The Way Out

 

 It's April 4th and there's another snow storm on the way. If only I had been savvy enough to spend this last winter in Mexico this snowfall might not feel like a personal attack. But things as they are, here I sit beside my space heater, drinking kombucha, updating my blog and dreaming about summer. 

One thing I know this summer will bring will be my first attendance to the Northwoods Writer's Conference. I'm excited to meet and learn from other writers. After all, we can only get better at the things we devote ourselves to!

I thought I'd share the short story I submitted with my application. It's an easy read. The story actually started after a friend suggested over beers that we each write a short story about someone who falls off of a turnip truck. I accepted that challenge and rose the stakes by suggesting we also reference a Journey song in our stories. (One must have just played on the radio). Well, when sobered up this idea didn't seem so great to my friend anymore, so mine was the only product of the conversation. It may not be Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (which was also the product of a writing challenge conceived of over drinks), but it did get me admittance to this writer's conference! Bonus points if you can pick out the references to a Journey song. 

The Way Out

Missy's dad grew turnips. They were an easy crop to grow, but the income they brought in didn't allow for trendy clothes or trips to the salon. By the time Missy reached high school she’d grown to hate the dirty, flavorless vegetable, and by her high school graduation, she’d grown to hate the farm too. The only redeeming qualities of the place were her kind spirited father and the singing voice she’d perfected over years of weeding and plucking the vegetables from the earth.

The day she graduated, she accepted her diploma wearing a homemade gray dress and metal barrette to which she had glued dried violets. Despite the care she took in making her outfit, that day, like all other days, she went unnoticed.

She was a quiet girl by nature, and not especially pretty, which made her utterly forgettable among her classmates. She felt that if she could have tried out for the choir, she may have stood out a little, maybe even made some friends, but since her brother Jep left the farm, her father relied on her to help him after school. She didn’t want to disappoint him by putting something silly like learning to sing before helping him complete the work that put food on the table. 

When the graduation ceremony ended, and she looked at her classmates for the last time, she felt nothing but resolve to escape the tiny town in southern Michigan that had held her captive all these years.

At home her father pulled a bottle of champagne from the old fridge and popped the top. Still in her grey dress and violet barrette, she held a mason jar out as he filled it with the sparkling, golden liquid. She felt distinctly adult.

            “I knew you’d do it, Miss. You’d educate yourself right out of this place,” he said.

            Missy smiled. “Thanks, dad.” She bit her tongue to keep from saying that a high school diploma was only the start of an education. Her father, after all, had only completed the 8^th grade before he left school to work the farm with his father. To him, a high school diploma was a golden ticket. He beamed at her, and she saw no need to darken the perfect moment.  

            “I knew you’d do it,” he repeated.

            They drank their champagne at the kitchen table and watched the sun go down. By the time Missy’s glass was empty she felt light and giggly. Her father filled her glass again as he told her a story about her brother, who could make anything grow. The champagne was affecting him too. Missy watched as he grew more and more nostalgic about Jep. Soon he had the photo album out and pointed to one picture after another of him. Jep riding his bike, Jep petting a yellow lab, Jep fishing in the river, Jep standing beside a huge crop of turnips.

            “He really could make things grow,” Missy observed.

“He could. My boy,” her father said, his voice growing thick as he gazed at the photo.

            “I wonder what he’s doing now,” Missy ventured.

            “It don’t matter. He ain’t coming back. I suspect you won’t either.”

            Missy didn’t answer. She didn’t know what the future held for her, but leaving only to come back wasn’t part of her plan.

            When darkness overtook the fields and looked back at the yellow eyes of light that shown from the upstairs windows of the house, Missy’s father kissed her on the top of her head and wandered up to bed. Finding herself alone, she grabbed the nearly empty bottle of champagne and stumbled outside. The stars were brilliant, and she even said so out loud, then took a swig from the green, glass bottle. She turned to the old truck, filled with turnips destined for the city market. “Goodbye, you little bastards,” she spoke to them. “Goodbye forever.” When the turnips didn’t reply, confusing champagne induced emotions welled in her. The most of which was guilt. The turnips hadn’t done anything to her. “You’re not bastards,” she said as she stumbled towards the truck. “You’ve done right by me.” She giggled as she said it, then crawled into the truck and was surprised to find herself comforted by their scent: fresh spice and earth. “You’re alright,” she said as laid down on top of them and closed her eyes.

            She slept so soundly that she didn’t wake when the young hired man named Leo was dropped off at the end of their driveway at 3 a.m., or when he got into the cab of the turnip truck and started the engine. She did not wake up until the truck had traveled two hours north on its way to Detroit. When she did wake up, she thought she was dreaming. It wasn’t until the truck began the jolting stop and go movement of suburban driving that she realized she was, in fact, moving.

            She felt excitement first. She was off the farm. But she had no money and one dirty dress, so anxiety followed closely behind. When the truck pulled into the vegetable processing plant she jumped out of the back and hit the ground in a roll. She got up quickly but not without Leo seeing her. He slammed on the breaks and jumped out of the truck.

            “Missy?” he said. “What the hell?”

            Missy blushed. She'd always had a little crush on Leo, even though he was ten years her senior.

            “Where you back there the whole time?” he asked.

            “Yes, I suppose I was. Oops.”

            “Wow. That’s really weird. Why don’t you get in the truck. I can bring you back when I return it this afternoon.”

            “No,” she said quickly. “I don’t want to go back.”

            “Well, what the hell am I supposed to do with you?” he asked, sounding irritated. His eyes landed on a tear in the hem of her dress. “Are you okay?” He asked in a softer voice.

            “I’m fine.” She answered. “And you don’t have to do anything with me. Just pretend you never saw me.”

            “Yeah right. Your dad would kill me. I do work for him, you know. What are you trying to do anyways? Don’t you have school?”

            “Not anymore. I graduated.” She followed Leo’s gaze to the back of the truck where the champagne bottle sat among the turnips.

            “Damn it, Missy. If that breaks back there the whole batch is worthless. They don’t take produce with shards of glass in it.”

            Missy watched as Leo climbed in and retrieved the bottle. The longer she spent talking to him, the less she liked him. “Sorry, Leo, but I’m fine, really. You don’t have to worry about me. I’m meeting Jep.”

            “Really? And how are you planning to get to California with no money and no belongings?”

            “Jep’s in California?” She asked, exposing her own lie.

            “I knew you were full of it,” he responded.

            “Do you really know where Jep is though?” she continued.

            Leo sighed as if resigning to share something sworn to secrecy. “Yes. He found a way to make some serious money with his farming skills.”

            “Doing what?” she asked.

            “You really did just fall off the turnip truck, didn’t you?” Leo said laughing for the first time.

            “You know I did, you saw me.”

            Leo sighed again but the air among them felt a little lighter now. “He grows marijuana, and he makes a lot of money doing it.”

            “Oh,” Missy said, the disappointment in her voice obvious. “So he sold out.”

            “I wouldn’t say that. He has a job doing what he does best, and he’s rich. He’s just not growing turnips anymore. Why don’t you jump in the truck. We can figure out what to do next.”

            Missy looked around herself and seeing no other options, she shrugged her shoulders and got in the cab of the truck.

            After dropping off the vegetables Leo brought her to a truck stop and bought her breakfast. From the windows of the diner, she saw the sun rising behind the perfectly geometrical shapes of the city. It was not lost on her that just half a rotation of the earth ago she had watched the sun set with her father on the farm. It seemed to her a lot had changed since then.

            Leo watched her as he sipped black coffee. She had washed the dirt off of her face but her dress was still stained. She tried to ignore the looks people gave her as they passed.

            “I called your dad while you were washing up,” Leo finally said. “He told me you’re crazy and I should check you in to the nearest looney bin.”

            Missy smiled at him as she chewed a mouthful of pancakes.

            “But then he changed his mind and told me to bring you home. He said if you’re going to leave him you need a proper send off.”

            “I don’t want to go back yet though. I just got out.”

            “Okay then. So say I leave you here. What’s your plan?”

            “I’ll go into the city and get a job.”

            “Really. Wearing that dirty dress? What kind of job?”

            “I’m not talking to you anymore. You already have your mind made up about me.”

            Leo went back to sipping his coffee while Missy finished her pancakes. After her last bite she washed it all down with a full glass of milk. “Maybe I’ll be a singer,” she said.

            Leo scoffed but didn’t say anything.

            “Where is a good night club in this city?”

            “You’re gonna be a singer in a night club?” Leo asked.

            She stared at him and waited.

            “Downtown, of course. I can drop you off there, but your dad is going to kill me.”

            “I can live with that,” she said.

            The city streets were silent and grey on that Sunday morning, yet Missy was filled with hope. Leo stopped the truck in front of a brick building with a lit sign that said, “Saint Andrew’s Hall.” By the time he had put the truck in park Missy already had her door open. “Wait a sec,” he said as he pulled out his wallet. “You’ll need a better dress if you’re gonna be singer.” He handed her a one-hundred-dollar bill.

            She took it shyly and smiled at him. “Thank you, Leo. Come back and see me.”

            “Sure,” he said, and she slipped out the door walked around the side of the building.

 

Two Months Later

            Leo drove into the city. He hadn’t been downtown since he dropped Missy off in front of Saint Andrews two months before, and he couldn’t help but think of her now. He hoped she was okay and hadn’t fallen in with a bad crowd. She was young and had hardly been off the farm. When he’d told her father she refused to come home he’d just shook his head and paid Leo back the $100 he’d given her. Leo felt sympathetic for the old man, both of his children having left him. That was why Leo had been so surprised to see the old man beaming when he pulled into the farm the week before.

            “Did you hear about my girl?” he asked before Leo could offer a ‘good morning’ to him.

            “No sir. How is she?”

            “She’s a big star now.”

            Leo noticed for the first time that the farmer was clutching a handwritten letter in his hand. He was filled with pity for the man but kept it from showing on his face. Leo, a realist, knew the farmer’s young daughter was no upcoming star on the stages of Detroit. But at least she had the heart to tell her father a story he could be proud of.

            “Good for her!” Leo offered.

            “She’s going to sing this weekend at a place called ‘Cliff Bell’s.’ I can’t leave the farm, but a young man like you could go. You could give her this for me.”

            The old farmer held out a little box wrapped in brown paper. Leo suspected it was jewelry. He hated to get involved in such a hopeless exchange, but still, he took the box from the farmer and told him he’d try to make it in to see Missy.

            He strode down the Detroit sidewalks that hot summer night. The streetlights cast smokey triangles of illumination that strangers would stand in, as if waiting,  then return to motion and rejoin the darkness. He took two wrong streets before he found Cliff Bell’s, then felt underdressed when he entered. His black dress shirt and grey jeans didn’t seem to conceal the fact that he drove a turnip truck for a living. He self consciously made his way to the bar as he turned the little brown package over and over in his hand. As he walked deeper into the building, he noticed the scent of wine and perfume. He felt a sudden irritation at Missy for suggesting to her father that she had a gig in this place, forcing Leo into this uncomfortable moment.

            He found the bar and ordered an old fashioned then maneuvered his way through the elegant crowd. He found a seat in the corner and waited for the act to begin, whoever it was going to be.

            The curtain rose and a woman stood with her back to the audience as she faced the piano. The soft sound of keys filled the room, then came a deep, earthy, feminine voice. The sound was striking, and Leo’s irritation evaporated as the music began.

            The woman’s dress was a deep-sea blue that sparkled under the lights. She had dark hair that fell over her small shoulders. Her voice grew on a single note and as it did, she turned to face the audience. Leo froze. It was her. He felt both intensely alive and paralyzed. Her voice filled the room and the audience clapped and cheered for the small woman before them with the powerful voice. Leo’s paralysis broke and he stood and clapped too, a smile coming over his face. She looked at him and recognition sparked in her eyes. She returned his smile with her own.

            Leo didn’t sit down until her show ended. He was filled with an emotion he rarely felt: joy. Not just joy to see Missy make it, but joy because she had proven him wrong when he didn’t want to be right. She had shown him that life is in fact full of possibilities, if he would just let himself see them.

            When she left the stage, she smiled and shook the hand of everyone who approached her as she slowly made her way to Leo’s table. He watched her the whole time. She had quickly become graceful, a woman. He found himself straightening his shirt and running his hands through his hair as he anticipated her reaching his table. When she finally did, she reached out a hand and touched the tabletop, as if finding anchor. He noticed her thin, tan fingers, her nails finally buffed clean and painted red.

            “Missy,” he said.

            “Leo,” she responded. “You came back to see me.”

            “Yes, and I’m kind of speechless. I’m sorry I didn’t believe in you. You sounded amazing, and you look amazing. I just feel like a jerk for doubting you.”

            “It’s okay, Leo. It wasn’t really about you, anyway. Do you like my dress?” she asked as she lifted her hand from the table to pose.

            “Of course. Of course, I do.”

            “You should. You bought it.”

            “Can I buy you a drink?” he asked.

            “I’m not old enough to drink in here,” she said, then leaned forward and whispered in his ear, “but I’ve got a flask in my dressing room.”

            Leo stood and followed her onto the stage, then behind the curtain and through the open door of a room filled with mirrors and warm light. She sat down on the couch and padded the cushion beside her. Leo sat down, pulling the small package from his pocket as he did.

            Missy opened a metal flask and tipped it to her lips, then handed it to Leo as he exchanged the package for it.

            “It’s from your father,” he said.

            She carefully took off the paper, a small smile on her lips as she did. Just as Leo had expected, it was a small jewelry box. She opened it and saw a gold chain with a turnip charm on the end.

            “Awe,” she said. “I miss him.”

            Leo took a drink from the flask and passed it back to her.

            “I’ve missed you too,” she said as she took the flask from him.

            He silently laughed. “You hardly know me. How could you miss me?”

            “Just could. That’s all,” she said as she reached over and touched his arm. Their eyes burned with desire for a moment before he leaned in and kissed her. He ran his hand over her chest, being careful not to touch her with the parts of his palm made rough from working in the fields, but her tan skin reminded him that she had been doing the same two months ago. She was still the farmer’s daughter.

            “Oh, Missy,” he said as he buried his head in the nape of her neck, making her shudder with surprised pleasure.

            Suddenly there was a knock on the door. Leo jumped away from her and she sat up as she straightened her dress.

            “Missy,” a man’s voice said.

            “Yes,” she replied.

            “Great show tonight. Just so you know we’re closing up in about thirty minutes.”

            “Okay. I’m just collecting my things and I’ll be out,” she replied, then looked at Leo and shrugged.

            “That’s okay. We’ve got this whole city to ourselves, Miss.”

            She handed him the necklace and lifted her hair off her shoulders. "Do you mind?" She asked.

He fastened the clasp slowly, taking in the floral scent of her hair.

            “Let's just get on a train and see where it takes us," she said as she spun around to face him.

“You’ve got a thing for jumping into vehicles before you know where they're going, don't you?"

"I guess my destination is their destination," she answered.

"We better see where that is then," he said as he stood up.

She smiled at him, and a youthful giggle of excitement escaped her. She covered her mouth with her hand, then quickly took it away. She tucked the flask into her purse and stood up beside him. He squeezed her snugly to him and together they walked out into the open arms of the darkness.