Midnight at the Wandering Vineyard

by Jamie Raintree

  If I moved to Washington with Sam, it could be different. I would have a similar title, but I would also have the Pacific Ocean. I would have forest and rain, a whole new world to explore. I would be closer to home when I wanted to visit. And if Sam is serious about transporting Midnight and boarding her nearby, I would have my horse. I wouldn’t have Kelly, or Tyler, or my parents, but I could make new friends. They would never be able to fill the space my family does, but they could be a new kind of relationship. An adult one.

  Most important, I would have Sam, the one person I’ve wanted more than anything else in my life. The possibility of it still doesn’t seem real, but as I look to the guest house, in the light of day I realize things have changed. Sam isn’t a fantasy anymore. He isn’t a figment of my imagination, the holes in my knowledge of him filled with hopeful musings. All I wanted that summer was to know Sam, and for the first time I feel like I do. I feel like I’m looking at him and our potential future with clear eyes.

  A car pulls into the parking lot and I notice it’s Mom’s black SUV. I check the watch on my wrist. Only 2:00 p.m.

  I already find her early arrival odd before Dad sprints past me from the stable office. My stomach twists. I’m drawn down the steps toward them, the rocks biting my feet. I don’t care. Something is wrong. I know it.

  Mom steps out of the car and is immediately engulfed in Dad’s embrace. From this angle, it looks like she’s been crying, which I’ve hardly ever seen my mom do. Elizabeth Graham is an eternal optimist. An it-will-all-work-out-the-way-it’s-supposed-to person. The only time I remember seeing her cry was when her grandmother died.

  I speed up.

  When I reach them, gasping for breath, I ask, “What’s wrong?”

  Mom looks at me and her face crumples. She reaches out to me and Dad releases her, a mournful frown on his face. Mom pulls me into the hug and squeezes me so tightly my ribs ache.

  “What’s going on?” I demand. After Kelly’s middle-of-the-night call, I expect the worst.

  “I’m getting laid off,” Mom says. She pulls away to wipe at her face.

  So it is the worst. For Mom, at least, it is, as I’ve recently discovered. She’s worked for her bosses for the last fifteen years. She’s been loyal and invested in their clients. She lives and breathes her work. It’s what gives her purpose.

  Once she’s composed herself, she explains.

  “They told me today that they’re closing the office. Jerry has decided to retire, so Chris is going to work from home and have his wife do paperwork. Paperwork!” She scoffs. “As if all I do around there is take messages and type up memos.”

  I look to Dad for how to react. Mom must have told him everything on the phone because this isn’t news to him. I’m at a loss for what to say.

  “They better give you a damn good severance package after all you’ve done for them,” he says, his nostrils flaring. My dad is a very even-tempered man, until someone upsets my mom.

  “I’m not being fair,” Mom says, sniffling. “They value me and what I do. They always have. I’m sure Chris is afraid he won’t be able to afford me without Jerry there to bring in more clients. It’s just a shock. We just closed the biggest case the firm has ever taken on. I thought we were growing, not downsizing.”

  “All the same,” Dad says, clearing his throat.

  “How much longer do you have there?” I ask.

  “About a month. We need to get everything organized and packed up. Shut the office down.”

  “What will you do after that?”

  “I have no idea,” she says, her voice hollow.

  We walk back to the house together. Sam approaches with concerned eyes. Knowing Mom and Dad will want to have some space to process, I grab Sam by the elbow and lead him back to the guest house while Dad takes Mom inside.

  “What’s going on?” Sam asks as soon as I close the door behind me. I lean against it and watch him as he kicks off his shoes.

  “Mom lost her job.”

  His eyebrows lift in the same blank shock I must have worn when I heard.

  “I’m sorry,” he says. “I don’t know how this is possible.”

  “I think that’s pretty much the consensus right now,” I say, pushing myself off the door. I pace the small space, itching to ride. I empathize with what Mom must be feeling. Lost, confused, aimless. I hate that this is happening to her. She gives so much of herself to take care of people.

  Sam’s hand around my wrist stops me. “Is there anything I can do to help?” he asks.

  “What, you’re going to give us all jobs?” I ask bitingly.

  He doesn’t respond, waiting for my frustration to pass. I sigh.

  “I’m sorry. I just keep feeling like things can’t get any worse and then—”

  “Come here.”

  Sam pulls me toward the bed. He sits next to me, placing his palm up on his knee, an invitation.

  I kiss him instead, soft and tentative at first, but once I’m sure he isn’t going to pull away, I push into him. My lips, my body. He wraps his hands around my back, gripping his fingertips into my shirt, my skin. Without breaking contact, I climb into his lap, my mind going numb of all thoughts, my senses taking over. I keep pulling him closer, running my hands through his hair. I wrap myself tighter to him, as if I could swallow him down, like the satisfying burn of cheap wine in the pit of my belly.

  “Whoa,” he says, pulling away. He pries my arms loose from his neck. “Are you okay?”

  “No,” I breathe. “I’m not.”

  I’ve barely started to picture a possible life in Washington. I need to know that if I give up everything to move there and accept this job, it won’t be taken away just as easily.

  Sam leans forward and rests his forehead against my collarbone. The tenderness and submission of the gesture stuns me. “I’m making things worse,” he says. “I’m pushing you with this crazy plan of moving to Washington.”

  “No,” I say, though I’m not sure he’s wrong. Is the idea of moving to Washington crazy?

  “I should go home,” he says, sitting up again. “Give you some space to sort things out.”

  “I want you to stay,” I tell him.

  “You do?” he asks, looking up at me. And there’s not an ounce of conceit in his demeanor. He’s defenseless and hopeful and, if I’m not mistaken, a little fearful. The possibility that I have the power to break Sam’s heart dawns on me.

  “I want you, Sam,” I say softly. “I’ve always wanted you. You’re the only thing I’ve ever known I’ve wanted, beyond all doubt. You’re the only thing I’ve ever wanted just for me.”

  It’s a relief to say the words. I’ve held them inside me for so long, knowing that if I said them aloud to anyone, no one would understand.

  But Sam understands. Finally.

  His eyes take in every inch of my face.

  “I want you, too,” he says.

  * * *

  “Let’s go out tonight,” Sam says, driving back to Paso. I sit in the passenger seat of his car with my shoes off and my feet on the dash, which he’s assured me is fine with him.

  As we weave out of the mountains of the Coast Ranges, our little adventure for the day, the pink light fades on the other side of my eyelids and with my other senses, I take in the feel of Sam in the seat next to me, the smell of the trees, the wind whipping through my hair.

  Sam wraps his warm fingers around mine to pull my attention back to him. I look to him.

  “We should go out tonight,” he repeats.

  Or we could keep driving, I think.

  We could take this highway to the next and end up in Washington or wherever we wanted. We could never look back. We could skip making any hard decisions and just go.

  But I recognize that urge for what it is, as well as this day trip I suggested. It’s my tendency to wander, to try t
o find myself through movement. But I cannot get lost. I must face these choices and make the right one this time.

  “Sure,” I say with a smile. Sam’s face glows blue in the light of the dash, and he’s still breathtaking.

  “What do you want to do?” he asks.

  My mind goes to Kelly and how she hasn’t called since we got back from Los Angeles.

  “I don’t know,” I say.

  When we get back to the house, plans still undecided, Sam and I split off to change. I enter the kitchen and Kelly is sitting at the dining room table alone. She watches her fingers as she picks at her cuticle. She looks better, a little more color in her cheeks than when I saw her last.

  I close the door and let the stillness settle.

  “Where are Mom and Dad?” I ask.

  “In the living room,” she says. “We finished dinner half an hour ago.”

  “Oh,” I say. “I’m sorry I missed it. I didn’t realize you were here.”

  “That’s okay.” Kelly sighs and pushes herself out of her chair. She leans against the counter across from me and crosses her arms protectively. She stares at the toe of her shoe, which she jiggles back and forth. “I got a phone call today,” she says.

  “From who?”

  “The bank.”

  “The bank,” I repeat.

  “Turns out,” she says, “my mom has been stashing money away for the last ten years.”

  I stand up straighter.

  “What do you mean?”

  Kelly drops her arms, lowers her shield. “Her disability checks were the one thing she always took care of. She had it set up to automatically deposit into our account. Apparently, some of it was automatically deposited into a savings account I knew nothing about.”

  I raise my eyebrows. “Well, how much money is in there?”

  “Ten thousand dollars.”

  “Ten thousand dollars?” I shout.

  Kelly laughs, nods.

  “That’s...unbelievable.”

  “I know. I don’t know whether to be mad at her or grateful. We certainly could have used the money all these years. But that hundred dollars a month probably wouldn’t have made enough difference anyway.”

  “It could certainly make a difference now. Do you think it will be enough to save the house?”

  She nods, her eyes bright.

  We stand there for a moment, stunned by the news. I don’t know if she’s going to say anything about what happened the other day. She seems to have realized she doesn’t need to. If she was upset that the message from her mother seemed to be for me, this money proves that Kelly is the one Shannon always believed in.

  That’s if we decide to believe any of it at all.

  “We should celebrate,” I say.

  “Celebrate how?”

  “I don’t know... Something spontaneous.”

  It’s another item on our bucket list—the one I urged Kelly to add.

  “Let’s get dressed up and see where the night takes us.”

  Kelly laughs. “Okay.”

  I remember Sam is waiting for me. I bite my lip.

  “What?” Kelly asks.

  “Sam asked me out on a date tonight.”

  She raises her eyebrows. “A date?”

  “I’ll tell him I can’t,” I say, grabbing for the door handle. “You’re more important. He’ll understand.”

  “Mal.” Kelly reaches out to stop me. She frowns. “You are just as important.”

  “But Sam—”

  “Makes you happy,” she says. “And you make me happy.”

  Our relationship really is different. I have to keep reminding myself. “What are you saying?” I ask.

  “Bring him with us. Then everyone’s happy.”

  “Are you sure?” I ask.

  Kelly motions for me to go upstairs and change.

  “I’m sure,” she says.

  The night takes us to The Drunken Pub. It’s the perfect first stop for the night. Kelly drives, and seeing Sam sitting in the back of a five-hundred-dollar car in a suit that probably costs four times as much is heartwarming. He’s getting used to our little country life and it looks good on him. When we arrive, I make a big show of adjusting his shirt and brushing him off, to which he laughs and nudges me away. Kelly catches the exchange and gives me a happy grin.

  It makes me blush, her seeing me like this. This side of me still so new and raw that I’m struggling to accept it myself. I feel naked with my joy on display, but I’m done hiding from myself. I take Sam’s hand and he smiles.

  The bar is as packed and noisy as expected, half the town crammed inside. At The Drunken Pub, every night is Friday night.

  I spot Tyler behind the bar and in spite of my resolution, my hand slips from Sam’s.

  “I’ll grab us a table,” Kelly says over the noise.

  “I’ll get drinks,” I respond.

  One of the vineyard owners waves Sam down. Sam nods his exit and, ever polite, weaves through the crowd to catch up with him.

  “Well, hello there,” Tyler says when I reach the bar, leaning over it to hear him. “What’s a nice young lady like you doing at a bar on a Wednesday night?”

  I nod toward Kelly and they exchange a wave.

  “What can I get ya?” he asks.

  “Chicken wings,” I say. “Two orders.”

  “Nothing to drink?”

  “We’re trying to behave.”

  “You got it.”

  My thanks is interrupted by a loud screech that fills the room. Silence falls and all the TVs go black. I glance around, looking for the source of the noise. Three loud taps echo over the speaker system and then, into a microphone someone says, “Welcome to karaoke night at The Drunken Pub!”

  The room explodes with cheers and clapping. I can’t believe my luck. I grin and make my way back to Kelly, slamming my palms onto the table where she’s sitting.

  “Oh, you wanted spontaneous,” I say.

  Her eyes melt closed in surrender but her grin gives her away.

  Kelly, Sam, and I huddle over the wings and the song list, giving each other comical suggestions and laughing as we imagine each other standing in front of a room full of people belting out Britney Spears lyrics. Joe, the owner, sets the tone for the evening with Rod Stewart’s “Da Ya Think I’m Sexy?”. Kelly and I grab onto each other as we try to stifle our giggling.

  Danny and Bobby, the local jokesters, do a delightfully colorful rendition of Blake Shelton’s “Some Beach.” Sam shocks us by encouraging them with whistles and backup lyrics, his suit jacket slung over the back of his seat and an extra button of his shirt undone to cool himself. I fail to keep my eyes away from those extra inches of skin. Hours pass and, woozy from heat and laughter, I almost forget none of us have had a sip of alcohol. We’re having too much fun just being in each other’s company.

  We forget all about our other pursuits for the night, too enthralled by watching our favorite community members shedding their inhibitions.

  Finally, Kelly’s name is called. I drum the table and whoop as she makes her way to the dark corner next to the karaoke machine, covering half her face with her hand the entire way. I call out louder when the opening piano notes ring out and Kelly tentatively sings the first lines of “Before He Cheats” by Carrie Underwood. The crowd goes wild, knowing what’s coming, and the further she gets into the song, the more Kelly loses herself in it.

  I wonder if the song choice is a coincidence and what exactly happened with Kyle the other night, but I doubt I’ll ever know. There are things about this new Kelly that I’ll never get to see and that’s okay. There are things about me she’ll never fully understand either. We’re not kids anymore. We’ve matured in the last ten years and I’m realizing my relationships have to mature, too.

  Sam whoops when Kell
y moves into the hook. I look over at him, softened and enchanted by this man I’ll probably never fully understand either. The question is whether our relationship is mature enough now to withstand that. Catching me looking, he slides his hand to my thigh underneath the table, weaving his fingers into mine.

  The moment is broken when Kelly falls back into her chair, breathless and glowing.

  “I can’t believe I just did that,” she says.

  “I can’t either,” I laugh. “Who are you and what have you done with my best friend?”

  My name is called out and my stomach flips over. I give Sam and Kelly a final wary glance and make my way to the microphone.

  “Ready?” the MC asks. I take a breath and give a swift nod.

  The snare drum hits and then the piano begins, slowing the pace with a song I’ve always loved: “I Can’t Make You Love Me” by Bonnie Raitt. My body melts into the familiar beat and I relax a little, closing my eyes to forget about everyone staring at me. This is my bucket list item and I’m going to get the most out of it. I’m learning to be spontaneous again. I’m learning to trust myself again.

  As I sing the first line about turning down the lights, I acknowledge that I’ve had the lights turned down on my life. It’s been easier that way, hiding in the dark. Focusing on Kelly, being distracted by Sam, avoiding my boss so I wouldn’t have to look inside myself and be honest about what I want. As long as I don’t have the answers, I don’t have to make any decisions and I can live in this space of in-between where I don’t commit to the wrong path. In doing so, I haven’t committed to the right one either. I’m afraid of disappointing anyone but I’ve been disappointing myself and that’s the biggest betrayal.

  I sing about turning down the voices inside my head so I can hold on to the hope that I can have what I want without hurting anyone, without leaving anyone behind. So I can allow myself to fall—in love and out of this false sense of safety. Life isn’t safe. Things will break. They will fall apart. Nothing is guaranteed.