“The early shifts handled calls from lonely people who needed someone to talk to.”
Greer dropped her purse to the floor and took the seat across from Danni. “Good. I could use a slow night. No crisis.”
Danni leaned back in her chair and folded her arms. “You’re coming into grape time, aren’t you?”
“I was testing them today as a matter of fact. Just about sweet enough. We’re about two weeks out from harvest time.”
Danni leaned back in her chair. “You should have taken a pass on your shift tonight. I would have covered for you.”
“I thought about it a couple of times. But it’s good for me to get off the property and connect with people. I spend too much time with the grapes.”
Danni laughed. “As long as they don’t talk to you.”
“That’s a bad thing?” Greer teased, grinning.
“Well,” she said, pretending to think, “I guess it depends on what the grapes are saying.”
Greer shook her head. “If any grape talks to me, no matter how sweet the words, I’m in trouble.”
Danni laughed. Her console phone rang and she leaned forward in her chair. “When the grapes talk it is not a good day.”
“Exactly.”
Danni reached for the phone receiver as Greer moved to her simple gray cubicle. “I’ll be at my station.”
“By the way, you’re still welcome to work the harvest. You’d mentioned making a little extra money and we are a little shorthanded this season.”
“I’m in. Always looking to make an extra buck.”
“I’m training a new farmhand this week, so if you can come out I can double up the training.”
“Name the day.”
“I’ll text you tomorrow.”
Greer’s station was stocked with one phone that could accommodate up to six lines. She spoke to one crisis client at a time but there’d been times when she’d believed her caller was in real trouble, had to make an excuse, put the caller on hold, and called 911 for a trace. Emergency personnel were dispatched to the caller’s location. Most nights weren’t that dramatic. She usually extended a sympathetic ear. Many of her callers weren’t in real trouble as much as they were lonely.
She set her backpack on the desk. She always brought work from the office, knowing some nights no one called. During those times she balanced accounts, outlined harvest schedules, or updated personnel files. The vineyard could be jealous and required she fill every pocket of spare time.
She rarely questioned her long hours, which initially had been her salvation. But tonight when she looked at her backpack crammed full of ledgers, resentment flared. She had the life she wanted. Loved her vineyard. Was excited about the winery. And yet she heard the faintest whispers of loneliness.
Most nights she was too exhausted to notice that she climbed into bed alone. Most nights all she wanted to do was sleep and not dream. But most nights weren’t all nights.
Her mind turned to Bragg and again she wondered what it would be like to touch him, to kiss him. With him in her bed, the nights would never be boring. And she doubted she’d get much sleep. Color warmed her cheeks as she thought about his naked body pressed against hers.
When she realized that Danni hadn’t sent the call her way, she reached in her knapsack and pulled out a stack of technical articles on winemaking that she’d need to read. She wasn’t sure how long she sat in the silence combing through the articles. Her aunt had always joked Greer filled every second of every day, and Greer had always countered that time was the ultimate resource. It wasn’t limitless. Once it was gone, game over.
When her phone rang, she pulled off her reading glasses, cleared her throat, and on the third ring picked up the phone. “Crisis Center, this is Greer.”
They had a script to follow and protocols to adhere to in all situations. She wasn’t a licensed counselor and if the caller sounded to be in real trouble, she signaled Danni to contact the doctor on call.
“Greer, is that you?” The woman’s voice was soft, insistent.
Her fingers tightened around the phone. Occasionally a caller would ask for her by name but not often and it always unhinged her a little. “Yes, this is Greer.”
“Good. Good. I was hoping you’d answer the phone tonight. You’ve not been at the call center for days.”
She sat straighter. She always kept a clear line between her personal life and the work she did here. “Who am I talking to?”
A hesitation. “You don’t recognize my voice?”
“I’m sorry, I don’t.”
A heavy silence drifted through the line.
Greer shifted in her seat. “Who is this?”
“You should know.” Her voice had an eerily smooth quality.
She began to doodle squares on her pad. “I’m sorry. It’s late. Tell me.”
“I’m not going to tell you,” she teased. “You have to guess.”
She rubbed her forehead with her fingertips. “I’m here to talk if you need help, but I’m not here to play games. Do you want to talk to me about something?”
“I want to talk about someone who takes their own life. Do you think suicide is a sin?”
For a moment the room stilled. She spoke carefully. “I think it’s sad. It’s a terrible shame when a person is so lost they see no way out.”
“But is it a sin?” The last word came out in a hiss. She tucked a stray curl behind her ear and considered signaling Danni. “That’s not for me to say. I know other people more qualified than me to talk to about this.”
“I think you are qualified.”
“I’m not.”
“Didn’t you try and kill yourself? Didn’t you try to take the easy way out, Elizabeth?”
Elizabeth. She gripped the phone. Her blood pressure plummeted and she grabbed ahold of the desk to steady herself. She’d changed her name from Elizabeth to Greer to get away from her past mistakes. No one in her current life knew about the past but when she’d held that party on Wednesday night she’d opened a portal to the past.
“Who is this?”
“It doesn’t matter. What matters is I know there was a time you wanted to die more than live.”
She shook her head trying to push back the terror rising in her chest.
A moment’s hesitation followed and then, “I think it’s okay to end the pain when it’s too much.”
Greer had had all kinds of calls. Desperate people. Angry people and yes, some creeps like this one. But this person had her radar standing on end. She rose and snapped her fingers to get Danni’s attention.
The girl saw Greer pointing to her phone and recognized it was a signal to call the police.
Danni nodded and turned to her phone to dial. Seconds later she was talking quietly to the police.
“Greer?” the caller said.
“Yes?”
“Did I lose you for a minute?”
“I’m sorry. I was thinking about what you said.”
“That suicide is a relief.”
“Right,” she lied.
“You agree?”
She kept her gaze on Danni as if it were a lifeline. “When suicide is an option in someone’s mind they’re in a desperate place. It makes me sad for them and I want to help them get past the pain.”
“Is that possible or are you making that person suffer needlessly?” Urgency lurked behind her words.
“The pain is not forever.”
“Has yours gone away?”
Anxiety banded around her chest. “I’m here to talk about you.”
“I’m fine. It’s you that I worry about.”
“Why do you worry about me?”
No answer.
Danni held up a handwritten sign: COPS TRACING THE CALL.
Greer held her thumb up. “Who is this?”
“You should know me.”
“I’m sorry. I should remember, but I don’t.”
Danni held up another sign: TWO MORE MINUTES AND THEY’LL HAVE IT.
“Are you in pain?” Greer didn’t want an opinion but wanted to keep the caller on the line. Most people liked to talk about themselves, especially when they thought they had a captive audience.