Midnight at the Wandering Vineyard

by Jamie Raintree

  “You can grab your luggage,” I say. “I’ll bring these back when they’re done.”

  He watches me for another long moment, and then he steps backward out of the doorway. I squeeze through the space to avoid being close to him, but I can smell his skin and feel his breath and I wonder if I will be strong enough to avoid Sam this time.

  FIVE

  THEN

  It started innocently. The crush. Looking back now, I think it was only natural. I didn’t have many crushes in high school. Never dated boys, though I’d been asked. Because to me, that was exactly what they were: boys. They played practical jokes on each other in the halls and thought it was funny to make faces at the teachers behind their backs. They bragged about whose prom date was hottest. As if any of that mattered. Rumor around school was that I would have made one of them a good trophy but I asked Kelly to prom instead and we had more fun than all the girls whose dates ditched them half an hour in.

  And then Sam walked into my life.

  Not a boy at all. There was something immediately worldly about him. He was calm, cool, not easily ruffled. There was a confidence in the way his shoulders were always rolled back and the way he stood as if he was rooted to the center of the earth.

  His first week at the vineyard, he followed Dad around with a leather portfolio and I followed him. That was my official job and I tried to keep my eagerness in check. Truly, I reveled in the opportunity to spend so much time in his orbit, watching him, soaking him in. I held my breath every time he looked over his shoulder at me and smiled like we had a shared secret. I ran down the stairs each morning hoping today would be the day I’d find out what it was.

  That first Friday was a surprisingly cool day. The clouds had settled over the hills, threatening a rainy night. The wind swirled the dust around our feet but as we walked the vines, Dad, Sam, and I welcomed the relief after a long, hot week.

  At the end of the day, Dad turned to Sam and said, “Well, I think that’s about as much as you need to know to get started. Except for one last thing.”

  Sam smiled, amused by Dad. Despite their twenty-plus-year age difference, they’d clicked immediately. Dad had always wanted a son. Luckily for him, I was tomboy enough to, in a way, be both to him. But having Sam around was different—he had an interest in what Dad did in a way I never would.

  “What’s that?” Sam asked.

  “You couldn’t possibly sell my wine without having a few glasses, right?”

  Sam’s smile grew. “Makes sense to me.”

  “Join us for dinner?”

  “Sure. Sounds perfect.”

  I remember that dinner well. Mom came home from the office late but she wanted to impress our guest anyway. We sat on bar stools at the kitchen island and Mom asked Sam about his family while she cooked.

  He told us he grew up in Washington, was an only child, and that he graduated from the University of Washington with a bachelor’s degree in business two years ago. He had been consulting for small businesses since and he listed off the names of a few. We wouldn’t have recognized their names until recently, but we’d seen commercials for one or two after Sam helped them create national marketing campaigns.

  Dad knew this already, of course, but Mom looked at Sam in a different light after that, clearly impressed and hopeful that Dad’s passion project might finally start making money. For me, it only reinforced what I knew to be true: Sam was not a boy. I couldn’t ignore him if I tried.

  After Mom finished making dinner, she took her plate to her office, like she did most nights. Dad, Sam, and I carried our plates out to the back porch, where two bottles of wine shone in the light of the sunset like a jeweler’s offering.

  As we took out seats, Dad introduced our most popular wines.

  “We’ve got a five-year sauvignon blanc and a three-year chardonnay,” he said.

  “Don’t undercut it, Dad. It’s not a sauvignon blanc, it’s the sauvignon blanc.” When I realized Sam was staring at me intently, waiting to hear more, I blushed. With a shrug, I added, “You want to know everything about the vineyard, right? This wine is the vineyard. It’s what Dad is known for.”

  Sam grinned. At me. “Good to know,” he said.

  Dad, his chest puffed out, set his plate down and reached for the older bottle.

  “This one was my first as the owner. I managed the vineyard for the first five years while the owner called the shots from Florida. A nice enough guy, but he was all business. He never had a passion for the grapes. He thought owning a vineyard would make him a quick buck.” Dad laughed at this idea. He had yet to see a buck of any kind. “At the first sign he was tired of running a business he couldn’t see, I offered him all the money I had and begged him to carry the note for the rest.”

  Dad filled a glass one-quarter full, watching the liquid stream down the side of the U-shaped bowl. Then he filled his own glass. Dad had stopped offering me taste tests after repeatedly offending him with my mock-gagging motions.

  Sam picked up his glass and took a sip. Both Dad and I cringed.

  “What?” he asked. “It’s good.”

  “Not if you drink it like that.”

  Sam looked to me for help. I shrugged and laughed behind my hand.

  “I forgive you for defiling my wine,” Dad said, “but let’s teach you how to drink it right.”

  And for the next hour, that’s what Dad did. He taught Sam the proper technique for swirling the wine in the glass, how to smell it to capture the body and subtle nuances of it, how to assess the color—especially beautiful against the sunset—and finally, how to swish it around his mouth to catch every shade of flavor from the moment it touched his lips to the moments after it slid down his throat, revealing its final flourish.

  I listened with my chin resting on my hand, entranced anew by Dad’s instructions and explanations. I’d known it all by heart since before I started middle school, and I’d listened to the same lesson dozens of times, but there was something about the way Sam took it in with his whole body—eyes narrowed, upper body leaned forward, mouth slightly agape—that made the subject enthralling. As the wine touched his lips and left glistening bubbles behind, which he promptly caught with his tongue, I felt things I’d never experienced before...things I didn’t know how to corral.

  Once conversation turned to business, I sat back in my chair and zoned out, looking out at the vines, but I watched Sam’s every move from the corner of my eye.

  We sat like that for another hour or two before Dad offered to get another bottle of wine from the cellar.

  “No, I shouldn’t,” Sam said. “I have to get myself back to the hotel.”

  “Are you sure?” Dad asked. “We’ve got a guest house if you want to stay.”

  My heart leaped as I waited for Sam’s response, too surprised by the possibility to decide which way I hoped he would answer.

  “I appreciate it, but I’ve got plans in the morning.” Sam rose from his chair and shook my dad’s hand. “You’re right, though,” he said. “Your wine is great. Amazing, actually. Thanks for the lesson.”

  Dad glowed at Sam’s remark, and I knew no matter what happened from there, Sam was in.

  SIX

  NOW

  I wake the next morning to the sound of tapping on my window and darkness on the other side of my eyelids. My head aches. Most people who visit the vineyard report never having slept better in their lives. Most people who visit, though, aren’t surrounded by emotional minefields.

  I hear another tap on the window and blink my eyes open. The clock on the nightstand reads 5:31 a.m.

  I spent yesterday afternoon helping Tyler muck stalls, which most people wouldn’t consider relaxing but was helpful in keeping my mind off all the ways this trip has already gone wrong. Sam and Dad ate dinner on the back porch, the way they used to, and I kept Mom company in her office, then went to bed
early.

  When a third tap pings through the room, I pull myself out of bed, tripping over my suitcase on my way to yank open the blinds. Tyler’s smiling face stares up at me from below. He gives me an exaggerated wave of his arm, motioning me toward the stables. Not that he has to. I know why he’s here.

  I grin and shake my head at the familiar sight. I hold up a finger.

  Stumbling into the bathroom, I brush my teeth and hair, then meet him outside in a pair of old jean shorts I found in my dresser.

  “Hey,” I say, cutting through the still predawn air. The morning, for now, is cool and rushes over my skin like water.

  Tyler waits with his hand outstretched, offering it to me.

  “We’re not too old for this, are we?” he asks.

  “Never.”

  “I’ve got the horses saddled up.”

  He leads me to the barn. Already my mind feels clearer.

  In the dim light of the stables, we hoist ourselves onto Midnight and Rocket, and before our butts hit the saddles, we urge them forward—first at a walk, then a trot, then we take off at a full run. As we ride toward the rising sun, I can almost hear the horses’ laughter—their thrill at the closest they get to freedom—as Tyler and I encourage them on, faster, out of breath. Weaving around each other with sideways glances. Kicking up dust, our grins wild. The pounding of hooves reverberating against our eardrums.

  We come over the hill just as the first rays of sunshine break over the mountains, dancing and twinkling across the pond that sits at the edge of the vineyard property line. Before we reach the water, we pull the horses to a skidding stop, laughing.

  “I don’t think I’ve done that since you left,” Tyler says a few minutes later as we sit along the shoreline.

  The pond is small, only waist deep, but it was my most frequent escape from home when I needed time to think. The horses drink from the warm water on either side of us. I dig my toes into the sandy mud and shift my weight, leaning off one hand and back onto the other as the pebbles bite into my palms.

  “Why not?” I ask, baffled.

  His only response is a lazy shrug.

  “It’s so much prettier here than in the city. I’ve missed this place. I’d forgotten just how beautiful it is in real life compared to my memories.”

  “You didn’t have to stay away so long, you know.”

  “I know. It’s just...complicated.” It’s the first time I’ve admitted to anyone that my motives for staying in New York haven’t been entirely work related. “What else have you been doing while I was gone?”

  “Just breathing. That’s all I could manage,” he says. “I’ve been completely lost without you. Sobbing into my pillow and everything.”

  “Shut up,” I say, and he laughs.

  “Nah, mostly the usual. I went to LA for a few years to try to make more money installing satellite TV, but wearing a uniform and calling people by their last names wasn’t worth it.”

  I giggle at the picture of an elderly woman opening the door to Tyler, hair disheveled and searching for the nearest window to climb out of. No doubt he looked adorable in his uniform but it could never suit him.

  “Thanks for that,” he teases. “Otherwise, just working here. Then my second job at the bar a few nights a week. It’s good tips and I’ve been saving up to get the heck out of here.”

  “Out of here?” I ask, my laughter stopping abruptly.

  I shouldn’t be stunned. I left first and unless you want a career in wine, there isn’t much reason to stay in Paso Robles. But I’ve never really believed there would come a time when Tyler wouldn’t be here. He’s as much a part of this place to me as Midnight, as this pond where we’ve shared so many heartfelt conversations.

  “Where are you going? When?”

  Tyler dips his fingers into the water and flicks it at me, making me cringe.

  “Nothing is set in stone. I still don’t have as much money as I’d like. But hopefully in the next couple months. My uncle’s starting up a horse ranch in Montana. Said he’d let me run it, but I’ll have to cover my expenses while I build up a boarding clientele.”

  “Your dad’s brother or your mom’s?”

  Tyler doesn’t like to talk about his alcoholic father back in New Mexico but he still talks to his mom, who, though she loves the man too much herself, understood Tyler’s need to leave.

  “Mom’s,” he says.

  I shake my head. So much has changed, and is changing, around here. I’ve been romanticizing the idea that I could come home and pick right back up where I left off, the way it was before things fell apart with Kelly, before Sam, before I wore pumps instead of riding boots.

  “Montana. Wow. I’ve heard it’s beautiful there. I’ve always wanted to go.”

  “Lots of air,” he says with a grin, referencing a conversation we shared once. “Well, you’ll come visit me, then. I’d be happy to have you.”

  I let his offer hang in the air, too overcome with emotions to speak. It took me years to get back home, and with my promotion, what are the chances I’ll ever see Tyler again?

  “I saw Sam,” he says, his whole demeanor changing. He tosses a pebble into the pond. It hits the water with a small splash and sinks straight to the bottom. The water is so clear I can watch its journey as it beelines for the dirt bottom and crashes into it. “I can’t believe he has the nerve to show his face here.”

  “Yeah. My parents invited him back for the planting party. They don’t know what happened between us.”

  No one does. I told Tyler more than I told anyone else about that summer, but not even he knows everything.

  “And you’re okay with this?”

  I shrug, feigning more resolve than I feel. “I don’t have much choice. He’s here, and I can’t leave now. I owe my parents this. I owe Kelly more effort than I’ve given an apology so far. I don’t know how she’ll react when she finds out he’s here, though.”

  I sigh and run my hands through my hair. I feel Tyler’s fingers rub the space between my shoulder blades.

  “Are you okay?” he asks.

  “It’s stupid, right? To be holding on to the heartbreak still?”

  “Yes,” he says, concise as ever.

  I laugh. “Well, don’t be sensitive about my feelings or anything.”

  Tyler deflates, his anger at Sam visibly seeping out of every muscle in his body. He’s always restrained himself when it comes to Sam, for my sake.

  “He lured you in, Mallory. He knew what he was doing. He had to have known he’d only hurt you.”

  “It’s not just the feelings I had for Sam. I’m...embarrassed. I’m ashamed. Being on the other side of the country, working, focusing on my day-to-day life, I could almost forget I was ever that girl. But I was, and being here, especially all of us together...it’s like going right back to that place. I don’t want to feel that insecure again. I don’t want Kelly to be right about me.”

  “I think you’re being too hard on yourself,” Tyler says.

  I scoff. “Kelly would beg to differ.”

  Tyler turns his body so he can face me. It’s painful to meet his eyes but I do.

  “You don’t get it, Mal. Your argument with Kelly was never about Sam. It was about who you became when you were around him. Be the Mallory we all know and love, and him being here won’t matter.”

  “It’s been a long time, Tyler. I am different now.”

  “Not in here,” he says, pressing the tip of his finger to my chest. “People don’t change in here.”

  His sincerity is so genuine, I could cry. I bite my bottom lip, afraid to say the words on the tip of my tongue. “But what if I forgot who that Mallory is?”

  Tyler frowns and pulls me into a hug. With his mouth right next to my ear, he says, “Then we’ll remind you. That’s what friends are for.”

  * * *
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  When I first moved to New York, sometimes I would sneak past employees at the stables near Central Park and sit with the horses until someone found me and kicked me out. I would never ride them—I couldn’t afford it—but just being near them reminded me of home and comforted me when the fast pace of the city became too much, when missing my parents and Kelly and Tyler became too much. It brought me back to center when I felt like I was losing sight of who I was. It happened so frequently that eventually the staff just ignored me until I left.

  When that stopped working, I would walk out to the ocean on a Saturday morning and traipse along the shoreline until I didn’t know how much time had passed, where I was, or where I was supposed to be. I would stumble to the nearest road, hail a cab, and pay the ten-mile fare.

  My conversation with Tyler, though helpful, doesn’t ease that familiar desire to walk away and forget all my worries, to get lost on a beach or a hiking trail that leads to nowhere. As I stand in my bedroom, drying my hair with a towel, I force myself to feel my feet on the carpet. I recall Tyler’s words, and the possibility of Kelly’s friendship, and I ground myself here, now. I came home to face my life and all the things I’ve been running from. I won’t let fear make me run again.

  My phone chimes on the nightstand and I grab it. It’s a text from my boss, Denise.

  Are you bored yet? she asks. Don’t forget to swing by the office when you get in so we can catch up!

  The smile on my face is involuntary. Denise is New York born and raised, and she never misses the opportunity to remind me how different our personalities and lifestyles are. When I told her I was coming home for a week, she curled her lip and asked, But what will you do?

  I text her back. Was in bed by ten. Jealous?

  With as much time as Denise and I have spent together over the last six years, her mentorship has grown into something resembling friendship, for which I’m grateful. Keeping her happy has given me a sense of purpose in New York.