Midnight at the Wandering Vineyard

by Jamie Raintree

  “But why didn’t you come?” I plead. “You didn’t have to hold either one of us back. You’ve been telling everyone that it’s your mom keeping you here, but that isn’t true, is it? Your mom wants you to go. She wants you to live your life. She doesn’t want to be a burden to you. She loves you.”

  “Stop,” Kelly says, her tone bordering on hysteria. “I don’t want to hear it. Don’t you think I’ve told myself all of those things a million times since I was six years old and I was finally old enough to understand that we weren’t a normal family? I’ve given her a million excuses, a million breaks, but the truth is, if she wanted to unburden me, she would get herself better. She would do whatever it took. She doesn’t want to change. She doesn’t care about me enough to get healthy, to have a life. So I could have a life.”

  With Kelly’s psychology degree, I know she knows how depression and—based on my own assumptions—agoraphobia work. I know her emotions are getting the best of her, and for good reason. How much should a person give up their life for another? Especially when Shannon stopped seeking help for her condition a long time ago.

  Still, I empathize with Kelly’s mom. I understand how hard it can be to overcome the scars of the past. Even with the best of intentions, we can often get in our own way.

  After a long moment, when some of the tension has dissipated, Kelly says, “Do you think that if I put her in a nursing home, I’m just going to stop worrying about her? Out of sight, out of mind? No matter where I go or what I do, waiting for her to die and leave me all alone will follow me everywhere.”

  I swallow hard, any response caught in my throat. I’ve always known Kelly has a hard time trusting people. I know she’s spent a lot of her life feeling alone and like she has no one to lean on. But I had no idea that Kelly feared for her mom’s life. Our parents are so young, the possibility hasn’t become a reality for me yet, but my parents and Shannon are in vastly different circumstances.

  I can’t imagine how Kelly lives with this fear every day. It’s no wonder she blames me for taking away the one other person in her life who she considered family.

  “I never wanted to leave you, Kelly,” I say softly, staring resolutely at the road ahead. “You made that decision for us.”

  “But you couldn’t stay,” she says, and the truth of it echoes between us long after we’ve fallen silent.

  I reach for my wrist, the tattoos we share. We got them that summer, a promise to each other for the next stage of our lives. She held up to her end of the deal. She kept me focused. Her methods weren’t how I imagined them the day the artist put them there in permanent ink, but her disownment was nonetheless effective. It was my role to push her, to bring out Kelly’s courageous side, her sense of adventure. And I know just how to remind her.

  As I take the off-ramp, I reach for the folded pink paper inside my purse. This wasn’t how I planned to give it to her—it deserves more ceremony than this—but it’s my last-ditch attempt to remind her that she once believed in taking chances. She once believed in me.

  I hold the paper out to her.

  “What’s this?” she asks.

  “Take it.”

  She does and for a moment, she holds it like she doesn’t know what to do with it. I’m surprised she doesn’t recognize it immediately—it was her paper, her glittery purple pen. I wait patiently and finally she opens it up. I cast glances at her as she reads over it, trying to gauge her reaction.

  I don’t need to see it to know what’s written there. I memorized it a long time ago.

  Across the top, in Kelly’s neat cursive, it reads “Kelly and Mallory’s Summer Bucket List.” Underneath she scrawled the year, which seems impossibly distant now.

  Expressionless, she folds it back up and stares straight ahead. “You kept it?” she asks, her anger more forced. She doesn’t want to let me off the hook, but the list is the symbol of who we used to be, the things we used to want, our shared sense of possibility.

  We never got to finish the list, our summer cut short by hidden agendas and resentments.

  I nod, a tentative smile pulling at my lips.

  “I can’t believe you still have it,” she says. And if I’m not mistaken, there’s a softness in her tone. A reminiscence.

  “I’ve carried it around in my wallet,” I tell her.

  “No, you didn’t,” she says. “Seriously?”

  I laugh. “I did. Everywhere.”

  “You haven’t changed at all,” she says. I can’t tell if she means that as a compliment or an insult. It’s true, I’m idealistic and often expect life to live up to my unrealistic fantasies. I’m also sentimental. The people in my life mean everything to me. Kelly’s friendship has meant the most, even when I got caught up with Sam, caught up in a fantasy.

  “You’ve never stopped being my best friend, Kelly.”

  I dare to say this while I don’t have to meet her gaze, while she’s wrapped up in the good memories we had from that summer.

  She holds the list out to me. I push it back toward her.

  “I’m staying until Sunday,” I say.

  “What? You want to do the bucket list?” she asks, incredulous.

  “Why not? I promised you, didn’t I? Let me prove to you that I can still keep my promises to you. I never meant to break them.”

  “Mallory, I—”

  “I know I haven’t been there for you since I left,” I say, cutting her off, “and I’m so sorry for that. It’s clear you’ve needed more support. If you’d let me, I’d really like to be here for you now.”

  Kelly frowns and chews at her bottom lip. Are those tears in her eyes?

  “The thing is,” Kelly says, “I don’t know if our friendship is good for me. I don’t know if it ever was.”

  “What?” I ask, breathless. How could she possibly mean that? We were everything to each other. All the plans we had for our future were the plans she made. We used to talk about raising our kids together.

  So many memories of our friendship flash before my eyes—when I gave her my skirt, the first time she let me into her house, horseback riding through the vineyard thousands of times, laughing over family dinners. Was it all a lie?

  “I don’t understand,” I say.

  “I know,” she says, a tear rolling down her cheek. I can hardly see the road in front of me, but I can’t stop driving. I need something else to focus on. “And that’s my fault. I love you, Mallory, I do. But sometimes the reasons we love someone aren’t healthy.”

  I don’t believe there was anything unhealthy about our relationship. We were for each other what we needed to be. We filled the holes no one else could. The holes that have been emptied again with each other’s absence. But what can I do? If Kelly doesn’t want me in her life, I’m not sure how to convince her. If she really believes that, I don’t know if I want to try.

  But I have to ask, “Are you sure?”

  Kelly places her hand over her eyes, her elbow against the window. The bucket list flutters to her lap. For the first time, she looks older to me.

  “No,” she says. “I’m not. But too much has happened between us and I don’t know how to let it go.”

  In that moment, I can actually feel the sharp pain of my heart breaking. For her. For me. For us. And all I want to do is hug her. All I want is to save her, even if it’s from me.

  * * *

  We arrive at The Drunken Pub, the favorite town bar, and the place is crawling with locals. Cars overflow the parking lot and down the street in both directions. Kelly and I have to park a quarter mile away and walk, getting greeted every few feet by people we’ve grown up with—other vineyard owners and laborers, small business owners, parents of the people we went to school with. Most of them are regular customers at Monet’s Mug and stop to catch up with Kelly. Others, seeing me for the first time since I left, exclaim over how different I look and p
epper me with questions about New York. I try to keep a smile on my face as I answer, try to swallow down the devastation I feel over this new picture of our friendship Kelly has painted, but my responses are distracted and half-hearted.

  As we approach the front door, I wait for Kelly to join me so we can go in together. It would look unusual if we were out separately. It was once a rare occasion that either one of us was caught around town without the other. Then again, by now everyone is probably used to my absence. Kelly included. But she does seek me out, a sad concession of a smile tightening her face, and we duck inside, neither one of us looking at each other.

  The lights are out and the open sign is off. My dad warned me with a mischievous grin that the details of the annual event are highly classified and to expect surprises. Kelly is obviously familiar with the ritual so I give her a far lead.

  As the door creaks open, the sound of a hundred or more voices, country music, and clinking glasses overwhelms me. The bar is so packed that if the fire chief weren’t sitting in the corner with three other men in uniform, the owner would surely receive a citation. Peanut shells crunch beneath our feet. Tossing them on the floor after eating from the baskets on every table is a tradition Joe Kennady has upheld since he moved here and bought the bar when I was a girl.

  I spot Tyler. He’s behind the bar, unruffled by the busy night or the amount of orders being yelled at him at once. It’s unusual to see him cleaned up and dressed for indoors. He’s without his customary ragged baseball cap, and instead of his usual run-down T-shirts, he has on a black collared polo shirt. The place is lit by dozens of lanterns tonight, but even in the dim lighting, the dark contrast to his light skin and auburn hair make his features brighter.

  When he sees Kelly and me squeezing into a small opening at the bar, he moves around the other bartenders to come over to us, smiling and ignoring the line of people trying to get his attention.

  “You made it,” he says, leaning close so we can hear him. His face is cleanly shaven and I catch a hint of his cologne, spicy and warm.

  “Of course,” I say. “I wouldn’t miss it.”

  “Is this your first ritual sacrifice?” he asks us, deepening his voice on the last two words.

  “It’s mine,” I say, rolling my eyes at the dramatics.

  The Libations for Germination Party has been a tradition in Paso Robles since its inception when Joe moved to town, bought the old market that had been sitting empty for a year, and turned it into the one place in town where dusty, sunburned farmers could get a good stiff drink that didn’t come from a grape.

  Every year on the night of the April full moon, the town gathers to put up their offering to the agricultural gods with the hope of bringing rain and a good season’s crop. From what I understand, it’s a farce—a play on the rituals farmers used to employ in pagan religions. My dad, being a vintner, has participated every year. I, however, have never been old enough to attend myself, and part of the tradition is that the details of the ceremony are kept secret. Mostly, it’s an excuse for the townspeople to get together and drink.

  “Well, I’d be honored to get you initiated,” Tyler says as he pulls two shot glasses out from beneath the bar, flipping them right side up. He grabs a glass jug of something that’s clear and doesn’t sport a label. He expertly pours the liquid into each of our glasses.

  “Oh, Lord,” I say. “What in the world is that?”

  “Gift from the Gods,” Tyler says, waiting for us to try it. I hang back, still uncertain about what I’m getting myself into, but Kelly picks hers up and swallows some of it down, pulling a face.

  “That’s just as awful as always,” she says in a nasal voice.

  Feeling like I have something to prove to Kelly—though I’m not sure what—I lift my glass to my nose. It stings my nostrils, making my eyes water. I cough and Tyler laughs.

  “It’s Joe’s moonshine,” he says. “Distills it himself just for this occasion.”

  “Is that legal?” I ask.

  Tyler points to the sheriff sitting in the corner, sipping from his own shot glass.

  “Technically, we’re closed for business today,” Tyler says. “What’s a little moonshine between friends?”

  “Is that why the sign was turned off?” I ask.

  Tyler winks.

  Someone squeezes in behind me, knocking me forward and spilling some of my drink onto the floor.

  A loud chime echoes through the room and the crowd quiets. Joe, a muscular man in his late fifties with gray-black hair and a forearm tattoo of a mermaid, stands on top of the bar with an empty moonshine bottle and a wooden spoon.

  Once the bar has fallen mostly silent, he begins in his booming voice, “Welcome to the eighteenth annual Libations for Germination!”

  The crowd goes wild. I wish I could laugh and join in, hollering at the top of my lungs like everyone else, but the conversation with Kelly hangs heavy over me. My insides have melted into a pool at the bottom of my stomach. I venture a sip of my drink, praying for a tonic for this feeling. I choke on its harshness as it burns its way down.

  “The reason we’re here,” Joe goes on, “is to, like our ancestors before us, perform a ceremonial ritual asking the gods to grace us with water, which we will turn into wine. Oh, yeah, and to celebrate this beautiful town of ours.”

  More cheering. I see Dad sneak in the back door, a shot of moonshine quickly finding its way into his hand. He pats a few men on the back and gets pulled into a conversation with another.

  “What you’re holding in your hands is a symbol,” Joe announces. He holds his glass up and everyone in the room follows suit. With the light from the lanterns, they sparkle through the room like lighters at a concert. “Gift of the Gods is clear, like the rain, and like the tears of the men who have come and gone before us, angering the gods with their subpar wine.”

  Laughter ripples through the crowd and crinkles Kelly’s eyes.

  “We will drink this rain, taking it into ourselves to feed the crops during the long, hot summer.”

  “Hear, hear,” the town responds, practiced at this presentation.

  “We will drink these tears to wash them away, erasing the memories of any bad seasons before this.”

  “Hear, hear!”

  This time Kelly and I join in quietly, infected by the energy of the room. I hear Dad’s voice above the crowd. He catches my gaze and waves.

  “We will drink to celebrate the prosperous season ahead!”

  Joe says this last line with particular gusto and the crowd explodes. He lifts his glass a little higher, then swallows it down in one gulp.

  I look around the room as everyone follows suit, and in that moment, the door opens and Sam slides into the already overcrowded bar. Everything about him is out of place, from the product in his hair to the shine of his dress shoes. He would look more at home in the tourist spots down the street.

  He doesn’t belong here.

  That’s why he catches my eye, I tell myself. Because of how very much he contrasts everyone else in the room with their jeans and muddy boots and old country demeanor. I don’t know why I catch his eye—how or why I stand out to him—but his eyes land on me immediately, like I’m on his radar.

  This celebration is for locals and he is not a local, but my dad spots him and folds him into his conversation without missing a beat. As he talks, Sam never takes his eyes off me.

  I watch him, bringing the rest of the moonshine to my lips. I tilt it back in one swift movement.

  Kelly follows my gaze and a cold expression settles on her face when her eyes lands on Sam.

  I pull my attention away from both of them and tell Tyler, “I’m going to need another one of these.”

  EIGHT

  THEN

  I wasn’t the only one who noticed Sam. The first time Kelly parked her run-down white Honda next to his sleek si
lver Porsche, she accosted me with questions. Who was he? What did he do? Where did he come from? How long was he staying? He was just as foreign to her as he was to me. People who drove cars like his never stayed longer than a week.

  Her questions overwhelmed me. I felt oddly protective of Sam. Secretive. I didn’t know a lot about Sam, but what I did know, he had measuredly given to me. After his first few weeks working with Dad, I knew his birthday—January 16, a determined and intelligent Capricorn—that he loved music and that he cherished his mother above everything else. I was beginning to paint a picture of who I thought he was and I didn’t want anyone else’s opinions to tarnish that.

  Unfortunately, opinions came unbidden.

  “He seems kind of full of himself,” Tyler said to me on one of our morning rides.

  “Who?” I asked, deflecting, though I had to admit there had been a few times I’d thought the same thing. That voice in my head—the one that reminded me that I came almost from nothing, and that he would never look twice at a simple girl like me—was quieter and easily drowned out by the voice that told me to move closer to him, to hang onto his every word, to hope against all hope.

  “Mr. Sports Car. Who else?”

  It wasn’t just his car. The week before, I’d slipped one of his business cards out of his leather portfolio and he’d watched me, curious, as I examined it.

  Samuel B. Ryder.

  I’d always thought the use of a middle initial pointless and snooty—an attempt to sound royal or presidential. Of course, I didn’t say that to him.

  “What does it stand for?” I’d asked.

  “Brendon.” He’d smiled. “What about you?”

  “Victoria. After my grandmother.”

  “Mallory Victoria Graham,” he’d whispered, his lips elegantly forming each syllable. “You could be a duchess.”

  Sounding like royalty wasn’t really a bad thing, I figured.

  “He takes pride in himself and his work,” I said in response to Tyler as we sat side by side with our toes in the pond. “What’s so wrong with that?”