Midnight at the Wandering Vineyard

by Jamie Raintree

  I nodded.

  Once Dad had gone into the house, Sam asked, “What are you hiding back there?”

  I blushed, unsure of how he might react but knowing I would tell him anyway. “I got my first tattoo.”

  “Ah,” he said, drawing it out. “The old ‘eighteen-year-old milestone.’”

  Uneasiness tightened my stomach. I hated the implication that I was being young and stupid, or even worse, predictable. But his smile was encouraging.

  I sat across from him.

  “It’s a friendship tattoo. Kelly and I are leaving for college in the fall and we know things will change. My dad has warned me plenty of times.” I rolled my eyes. Parents. “We just wanted a reminder that no matter what happens, our friendship won’t change. That we’ll always be there for each other.”

  Sam nodded thoughtfully. “That’s cool. I’m envious, actually. I never really had a friend I was that close to. No brothers or sisters.”

  “I’m pretty lucky,” I agreed. “I don’t know what I’d do without her.”

  Dad reemerged from the kitchen with a plate, another bottle of wine, and a declaration. “Tonight, Mallory Victoria, we celebrate.”

  “Celebrate what?” I asked.

  “The start of the tasting room, of course.” He placed the plate in front of me and lifted his glass in a toast. “The beginning of an exciting new chapter.”

  Sam clinked his glass to Dad’s and I lifted the bottle up to theirs before setting it back down unceremoniously. Dad and Sam laughed at me.

  But celebrate they did. Several hours later, I’d listened to entirely too many stories of my dad’s childhood and watched him and Sam drink their way through three bottles of wine. At this rate, they weren’t going to have any left to sell, I thought to myself, but I sat there anyway, watching Sam watch Dad.

  He was fascinated by every word that rolled off my dad’s tongue and Dad reveled in it. Mom and I had long since grown familiar with his stories but in Sam, he had an enthusiastic new audience. As I watched, I wondered if maybe Sam had finally found the friend he’d been looking for, or at least, someone who could be.

  By ten o’clock, Dad had reached his limit and stood to collect the dishes. He didn’t waver, but his chest was flushed and his eyelids drooped. I took the dishes from him.

  “I’ve got it,” I said. “You just make it up the stairs.”

  He waved my suggestion away but let me take the dishes. “I’m fine. Sam, are you going to stay?”

  Like the last time Dad suggested it, my heart fluttered at the possibility and like last time, Sam shook his head.

  “I shouldn’t,” Sam said, though he made no move to leave.

  “Why not? You have somewhere to be?”

  Sam pondered it, then shook his head.

  “Stay,” Dad said. “Elizabeth would be thrilled to have someone use the guest house.”

  Sam finally nodded. No one could deny my mom anything.

  “Great,” Dad said. “Mal?”

  I’d stood there watching their conversation like a racquetball game, but I snapped my attention back to Dad then, my hands sweating.

  “Will you make sure the guest house has towels and clean sheets?”

  “Sure,” I said.

  Sam was going to be here all night. He would be sleeping just outside my window. I knew already I wouldn’t sleep a wink.

  Dad kissed my forehead. “Thanks, honey. I’m going to hit the hay. Night, Sam.”

  “Night, Richard.”

  I stood in stunned silence until Dad left. I heard each one of his footsteps fumbling up the stairs, and then the night fell into silence.

  “I, uh... I’m going to just put the dishes inside and then I’ll get you set up.”

  “I’ll help you,” Sam said, standing. He grabbed his plate and a couple of the empty wine bottles.

  “You don’t have to.”

  But when I headed inside, he followed me. The kitchen was dark, indicating Mom had already gone to bed. The dishes clinked as we placed them in the sink. Sam set the bottles carefully into the recycling bin so as not to disturb my parents and then he followed me back out. The soft breeze tickled my hair across my shoulders and cooled my hot skin.

  “You know, this was the one place I didn’t get a tour of before,” Sam said behind me.

  I swallowed hard and smiled at him over my shoulder. “I’ll show you where everything is.”

  When we reached the end of the long gravel path, I fished the key off the doorjamb and wiggled it into the lock. Sam leaned against the other French door, watching me, a vacant smile on his face. I couldn’t help giggling.

  “What?” he asked me.

  “You’re kind of a lightweight.” It wasn’t that he and Dad hadn’t drunk quite a few glasses of wine, but I was used to living in a town of vintners. They’d become mostly immune to the effects of the wine they drank so frequently.

  “You’re one to talk,” he said, sliding in front of me to enter the guest house first. He fumbled in the dark but finally found the light switch.

  “How would you know? You’ve never seen me drink,” I retorted in good humor. He was teasing me, and it felt like our relationship had taken a step up from polite coworkers to friendly partners in crime. It felt good.

  “Exactly,” he said, slicing a single finger through the air as if he was making some profound point. I laughed more.

  “The bathroom is there,” I said to Sam, pointing to the small room to the left.

  “Good.” He disappeared into it, clattering sounds following closely after.

  I shook my head and pulled the sheets off the bed. Mom had a cedar chest at the foot of the bed with clean linens so I went to work putting fresh ones on the bed and setting towels out for Sam.

  When he reemerged from the bathroom, the bed was prepared for him, and he had removed his jacket, tie, and shoes. Tripping over the shoes, he placed the jacket over the back of one of the dining chairs, then collapsed onto the bed, his arms spread wide.

  “If only your other clients could see you now,” I joked. It hit me then that maybe they had. Maybe Sam was this friendly with all the people he worked with. Maybe he wasn’t so relaxed with our family because he liked us, but because that was just who he was. I felt briefly jealous for my parents.

  “Right,” he said. “That would make my dad so proud, getting drunk with all my clients.”

  I didn’t know what to say to that. I sensed there was so much he wasn’t telling me on the topic, but I didn’t feel like it was my place to ask.

  “Do you?” I asked, all selfishness. “Get drunk with all your clients?”

  Sam laughed. “God, no. Of course, I’ve never worked with a vineyard...or brewery...or whatever before.”

  It was convenience, not trust. My heart sank a little, but I reminded myself to keep my expectations in check. He was here on business. He wasn’t here to be our friend. Or anything else.

  “There’s a towel next to your head,” I said, and Sam turned into it, the thick white cotton enveloping his eyes. He grinned at his own bumbling and pushed it away. “There’s a coffee maker in the kitchenette but I don’t know how old the coffee is so you might just want to come into the house in the morning. I’ll leave the back door open for you.”

  “’Kay,” Sam said, his eyes drifting closed. His hands reached for his belt and my cheeks flushed.

  “Oh, one more thing.”

  I went into the bathroom and pulled out the bottle of aspirin we kept in the medicine cabinet. I tapped out two and then poured Sam a glass of water from the sink in the kitchenette. I’d never helped ward off a hangover before—I was only going off what I’d seen in movies.

  When I returned, Sam’s belt was unbuckled but still looped through his pants. It seemed that was as far as he was going to get. I set the pills and water on th
e nightstand, then asked, “Need anything else?”

  “Hands that work,” he said.

  “Sorry. We ran out of those last week.”

  As I turned to go, he reached out and grabbed my hand, sending an explosion of white light from my fingertips to my brain. His soft fingers wrapped around mine and he pulled me closer so he could get a good look at my tattoo. Being with him all night, I’d almost forgotten the aching soreness of it.

  He sat up slightly and examined the arrow that was pointing straight at him. In that moment, I felt like my skin and the ink were betraying my secrets.

  “What does it mean?” he asked me.

  I hesitated, then I stepped a little closer to him. So close I could smell the sour perfume of the alcohol seeping from his pores. Somehow, far from being repellent, I found it alluring in its newness. Sam sat up straighter and I delicately adjusted our hands so I could wrap mine around his wrist. He followed my lead and wrapped his hand around mine.

  “Her tattoo is here.” I pointed to the spot just below his thumb. “It’s a horse, running toward me.”

  “And your arrow points toward her.”

  “I keep her carefree,” I said. “Like a horse.”

  “And she keeps you...?”

  “Focused.” A smile pulled at my lips. “Some people think I struggle with that.”

  Sam let out a deep laugh, and it covered my skin like sinking into warm water. He seemed soberer suddenly.

  “I like it,” he said.

  “Kelly picked out the designs. You don’t think it’s stupid to get a tattoo at eighteen?”

  Sam sighed and let our hands slide apart. I shivered and hid mine behind my back, feeling suddenly exposed. To bridge the silence, I handed him the pills and water and he swallowed them down obligingly.

  When he set the glass down, he said, “I think you’re brave. And I admire that.”

  Warm pleasure flooded into my limbs.

  “Do you have any tattoos?” I asked.

  “I missed the eighteen-year-old window.”

  “How old are you?” I asked, oddly fearful of his answer.

  “Twenty-four.”

  Older, yes, but not unrealistically so.

  He fumbled with his watch then, seemingly to break the tension but the wine liquefied his fingers. I reached for it before I realized how badly I wanted to touch his skin again, and unclasped the cool metal. I slid the watch off and set it on the nightstand.

  “Thanks, Mal.”

  I was momentarily stunned by his use of my nickname. When I gained my composure, I forced myself toward the door.

  “Hey, Mallory,” he said, and I looked back.

  He didn’t say anything. He just stared at me like he was trying to tell me something with his eyes. Say it, I silently urged. But he didn’t.

  “Good night, Sam,” I finally said and I pulled myself away from the guest house.

  ELEVEN

  NOW

  I stand in front of the mirror in my room, squinting through my hangover, and tug on the bottom of my gray T-shirt—one I left behind in my closet when I went away for college. It still fits, mostly. Printed across the chest is a faded design of a horse and script that says Wild Horses. Even though Kelly and I hadn’t been speaking to each other when I left for Columbia, I found it gift wrapped on the hood of my car the day before I moved.

  I knew what she meant by it. She’d always told me I was like a wild horse and she feared Sam was taming me. At the time, I threw it in the back of my closet, angry with her and sure she wanted to be the one to do the taming.

  My riding boots in the corner catch my eye in the mirror—the ones Sam used to tease me about. They’re leather, the exact same shade of dark chocolate brown as Midnight, and rise to the knee. The toes are worn down and I remember how my heel would get stuck in the left boot where the material was torn inside from pulling them on and off so many times. I wore them every day my senior year of high school—a present from my dad—but now they’re covered in dust, untouched since the day Sam asked me if I’d ever thought of wearing something more fashionable. Because I knew what that meant in the same way all girls know what that means. They weren’t good enough. I wasn’t good enough.

  I cross the room, lift them up with my fingertips, and blow the dust off them, wondering if they still fit. I sit on the bed and pull them on one at a time. They feel the same—worn in, comfortable, me. I smile and grab an old shirt out of my hamper to dust them off, then I walk around the room, admiring them in the full-length mirror. They feel as familiar as the rocking movement of Midnight at a gallop, as Mom’s hugs.

  But I can’t bring myself to walk out of the room wearing them. They would attract too much attention and too many questions after all this time. I pull the boots off and set them back in the same spot, staring at them for a long moment before I head downstairs.

  On the way down, my phone rings in my hand. It’s Denise, no doubt calling about the contract she sent over late last night detailing my new job description and terms of employment. A standard agreement but the idea of reading through it makes me want to go back to bed.

  I take a deep breath and answer anyway.

  “You’re calling to negotiate your salary,” she says, ever presumptuous that if she hasn’t gotten what she wants, the other party just hasn’t seen it her way yet.

  “You called me,” I say with a laugh. “And you sent it over at nine last night. Midnight in New York.”

  “You must have been awake hours ago.”

  I sigh. “Actually, can you give me a few days with it? Things are pretty busy around here.”

  The stack of party decorations in the corner of the dining room is proof. I’ve spent every spare minute sorting through them and sneaking into the stables to spend time with Midnight.

  “Busy?” she laughs. “What could possibly be keeping you busy? Is that why you haven’t been responding to emails?”

  I turn my head away even though she can’t see me. I’ve tried to respond to emails, but the details of my coworkers’ questions are fuzzy. That world seems so far away, as if it’s someone else’s life.

  I know I’m pushing it. Denise expects me to start my new position on Monday, but I’m counting on the fact that she likes me enough to milk some extra time out of her. Denise has wanted this success for me since I first arrived at the firm and I have an unexpected affection toward her because of it. It’s the opposite of how I felt last night, when Dad made his desire for me to keep working in New York clear, and I can’t pinpoint the reason for my differing reactions. But even in my hungover state, I haven’t lost sight of the fact that my dad’s speech reiterated all my own arguments for why I took this route in the first place. It’s the smart decision. It always has been.

  “Mallory, I want to be ready to make the announcement when you get back,” she says in a singsong voice.

  I reach the bottom of the stairs and Sam is standing at the coffeepot like a monument, looking much more chipper than I feel. Oh, how the tables have turned.

  I face away from him for some semblance of privacy.

  “Mallory, you know what kills me more than the shoes I’m wearing?” Denise asks in her brazen tone.

  “Waiting,” I intone. I’ve heard this question three times a day, every day for the last year. “I will get on top of all that immediately,” I say. “I promise.”

  “You’re lucky I adore you,” she says. I smile.

  With nothing left to say, she hangs up. I let out a sigh of relief.

  When I turn around, Sam is standing right behind me, looking freshly showered, with a cup of coffee in each hand.

  Embarrassment prickles the skin on my arms, having been caught inebriated by Sam last night and being reprimanded by my boss this morning. So much for avoiding him—he’s everywhere.

  What are you doing? I want to ask
. It’s one thing to be here to support the vineyard and visit with my parents, but it seems like he’s putting himself in my way and I can’t think of a single reason he’d want to do that.

  He hands me my coffee. Cream, no sugar.

  “I’m sorry about last night,” I say. “I don’t normally drink like that. That was...embarrassing.”

  “Believe me, you don’t know embarrassing. I’ve done worse. Much worse.”

  “I know,” I mumble into my mug. I quickly shake my head. “I’m sorry.”

  “How did you sleep?” he asks, his voice morning-deep.

  “Fine,” I say. There’s a long pause and Sam laughs.

  “That’s it?”

  “What else is there?” I ask.

  The truth is, I don’t know how to talk to Sam. When he first arrived here, I was too starstruck to relax around him, and as the summer went on, I censored myself more than I would like to admit, always trying to say the right thing to get him to notice me, avoiding anything that would make him shut down.

  “I talked to Tyler this morning,” Sam says.

  “Oh, really?” I can only imagine how that went.

  “Your friends don’t like me much,” he says, stating the obvious. He can’t be surprised.

  I shrug, trying to be diplomatic. “They don’t really know you.”

  It wasn’t like Sam was here to hang out with us, though he could have been a little friendlier with Kelly and Tyler. I told them bits and pieces about Sam, but even if I’d told them everything I discovered, they still wouldn’t have known much because neither did I.

  “I suppose not. Or maybe they think they know who I am,” he muses. He’s so casual about it, like he couldn’t care less whether they liked him or not. He’s so self-assured that nothing ruffles him.

  “Are they wrong?” I ask.

  A grin spreads from one corner of his mouth to the other, slowly, like honey down a spoon. And yet, in my hungover state, his games grate on my nerves.

  “I guess that depends on what they think they know.”

  I’m exasperated by this conversation already, but I can’t make myself walk away. There’s this teenage girl inside me who wants validation that she wasn’t crazy for thinking she had a shot with someone as gorgeous, smart, ambitious, educated, well-off, and cultured as Sam. There’s this part of me that wants to prove to him that I knew him better than he thought I did...that I was no fool.