Even though he literally yelled at everyone to get off his lawn, he was also the type of man who would roll his eyes and then hand you a cookie when he made you cry, as long as you sucked it up and stopped crying. Murphy was like a grandfather to me, if that grandfather was annoyed by everything all the time and liked to give you shit every chance he could.
Murphy Swallow is the reason I have a deep obsession for Pepperidge Farm’s Strawberry Thumbprint cookies and why I never cry when I get hurt. I suck it up. I learned that if you suck it up, you eventually get cookies. It’s a life motto I’ve since shared with my sister and my best friend, and it’s really been working out well for us.
“Did you say his last name is Swallow?” Chris suddenly pipes up, followed by a teenage boy giggle. “That’s what she—”
“Think long and hard about finishing that sentence,” Murphy cuts him off, his eyes narrowing as he stares Chris down from the other side of the counter.
I feel a little bad as I watch Chris experience his first Murphy threat in person, and now he knows the rumors around the island are true, but not bad enough to intervene. I’ve got enough going on with my own life. Chris now has to work with Murphy and needs to learn how not to almost pee your pants every time he looks at you.
“Why are you still standing here? Go find something to do,” Murphy orders Chris, who quickly shuffles out from behind the counter and then runs out the door.
When we’re alone in the pro shop, Murphy takes Chris’s place behind the counter with me, sitting down in the computer chair a few feet away and swiveling it to face me as he rocks back and forth.
“You’ve got to stop scaring everyone here,” I tell him, something I tell him at least three times a week.
Murphy started working at SIG right when he moved to the island, and he’s the one who got me my first job here as a caddie when I was in high school. When it came time for retirement, he tried it for exactly four days and hated every minute of it. He does a little bit of everything from mowing the greens and using the picker on the range to grab up all the balls at the end of the day, to helping serve drinks at the bar when we’re slammed and finding me wherever I’m working on the course just to annoy me.
“I haven’t stopped scaring everyone at my home, in my golf cart, or in town, so why would I stop when I’m at SIG?” Murphy shrugs. “I see you still haven’t started telling people you didn’t go out of town the last two weeks and you were right under their noses this entire time. I had to lie to your mother this morning, Roberta Marie Bennett. Do you see this face? This is a face that is not amused. Memorize it.”
I roll my eyes and turn away from him so he doesn’t see the guilt in them. It’s bad enough I didn’t get to spend two weeks in paradise and instead spent it holed up in my cottage, five houses down from my mom and two streets over from my sister and teenage nephew. But the entire island will know soon enough. I kept it from my mom. And my sister. And my best friend.
Oh my God, they are going to murder me!
“I’m going to tell everyone tonight, I swear. Just keep your yap shut for the rest of the day please.”
“Keep your yap shut about what? And holy hell did I miss your fucking face!”
A blur of black and red flies into the doorway of the pro shop that leads out into the bar area, racing across the room and behind the counter to tackle me in a hug before I can even take my next breath.
I wrap my arms around my best friend, Tess Powell, who works as a bartender here, and breathe in her familiar bubble gum scent. With her signature bright-red bob of hair and blunt bangs covering her forehead, a nose ring, and a closet filled with nothing but black clothing, she can and will kick anyone’s ass who pisses her off, but her tight hugs can always make everything better. I laugh and squeal and jump up and down as we continue to hug each other. I get caught up in the moment of two best friends being reunited after fourteen long days apart where they were separated by miles of land and sea and a boy.
And then I remember I was hiding in my back bedroom the entire time so no one from the street would see any light or movement, wearing the same pajamas, not showering, shoveling junk food in my face the entire time, around two miles away from Tess.
Uuuggghhh, I’m a shitty friend.
“I want to hear every single word about your magical two weeks in paradise with Bradley and how much dirty sex you had.”
“Jesus,” Murphy grumbles from his chair behind us.
I knew I shouldn’t have come back to work after what happened. I should have fled the island, left the country, changed my name, and started over. It would have been much easier than telling Tess I didn’t get to go on my dream vacation and the last time I had dirty sex was… never.
“Sorry, Murph.” Tess pulls out of my arms and gives him a salute before reaching around me to grab the remote control from the counter, aiming it at the small flat-screen television hanging on the wall across the room. “Before we get into all those delicious, X-rated details, I have something even better for you.”
Tess changes the channel away from the station that was playing The National Tour from ten years ago until she finds the channel she wants.
“They’ve been replaying it on ESPN on the hour every hour for the last week,” she says with a laugh, turning the volume up on the TV as the announcer talks about what’s coming up next.
“Oh, I don’t think she’s recovered from her… vacation enough to watch this yet, Tess,” Murphy warns her, slowly pushing up from his chair to stand next to me.
“Watch what? What’s happening here?”
“I know the main rule of Bradley’s and your vacation was no cell phones or social media, so you’re probably the only person in the world who hasn’t seen this or pulled up the video online and watched it at least fifty times.”
It’s true. That was a rule I put my foot down on when we started talking about this vacation a year ago. Bradley and I both had problems letting the rest of the world go and relaxing, especially considering the job promotion I was going for here was social media and marketing director for the course, and that job required I be on my phone a lot. Since I suddenly hated the world and everything inside it, I decided to keep my cell phone and my laptop locked away in a drawer until today. And I’ve been too busy with paperwork and training Chris this morning to check on the outside world.
Tess is still chuckling, and she starts clapping her hands and bouncing up and down on the balls of her feet when the sports announcer says, “Since this continues to be the most highly requested replay over the last week, here it is again!”
Tess suddenly grabs both my arms, turning me to face her.
“I know we aren’t allowed to talk about him, and any time he comes on the TV in the bar I have to change the channel, but buckle up, buttercup. Christmas just came early.”
Before I can process what my friend is saying to me and the look of absolute joy on her face, the back of my neck starts to tingle and butterflies start flapping around in my stomach when I hear the next voice that comes out of the television mounted to the wall. And since Tess turned it up as loud as it can go, that voice is amplified by a thousand. She drops her hands from my arms, and my head slowly turns toward the television.