“She doesn’t look thrilled,” Alex remarks, as Mooella bellows again. “Neither do you for that matter. You sure everything’s okay?”
I loop my arm around his waist, giving him the best smile that I can muster. “I’m fine.” He shoots me look, so I continue, “Really, I am.”
“If you say so,” he answers skeptically. “You’d tell me, if the farm was in trouble, right?”
“You know I would.” The lie is hitting me in the heart, like a sharp arrow, digging deeper and deeper inside the longer he looks at me. “This is just a part of the business. We need younger stock.” I have never been one for lying to someone I care about. Not even my parents, when I was younger, and they caught me sneaking me home from Alex’s in the middle of the night. The guilty feeling inside of me churns and twists, until I nearly feel like I’m going to be sick.
“Why do I get the feeling that you’re not telling me all of it?” Alex asks. His lips thin and flat.
Because I’m not. Keep it together, Izzy. You know why you can’t tell him. Even the mental pep talk, does nothing to soothe the feeling. I try to rationalize the situation. The necessity of not straining our relationship over family trouble. Alex isn’t our means of solving this. Not if I can help it. Desperation can make even a sane person do crazy things. I’m just not at that point yet to bring him in on our family issues. Not until I have to tell him.
“Miss Moulton?” A woman in one of the auction’s bright, blue shirts comes up to me with a clipboard in hand. “I need to get your signature on a few documents, and then verify how you would like to receive your money for today’s sale proceeds. Can you come with me up to the business office?”
I look back at Alex, as he nods, and I follow the auction assistant to the business office, leaving him alone. As we enter the building, I notice a few teenage girls, walking up to him with huge smiles on their faces. He can’t even go to a small livestock auction without being recognized. Thinking back to our conversation from the night before, I realize what he meant about living a lonely life in the spotlight. “Is that Alex McCloud?” The assistant with me asks.
“Sure is.”
“You’re a lucky girl,” she remarks, opening the office door for me.
“Why would you say that?” A wavering tone of confusion, filling my voice.
“Being with a guy like that means you’re set for life. No wonder you’re selling off your livestock.”
“Oh, that’s not why…” I stammer off. A complete stranger is seeing the situation as so many others will. A rich and famous boyfriend, setting me up for a life of luxury and not having to work. This is precisely why Alex can’t find out about the farm. I won’t be that girl. Gold digger is not a word that I will ever allow to describe me.
“This way please,” she smiles, ushering me to the open counter space. The woman grabs a stack of papers, indicating where she needs me to sign and date each one. It seems like I’ve literally just signed a deal with the devil, once I get to the final line.
“Will you be present for the auction, Miss Moulton?” She asks. “As the owner, you may join the auctioneer on the block, when your lot is up.”
“I’ll be here, but I’d rather not be up there.” Being front and center, as part of our livelihood gets sold to the highest bidder, she must be crazy. I will not do that.
“That’s fine. I’ll need you to fill out one more form to indicate any reserve that you have on the animals for the auctioneer.” She slides the paper in front of me, but I just stare at it. Putting a price on animals that have become like family to me, is a cruel and unjust way of coming to terms with this. Dad gave me a number, but I’m having a hard time writing it down. My hand wavers, as I press the tip of the pen to the paper, writing out Dad’s price and sliding it back to her.
“You’re lot number four in ring three.”
“Thanks,” I mutter under my breath. The assistant staples a stack of signed duplicates, and then slides them to me over the wooden counter. “Best of luck to you today.” I nod then leave the building as quickly as I can, bursting through the door. The air is now stagnant with helplessness that this is really going to happen. I signed on the dotted line, and nothing can stop it now.
Alex’s gaze connects with mine with a desperate plea to help him, but I just shrug and smile back. The group of teenagers around him has grown to double that of when I walked in the office. He politely smiles, as they take pictures with him, but I see that he’s struggling to break free from them. When the last one finally gets her photo, they disperse, and he makes a quick exit back over to me.
“This happen often?” I tease him. “I can’t take you anywhere.”
“Could have used a rescue back there,” he huffs out. “Barely made it out of there with my life.” We both know he’s only joking. A harmless group of teenage girls didn’t equate to needing a riot squad. He had it handled just fine without security to keep them at bay.
“And miss the Alex McCloud show? Never.” He cocks a half-smile at me. “It’s just a few of your adoring fans. I thought you could handle it.”
“One of them asked me to take her to prom. Do you know how hard it is to explain why I can’t, when you have an entourage of all her friends watching you?”
“You poor baby,” I tease him, lifting a hand to pinch his cheek. “Did you say yes? I remember that you really liked going to prom back in the day. All four years, am I right?”
Alex stills next to me. Maybe, bringing up one of the other most painful nights again isn’t my best move. Mom is right. I really do need to get that brain to mouth filter installed soon to avoid putting my foot in my mouth so much.
“Sorry. Shouldn’t have brought that up.” I mutter. He tries to say something, but the booming loudspeaker announcing the start of the auction, drowns him out. “Shall we?” I point him over to the third ring, where a decent crowd has begun to gather. Alex takes me by the hand and leads me over to the ring. I spy a few open seats near the front of the bleachers, and we settle into them. The auctioneer goes about a mile a minute, taking bids on the opening lot. The price climbs higher and higher, until he slams his gavel down hard. An older man walks in front of us and sits down next to me. His gaze, falling to my dairy farm shirt.
“You Michael Moulton’s granddaughter?” He asks quietly.
“How do you know my paw?”
“I worked with your grandad back in the day. Shame to see you here selling off so many of your stock,” he offers. “Tough times have hit us all it seems. Just look over there.” He points to a group of older men, sitting together with their wives on the other side of the ring. “Those three men right there started their farms around the same time, as your granddad.”
“They did?”
“And like you, they’re here selling off stock to keep afloat.” I look out of the corner of my eye at Alex. His gaze is set tightly on the ring, and not on the conversation between the older man next to me. I pray a silent prayer that he hasn’t heard a word. “It’s a sad world to be in, when I see more longtime farmers here month after month.”
“Farming isn’t easy, but I suspect you already know that.”
“I do first hand. I was in your shoes just a few years ago, my dear.”
“Did you find a way out?”
“I didn’t, but maybe you will. Good things happen to good people.” The auctioneer calls my lot number, and Alex taps me on my shoulder.
“You’re up, Iz.” I turn to ask the stranger one more question, but he’s gone without even giving me his name.
The auctioneer starts calling out bids one after another. The longer the bidding process goes on, the more my heart pounds inside of my chest, filling my ears. Mooella walks past me in the pen, and I bolt from my seat. I can’t do this. I can’t watch this happen. “Iz, wait!” Alex calls after me, but I don’t stop, until I make it to the truck. My hands are planted on the edge of the trailer, while my stomach retches from the stress. Over and over again, until my already empty stomach
, aches from the failed evacuation of its content. A warm hand caresses my back, until the retching subsides.
“You okay?” His voice is soft and velvety.
“Take me home, Alex. I can’t be here anymore.”
He gently guides me into the passenger side of the truck, clicking my seatbelt in place. The assistant from earlier approaches Alex from behind, asking what to do with the check. “Mail it,” he coarsely answers. She tries to argue with him, insisting we need to stay. “What part of mail it did you not understand, ma’am?” The assistant backs off, allowing him to close the door with me inside. Their muffled voices continuing to argue outside of the truck, until he finally appears on the driver’s side. My head lobs towards his, and the tears are now fully flowing down my cheeks.
“Your place or mine?” He asks.
“Yours,” I flatly answer. Going back home and seeing our empty lots, will only make this worse. Alex drives, while I cry silently. Tears not only for our farm, but for the others who are just like us, struggling to survive in a world that only wants to be bigger and better. Forsaking the humble farming roots, which our country was built upon. For the first time ever in my life, I feel completely and utterly hopeless.
11
The gentle hum, of a graceful guitar melody, wakes me up. My eyes crack open and take instant notice of Alex sitting in an old leather recliner, strumming his guitar and humming along. A notepad and pencil sit next to him on a small end table. I watch quietly, as he plucks a few passes, taking notes as he goes. His fingers dance along the strings and fret, like a ballet creating a beautiful melody of notes. I watch him for as long as I can, before a back-spasm hits under the bad springs of the old couch. Roughly twisting and adjusting, until I find a spot of relief, sitting up with my legs crossed.
“How long have I been out?” I ask, peering out the window, finding darkness instead of light.
“Couple of hours. Looked like you needed it. You didn’t move at all, when I carried you in the house.”
He did what? How on earth did he not wake me up doing that? I know I can be a hard sleeper, but something like being jostled from a truck into the house, should’ve been more than enough to stir me. I yawn wide with exhaustion still wrapped tightly around me. It’s not any surprise that between Alex and the farm I hadn’t really slept much in the last week and a half. Stress has been taking the ultimate toll on my body and mind. Alex strums his guitar again, pulling me out of my haze.
“Is that a new piece for your album?” I quietly ask, as he plays the melody again. This time, slowing down the tempo.
“I’ve been working on this one for a while.” He takes the pencil and scribbles down something else, picking up where he left off to play the section again and again.
“Can I hear it?”
“It’s not ready yet,” he flatly answers, taking me back a bit with his gruffness. Never before has he denied me the first listen of anything he’s written. I have always been his soundboard for new material. Well, until recently, but it’s odd to see him so protective over a new song.
“Oh,” I sheepishly backpedal. “The melody is pretty, though.”
Alex sets his guitar aside from the chair, before shoving out of it and joining me on the couch. The springs beneath whine and creak under his added weight. His gaze is stuck to his feet.
“Why didn’t you tell me the farm is in trouble?” He finally asks. So, he did hear the conversation with the older man earlier, or maybe he figured it out from my reaction. “Why did you lie to me, when I asked?”
I could give him an excuse, one right after another even, to make this easier to stomach, but deep down, I know that it’s wrong of me to even consider that. Lying to his face once, was already hard enough. A second time won’t be so easily forgiven.
“I didn’t want to lie to you, Alex,” I begin cautiously, reaching out for his hand with the blanket, falling from my shoulders to around my lap.
“So, why did you?” I take a deep breath, carefully considering how much to reveal. Too much, and our relationship will be over, before it even really starts.
“Because I knew you would want to help, and I can’t ask that of you.”
Alex pulls his hand away from mine, forming a fist and taking a bite out of it with his own teeth out of frustration. I reach over, and grab it away from his face, pulling it back down into his lap. He peers over at me, and anger is apparent on his face.
“I know it hurts the hear that, but if I had come to you for help, you’d have done it, no questions asked.” I choose my words deliberately. He has to understand my side of this. I’m protecting him and us in the long run. If there is an us, after this. With the way he’s looking at me right now, I’m not so sure there will be.
“Of course, I would have. I love you, Iz, and that farm is a part of your family. I have money just sitting in the bank. I can help you save it.”
“But…” I interject. “You need to understand something, Alex. Our family built that farm. My grandfather plowed that land by hand. Bred and raised our first Holsteins with every dime that he and my grandmother had without ever asking for help. Our struggles. Our triumphs. All of it has been ours to own. Asking you to help us, would be like putting a Band-Aid over an arterial bleed. Our farm has to survive or die on its own. I won’t let it come between us.”
Alex stews in silence because he knows that I’m right. Farms like ours are dying every single day, and if I had come to him for help, we would never be able to repay him back for it. If this is our time to end our legacy, it will happen. Seeing our livestock at the auction today, made me realize that. I have to fight like hell to give myself a reason to justify the means, if and when it comes falling down around us. Allowing me the chance to say that I had at least given it my all to try and save it.
“I’m sorry that I didn’t tell you right away. I only just found out from my dad, while you were gone.”
He rubs his free hand over his face, but he doesn’t release his grasp on my hand. “What do we do then? Hold a fundraiser, maybe? I can’t just sit by and watch you fall apart again like today.”
“I have a meeting tomorrow with our farm lender. I’m hoping he has some ideas, because the avenues I’ve spent the last few days researching, are coming up empty,” I force out with a fake laugh and a sigh. “If it fails, it fails. All I can do is try and hope for a miracle.”
“I really hope you can figure it out, Iz. For your sake and your families. The happiest times that I’ve ever seen you are when you’re out there on that farm working. It’s one of the things that I love about you. You could have gone off to college and made a name for yourself, like your brother, but you didn’t. You chose a simple yet hard life for your family. Part of me wishes I had done the same.” He takes a breath, before pulling his hand away from mine, slipping it over my shoulders and pulling me close, as my head falls to his shoulder.
“You don’t mean that, Alex,” I sharply declare back. “You are meant to be on a stage.”
“I was meant to be here with you. I know that now.”
“We can’t go back and change the past. It is what it is. We can only look to the future.”
Alex leans forward, pulling me with him, and his gaze is full of intent.
“Do you mean that?”
“Mean, what?” I confusedly answer back.
“The future and us.”
“Right now, I don’t know what tomorrow holds for me, but I think I want that. I need more time. Being with you comes with a lot of things that I haven’t had time to reconcile with. I don’t know if I can give you an answer, until I know what happens with the farm. It has to be my priority right now.” I’m not wrong, and he knows that, but it doesn’t make the words sting any less. The logistics alone are enough to make anyone go crazy, trying to connect the pieces in the best fit order. Both of our lives are complicated already. Being together, will make it ten times worse.
Alex falls back into the couch with a thud. A crack of thunder breaks
through the silence, when he hits the back of the sofa, making me jump. “I think I better get home, before it really cuts loose.”
He releases me reluctantly, when I push away from him and off of the couch. I neatly fold the blank he so nicely wrapped around me, and then place it on the seat, where I had once occupied. Alex doesn’t budge from his seated position, until I reach out for the door.
“Don’t,” he orders. In a few brisk strides, Alex comes to me, pinning me between his body and the door, as his lips descend on mine. Hungry and full of frenzied need. “It was worth a shot,” I answer with a shrug. He leans further down. Never once breaking the contact between us, despite the positional change.
My heart stills inside my chest, as time stops around us. The stubble on his face, rubbing against my smooth skin. The way his hands feel, intertwining into my hair, as he deepens it. The zing of a finite connection foraging between us, binding us to this very moment in time forever. Even if things don’t work out between us, this kiss will always be something that I remember. The one I will compare any others that may come after it to, because it’s not only my first kiss, but the kiss to trump all others that may arise after it.
Alex pulls away, peering down at me with hooded, happy eyes. “You don’t know how long I’ve wanted to do that.”
“I think I might,” I smile.
“You still want to leave?” He asks.
Sweetest Obsessions - Anthology Page 267
