Sweet, Sweet Wine

by Jaime Clevenger

  Riley set the beer down. She had no taste for it now. She stood up and paced, then sat down again. Blair was crying and the sound of it was poorly muffled, likely by Blair’s hand covering the end of the phone. When she heard Blair sigh, she said, “I met her last week. You know I wouldn’t have lied to you. We’ve talked about the reasons why we broke up. It had nothing to do with this person.”

  “Actually, you talked about the reasons why you wanted to break up.”

  “I told you. It’s hard being so far apart, and you know I don’t want to move to Texas…”

  “I really don’t want to hear this again.”

  Riley thought of tossing the phone out the back door. If she hurled it, there was a chance that she’d hit the tracks. “I want to keep you as my friend. Do you think that I’m crazy for even asking you to do that?”

  The line was silent for at least a minute. Finally Blair said, “I think you are crazy to ask, but you know I’m not going to let you out of my life. Not completely.” Blair cleared her throat.

  Riley heard a door open and guessed Blair had gone out on her back balcony. She had an apartment in downtown Austin with a great back porch with an overhang and room for a patio set. She heard one of the patio chairs scrape against the concrete. She pictured Blair sitting down on the balcony with the sounds of the city all around her.

  “How’s work?”

  “Good. I’m going to be laid off at the end of July but otherwise, I love it. How’s your job?”

  “Just great. Fuck, Riley, you’ve been out having a good time with some new girl and I’m calling you up as if there’s still some chance. What the hell is wrong with me?”

  “Nothing. You know that. You are amazing, and funny, and beautiful and—”

  “Don’t give me a pep talk right now. Seriously.” Blair cussed, the muffled words scarcely as loud as the accompanying snap of a lighter. “The person I’m still in love with has moved on to the next girl and wants to be friends. Don’t try and make me feel better. I’m pissed that you’re going to have sex with someone else. I just want to sit here and be pissed.”

  “And you do pissed off so well too. I wish I could be there to see it.”

  “Then get on a plane.”

  Riley listened to Blair’s breathing, slow and even. She thought of all the nights that had slipped away with that sound lulling her to sleep. “By the way, you scared away all the boogeymen. I’m sitting in this lonely apartment that I left unlocked on the wrong side of the tracks on this weird night without a moon, but I’m not scared anymore.”

  “You’re welcome.” Blair took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “You could afford a nicer place.”

  Riley knew she had lit up a cigarette. Blair had quit smoking while they were together and gone on a health kick. This had inspired the farmers’ market trips and the jogging. “This place feels like home now. And it has good memories.”

  “Memories, huh?”

  “I’ll send you a book with a better ending.”

  “Don’t. I don’t think I’m going to read anything for a while. And a happy ending would only make me more depressed. I gotta go, Riley.”

  With that the call ended. Riley stared at the phone for a moment. She got up finally and went out to her balcony. A cat howled and then a dog barked as if in answer. She searched for the moon but still couldn’t make out even a shadowy light through the thick clouds.

  * * *

  The Denver flight was scheduled to leave at six in the evening. Riley had left work early to pack and barely made it to the airport before the scheduled boarding time. She only relaxed when she read the departure sign and realized the flight had been delayed a half hour. She fished out her cell phone from the backpack she’d taken as her only luggage. There was a missed call from Lisa. She pressed the call button and then hung up before the first ring.

  Riley had told Lisa that she thought they should wait to hang out again until after the interview. Lisa seemed understanding but was not happy about this. In part, Riley knew it was because of how she’d left things on Monday night. Riley knew she should have explained why she wanted some space but she’d left instead. Lisa obviously knew something was wrong but apparently wasn’t going to ask. On the other side of it, Riley didn’t want to bring up her uncertainties about their moving to Colorado together. It seemed too obvious. If she liked the Denver job well enough to justify the move, none of her worries would matter anyway.

  Blair hadn’t called since Monday night either. Riley had been too busy at work to really think about it much, except in the evenings when she sat out on her balcony to watch the trains pass. She had stopped in at Whole Foods one night to buy a pre-made dinner but ended up with kale, tofu, garlic and red bell peppers. She chopped everything up and tossed it all together in the pan with oil. She added soy sauce when the kale had turned to a brighter green, then took the pan outside and sat down on the balcony with a pair of chopsticks. Blair had cooked this recipe up nearly once a week when they’d lived together, and it had taken Riley a very long time to be convinced kale was even edible. Blair had always sprinkled sesame seeds on top of the dish, but Riley had forgotten to buy these. Without the sesame seeds, it hadn’t tasted nearly as good as she remembered.

  When she finally got to Denver, Riley took a cab to the hotel. It was near midnight, and the cab driver kept rubbing his head as if to stay awake. The half-hour delay had turned into a two-hour delay, and Riley had finished the book she’d brought for the trip. Riley turned on her phone and saw another missed call from Lisa. Blair had called as well. Neither had left messages.

  The hotel bed was hard and the pillows overstuffed, but Riley fell asleep almost instantly. She awoke when an alarm she hadn’t set went off at five a.m. By seven, she’d had two cups of bitter hotel coffee and had watched the morning news on two different stations. She called a cab and was at Jeanette’s clinic a full half hour early. She chatted with the receptionist and met the rest of the staff as they arrived.

  Jeanette arrived last. She glanced at Riley and then pointed to the one closed door that she had yet to see anyone go through. “You’re Riley? Good, I like promptness. Let’s go to my office.”

  Jeanette unlocked the office door and then switched on her computer. She hung her jacket on the coat hook but shook her head when Riley started to sit down. “We aren’t staying in here. Don’t get comfortable. I just want to double-check my schedule and figure out who we are seeing this morning.”

  Riley rocked from her heels to the balls of her toes and then, realizing what she was doing, froze in place. She eyed the office space, noticing a prominent framed picture of Jeanette and a much younger, though still recognizable, Lisa, on the wall behind Jeanette’s chair. There was one plant on Jeanette’s desk, a Christmas Cactus, that strained out of the confines of the pot in which it was planted and half covered Jeanette’s keyboard, brushing the back of Jeanette’s hand as her fingers struck the keys.

  Jeanette glanced up at her. “So…I’m going to tell you some things that you probably already know. Stop me if I’m becoming a bore. I realize that your work with Sheryl focuses primarily on hospitalized patients. You understand that you will have very little opportunity to work in the hospital here, correct?” Jeanette paused only briefly and did not look up from the computer screen before continuing. “Here we work almost exclusively with patients who have been recently discharged or are in need of long-term PT programs.”

  “I’m ready to get out of the hospital. And I want the long-term clients.”

  Jeanette nodded. “And I understand you want to spend more time with patients in stroke recovery. Of course, we also see sports rehab patients and you would have some responsibilities overseeing these programs. We see most of the stroke patients in their homes, but between me and Elaine, who is the only other full-time therapist I have right now, we keep a full appointment schedule seeing just the post-op sports rehab patients in the clinic.” Jeanette checked the time on her wristwatch and then said, “A
nd we are starting out five minutes late for our first patient. I don’t like to keep them waiting. Shall we?”

  Riley shadowed Jeanette throughout the morning. Little of Lisa’s bubbly personality was evident in Jeanette. Although she chatted with her patients in a friendly way and the patients seemed to like her quite a bit, when Elaine, the other therapist, asked her a question Jeanette was quite short with her. Realizing that Riley had taken note of the harshness of her tone, she later admitted that everyone had been overworked since the last therapist had left, and were likely not being as patient with each other because of it.

  By the time they were ready for a lunch break, Riley was still unsure if Jeanette was going to offer her the job or send her packing.

  “I usually take about five minutes to eat in the clinic, but I blocked off enough time to go out for a bit,” Jeanette said. “There’s a place that the staff likes a few blocks away.”

  It was near the end of May, but the wind was icy. Riley wished she had thought to bring her coat as well. The morning had seemed warm enough, but now the sun had moved behind the clouds and the temperature had dropped quickly. Jeanette asked Riley’s opinion on the cases that they had seen that morning, and Riley realized that her interview was just beginning. After a grueling forty-five-minute session, with Riley barely able to eat half the sandwich she’d ordered between Jeanette’s questions, Jeanette finally leaned back in her chair and said, “There is one last thing we need to discuss, even though I can’t really ask you directly about it.”

  Riley felt her neck muscles tighten. She took a sip of water and shifted back in her chair, deciding how direct she wanted to be with her. Finally, she said, “Jeanette, I want this job. And I think I’m a great fit for your practice. Lisa introduced herself to me weeks after I’d sent you my résumé. I’d already made the decision to apply for this job before I knew her.”

  “She told me as much. But you know her now. And since she’s my daughter, I want to know how you are going to handle issues that come up down the line. I don’t know your history, obviously, but I know my daughter’s. I can’t remember the names of the women she’s dated in the past year because there’ve been that many.”

  “It won’t affect my decision to stay at your practice. I’m very good at separating my work from my personal life.”

  Jeanette was clearly still hesitant. Her arms were folded across her chest, and she continued to stare at Riley.

  Riley added, “I understand that you can’t help but weigh all of this in your decision to offer me the job. If you need more time, I can wait. I do have an offer at a practice in Seattle, but I want this job more.”

  “Sheryl told me that you put work above everything else. As a practice owner, that’s what I need right now. We’ve gone through some changes since our last associate left. She took two of our staff with her and the rest have been overworked since. I need someone to step in whom I don’t have to babysit.” The waiter came to refill their glasses and Jeanette was silent until he’d left. She reached for her iced tea and took a sip, then glanced at her watch. “When can you start?”

  * * *

  “How many times have you changed a flat?” Lisa asked.

  “More than once.” The sun was directly overhead, and Riley could already feel beads of sweat dripping down her back. “Pop your trunk so I can get the spare.”

  Lisa climbed back into the driver’s seat and the trunk popped open. Riley pulled out their camping gear and set the packs on the side of the dirt road. They hadn’t seen another car since they left the trailhead, and neither of them could get a cell phone signal. The backcountry trailhead was a little over twenty miles up a winding rocky dirt road. It was too early in the season to have tourist traffic and they’d picked this place specifically because of the reputation it had for being a hidden gem. She found the spare and the jack and set to work.

  They’d just spent three days backpacking. With loaded packs, it took a full day to get to the waterfall. They spent the next day swimming in the icy pond underneath the fifteen-foot falls, swatting away mosquitoes and eating cold soup and oatmeal because the propane burner wouldn’t light and they had somehow forgotten matches. They had peed in holes they dug, spent every night naked from the moment they slipped into the tent and away from the mosquitoes, hiked along the river, discussed religion, politics and, finally, all the books they had both read. Lisa had a book habit that was possibly worse than Riley’s.

  Once she had the jack in place and supporting the flat, she searched the trunk for the wrench. Lisa was sitting on top of their packs, watching her. “What’s wrong?”

  “I can’t find your wrench.”

  “I don’t keep any tools in the car.”

  “Well, yeah, but this is for the tire. Usually there’s a wrench with the jack, but I can’t find it.”

  Lisa came over to the trunk and peered inside. “I don’t remember seeing anything like that but, you know, I always just call for road service when I get a flat.”

  “You’ve never changed a tire on this car?”

  “I’ve never changed a tire, period.”

  Riley stopped herself from swearing. She pulled out picnic blankets, twine, empty plastic water bottles, three screwdrivers of various sizes and one hammer, that had all ended up in Lisa’s trunk despite her being convinced she had no tools. Each item that she removed elicited some comment from Lisa. There was no wrench. Riley closed the trunk finally and looked at Lisa. “We can’t get the tire off without a wrench.”

  They both stared at the now useless spare tire. “Well, someone will drive by eventually, right?” Lisa asked hopefully. “Sounds like everyone else except me has a wrench. How much food do we have?”

  “We have one canteen of water left. It won’t last long. We need to walk into town.”

  “I think we should wait and see who comes up the road.” Lisa sat back down on her pack.

  “It’s Monday. The weather report said rain on Wednesday. I don’t think anyone else is coming.” Riley had taken the day off but was due back at work in the morning and they still had a four-hour drive back to Sacramento.

  Lisa looked up at her but didn’t move. “This ridgeline is actually a pretty spot. We have a good view in both directions. I didn’t notice all of the trees before. Look at those manzanitas taking over in the gap between the ponderosas.”

  “I don’t really want to look at trees right now.”

  “I’m just saying that it’s pretty. It’s really different here than it was just ten miles back where we camped.”

  “Okay, I’ll give it one hour,” Riley said. “If no one comes in an hour, I’m walking into town.”

  “You mean, we’re walking into town. No way in hell am I going to stay here if you leave.” Lisa patted Riley’s pack. “Come sit with me. There’s no mosquitoes.”

  Riley looked up and down the road. Waiting was useless. She knew no one was coming and the last thing she wanted to do was sit on the side of a dirt road in the middle of nowhere.

  “You’re one of those types that get pissed but don’t say anything, aren’t you?”

  Riley shook her head. “I’m not mad. I’m frustrated.”

  “That’s just a different word for the same feeling,” Lisa countered. She patted the pack again. “You agreed to one hour. Sit down and relax.”

  Riley realized that she was mad but didn’t admit as much aloud. She turned her pack over so the squishy part was up and sat down. “Okay, I’ll try and relax.”

  “We can talk about something.”

  “We’ve spent the past three days talking.”

  “Wow, you are really mad, aren’t you?” Lisa said, whistling through her teeth. “I’m sorry I’m not the type of dyke to keep a wrench in my car. But I don’t think you’d like me as well if I were that type.” She grinned at Riley, and Riley felt the tension ease.

  “I’m not mad about the wrench.”

  “Then why are you mad?” Lisa waited for Riley to answer, then took a deep
breath and exhaled, spreading her hands outward with open palms. When Riley looked at her skeptically, she said, “Yoga. I don’t go to class three times a week just to get a nice butt.”

  “You sure about that?”

  “Don’t joke. I’m finding my center so I can be ready when you finally open up to me.”

  “I already know where your center is. And I think I’ve already opened up to you. And vice versa,” Riley said, grinning back at her. “I’m not mad.”

  Lisa stopped her deep breathing and playfully punched Riley’s shoulder. “All right, just tell me.”

  Riley nudged a rock with the toe of her shoe. It rolled down the slope for several feet before settling to a stop. “It’s been a month and I haven’t been to your place since the first night. I’m not sure if there’s a reason why you don’t want me at your apartment or not, but why is it a good idea to move in together when we get to Denver if you don’t want me in your space here? Sometimes, I feel like we hardly know each other.” Riley felt the ball forming in her throat. She’d tried once before to have this conversation with Lisa, but the ball had stopped her. Riley continued, “I’ve been hoping you would tell me a reason why you never want me at your apartment without me having to ask.”

  “How am I supposed to know something is bothering you if you don’t tell me?” Lisa looked away. “Sometimes you have to ask.”

  “Well, I’m asking now.”

  “And if we didn’t get this flat tire, would you have gotten around to it? Hell, Riley, we’ve spent three amazing days together. I was beginning to think I knew you better than anyone I’ve ever dated. And now you tell me that you feel like you hardly know me?”

  Riley picked up another rock and turned it over in her hands a few times. “Why haven’t you wanted me to come over to your place?”

  “It’s nothing really.” Lisa sighed. “My roommate doesn’t like company.”

  Riley tossed the rock on the ground and dusted her hands off on her pants. “But it’s your place too.”