Of course it didn’t. I was never a factor in any of Sam’s decisions. And Dad wouldn’t think to mention it. My parents, as far as I knew, were blissfully ignorant about what happened between Sam and me that summer. Most of our time together was spent after Dad went to bed and Mom was hidden away in her office. Sam was an expert at withdrawing from me whenever anyone was around.
The way Mom’s eyes narrow at my reaction to the news, though, makes me wonder just how clueless she is. She was obviously more in the know about what happened with Kelly than I realized.
“I’m sure he’ll be thrilled to see you,” she says.
I doubt it, I think, but don’t say. Instead, I chew a bite of spaghetti, the noodles and my words becoming mush in my mouth.
“I can take care of the guest house,” Mom offers, letting me off the hook.
“No, it’s fine,” I say. I swallow the spaghetti down and it sits heavy in my stomach. “I can handle it.”
FOUR
The next morning, I stand on the back porch, watching the vineyard hands walking up and down among the trellises, examining the newly budding grapevines. Dad walks alongside them. The grape-growing process is closely monitored all throughout the year but the start of growing season sets Dad in a particular frenzy after long winters when the vines are dormant and Dad’s work is inside, going over the year’s production numbers and watching his barrels age in the basement cellar. Mom always says she doesn’t know which season is worse—summer, when she hardly sees him at all, or winter, when she sees him entirely too much.
I sip my coffee and listen to the distant chirping of the birds. The breeze settles into a hush over the land, but there is no peace inside me. The news of Sam’s return had me tossing and turning in bed as I asked myself why I cared. So much time has passed. That’s what Sam is, the past. But as long ago as it was, something fundamental shifted inside me that summer and I haven’t been the same since. That’s what I can’t let go of. I may have used my heartbreak and shame to fuel my ambition at work, but I also haven’t allowed myself to get close to another person since. I haven’t felt able to trust a man, or a friend, and after the way the lies slipped so easily off my tongue to Kelly’s ears, I certainly don’t trust myself.
I came back for the planting party, and for my parents, but more so, I came back for Kelly and if she and I have any chance of reconnecting, how can I convince her to forgive me when the very reason for our falling-out will be laying his perfect curls against the pillow in the guest house tonight?
Then again, maybe Sam’s presence is a blessing. We may be in the same place, with the same balmy air luring us into impulsivity, and the same romance of wine at sunset. But none of us are the same people. What better way to prove to Kelly that I’ve changed than to be placed in a similar situation and make different choices?
With that in mind, I return my coffee mug to the house, grab the keys to my rental car, and head into town.
Driving through my hometown for the first time in a decade is a surreal experience, akin to seeing your doctor out of scrubs and drinking with her girlfriends at the bar. The familiar features are the same, but out of context everything feels shifted and disjointed, like a dream. Fast-food chains have popped up between familiar buildings that look dilapidated in comparison. Overpriced restaurants and shops have been added to Paso Robles’s thriving tourist hub. Locals often complain there are two faces of Paso Robles—the one you see when passing through, flashy and beckoning the money out of visitors’ pockets, and the Paso Robles locals live and breathe, where one turn off downtown lands you in neighborhoods full of honest people struggling to make a living.
One night, a few years after I left, Dad got on the phone with heartbreak in his voice. “They’re breaking ground on a Walmart,” he said, and our little town hasn’t been quite the same since.
Monet’s Mug is tucked a few blocks off Highway 101, a common meeting place for the people who live here and the occasional visitor who wanders off the beaten path. I pull into the parking lot and turn off the engine in the space next to Kelly’s car. I sit for a long, silent moment with my hands on the steering wheel, unsure of how Kelly might be feeling now that she’s had time to process my presence here. I shift in my seat to check for the folded pink paper in my back pocket, though I know it’s there. It’s always there.
“All you can do is try,” I tell myself in the rearview mirror. I sigh and get out of the car.
When I step through the front door, the bell jingles and a few of the patrons look up at me, no recognition in their eyes before they go back to their conversations. I used to know everyone who lived here.
This place, at least, looks exactly as I remember it. Six small round tables speckle the sitting area and a purple booth lines the side wall. Acoustic music plays over the speakers and like before, the paintings and photographs of local artists cover nearly every inch of the brightly colored wallpaper. The artwork is new, of course.
Kelly is alone behind the counter, steaming milk with a high-pitched whistle. Willpower and the bitter aroma of coffee beckon me farther inside.
When she places the last customer’s coffee on the pickup counter, Kelly sees me. She must have expected I’d drop by because her expression doesn’t change. In her maroon apron, she returns to the espresso machine and wipes down the steam wand like I’ve seen her do hundreds of times. If it weren’t for her inhospitable greeting, I could have stepped back in time.
“The usual?” she asks as I approach the counter. I haven’t had anything so sweet since she used to make me the white chocolate raspberry mochas she got me hooked on that summer, but I nod.
As she levels off the coffee grounds, I ask her how she’s doing. I’m not sure I’ve ever asked her that question before—I’ve never had to. Growing up, there was nothing we didn’t know about each other. I was as surprised as she was to discover that had changed.
“Shorthanded,” she says, “but the morning rush is over.”
“Are you still working four shifts a week?” I ask.
“Six,” she says, pursing her lips at me, like I’ve caused that, too. Seeming to recognize her unfairness, her voice is softer when she adds, “Mom’s medications keep getting more expensive.”
“Is there anything I can do to help?” I ask, more out of reflex than having any real capability. She needs more help than I can offer in a one-week visit or with my New York budget. Knowing this as well as I do, she ignores the question.
Instead she asks, “Did your dad mention if he got that supply order in? I’d planned to swing by this morning and do it myself but I had to come in early to cover Elinor’s shift.”
“No...” I draw out the word. Why would Kelly know or care about Dad’s supply inventory? Is that what she came looking for yesterday?
I piece the puzzle together—her extra shifts here, her unannounced visits to the vineyard.
“So you’re working at the vineyard?” I ask.
Dad had said something about needing more help in the office.
“Part-time,” she says. “When I’m not at the coffee shop. I needed more income to pay for my student loans and Rich was nice enough to offer me a job filing paperwork and making phone calls.”
My old summer job. I’m grateful and not at all shocked that Dad would support Kelly in whatever way she needs. She’s been like a daughter to them since the first time I brought her home. Still, I can’t help the slithering in my stomach that whispers I’m being replaced in my own home.
“That’s great,” I say. “Have you finished your courses?”
The week after I got settled at Columbia, my parents told me Kelly had been accepted to get her degree through distance courses. She would be able to stay in Paso to take care of her mom while also earning her bachelor’s degree in psychology.
Kelly stares at me for a long moment, as if deciding whether or not she wants to open the door
to a real conversation with me. In the end, her manners win out.
“I did,” she says, pouring milk into a steaming pitcher. “It took me a couple of extra years but I graduated four years ago.”
“Did you walk?” I ask.
If she came all the way to New York to accept her diploma with her graduating class and didn’t reach out to me, our friendship is likely already beyond saving. We may have missed each other the couple of times I’ve returned home to visit—the first time, because I was still too scared to face her, and the second because she was taking her mom to doctor’s appointments in LA—but if she’d come to New York, she would have needed a place to stay. She would have needed someone to show her around.
“No,” she says, looking into the milk.
Another thing she’s missed to remain here, to be her mother’s sole caregiver.
“Oh,” I say. “I’m sorry.”
Kelly turns on the steamer, interrupting our conversation. I drum my fingers on the counter, anxious for her to give me a lifeline, anxious to run away. The guilt I feel for living the life she wanted for herself is like a monster inside me, trying to eat its way out.
I reach for the pink paper in my pocket, the ace up my sleeve, but let my hand fall. It’s a gift, not an act of desperation.
When the milk is done steaming, Kelly pours it into a paper cup, presses a lid onto it, and passes it to me. Her eyes meet mine. A decade’s worth of disappointments and struggle have dulled them.
“How is your mom?” I ask.
It’s the wrong question, I quickly realize, when Kelly turns away from me. She grabs a wet rag and wipes down the counter.
“Really?” she says.
I’ve lost the right to know, apparently. The right to even ask.
As she vigorously rubs at a spot of dried syrup, I catch sight of the dark ink on the inside of her wrist. She notices me looking and drops the rag, a rosiness rising to her cheeks.
“Okay.” I hold my hands up in surrender. “I’m sorry.”
“Listen, I have to catch up from the rush. The coffee is on the house.”
I wait for her to offer a better time to catch up, to give even the slightest indication that she’d be willing.
She offers up nothing.
It pains me to put more distance between us when there’s already so much. I wish we could go back. I wish I could have made different choices that summer. I wish I could be the friend she needs.
“Okay.” I step toward the door. I lift my coffee toward her. “Thanks.”
If she works at the vineyard, she can’t avoid me all week. So for now, I lower my head in temporary defeat, shoving a few dollars in the tip jar as I go.
* * *
That afternoon, I return to the guest house to fulfill my promise to my mom—the one I made before I fully realized what I was volunteering for. The idea of Sam being here is still surreal, abstract. The reality of it will no doubt be awkward on both sides. There are so many things I wish I’d said the last time we were here, and I’m sure he expects there will be things I want to hear, if he expects me at all. The real question is whether or not I actually do want Sam’s explanations, or whether it matters anymore.
I reach for the key above the door frame, muscle memory taking over. When I open the door, the sunlight bleaches the space, and this time, I see no magic here. It’s just an empty, lifeless room that holds a thousand reminders of all the times Sam proved to me that he never loved me and I was a fool for ever wishing he could.
Of course Sam will be staying in the guest house. The place practically has his name on it. He spent two months living in it the last time. It has his imprint on it, for sure. The memories of Sam are overlaid on every inch of the vineyard. With him here, flesh and blood, I don’t know how to continue to think of him in the past. He will be very much present.
I’m nervous. It takes me a moment to name the feeling. Before I decided to come back to face Kelly, it had been a long time since I cared about the outcome of a situation enough that it felt like I had anything to lose. The last time I remember feeling this way was the day I interviewed for my internship. These past few weeks, the tightness in my chest has been a constant companion.
It isn’t the silence that’s been bearing down on me, I realize. It’s the fear that I’m incapable of being in a relationship. And now, unexpectedly, the last—and truly only—man I’ve seen a future with is returning with all our baggage.
It’s not that I haven’t dated. There were a couple guys in college; they’re so vague in my mind that they’re hardly worth mentioning. I lost my virginity in my dorm room bed a few months into my freshman year to a football player in my study group—something Kelly would be horrified to know. In high school, we avoided the jocks particularly avidly with their arrogance and smooth lines. My Romeo didn’t have any lines. In fact, the only thing I remember about the experience was the uncomfortable silence. I’d given in to his dry, openmouthed kisses to get the act over with and cried afterward because I’d felt nothing and feared I never would again.
Since then, I’ve gone out for drinks with a few guys I’ve worked with, colleagues from visiting firms or men I’ve met at conferences. Work is the only place I would have the opportunity to meet someone. Jack, the analyst who sits three cubicles over, had flowers delivered to the office under a code name to keep our few dinner dates a secret. In return, I slept with him out of sheer boredom. It didn’t help and only complicated my work life so I vowed never to do anything like that again.
Only one man has ever made me feel like my skin was made of stardust. And when he left, my light all but burned out.
But I’d be stupid to delude myself into thinking Sam could fix me now. And his presence certainly won’t help me fix my relationship with Kelly.
I cross the room and begin to tear the blanket off the bed, sweat forming on the back of my neck. As I toss the blanket haphazardly on the floor, a knock on the open door startles me. A shiver runs up my spine. Before I turn around, I already know who will be standing there. I can feel him, my body responding to his presence in a way it never has with anyone else.
When I look up, I see him. Nothing about him has changed—he looks like he stepped right out of my memory. He still has the same flawless skin, the same warm brown eyes I used to melt into, the same sense of style. His hair is shorter and his face is clean-shaven, but otherwise, he looks exactly like the Sam I never really knew.
I expect all my nervous energy to reach a combustion point, but instead a cool calm floods through me. Is it relief at seeing that all the reasons I fell for him weren’t all in my mind, or is it shock?
“Hey, Mallory,” he says like it’s the most natural thing in the world to be standing in front of each other again.
Not entirely. There’s an underlying sheepishness. He should be anxious. One of the last times I saw him, he was twisting my hair between his fingers and smiling at me like nothing else in the world mattered. That was right before he disappeared without a word. No explanations. No apologies.
But uncertainty is an emotion I’ve never seen on him, and I admit to some satisfaction at being the cause. I’m glad I’m not out on this limb alone.
I swallow hard and force a smile.
“Samuel B. Ryder,” I say, inadvertently resurrecting one of our inside jokes. His smile widens.
“How are you?” he asks.
“I’m good,” I say. “It’s...good to be home.”
“Yeah. It is.”
He laughs nervously, rubbing the back of his neck.
Sam never did know how to small talk—didn’t believe in it.
“You don’t have to do that,” he says softly, pointing toward the bed. It ratchets up my agitation again, the way he talks to me with the level of intimacy that only two people who spoke under the cover of the stars can share.
“It’s fine,�
�� I say, not allowing myself to get caught up in my emotions. I can’t allow myself to fall back into old patterns with him.
I get the sheets off the bed and balled up with the comforter. I pick them up and hold them tight to me to provide a barrier from Sam’s gaze. He hasn’t stepped inside the room and I want to keep it that way. I once promised myself I would never be under this roof with him again—a promise much easier kept when we were on opposite sides of the country.
“Okay. Thanks,” he says. But he doesn’t move.
A thick pause bubbles in the space between us and its discomfort urges me to fill it.
“You look...” I start, but I realize there are no words to describe the way he has always looked to me. Still otherworldly. Still so...perfect, which was our problem from the start.
“And you look...” He looks me up and down and seems to struggle for adjectives, as well. I shrink ever so slightly under his stare. “Mature,” he finally settles on, vaguely.
I clench my jaw and look away. Pain and embarrassment are heavy on my shoulders, anger biting at my heels. How many times did he call me kiddo?
“I suppose ten years will do that to a person,” I say.
Sam opens his mouth, his eyebrows lifting like he wants to say something important. But nothing comes out.
I almost ask him. Why he left. Why he came back. If I misread every word he said, every touch, every kiss. I realize I have the unexpected opportunity to get the answers to those questions, to set my feelings for Sam at rest, too. Maybe it would ease the emptiness I’ve felt since the day he disappeared.
But I can’t begin to think about resolving issues with Sam until I’ve resolved my problems with Kelly.
“We’d better not be late for lunch,” I say, moving toward the door.
He smirks knowingly. “I wouldn’t want to offend your mom.”
“I don’t think there’s anything you could possibly do to offend her.”
It pains me to admit that my mom adores him, that my parents could have such a different perspective of Sam. It makes me question my own judgment. Did Sam really lead me on? Or was I blind and naive?
Midnight at the Wandering Vineyard Page 4
