Midnight at the Wandering Vineyard

by Jamie Raintree

  We reach the trellis where our vines will be planted and set them down, gauging the distance like Dad told us.

  “Maybe things haven’t changed as much as I wish they had,” she says.

  I place my hands on my hips and try to gather my patience.

  “What is that supposed to mean?” I ask.

  Kelly turns away, struggling to say whatever it is she’s been trying to tell me. I give in and move closer to her, lowering my voice.

  “Since when can’t we say something to each other?” I beg. “Don’t tell me we didn’t used to share everything. Don’t tell me we weren’t there for each other, because you know that’s a lie.”

  “I’m envious of you, Mallory,” she finally says, bursting through the barriers in her heart. “I always have been and I hate that about myself. I hate you for coming back and bringing up everything I thought I’d put behind me.”

  “What are you talking about?” I ask, though the uneasiness in my stomach hints that I already know, that I’ve always known. I ignored the comments she made under her breath and the way she looked at my parents. To me, it was never a competition. I wanted her to have all the things I had.

  “You’re beautiful,” she says, her voice wobbly. “You have a loving family, you’d do anything for anyone, and there’s nothing you’re afraid of. And that summer Sam was just another thing you had that I didn’t.”

  “I—I didn’t know you wanted a boyfriend,” I stammer.

  “I didn’t. I mean... I just wanted someone to look at me the way he looked at you.”

  He didn’t look at me, I want to say. Not the way I wished he would. At least not that I noticed.

  “Now you’ve seen the world,” she goes on. “You’ve gone out there and had the adventures you always wanted to have. And I’ve stayed here because I’m just a small-town girl who hasn’t experienced anything. What kind of psychologist could I even be? Who would want to take advice from me? I don’t want to put myself out there to fail. I’m not that brave. I don’t have the kind of courage you have.”

  “I think you do,” I say. “I think you can do anything you want to do. I think you’re beautiful and kind and smart, and you’re the most determined person I’ve ever met. Which you’d know is saying something if you’d ever met my boss.”

  I laugh.

  “And I’ve always loved you exactly as you are.”

  Kelly sighs. “That’s exactly my point. Even when I’m awful to you, you’re divinely forgiving. It doesn’t even faze you.”

  I look down at my feet, toeing a clump of dirt there. It crumbles, and I stare at it helplessly. “It fazes me,” I say.

  Kelly nods, frowning. After a pause, she motions toward the truck and we walk again.

  “Is this why you didn’t come to New York?” I ask.

  “Out of jealousy?” she says. “Not at all. I wanted to go with you. More than anything. I’m sure we would have grown in our own ways. I’m sure we would have figured it out. But I was so afraid that if I left here, I would never come back. And I couldn’t do that to my mom. Our life may not be perfect, or great even, but it’s ours. It’s all I know. And she’s my mom.”

  I nod. I understand exactly what she means. Once you start a life somewhere else—a job, an apartment, a circle of new friends and obligations—it feels impossible to go back. What you’ve left behind can become a past life so quickly.

  “I spent a lot of nights mad at you for not being there,” I say. “I missed you and the vision we had for what our life would be like in New York. It wasn’t what we imagined, and I don’t know if it would have been, even if you’d been there. Nothing is quite like you fantasize it will be, but it was easy to blame the problem on you. I felt so alone.” My voice is unsteady. Because the feeling isn’t as far away as I wish it was. “I cried myself to sleep so many nights.”

  Kelly brushes my hair over my shoulder, her hand landing on my back in the space over my heart. It’s the first act of sympathy she’s shown me, the first time she’s taken any responsibility for her part in what happened that summer, and it takes all my strength not to dissolve into tears. But I’ve gotten good at pretending to be happy, and I draw on that experience.

  “You didn’t deserve to have to carry that guilt, Mallory.”

  I wish the burden was past tense. I wish the loneliness was past tense, too.

  I nod, not sure what else to say.

  “I accept your apology,” she says quickly, before I have a chance to respond. I look to her expectantly. “I need to take responsibility for my own emotions. Stop blaming you and Sam and my mom and...” She trails off, glancing at the stables. “I wasn’t the best friend to you either,” she admits. “I changed our plans and I know I blindsided you. That wasn’t fair. I told myself I was doing it for you, out of love, but that wasn’t entirely true. And it was easier to be angry at you than take responsibility for my part in what happened that summer.”

  I breathe a sigh of relief, vindicated after all these years that it wasn’t entirely my fault. I thought I could forgive and forget the way she abandoned me if only she would forgive me my sins, but her apology heals more than I can say. The air tastes suddenly crisper.

  “So maybe we can be friends again,” I ask hopefully.

  Kelly’s response is slow. “Maybe we can try. But I need some time. I need to work on me before I can work on my relationships with anyone else.”

  It’s the most mature, selfless thing either one of us has said to each other in a long time. So even though it isn’t what I wanted to hear, I nod, grateful for possibility.

  “Someday is better than never,” I say. “I can live with someday.”

  TWELVE

  That evening, after all the vines are spread out along the trellises, their burlap sacks dotting the landscape like fireflies at dusk, and after a long ride through my new stomping ground, I find Sam on the back porch with two wineglasses and a bottle of zin. His feet are kicked up as he watches the sunset with the same rapt attention that most people reserve for action movies. Most people except my dad and me.

  “Hey,” he says, putting his feet down when he sees me.

  “Hey,” I say. I stop at the top of the porch steps.

  “Looks like you got some sun today.”

  I reach up to press my fingertips to my forehead and it’s warm to the touch. A satisfied exhaustion from the work of the day has softened my limbs and my mood. I welcome the burn, evidence that I’ve communed with Mother Nature. “Yeah. I’ll have to put some aloe on it.”

  “Wine?” he asks, motioning to the glasses.

  “That’s okay. I don’t want to intrude,” I say, excusing myself to a cool shower.

  As I pass, he shakes his head.

  “Mallory,” he says. “It’s for you.”

  I stop and actually look at him. His gaze is probing, almost pleading. I don’t understand this shift in him. I don’t understand my feelings toward him now—not as resentful as I probably should be, not the wanting of before, but curious.

  I nod, the way we left our last conversation thirsting for conclusion.

  As I take my seat, Sam’s demeanor turns more formal, more careful. He fills my glass and delicately passes it to me.

  “You’re drinking,” I say. It’s the first time I’ve seen him with wine since he’s been here. “I was starting to think you’d given it up.”

  “Not entirely,” he says. “I save it for special occasions now.”

  “Probably a good idea,” I say, snarky out of habit more than true anger. Sam has been nothing but considerate of me since returning. I shake my head. “I’m sorry.”

  “No,” he says. “You’re right. You don’t need to censor yourself. I was in a bad place the last time I was here. I made a lot of bad choices, things I’m ashamed to remember. And I wasn’t...careful with you.”

  I m
ull over his word choice. Careful. Does he still remember me as a child who needed to be protected, who couldn’t possibly know her own mind?

  Sam said I shouldn’t censor myself so I try being direct, something I was too infatuated to do before.

  “Sam, I didn’t need you to be careful with me. I needed you to be honest. If you weren’t interested in me, you should have said so. At least then I would have stopped looking for any possibilities between us. I wouldn’t have ruined things with Kelly and lost the closest friend I’ve ever had. Not that I blame you for that,” I’m quick to say. “That was the result of my own actions.”

  Sam sets his wine on the table and leans back, crossing his ankle over his knee.

  “When I was growing up,” he says, “my parents were divorced for nine years. From the time I was seven to a few weeks after my sixteenth birthday, I had two houses, two families, two Thanksgiving dinners. I know a lot of parents divorce, but in the community I grew up in, people just didn’t do that. I was at a private school with kids of politicians and other doctors and investment bankers. People who have images and reputations to uphold. I was the only kid I knew who was passed back and forth like a hockey puck. I spent half the week at my mom’s, and the other half at my dad’s. I got to the point where I just stopped unpacking my suitcase.”

  If I hadn’t already set my glass on the table, I would have dropped it. Is this the same Sam? Willingly opening up about his life? Impossible. I listen with rapt attention, too afraid of breaking the spell on him to risk speaking.

  “Don’t get me wrong, they were two very nice homes and my shuttle was a Rolls-Royce. We had money. I got anything I asked for, and it was a pretty good life. I’ve never asked for anyone’s sympathy.”

  “Money is no substitute for parents, though,” I say.

  Sam nods, giving a practiced half smile—the smile that says, Thank you for your sympathy, but I’m fine. And the I’m trying to be fine hidden underneath.

  “My dad was a hard man to please before. That’s why my parents got divorced. But after my mom moved out, he had no idea how to relate to me. He used to take me to work parties in his expensive cars to pick up women because he thought it would make my mom jealous. Unfortunately, it worked. I didn’t mind it so much. His friends were nice to me and bought me food, and at least we were spending time together. One night, though, on the way home, I showed some interest in medicine and he sort of latched onto it. Finally something we could talk about. After that, his mind was made up. I didn’t dare say anything otherwise for fear that he’d stop talking to me again. The man is the king of stonewalling. If he wants to, he can almost convince you that you don’t exist. That’s what he used to do to my mom when she pissed him off,” he reluctantly murmurs.

  He looks straight ahead, but he pauses, and I can sense he’s waiting for my reaction. I don’t know what to say. I’m caught off guard by his openness. I knew there was tension between him and his dad but I never imagined his childhood was so hostile.

  “But...they’re together now?” I ask.

  “I think they just got tired of being alone. There isn’t one thing they like about each other.”

  “That sounds hard,” I say. “And sad. I’m sorry.”

  Sam turns his whole body toward me. I startle, straightening a little at the intensity with which he stares at me.

  “He called me, Mallory. The day I left here. I did something he wouldn’t approve of and I was sure he’d never talk to me again, but then he called me.”

  “Sam, you don’t have to—” I don’t know why I’m trying to stop him from explaining when that’s all I’ve ever wanted from him. It’s easier to be mad at him. It’s easier to be around him if I continue to see him as impenetrable, self-centered, thoughtless.

  “I’ve always felt bad about how I left here,” he says. “I did know how you felt about me, and it wasn’t fair of me to disappear like that.”

  “Right,” I say distractedly, his apology practically straight out of the scripts I used to write in my head when I imagined having this conversation. In reality, all the punchy one-liners I had planned escape me. They feel unnecessarily harsh in light of Sam’s explanation.

  Sam sighs and runs a hand through his hair. A few strands fall over his eyes, as disheveled as he is in his vulnerability.

  “Listen,” I say, moving toward him, “if that’s why you came back here—”

  “Maybe,” he says. “I didn’t want to come here for selfish reasons. I wanted to support your family. But I’ve never stopped thinking about you, Mal.”

  I swallow hard. Is it really me Sam has missed or the me I pretended to be? Either way, the longing in his eyes is all I ever wanted from him and even after all this time, it’s hard to protect myself from it.

  “I don’t understand,” I say. “You were so distant. You pushed me away at every turn.”

  “I was lost. I wasn’t myself. I wish I had a chance to show you who I really am,” he says. “That guy you were describing the other day... That’s not me. I don’t want you to see me that way.”

  “But I’m leaving,” I say slowly. “I’m going back to New York as soon as the party is over.”

  As I look at him, open and real for the first time, I almost wish I had time to get to know him better. This is the most honest conversation Sam and I have ever had.

  Sam nods, resigned, for once, to not getting everything he wants.

  “I know,” he says.

  He reaches for the hand in my lap and takes it between both of his, holding it close to his mouth as if to kiss my knuckles. His skin is warm and soft and my body reacts to him in a way I never could control.

  “I would do so many things differently,” he whispers, and I wonder if he meant for me to hear it.

  Me, too, I think, knowing all I’ve lost because of that summer.

  Me, too, I want to say, tucking it away with all the other things I’ve wanted to tell Sam but didn’t.

  * * *

  Saturday morning, the morning of the planting party, arrives and it’s hard to believe the day is finally here. My visit has gone by in the blink of an eye, and as I stand out on the patio that final morning, drinking my coffee, it hits me all over again that Monday I will be back in New York, back in my cubicle, back to my studio apartment and my loneliness. No more trying it on to see if it fits.

  This week didn’t go at all like I hoped it would. I thought by the time the planting party came, I would feel reconnected to my home, to my family, to the life I held in my mind as my “real” life. I thought Kelly would have forgiven me, that we would have completed the Summer Bucket List, and we’d be planning our next adventure. Together.

  In my most elaborate fantasies, I would be eighteen again and the world would be uncomplicated. My days would be filled with horseback riding, working outside in the fresh air, and laughing with the people I cared about and who cared about me. But everything is complicated. Everything has changed.

  I wanted this trip to give me clarity and I have never been so clear: I can’t go back.

  Before our friends and neighbors start to arrive, I saddle up Midnight and ride her out to the pond, basking in the wind on my face, the pounding of her hooves against the dirt, the rhythm of her movement. Clouds have started to roll in and I wonder if the Libations for Germination Party has worked its magic.

  Midnight and I stay out there for a long time, me using her mane as a pillow, while she stands guard, seeming to sense I need protecting in this vulnerable moment. It’s a goodbye unlike I’ve ever felt before and unlike with the land, or Paso Robles itself, which will live on forever, Midnight will continue to grow older with each year that passes. As tears roll down my cheeks, I hold her as if she is my child, as if she is my mother, as if she is my best friend. Because somehow, she is all of these things.

  When we arrive back at the stables, Tyler is waiting for us. />
  “You ready for this?” he asks me.

  “Ready as I’ll ever be,” I say.

  As Tyler gets Midnight cleaned up, I help Mom set up tables on the porch filled with pastries, fruit, hard-boiled eggs, bacon, coffee, and an assortment of juices for our guests.

  They start to trickle in around eight thirty: the elderly Italian couple who run the vineyard next door, a few of the local restaurant owners who stock and serve Dad’s wines, my uncle who flew in from Chicago, with a friend of the family who picked him up in LA.

  Dad also reached out to several of his favorite customers who keep up on the growth of the vineyard and like to be the first to taste and give feedback on any of Dad’s new wines. Even some of Dad’s suppliers have shown up to show their support, impressed by his never-ending enthusiasm for his work.

  Altogether, there are about forty people milling around the property, eating off paper plates, and chatting in small groups. Many of them carry shovels they brought from home to supplement the few we use in the stables.

  “Quite a turnout,” Sam says, appearing next to me on the porch, where I’ve been overseeing the food and drinks. The rush has passed so it’s just the two of us. I organize the plasticware to busy myself, unsure of how to act around Sam after his confession.

  Last night, after he released my hand, we stood and melted into a mournful embrace, both of us seeming to ache for what could have been in a different life. Our worlds are simply too far apart. They always were.

  I keep the tone light.

  “You can’t be surprised,” I say. “It is my dad after all.”

  Sam chuckles. “Not in the slightest.”

  He moves closer to me, our bodies inches from each other. The heat that flushes my skin isn’t only from the balmy humidity.

  “So you’re flying out tomorrow?” he asks.

  I nod.

  “Are you feeling any better?”

  I look up at him questioningly.

  “You seemed sad when you came in from riding this morning.” He must have seen me when I walked past the guest house. I thought I’d done a good job of washing my face in the pond. He’s so different, this Sam who notices things about me.