Midnight at the Wandering Vineyard

by Jamie Raintree

  Her message is a not-so-subtle reminder, though, that my clock here is ticking.

  Once I’m dressed, I head down to the kitchen. When I reach the bottom of the stairs, Sam is standing at the coffeepot alone. I stop with my hand still on the railing. I still haven’t decided how I want to handle his presence here. He looks up at me and smiles so I pull my lips into a polite acknowledgment the way my mom taught me.

  “Morning,” Sam says. His hair is slightly damp, his curls all but gone. He wears a suit, like he always did. Suits never go out of style. Today his shirt is violet with light gray slacks to match. He’s skipped ahead to his evening habit of unbuttoning the top button and rolling his sleeves back. Maybe that’s his usual now.

  “Morning,” I say back.

  “Coffee?” he asks.

  “Sure.”

  I take a deep breath and join him at the coffeepot. My pulse quickens as I draw closer to him and the emotion doesn’t feel as much like anger as I wish it did.

  He fishes a mug out of the cabinet and hands it to me. There’s something both comforting and unsettling about how at home he is in my kitchen. But then, why shouldn’t he be? Nothing has changed since he was here last, when my dad welcomed him like the son he never had.

  “Did you sleep well?” I ask.

  “I did,” he says. “I’ve always slept well in that bed. All this fresh air.”

  Or maybe the wine, I want to say. Every time he slept in that bed, it had been after a few too many glasses.

  He clears his throat as if the words are written on my face.

  “Is something wrong with the coffee maker in the guest house?” I ask.

  I reach around him to grab the coffeepot and he stays infuriatingly still, making the close quarters tighter. I’m careful not to brush against him.

  “The carafe is cracked,” he says behind his mug.

  “Oh.”

  There’s an awkward silence as I fill my mug.

  “So...what have you been up to?” I ask. “Still in Washington?”

  “Yep,” he says, nodding. “I bought a house a few years ago. In Port Orchard. It’s a bit of a drive for work, but it’s worth it. I have a beautiful view of the mountains from my kitchen window as I drink my coffee each morning.”

  The mountains. I can’t believe he would bring that up. I clench my jaw to hold back a biting retort.

  “You must be missing that this morning,” I say as I place the carafe back on the burner. Sam finally takes a step back.

  “The views here are just as beautiful,” he says. “I didn’t realize how much I missed them until I walked out on my little porch this morning.”

  I nod, genuinely agreeing with him, but his presumption of ownership over any part of the vineyard, however small, gets under my skin.

  “Do you hike them much?” I ask, unable to stop myself. I turn away from him, to grab the creamer from the fridge. I don’t want to make eye contact and risk giving away what a sensitive subject this is for me.

  There’s a brief pause and I listen for the feeling behind it. Without analyzing his expression, I can’t make it out.

  “Not as much as I’d like,” he says. But that’s probably why he moved there. That was one of the “life hacks” he always tried to teach me—keep your goals in front of you and the goal will come to you.

  I suppose it worked for me. I’ve kept work in front of me every waking hour and I will soon have a new title to show for it.

  “You must be doing well, though, to have waterfront property. Sounds like you’ve gotten what you always wanted.”

  He shrugs. Uncertainty again? This time, I can’t bite my tongue.

  “It’s not everything you’ve wanted?”

  Sam clears his throat and pulls the sugar to him. He stirs in a couple of teaspoons.

  “I’ve been working with my dad, actually. Turns out, it’s a lot of work to get new medical practices established so my dad has been sending me clients when his students graduate.”

  “Students?”

  “Oh, he’s teaching at the University of Washington now. Medical program.”

  “Wow,” I say. I pour creamer into my coffee until it’s the color of a palomino. “Your dad, huh?”

  When Sam was here last, I got the distinct impression he and his dad were hardly on talking terms, but Sam would never elaborate.

  He pushes the sugar in my direction but I shake my head.

  “You don’t take sugar in your coffee anymore?”

  I could laugh at the question. I can’t blame him for assuming. I let him believe it because sitting on the back patio in the early mornings with him, sharing a single cup of coffee, was one of the greatest thrills of our time together. The morning after our first kiss, he seemed to take so much pleasure in teaching me what he called the perfect cup of coffee and then handing me the same mug that had touched his lips—the way I had only hours before—and urged me to take a sip. When I did, it wasn’t the sugar that woke me up, it was the way he revealed something about himself to me—one of the few things he ever had. And because of my infatuation with him, I drank it up, the coffee and this small piece of him.

  I place my spoon on the counter with a sharp clink. “I never did.”

  He furrows his brow, like this information is life altering, like he’s never met me before.

  “Listen,” he says. “I can see this is uncomfortable for you and I’m sorry. When your dad called, I was honored that your parents would still think of me after all this time. Your parents’ kindness has always meant the world to me. And honestly, I figured you’d be long gone by now.”

  “Long gone?”

  “You had that itch to get out there, see the world. And I know how all-consuming that can be.”

  I huff a laugh. “Yeah, well, reality is more consuming. I’ve been in New York all this time, actually.”

  “Right. Columbia.”

  “Yep.”

  Any other viable option disappeared with him. But this time, I’m the one who doesn’t elaborate. I don’t want Sam to know that I haven’t done any of the things I told him I wanted to do. Or that he might have been the reason.

  “That’s great,” he says.

  The back door opens and Kelly steps into the open kitchen. When she sees me standing next to Sam—too closely, I realize—her jaw tightens. I straighten.

  “Sam,” she says in greeting, not even pretending to be glad to see him.

  He takes a step away from me and nods in her direction. “Kelly. You look well.”

  “Is your mom around?” she asks me, ignoring Sam altogether.

  “She’s at work,” I say. “Can I get something for you?”

  Kelly shakes her head. “I just needed her help with something in the cellar.”

  “I’ll help,” I offer as she turns away. I’m already crossing the kitchen before she has the chance to refuse. I ignore her sigh, shuffling out the door behind her.

  I sneak a glance at Sam. He raises his mug to me, his provocative smile promising we’ll have more time to catch up.

  * * *

  I trail Kelly to the wine cellar. The entrance is around the back of the house where two doors open into an underground room like an old storm cellar in the Midwest. It’s been this way since it was built in the 1980s and is in desperate need of updating but the vineyard’s lack of money means it sits untouched, a portal into a different time.

  Kelly graciously motions for me to enter first, both of us ducking our heads as we descend the creaky wooden stairs. The cellar is dank and humid and extends the length of the house. Thankfully, Dad updated the lighting shortly after we moved in, brightening the space and showcasing the wooden barrels stacked two high along each wall.

  “So...what exactly are we doing down here?” I ask Kelly. She uses the rusty old key to unlock the storage room at t
he far end of the cellar.

  “All the event supplies are down here and your mom wants me to sort through it so she can see what else she needs for the planting party. I’m not sure exactly what she wants but we’ll just grab anything that looks useful.”

  Dad has had planting parties before—gatherings of friends and neighbors who come together to sow a new crop of grapevines on Dad’s land. We eat, laugh, and drink wine. But this planting party means much more than a few acres of new grapes. It’s an expansion and a celebration. Most people romanticize the life of a vintner as all affluence and glamour, but in reality, my dad is a farmer through and through. He has struggled to make the vineyard a success for nearly two decades.

  Kelly yanks open the swollen storage room door.

  I step inside and flip on the lights to find thirty years’ worth of lost things. Rickety tables are stacked against the left wall. Dusty boxes are piled nearly to the ceiling. String lights are wound up like wreaths and stuck anywhere they would fit. I run my fingers over one of them. One night ten years ago, I thought these lights looked like stars, like magic. In this crowded storage room, they look forgotten.

  “I’ll take the left, you take the right?” I suggest.

  “Sure.” Kelly wedges her body between the boxes.

  Once I clear a space to sit, I open the first box, finding an ancient set of CorningWare. I close it back up and set it aside. The second box is full of clothes I grew out of when I was twelve. Eventually I find some tablecloths, serving dishes, and signs to direct visitors, but my focus is always on Kelly, waiting for her to say something about Sam’s reappearance. She was never short on opinions about him.

  When I open a box in the corner, I immediately recognize the centerpieces Mom made for my sweet sixteen party—two horseshoes glued together with pink silk flowers woven into the nail holes. I run my fingers over them, loving memories filling me up like warm milk. That day was arguably the best of my life. It was the day my parents gave me Midnight, the horse I had been longing for since we’d moved West. And it was the day of my surprise party, which was entirely coordinated by Kelly because she wanted the day to be a memorable one. It had been.

  When I realize the sound of shuffling on the other side of the room has ceased, I look up and find Kelly staring at me.

  “That was a long time ago, wasn’t it?” she asks.

  I set the centerpiece back inside the box and brush the dust off on my pants. I don’t know if she means temporally or emotionally but either way, it feels like a lifetime ago.

  “Yeah, it was. How did that happen?” I ask with a soft laugh, knowing there’s no answer.

  Kelly looks down at her lap. “Your parents are happy you’re here,” she says. “They’ve missed you.”

  “I’m happy to be here. I’ve missed them, too. And you,” I add.

  She lifts her face but doesn’t respond. When I can’t take her empty stare any longer, I grab the next box and open it up. I hear the groan of her pulling one across the dirt floor, and the cardboard screeches as she opens the folded flaps.

  “How have they been?” I ask, staying on a neutral subject, one she’s deemed safe.

  “Good,” she says. “Your dad has been really excited about the new vines. He scoured the internet for months, calling people from all over Europe. And then, of course, he had many long talks with the shipping company to make sure nothing would happen to his babies on the way over.”

  As she says it, I see the first hint of a smile.

  I smile, too.

  “And your mom is doing well. The firm recently won a big case and they gave her a bonus for all the extra time she put in on it. She took me to Bakersfield last week to buy some new clothes and have lunch to celebrate.”

  My mom took Kelly shopping? And to lunch? It seems that while I may have left, Kelly’s presence here hasn’t waned at all. Quite the opposite. But shopping and lunch in Bakersfield used to be the thing my mom did with me, and I can’t help the jealousy that wraps around my throat.

  “Shopping, huh?” I ask, purposefully rummaging through the box in front of me, seeing none of it.

  “We found some cute skirts.”

  As she says it, something becomes suddenly very clear to me. Kelly is mad at me for more than what happened with Sam before. She’s mad at me for being here, mad at me for coming back to fill the spot as my parents’ only daughter. My parents tell me during every phone call how much they miss me. Kelly must have seen an opportunity to have the family she’d always wanted and took it.

  The betrayal stings. I never would have thought Kelly capable of such coldheartedness.

  She pushes her box to the corner and grabs the next one—a simple act but all at once, she looks different to me, all perceived innocence gone. I wanted to forgive and forget the secrets she kept from me that summer, assuming she regretted them as much as I do mine. But she doesn’t seem to regret them at all.

  “So that’s how it is now?” I ask. She furrows her brow in confusion. “Did you think I would stay in New York forever and you could just slip into my family like I was never there?”

  The thing about having a friend with such fair skin is that I can watch her emotions color her face. Each shade of humiliation brightens her cheeks one degree at a time.

  “You’re not serious,” she says. “It was just shopping. You never had a problem with me coming over to your house. Ever. Whether you were here or not. In fact, you nagged me to.”

  I did. When she was sick enough to miss school but we both knew her mom wasn’t able to make her soup or check her temperature. For Thanksgiving dinners and Christmas mornings where Kelly had almost as many presents under the tree as I did.

  “Of course I did, Kelly. I love you. My parents love you. I shared my parents with you because I wanted you to feel like you had a place where you would be taken care of the way you should have been. I wanted you to feel safe and loved.”

  “Oh, how generous of you,” she retorts.

  I ignore her snide remark. “This isn’t the same and you know it. You don’t want me here and that isn’t fair. This is my home.”

  “You left it,” she says, raising her voice. “And you never came back. You thought you’d find something better out there, and you did. Congratulations.”

  “You have no idea what you’re talking about,” I try to say, but she doesn’t hear me as she charges on.

  “What did you expect the rest of us to do? Sit around here waiting for you to grace us with your presence?”

  “Don’t be mad at me because your life hasn’t turned out the way you wanted it to. That’s not my fault.”

  “It’s not my fault either,” she snaps.

  I’ve always had sympathy for Kelly’s situation but using it as an excuse to stop living her life, to be angry at those who do pursue their goals...that I can’t keep swallowing.

  “It’s a shitty situation nobody can do anything about but you don’t have to take it out on me.”

  Kelly glares at me, so many layers of hurt evident in her eyes. She isn’t mad at me about being stuck in Paso and we both know it.

  “I’m sorry,” I blurt out.

  I rehearsed this conversation in my head a dozen times on the plane, and none of my speeches had started like that. But I wasn’t prepared for how unsettling it would be to slip back into life here after being gone for so long. I wasn’t prepared for how fresh Kelly’s wounds would still be. There’s no easing into this conversation.

  “I should have told you that a lot sooner,” I add.

  My reasoning for not calling, not visiting, was easier to justify when I couldn’t see the pain on her face. I should have tried harder. I should have done anything to show her how much our friendship means to me.

  I let go of the box in my hands and move closer to her. She seems so small, crouched on the floor next to me, when in my eyes,
she’s always been larger than this life—larger than her mom makes her think she is, larger than this town...larger than me.

  “Kelly, I’m so sorry. I made a lot of stupid decisions that summer. I’ve made a lot of stupid decisions in my life, mostly because I knew you were always there to help me fix them. Maybe I took advantage of that. I took for granted that you’d always forgive me for my...lapses in consideration.”

  A laugh bubbles up from her chest and I grab onto it like a life raft.

  “Kelly,” I say, my voice softening. “The biggest mistake I’ve ever made is allowing anything to get in the way of our friendship. And I didn’t come back here just for my parents’ planting party. I came back here for us. I want to be in your life again. I...I need you in my life again.”

  There’s a long silence in which I hold my breath, waiting. Finally, Kelly sets aside the picture frame in her hand—a faded picture of the vineyard while it was being built—and stands.

  “God,” she spits, her voice echoing in this small space. “You are unbelievable. It’s not that easy, Mallory.”

  “I know—”

  “No, you don’t know. You have no idea what it’s been like for me these last ten years. You have no idea what’s going on in my life.”

  I look away. She’s right. I don’t know anything about Kelly anymore, and to be honest, she knows little about who I’ve become. A decade can change a lot about a person. And that distance is my fault. I created this rift and allowed it to stay open.

  “You can’t—” She sighs, scrunching her eyes closed. It’s an expression I’m intimately familiar with, having received it from her before, from my parents, from my teachers—that exasperation when I keep missing the point. “You can’t just show up here and expect that we’re all waiting around for you. You can’t expect me to drop my responsibilities to deal with this.”

  To deal with me. Her words pierce straight through my heart because they confirm the beliefs that have haunted me since the day she said she was done with me, since the day the man who held my heart in his hands disappeared without a word. I don’t know how to be who people need me to be, no matter how much I want to be. No matter how hard I try.