And Then There Was Her

by Tagan Shepard

  There was no wink to accompany the warning. No sign that she was referencing the mistake Madison had already made. It was clear to her now, as it should have been all along, that CS had kept last night to herself. Laura hadn’t known about Kacey and she didn’t know about the kiss. It was exactly the sort of thing CS would do, but Madison still hadn’t expected it. Her heart ached at how thoughtful CS could be. If only Madison hadn’t ruined everything by jumping her last night.

  “Maybe you should go home.”

  “I’m trying to. You’re in my way.”

  Laura stopped short of saying that she meant go home to Denver, but her raised eyebrow and scowl were enough to get the message across. Madison stood still, even when Laura stepped out of her path, crossing her arms, obviously intending to hold her ground. Even though she knew she should go, Madison found herself hesitating, not to spite Laura but because now, more than ever, she craved CS. Craved her company and her understanding. Craved the chance to apologize for last night and thank her for her discretion. If she was honest, what she craved more than anything else was just the chance to look at CS.

  Laura growled, “Well?”

  Laura’s impatience finally sent Madison on her way. She set her feet in the right direction and let them carry her, but left her mind firmly in the stable apartment. It was over now, her chance to set things right. She knew she wouldn’t seek CS out again, knew herself too well to even hint at the prospect. She’d lost her nerve.

  By the time she found herself at her front door, her mind was just as tormented as it had been when she went to bed last night. Her body begged her heart to be brave, begged her to go back to the stable, push past Laura and find a way to convince CS. Her heart said another kiss would do it. Her head said another kiss would shatter everything irreparably. She wandered around the house, warring with herself.

  For the first time since Kacey left, she found herself restless. Grief and pain had occupied her time before, but now she needed something else to occupy it. She stood still long enough to hear the silence of the cottage. Apart from the gentle hum of the refrigerator, the place was still. It was also stale. The air tasted like decay. For a moment she saw her future life, closed up here in this cottage, subsisting on the kindness of strangers but slowly withering away until there was nothing but a shell left. A Faulkner spinster, brokenhearted and alone.

  Her eyes fell on the knuckle of twisted vine and she turned away from it in disgust. Her eyes landed instead on the massive stone chimney, crawling up the wall of glass. It was mostly bare, the stark gray stone slipping into the stark gray sky through the windows. Above the top of the fireplace was an aged wooden mantel, floating out from the stone. Above that was a square of canvas, the entire surface painted in streaky reds from fresh blood to black cherry.

  Madison hated that painting. It was the one discordant note in the vineyard’s symphony to abstract art. It was bland, despite the riot of color, evoking nothing more than an annoying break in gray where none was needed. Kacey had loved it. The brazenness of it no doubt calling to her shallow aesthetic.

  The thought of Kacey turned Madison’s restlessness into rage. It was her fault. All of this. CS had rejected Madison because of Kacey. Because she thought Madison still loved Kacey, even with all she’d done. And the worst part was that a small part of Madison recognized that she was right. She had loved Kacey and part of her always would. The part of her that loved being squired around by a sexy celebrity. The part of her that loved ceding control of the little things to a stronger personality.

  Why had she lost herself in Kacey? Why had she allowed herself to be dragged across the country like a piece of luggage only to be left behind without so much as a backward glance? Why hadn’t she met CS years ago? What could have been if not for Kacey hollowing her out?

  Madison ran across the living room and grabbed the metal coffee table. It was cumbersome and heavy, but she dragged it across the rug and hardwood floor. When the legs banged against the stone hearth she hopped onto its surface and stretched onto her toes. Her fingers just managed to scrape the bottom of the canvas, but that was all she needed. With one mighty shove the canvas lifted off its nail, tipped and tumbled down, the corner of the coffee table pressing into the painted fabric enough to dent it but not tear.

  She was on it in an instant, leaping off the table and tearing at the canvas with clawed fingers. The top of the frame cracked under her assault, staples snapping, and the fabric wilting like a deflated balloon. With it weakened, Madison tore at the canvas. It screeched as it tore down one side, but the painting remained stubbornly whole. She snatched up the first thing that came to hand, the piece of dead, dried grapevine, and plunged it into the heart of the canvas. The fabric ripped, flecks of paint sailing through the air along with Madison’s roar of victory.

  The painting was in tatters before she finally stopped stabbing at it, her breath coming in sporadic, raspy gasps. Leaning back on her heels, Madison registered a sharp pain in her hand and looked down. The sharp edge of a clipped branch had dug into Madison’s palm. A smear of her blood soaked into the bark. Madison sat on her heels and stared at the wound, then at the vine. She turned it in her hand, examining its twists and flat edges.

  A moment later Madison jumped to her feet and slammed through the front door, skipping down the deck and skidding to a halt around the back of her cottage, staring down at the pile of cuttings, each a different but similar shape to the blood-soaked piece in her hand. She grabbed another from the pile at random, laying it over the one in her hand. She turned it and tried again when the two didn’t fit how she liked. After another few attempts, she grabbed a third and then a fourth piece, turning to lay them in the dewy grass so she didn’t lose the shape.

  When she found it, she didn’t leave it together on the grass. She picked up her four pieces and then another handful from the pile, more sharp pieces pricking her fingers and arms as she ran them back inside. She kicked aside the ruined canvas and spread them out on the rug. It took her five trips back to the pile before she had the rough shape laid out, then another five to fill in the gaps. Before grabbing any more, she ran to her studio and rummaged inside a box of supplies until she found a spool of wire.

  She went to the utility closet next, pushing aside broom, mop, and winter boots until she found the battery-powered drill, still in its plastic case. Touching it reminded her of the day she’d bought it.

  So we’re power tool lesbians now?

  Madison pushed Kacey’s voice out her head. The teasing had sounded playful that day. Now it sounded like criticism.

  The first battery died before the bones of the sculpture were secured. Madison spent an hour twisting pieces of wire through the holes while she waited for it to recharge. After that she kept the backup battery charging so she could swap them out when the other ran out of juice. The sun set and rose again before she ran out of wire. The stash of vines under her kitchen window ran out, but that was okay. She had enough.

  She thought of Kacey sometimes as she drilled tiny holes in the desiccated vines. She thought of CS when she twisted wire around itself. She thought of their differences. She had to suck blood from another puncture caused by a sharp twig. The woman she had been with Kacey would have reminded herself on the second day that she was no sculptor. The woman she was now that Kacey was gone didn’t listen to the doubts rattling around inside her head. She was stronger now. She was a sculptor if she said she was a sculptor and tomorrow she would be a potter again.

  The rug was stained and shredded beyond repair by the time she picked up a piece of trimmed wire and realized that she did not need it. She tested the strength of her creation and found, to her amazement, that it held its shape. Had this been her medium she might have achieved the result without nearly so much weight, but the anchors in the stone would hold. The trouble was dragging the piece up the ladder she’d fetched from outside.

  When she had pulled it halfway up, she thought she might not have the strength to get
it in place. Her arms trembled with the effort, and so she yelled as she hauled it up another step. Stopping for air on that new shelf, she looked down on the remains of the painting and imagined what Kacey would say. She would laugh. She would call Madison crazy and tell her she couldn’t possibly get the vines into place, and if she did they would be weird and ugly there against the stone. Better to give up now.

  Madison hauled the sculpture up the next step with Kacey’s laughter echoing in her ears. One more step to go and then she would only have to haul it onto the mantel and then up the distance to the nails waiting for the triple-woven loops of wire she’d made.

  She made it up the next step by reliving the moment that Kacey walked away from her without looking back. Without calling or texting or saying goodbye. That image had made her weep for days. Now it gave her the strength to lift the wreath of vines up the step and onto the mantel.

  The mantel groaned under its weight, but held. If she held it here too long, though, the whole thing would tumble down. To her despair, Madison realized she had nothing left of Kacey to help her over this last hurdle. Everything that she’d left behind, everything that stung and burned was gone now and Madison had only herself. She realized, as she puffed out her breath and heaved, that she was all she needed.

  The first loop caught and held on its hook. Madison let out a sigh and quickly secured the others. She nearly tumbled down the ladder, her exhaustion sweeping over her. When she made it to the couch and looked up at what she had created, she wept with the beauty of it. She slept hard for a few hours and woke to the setting sun blazing through the windows.

  When she woke, she stumbled to the coffeepot. The mechanics of grinding beans and filling the reservoir soothed her. The fragrant steam and hissing of the machine pulled her back into herself, trying to remember how much clay she had. She’d worked hard that one day, right before Boots brought her the vines, but hadn’t managed any more.

  Despite the batch she’d fired before her wine tasting, the shelves were still heavy with dry pots. A few quick mental calculations told Madison she could fire them today and have them done before nightfall. Madison set to work unloading the kiln. A shape was forming in her mind. A tall, thin vase, opening at the top like a flower. A calla lily. She kicked off her shoes while pulling off a chunk of clay. She grabbed a bit more for good measure. Too much would make the lip difficult to sculpt. It would take patience.

  Hours later, the coffeepot beeped angrily as the auto shutoff engaged. Madison didn’t hear the shrill alarm, and the untouched pot grew cold in the empty kitchen.

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Sunlight glimmered off fresh glaze, sending a sparkling glow all over the studio. The pots, fresh from the kiln and their finishing fire, might as well have been in a different universe for all the notice Madison gave them. The tall vase was there, glimmering not white like a calla lily but bright, robin’s-egg blue. Other vases stood near it along with a few bowls wide as her shoulders. Every table was crammed with finished work waiting to go upstairs.

  Madison’s attention was fixed completely on the pot in front of her, stuck to the wheel with a few bits of scrap clay to keep it in place while she worked. She pressed a stem of dried lavender into the clay. She had waited impatiently for this piece to dry just enough to keep its shape but wet enough to take the impression. It was essential to have the same depth of impressions all the way around, and that meant she had to be both quick and precise. She lived for moments like these.

  The doorbell rang, but she ignored it the same way she had ignored everything else. She took another sprig, spreading the flowers as she applied gentle, even pressure. The lavender spread across the clay surface like veins. The effect was brilliant, exactly what Madison wanted. She smeared a few lines of clay across her shirt, wiping her fingertips clean before reaching into the box at her feet for more flowers.

  The second ring was more insistent than the first, a loud ding followed by a split second of silence before another. Madison gently pried apart the stem in her hands, the gentle crackle of desiccated herbage far more pleasant than the doorbell. It spread open easily, much more so than the first few she tried. There was a steep learning curve to this, as attested by the pile of discarded flowers surrounding her bare toes.

  An insistent knocking marked the third attempt, and Madison wished her visitor would either take the hint and go away or come inside. She didn’t quite jump at the banging, but she did twitch, nearly knocking the lavender out of position. She was pressing the last flower into place when she heard the door open and close. About time, she thought, then went back to her work.

  “What’re you doing?”

  “Dancing the tango,” Madison replied.

  Boots’ booming laugh made Madison smile, but she didn’t look up. She heard the rustle of what sounded like a paper bag.

  “Sorry to barge in. No one’s seen you in a long time.”

  “No need to apologize, come in whenever.” She finished with her current piece of lavender and spun the wheel slowly to check her progress. Just a couple more stems should do it. “I’ve been working.”

  “I can see that.” Boots’ boots clicked on the tile floor as he crossed to the tables of finished work. “You been sleeping at all?”

  “Not much.”

  “Eating?”

  “I think so.”

  He chuckled, coming back closer to her but being thoughtful enough to stay out of her light. “CS told me to go get some groceries and bring ’em to you.”

  Hearing the winemaker’s name made Madison’s stomach squirm pleasantly, a common occurrence these days. She felt like a teenager, letting her mind wander to her crush several times a day just to feel her heart swoop.

  “Was she worried that I forgot to feed myself or that there was a rotting corpse in one of her cottages?”

  “Hard to say, but she’d worry more about the smell of your corpse getting into the grapes than the carpet.”

  They laughed together and it felt good, like old times during the autumn when Madison’s life wasn’t upside down.

  Madison selected a branch of lavender, discarding it and reaching for another.

  “What’s that all about?” he asked, shifting the bag in his arms again. “The lavender?”

  “I’m pressing it into the pot to get the impression in the clay. When I pull them out, the shapes will still be there.”

  “Like a design?”

  “Exactly.”

  “How long will you let them stay there?”

  “Not sure. Depends on how quickly the clay dries. Maybe a few hours.”

  “All that work and it’s only going to be there a few hours?”

  “The impressions will last forever. A ghost in the clay. Like a fossilized footprint.”

  “Cool.” The flippant tone he used made it clear he didn’t really care, but he was at least polite enough to pretend. “Want to take a break to put away your groceries?”

  “No thanks. You can do it.”

  There was almost enough of a teenager in him to balk, but he opted for a shake of the head. “You’re starting to remind me of CS, Denver.”

  He left the room, heading for the kitchen just in time. The tingle that spread through her body at the thought made her hands really shake this time, and she had to stop for a few deep breaths or else she’d ruin the pot. She hadn’t spoken to CS yet. Still hadn’t apologized for the sloppy pass or explained her feelings. She had barely left the studio, even sleeping in the guest room some nights. She couldn’t remember the last time she showered, but it still felt odd to go so long without talking to CS.

  “I was going to leave them for you, but there’s a pot of coffee there that looks like it’s been sitting for a week or two. I thought it was safer to put everything away. I don’t want ’em rotting on the counter.”

  “You’re sweet.”

  Boots sounded like he wanted an excuse to stay and chat. “It’s the first time I’ve been off the estate in days. Can’t have
all that effort go to waste.”

  Madison saw her opening and went for it, trying hard to keep her voice steady and casual. “What have you and CS been up to? She keeping you out in the vines all this time?” Perhaps today was the day she should shower and get out of the house.

  “She’s a slave driver, that one. We get bud break in March, so we’ve been inspecting the vines day and night.”

  “Is it March already?” Madison asked, truly shocked to discover time had moved without her notice.

  “For more than a week now,” he said with a laugh.

  She set another stem in place. “Really?”

  “You’re kidding, right Denver?”

  “I get lost in my work sometimes.” She’d thought it had been two weeks since her wine tasting with CS, but apparently it had been three.

  “I can tell. You should get out there and see it. New growth is beautiful.”

  “Thanks.” She smiled over at him, peeling her eyes away from her pot for the first time. “I think I will.”

  Chapter Thirty-three

  It was like stepping into a dream, walking among the vines again. One of those strange, ethereal places where the dreamer walks in a place that is intimately familiar to them, but the entire landscape is changed. The beauty of the place overwhelmed her, fresh with splashes of yellow-green where there had only been brown. The smile etched onto her face was unshakable. She felt as she hadn’t felt in ages.

  She felt like herself, but more than herself. As though the trials she’d faced and the art she’d created from it brought her to a better version of herself than she had ever been. It felt good. Freeing. Maybe she’d been inside too long, and the world had changed in her absence. Maybe the vineyard hadn’t changed at all, maybe it was only her that was different. Either way, her steps were light and her heart was even lighter.