by Elodie Colt
The dried rivulets of blood running down my neck don’t shock me. I’ve had more injuries working on the plantation than I can count in a lifetime. But the bags underneath my light-brown eyes tell a tale of worries that I shouldn’t have to deal with at the age of twenty-seven.
I turn my head to the side, smoothing the greasy strands of dark hair back. My nose is not as red and bulbous yet as Dad’s, my skin still smooth and, save for a few faint scars, unblemished. Thank fuck. Despite my love for the man who raised me, I don’t want to end up like him. To put work before family and drink myself to sleep every night.
Good job, Matthew. You’re on a straight path to achieve the exact opposite.
Sofia’s footsteps flutter down the hallway before she scurries into the bathroom.
“Let me have a look at that.” Impatiently, she swats my hand pressing my dirty shirt against the wound away.
The biting scent of hairspray wafts from her ruffled, brown mop up to my nose. We both hiss when she carefully removes the fabric sticking to my skin. Immediately, more blood gushes out.
“Christ, boy, what did you do?” She squints from underneath her half-moon glasses at the gash reaching from behind my ear down to my collarbone. Before I can answer, she sniffs the air, her fingernails digging into my biceps as she spins me around to check my eyes. “Have you been drinking again?”
Her patronizing voice makes me swallow as she pins me with a no-nonsense stare from two heads down.
“Fell from the ladder,” I mumble to evade her question.
“Because you’re drunk.”
“Because I slipped.”
“Yes, because you are drunk.” She bustles about to fetch bandages and antiseptics. “Guess the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree…”
Her mumbled words are meant to inflict damage, and they hit dead center. My teeth clack shut. A defiant, snappy comment sits on my tongue, one that will likely earn me a slap in the face, so I opt for staying quiet and munch on the bitter taste of denial.
Sofia pushes me down to sit at the edge of the bath so she can patch me up. “Not deep enough to need stitches, but it will leave a scar.”
I shrug. I’d take a hundred scars if I could keep my plantation. To keep my workers. To keep Sofia.
She’s a godsend. She’d been working on a Jatropha plantation in Paraguay until her husband died of a rare disease, and she moved to the states to work for Mallory Fruit Farms in administration and bookkeeping. Looking after Harry was never part of her job description. If the plantation goes down the drain, she will lose her job, and I won’t have the funds to pay her as a caretaker anymore. The only mother I’ve had since I was ten will leave me, too.
She sticks the last band-aid onto my skin and gives my neck a light slap. “Everything will work out, Matthew. You’ll see.”
I scoff. “Hard pass. Or did 40K suddenly materialize in our bank account so I can buy three-thousand new rootstocks?”
“Save me that attitude, boy,” she snaps, wriggling a warning finger at me when I push myself up to discard my clothes and take a shower. She can’t stand my cynicism. “For what you’ve been drinking last month, you could have acquired a hundred trees, so how about you start investing your money in your business instead of a liver transplant?”
I scowl at her as she juts out her chin in triumph.
“Yes, I’ve counted the empty cognac bottles, my boy. Sofia sees everything.”
The third person mother role again. Irritating as hell but embarrassingly necessary in my case. Thankfully, she has to leave when Dad’s complaints about the orange juice she brought being rancid holler across the hallway.
She scuttles away with a shaking head, but before I can turn on the shower, she calls, “Do us both a favor and get yourself a girlfriend, boy. You need a woman to get you back on the straight and narrow, and that woman can’t be me. I’m too old for that shit.”
Her words tumble inside my head while I scratch the dirt from beneath my fingernails and try to wash the despair from my skin. They wreak havoc in my mind when I put on some fresh clothes and grab my car keys.
And they continue to scream at me when I fetch my full pocket flask and slide into my truck before I hit the road.
Two
Matthew
Despair has a taste, and it injects my saliva every time I try to swallow. I want to burn away the bitterness with the liquor sloshing in my flask, but I turn down the window instead to let the lukewarm night air clear my senses.
My calloused hands strangle the chafed steering wheel as I push my old pick-up truck over the highway, the sputtering engine and occasional hiccups of the motor an unpleasant reminder that the rusty vehicle won’t survive the year. My stomach grumbles, screaming for carbs and healthy proteins, but even the thought of forcing something down my throat that doesn’t have liquid consistency makes me sick. A heavy, cold rock of hopelessness has lodged in my insides, sinking its sharp edges into my organs every time I paint my future in my head.
Drink me, swallow me, consume me, my pocket flask sings. You’ll feel better then. Promise.
I squint my eyes to focus on the dark road, as if that would somehow help me keep control. The memory of Sofia’s face full of heart-wrenching chagrin almost has me pulling over and giving in to my addiction. I’m too old for that shit, she said. A less offensive way of saying I’m sick of you.
She’s giving up on me. Cutting the I’ll-always-have-your-back strings tied to the I-won’t-leave-you-like-your-mother knot. The only woman I love more than my plantation is going to leave me hanging if I don’t get my shit together.
Wallowing in my sorrow, I hit the pedal harder. A car coming from the other side blinds me with its headlights, creating a slightly blurry image on my retinas and pointing out that I’m not a hundred percent sober yet.
I lean over the center console, keeping my eyes on the road as I fumble for a carton of orange juice underneath the passenger seat. It’s been cooking for days inside the truck, and tastes as rancid as it smells when I unscrew the cap with one hand and gulp down what’s left. It has probably fermented to the point it reached the alcohol concentration of my cognac. Grimacing from the disgusting aftertaste, I crush the carton on my thigh and hurl it onto the backseat.
“You can’t throw away all that you’ve worked so hard for until you’ve tried everything in your power to save the plantation. Everything,” Sofia said the other day over dinner. “You’re not the only citrus farmer in Florida struggling right now.”
And not only farmers are affected. Nearly half of the juice factories processing our fruit have shut down. Within the next five years, Florida could lose citrus cultivation for good. May is knocking on our door. I should be neck-deep in harvesting my Valencias but the crop is crap, and if I don’t find a solution right fucking now, I have to sell the thirty acres of land that have been in the family for three generations.
“Fuck!” I pound my fist against the steering wheel, the jarring motion reminding me that I almost lost my ear today.
Something on the curb catches my eye. Or rather, someone. A girl hammering her fist down onto the roof of her fancy car, apparently cussing the same word that just slipped over my lips.
I should pull over. Offer her my help, even if there’s nothing I can do to fix the flat tire of her shiny Porsche. And giving her a ride to God knows where while she’s talking my ear off about her spoiled brat problems sounds as appealing as driving my truck into a ditch.
You can’t leave her here stranded. You’re not that guy.
In the end, her long legs flashing at me from underneath her dress are a pathetic memo that I haven’t tapped a girl’s ass for months, and I find myself swerving my truck onto the curb.
“… pick the fuck up,” she curses into her phone when I kill the engine and slide out.
She stomps her feet into the gravel as she paces along the curb, mumbling more swearwords until she shoves her phone into her clutch and kicks the front tire that’s as flat as
a pancake, the wheel rim already chafing on the ground.
“I’m sure that helped,” I say when I approach her, pointing to the tire she just kicked with her white Ballerina flat now sporting a black streak.
Whirling around, she levels a frosty stare at me. “If you’re one of those creepy guys, take a hike. I have a gun.”
“Where, in your pants?” I nod to her clutch that’s no thicker than a wallet. Also, I doubt she can stash more than two lipsticks in the pockets of her cropped jacket. “Please, show me. I’m dying to see which hole you’re pulling it from.”
Not creepy at all, bro. Don’t be surprised if she kicks you in the nuts.
She doesn’t. Instead, she scoffs and blows her hair out of her face, which doesn’t do shit with the bangs flapping back over her eyes. She’s pretty enough, I guess. Straight, walnut hair, and dimples showing on her cheeks as she bites her thick lower lip. Far from the sex appeal of a porn star but fuckable.
“Do you know any tow services close by?” she asks after she has decided that assaulting her is not my intention.
The girl’s not from here, then, although I already figured as much. That blue, electric Porsche Taycan only pops up in sports car magazines around here.
I stuff my hands into my pockets. “Sure do if you fancy being a sitting duck here until they open in the morning.”
“Shit. My mom isn’t picking up. She’s probably sweating her ass off in the sauna again.”
She scowls. I wait for her to add anything, to say that her boyfriend is out of town to find investors for his new dotcom start-up, or that Daddy dearest can’t pick her up because he’s sealing a billion-dollar property deal on the west coast, but after a beat of silence, it’s clear that she’s waiting for me to deliver my line.
“You can bum a ride with me,” I say at last. “Where do you live?”
She cocks her head, flashing her gaze past me to my dilapidated vehicle. The street lamp a few feet away gives off a piss-yellow glow, highlighting the scratches on the turquoise paint and the uneven bumper. Her designer jacket is probably worth twice as much, but contrary to my expectations, no grimace breaks out on her face.
“West Palm Beach, but that’s quite a stretch.” She shakes her head. “Maybe you could take me to the next town, and I’ll call a cab from there?”
I rake a hand through my still-damp hair. It’s not as if I have anything better to do other than drowning my non-existent future in liquor and watching my dad snoring in bed, wondering for the hundredth time if he’s going to wake up in the morning.
“It’s fine, I’ll take you home.”
Quirking her lips, she hovers her hand over the handle of her car door to lock it remotely with the convenience key in her clutch and trails after me as I head for my truck. I start the engine while she parks her rich ass on the ripped patches of my passenger seat and places her flats on the muddy floor mats.
I jerk the truck into motion. “You got a name?”
She turns down the window, no doubt trying to get rid of the pungent smells of exhaust, dirt, and alcohol. “Jillian. You?”
“Matthew.”
She nods with a sigh, pulls out a sleek phone that’s twice as big as her hands, and starts hitting the keys vigorously, likely shooting a harsh text to her mother who’s clearly not the favorite parent for little Jillian. I take it as a cue that small talk is over. Fine by me. We’ve got a two-and-a-half-hour ride ahead of us, and I don’t need her to open her mouth for anything other than a blowjob she probably won’t grant me.
“Pull over,” she says when a gas station comes into view. “I’ll get us snacks and something to drink.”
Yeah, I could use a bite, too, and something healthier than expired, flaky orange juice. I stop at the curb, and she hops out, allowing me to watch her tiny ass wriggle in her A-line dress. Ten minutes later, she returns with a full bag and places it in the middle console.
“Thanks,” I say when she tosses me a bottle of organic, multivitamin, seven-hundred-ingredients-that-cure-your-illnesses-on-the-spot juice that costs twice as much as a Red Bull, but I don’t complain when I put it to my lips. Thirty percent of the juice has probably been squeezed from my oranges, anyway.
Pouting, she pulls out her phone again but tucks it back into her clutch when she realizes Mommy hasn’t answered yet. I switch gears. In my periphery, I notice her ogling the tension of my biceps.
“So…” She opens a package of nuts and gets comfortable in my not-comfortable seat. Paper crunches underneath her shoes as she kicks an old Subway sandwich bag out of the way. “Where are you from, Matthew?”
“Tampa.” I fumble for something eatable in the bag and fish out a cereal bar.
“You’ve got a job there, too?”
Keeping one hand on the steering wheel, I rip open the plastic with my teeth and take a generous bite of no chocolate, no sugar, but loads of raisins and dried fruit that stick to my teeth like glue. I try not to pull a face.
“I own an orange plantation,” I say through a mouth full of hard grains.
Her head swivels in my direction. “Mallory Fruit Farms?”
“Yeah, how did you guess?”
“My mother told me about it. She lived in Tampa some time ago. Said your oranges were the best she ever tasted.”
I swallow down my bite and smack my lips. “I like her.”
She snorts. “You’d sing a different tune if you knew her.”
I steal a sideways glance at her. She’s rubbing her eyebrow as if warding off a headache. “I take it you’re not close?”
“She’s close to her nail designer, her walk-in closet, and the guys she’s screwing in her swinger club,” she mumbles with obvious disdain, not even trying to mince her words. “Oh, and the two bottles of Montrachet Grand Cru she likes to chug every evening.”
Montrachet Grand Cru. Five hundred bucks for a fucking bottle.
My jaw grinds, and not just because I’m dying to take a sip from my cognac. With the money Jillian’s snobbish mother is wasting on expensive white wine, I could ginger up my plantation within a month.
“Sorry, I didn’t want to sour the mood,” she says. “Mom and I are on bad terms lately. Ever since her divorce, she’s been trying to hook me up with guys in a desperate attempt to find me a husband. She’s even gone as far as opening a Tinder profile in my name to invite possible candidates into our house.”
No clue what Tinder is, but I guess it’s an app as productive as any other Social Media crap that I’ve never bothered to download. No time for that shit. Also, useless if you don’t have more than twenty minutes of Internet connection at home during the day.
“No boyfriend in your life, then?” I ask. The answer is obvious, but I’m trying to figure out if she’s willing to thank me with a quickie later.
She barks out a low laugh. “No time for relationship dramas. I’m already struggling with my degree in Dietetics and my full-time internship.”
“Dietetics? Didn’t even know that was a major.” I toss the plastic wrapper into the bag that’s still half full as Jillian is nibbling on her nuts with the pace of a turtle, but I guess trying to find a snack with more than ten calories would be futile.
She smiles. “The degree is my ticket into a steady employment at the Glover Rehab Center, then I can finally start work as a certified nutrition supporter. Earn my own money and make my own decisions.”
I drum my fingers on the steering wheel, contemplating her words. “I take it you didn’t buy that fancy Porsche yourself, then?”
“No. My father works for Porsche. It was a birthday present.” Her tone is void of emotion as if her father gave her nothing more than a ripped teddy bear. “His way of apologizing for cutting all ties with me after the divorce.”
A clear case of Daddy issues then. Strained relationships with her parents and firmly noncommittal. Sounds familiar, with the difference that Jillian got the best of everything while I got the worst of nothing, even when times at the plantation were sti
ll golden, and Harry swam in money as the largest orange importer and exporter in the US.
She flops her head onto the headrest, rolling it to me. “What about your parents?”
“Well, my last birthday present from my dad was a bottle of cognac wrapped in three pairs of socks in the wrong size, so forgive me for not showering you with compassion at the moment,” I grumble with a hint of amusement.
Chuckling, she props her flats on my dusty dashboard. Her dress slides down her thighs, and I can’t help but peek at the first inch of her butt cheeks that I swear she’s showing on purpose. She’s warming up to me. Good. When we arrive at our destination, I’m going to warm her up until she’s melting under the heat.
“What’s life like there, on the plantation?”
I take a long breath through my nose. “Beautiful, calming, simple?” I scratch my stubble, trying to come up with adjectives. “But also hard, dirty, and ball-busting hot. You wake up at five in the morning to roosters screeching your ears off, watch the sunrise throwing rays through the orange trees while the blossoms drift through the breeze, and go to sleep with scratched skin, sore muscles, wasp stings on your ass, and the occasional injury.” I point to the band-aid on my neck. “You drink orange juice in the morning, eat some oranges for lunch, and make yourself orange chicken as dinner. If you’re hardcore, you add an orange cake as dessert.”
She snickers. “Do you ever get sick of the taste?”
“No. You don’t get sick of chocolate or vanilla either, do you? After those two, orange is the world’s favorite flavor.”
“I know.” She lets loose a sultry smile before she puts on the it’s-hot-in-here act and slips out of her jacket. This time, I don’t bother drinking her in secretly. Better to make my intentions clear so we can save ourselves the cautious approaches later.
Not soon enough, we whiz past the West Palm Beach welcome sign. Following her directions, I pull into a side road and halt in front of a villa. A little paradise with more glass than brick, a driveway so spacious I could squeeze two harvesters through, and more lilacs blooming in the front yard than my trees carry oranges. And a red Porsche in the driveway that lies so low, I could fold it underneath my truck.