hairspray out of my hair, “and I wish it were something like that. But I spent my birthday feeling like I was sixteen all over again, being told what to do and how to act. Ben walked out, stranding me at the inn. My mom couldn’t believe there wasn’t a car service to take me home, and paid for me to get a room.”
“Wow.” His eyes wide, Roderick opened the pastry case and pulled out a scone, plating it before handing it to me. “For you.”
I didn’t bother to refuse or explain I’d already had a three-course breakfast at the inn. Taking the plate with me behind the bar, I set it next to the sink and washed my hands.
“You sure you’re okay?” Zara asked from behind me.
When I nodded and turned around, she handed me a Bean T-shirt and told me to change in the back. It was the first shift I’d worked without wearing one of my out-of-place expensive aprons.
Roderick and Zara let me be for my shift, giving me the space I needed to work mindlessly with my hands. Every so often I caught a weird glance from a customer or a pitying look from Zara, but I ignored it all.
Until now, when I walked in the door of my place after Roderick came to the rescue and dropped me off at home.
Moving automatically, I made sure to shut all the blinds and leave the lights off, wanting to sob in peace. I couldn’t even look at myself. Smelling like coffee grinds and Chanel No. 5, I burrowed into my pillow, allowing hot tears to flow for the first time since Ben stoically walked out of the inn the night before.
Of course there wasn’t an emergency. Even I knew that. He left because he despised my parents and me. Why wouldn’t he? We were a selfish, self-centered bunch, and he was the most selfless person I knew.
I’d texted him this morning as soon as I woke up. With one eye open and before having any coffee after a mostly sleepless night, I sent two words.
I’m sorry.
Not that I expected a response from him, but my heart ached at the lack of one. No text, no call, no pop-in at the Bean, nothing. Not that I expected any of it.
My tears drenched the pillow beneath my head, and I let them continue to fall. I didn’t even care what I looked like, sure that my eye makeup was smeared all over my face, and my skin was probably blotchy.
I wasn’t sure how long I lay there like that, but when my phone rang, I jolted up, hoping it was Ben, but wasn’t surprised to see it was my mom. I considered screening the call, but she’d only call back.
“Mom?” I said tentatively.
“Murphy, I only have a minute,” she said, and I breathed out a sigh of relief. “Dad and I have to leave now. We thought we’d be able to stay one more night, but it looks like he needs to meet with a donor in the morning, back in the city. Well, we didn’t mention we were coming here. We thought it would make bringing you home even sweeter.”
What she didn’t say was it would be the ultimate feel-good story for the press.
“It’s okay,” I murmured, my voice hoarse and strained.
“You should be coming back with us,” she said.
I’d told them over breakfast I wasn’t interested in the trust position or coming back to New York. Not now, or ever. “I’m paving my own way,” I’d said.
This announcement was met with a series of objections, followed by, of course, pronouncements about Ben being a bad choice for me. In fact, his being a doctor was a negative in their eyes because he’d constantly be called away for emergencies. “You need someone who’s available to you,” they’d said.
“I can’t, Mom. Like I told you, I have commitments here. I like it here.” It was the first time I’d said it aloud, and it was true. I liked Vermont and all its small-town hippie-dippyness.
“What? Making coffee? Running book clubs? That’s what you like?”
Breathing a sigh of relief that there wasn’t a book club until next Friday, I said, “Safe travels,” to my mom and disconnected the call. I was a disappointment to them, and now I’d lost Ben.
Curled into a ball on my bed, I continued to cry, feeling like the worst kind of failure.
The phrase too little, too late kept running through my head. I’d made fun of Vermont and then put Ben in the back corner when it came to my parents. After all, I was well-practiced at
