The Sweet Spot

by Heather Heyford

  She stared through the windshield and thought. With a new apartment and an important new position, she should be raring to go. Instead, she felt vaguely let down.

  Maybe she was coming down with something.

  It was probably just nerves. The start of a new school year was always bittersweet. Exchanging those precious weeks of freedom—despite popular opinion, teachers didn’t really have three whole months off, what with wrapping up loose ends in June, mandatory continuing ed classes, and planning for the next year—for the promise of a fresh start.

  Reality was slowly sinking in.

  Change was never easy, but she had no choice. She was going to supervise her school’s music department.

  And the Sweet Spot was being sold.

  It might be months before it was official. Hank had told her that himself, back when he was considering the first offer. She had tried to stop him time and again with her songs and her stories, but he hadn’t listened. Hank was throwing away his roots. She’d heard it with her own ears. And for what? Some abstract notion of freedom.

  Lancaster County, Pennsylvania

  “What time’s the mailman come?” Jamie asked her sister.

  She’d been home for three days. Now she was on her computer in Sally’s homey kitchen, printing out her new lease so that she could return a signed copy to the landlord.

  “Around four. Better hurry if you want to mail something.”

  Jamie licked and sealed the flap of the long envelope and walked woodenly out to the gray metal mailbox by the road. She pulled down the door latch. But something kept her from taking that irreversible step. Why was she hesitant? She would finally have her own place with a big bathtub. Wasn’t this exactly what she had worked so hard for?

  Brushing away her reservations, she deposited the envelope in the box and raised the tiny red flag.

  Now she was committed.

  As she walked back to Sally’s house, her phone rang.

  * * *

  “Hank?”

  “Jamie.” It was one p.m. in Oregon. From his post behind the bar at the tasting room Hank could still see his last customers climbing into their cars. He closed his eyes and braced himself against the wall and sucked in what felt like his first complete breath in ages. God, it is good to hear her voice.

  Three days had passed since he’d buried Ellie. The day after the wake was spent cleaning up from the hundreds of guests that had come from all over the Willamette Valley to pay their respects. But someone was missing. Someone Hank had taken for granted until it was too late.

  He clutched the phone like a lifeline. “How are you?”

  “I’m fine. I’m so sorry about Ellie.”

  “Your music was one of the last things she heard. I’ll always be grateful for that.”

  “I thought she was showing signs of improving. What happened?”

  “Doctor said she had a blood clot that broke off and went to her brain. The first stroke was only a precursor. There was nothing anyone could have done.”

  “I’m sorry I didn’t get to say good-bye. But I couldn’t postpone my flight. I had things to do to get ready for the school year.”

  “How about you? Glad to be home?”

  * * *

  Jamie had seen the missed calls from Hank while her plane was en route to the East Coast. She’d thought about calling him back a dozen times. But she didn’t want to know the details about the Sweet Spot being sold.

  Now, hearing her name on Hank’s lips had her pulse racing.

  She had a million questions. How had the funeral gone? How was the staff adjusting? What happened next in the sale of the property?

  She didn’t ask any of them. It was easier to pretend that everything was all right.

  She looked out across the cornfields next to Sally’s house, through the Mid-Atlantic haze toward the low purple hills. Oddly, the mountains seemed to have shrunk a little while she’d been gone.

  “It was great to see my family and friends. I’m outside at my sister’s house right now. She’s been a real gem. Arranging family dinners. Letting me sleep on her couch until my lease starts in a couple weeks. I can’t believe the summer’s almost over. Can you hear the locusts singing?”

  There was a pause while he listened.

  “I think so.”

  “I’ve always thought of that as my back-to-school song. The song of a season coming to an end.”

  Like their one, sparkling summer.

  “Well”—he cleared his throat—“I wanted to be sure to thank you for everything you did. For me, and for Ellie. All those visits to the hospital. The trail rides, the tasting room, teaching Bill some new songs.” He laughed, but she knew him well enough to know it was forced. “Especially that.”

  Jamie bit her lip and looked down at her feet as she paced.

  She stopped in the shade of an ornamental pear and fingered the tip of a low branch. “Thank you for—”

  “Hey, Jamie? Hold on a sec. Bryce is jumping up and down, waving the refractometer.”

  She waited for the inevitable.

  “It’s time,” said Hank.

  Across three thousand miles, the edge of excitement in his voice came through loud and clear. “Time for the crush.”

  A thrill shot through Jamie. She imagined the scramble to get everything underway. Hank would get the pickers in there that very night to avoid picking in tomorrow’s heat. Then came the sorting, the de-stemming, and the crushing. All that before fermentation commenced.

  She longed to be there. To see the buzz of activity, hear the shouts of the workers in the fields. To be a part of harvest time, the dramatic conclusion of all Hank’s hard work.

  But she was no longer part of that scene. It would be October before Hank had time to breathe again—let alone brood over a former hired hand.

  Out of sight, out of mind.

  “You’re going to have your hands full. Good luck with the harvest.”

  “Great hearing your voice.”

  She knew he had to go. Still, she was overcome with disappointment that their call had to end so soon. What had she been expecting—a lengthy heart-to-heart?

  “Give Homer a hug for me.”

  “Think of me when you wear those Noconas.”

  And then there was nothing but silence.

  Jamie whisked away a stray teardrop, slid her phone into her back pocket, and staggered toward the house.

  Two things she was grateful for: keeping her passion in check, and never telling him about the job in Newberry that she’d applied for on a foolish whim.

  Meanwhile, the cornfields shimmered in the late-day heat and the locusts sang their hypnotic song.

  But somehow, it sounded flat.

  When Jamie got back inside, Sally’s youngest was propped on her mother’s hip eating Cheerios one by one from a plastic cup.

  “Let’s see your pictures of your new office,” Sally said.

  But before Jamie could bring up the photos on her computer, the subject line of a new email grabbed her attention. She shrieked and her hand flew to her mouth.

  She tore out the front door as the mail truck pulled in front of the house. The carrier had already pushed down the red flag and was reaching into the box when she cried, “Stop!”

  Just in time, she reached into the box and yanked out her lease before it went into the mail truck.

  Sally, with her baby still glued to her hip, and her toddler with his thumb in his mouth, stared at her from the screen door as she came skipping back.

  “What on earth is going on?”

  “I got the job!”

  “What are you talking about? What job?”

  “The job in Oregon!” Jamie replied breathlessly, sliding back down in front of the computer to read Dr. Keller’s letter again.

  I’m writing to inform you that at the eleventh hour, the individual initially chosen to fill the music teacher opening at Newberry has changed her mind and taken a position in Portland instead. Your application is the
next in line. Have you found the answer to the question we discussed in your interview? And if so, are you still interested in the job?

  “What job in Oregon? Will you please tell me what’s going on?”

  “Never in a million years did I think I’d get it. Let’s see.” She leapt up and began to pace. “I have to resign my department-head job. Notify the landlord that I won’t be taking the apartment. Figure out how to get all my stuff shipped across country . . .”

  “Let me see that.” Sally deposited the baby in his high chair, dumped more Cheerios into his cup, and slid the laptop around to where she could read it. She skimmed over the letter, then turned to Jamie.

  “You just got home and now you’re going to turn right around and go back out there? What about your job back here? Your big-time promotion?”

  “When I saw the kids playing on the macadam, that’s when I knew. I don’t want to be department head.”

  Sally shook her head. “But you’d be the youngest department head the school’s ever had.”

  “Who cares, if it’s not what I want? All I want to do is teach.”

  “But, why Oregon?”

  How could she describe to Sally the Willamette Valley’s lush vineyards, the acres of wildflower meadows, the carefully tended farms? The hardworking, high-spirited people who lived there? The Willamette still had a frontier quality about it . . . a sense that anything was possible.

  “Because . . . it feels like home to me.”

  Chapter Thirty

  September

  At the Sweet Spot, the grape harvest was in. Hank walked the vineyards endlessly, thinking of changes he’d like to make, like altering drains and slopes for the next time he was plagued with a wet spring. Compared with the prime summer months when he could practically watch the grapes growing before his eyes, now the vineyards appeared peaceful. But they were far from dormant. The leaves continued to bask in the weakening autumn sun, storing up starch. Beneath the soil, the vines were sending out new roots; tiny hairs sought out crucial nutrients. Together, these processes were what would allow the vines to survive during the coming winter. Without that critical four- to six-week period between harvest and the first frost, the vines would freeze and die.

  He filled up the long evenings reading back through his collection of vineyard journals, sticking bookmarks in pages. And he continued to keep careful notes in the current year’s journal.

  He kept careful watch on the racked wine, periodically withdrawing samples from the tanks and barrels for quality control and blending trials.

  He decided to start making his own compost from vine prunings, grass clippings, and sheep manure.

  * * *

  Jamie moved into a town house in a complex within walking distance to Newberry Elementary School.

  Her colleagues gave her a warm reception. Her dad sold her car for her and she used the money to buy another one.

  And she scrambled to ready her new classroom.

  She still had to pinch herself now and then to make herself believe that she had actually done this. Moved all the way across the country.

  She joined the choir at Friends Church and bought a bed and some living room furniture. In Oregon, her teacher’s salary went much further than it had in Philadelphia.

  Whenever people asked her what had attracted her to the Willamette Valley, she joked that wineaux like her were few and far between in Pennsylvania, but here in the Willamette Valley, she was in her element. She could barely make a move without stepping on one.

  That seemed to satisfy them. So far, nobody had associated her with the young woman who’d worked as a hired hand at the Sweet Spot last summer.

  Aaron Beekman, her mentor, called to tell her he had accepted the department chairmanship in her stead, and to thank her for the complimentary things she’d said about him when she called to tender her resignation.

  She kept herself so busy she hardly had time to miss Hank. But often, late at night, especially when she heard an owl outside her window, she thought of all that could have been.

  On a day of gray skies that sent yellow aspen leaves skittering by her living room window, she opened up her email as she ate her solitary supper.

  Jamie,

  Out here in the Willamette, it looks like fall. It’s quieter now that the tourists are gone, and without Ellie here. The weather’s been dry but getting cooler. The oak out by the pond is turning shades of orange and red.

  Yesterday I rode up to the Peak and something happened that made me think of you. I heard a loud clacking sound. It was two big bull elk in the rut, clashing antlers over a herd of cows. I thought about how much you loved the sky up there, how bright the stars were. The sounds of a summer night in the wilderness. Remember when you played your guitar and the coyotes sang along with us? I’ll never forget it.

  You’re probably pretty busy with the new school year, back East. I hope the new job is everything you thought it would be.

  Guess what? I started taking flying lessons.

  Hope this letter finds you safe and well.

  Hank

  P.S. By the way, I tried calling you again, but it seems you have a new number. It’s clear you’ve moved on. If you ever do feel like talking, I’m here.

  Jamie read his words over and over until she could recite the letter by heart.

  But tempted as she was to write back, it was far better to start fresh, as Hank was going to do early next year, as soon as the sale of the Sweet Spot became final. His decision to resume flying lessons proved that he was already preparing for the move.

  From her very first class, she loved teaching music at Newberry Elementary. How could she have been so arrogant as to think no other students could measure up to the gifted kids back in Philly? Her new pupils were every bit as bright and curious and eager.

  With every week that passed, she grew more certain that teaching and living in a rural setting was what she was meant to do. Following a few false steps, she now knew which coffee shop served her favorite brew and which deli carried the best takeout. . . which streets were one-way only and the shortcut to get onto the highway that ran alongside the town.

  She was alive with the excitement of discovery.

  There was only one drawback. She had no one to share it with.

  She found herself having long conversations with Hank in her head at night. Relating something funny a student had said or done that day. How the chorus was progressing toward the holiday concert. The fact that while he believed she was three thousand miles away, she was only ten miles down the road.

  Maybe it was sheer loneliness, or maybe the glass of pinot she’d had with supper, but one night she began spontaneously tapping out a letter.

  Dearest Hank,

  I miss you like crazy. Every morning, before I even open my eyes, I’m already thinking of you from my dreams. I picture you waking up in your suite at the vineyard, imagine you having your coffee alone in the kitchen, pouring a flight of pinot for thirsty tourists excited to drink Sweet Spot wine on the actual premises.

  I remember your crooked smile, and the way you looked at me with those melting brown eyes. The warmth of your arms the few times you held me, the soft insistence of your lips.

  And then I try to lose myself in my responsibilities, only to return to you again at the end of the day.

  Hank, if you only knew the thoughts of you I take to bed each night. You’re in everything I do. Everyplace I go. Every breath I take.

  Jamie reread her words, hit delete, and began anew.

  Hank,

  I know I haven’t written up until now, but as you know, this school year has entailed a lot of changes. Most of my free time is taken up decorating my new apartment and getting to know my new neighborhood, which, thankfully, is much quieter than the one I used to live in.

  Needless to say I haven’t ridden lately, but whenever I notice my Noconas in my closet I think of Dancer. I’ll bet he likes the cool weather. I can just picture him, kicking up his heels
in the cool morning mist. Feed him an apple or two for me.

  All the best,

  Jamie

  Before she could change her mind, she pressed send.

  Chapter Thirty-one

  October

  Jamie’s letter resulted in a flurry of return correspondence. All of Hank’s letters were platonic in tone. And he was careful to skirt the one, glaring issue that had always come between them. He talked about the people they knew, the vineyards, and the animals, as if nothing were amiss. As if he wasn’t making plans to either sell the stock or find another place to keep them, to divest himself of generations’ worth of furnishings and musical instruments and other precious stuff—stuff, like his grandmother’s flowered dishes, or, as she herself had once callously called them, “crap”—that made a house a home.

  It took all Jamie had not to respond immediately and at length to each of them. But if she were to ever get over Hank Friestatt, she couldn’t be his pen pal. It was way too risky for her heart.

  Yet she couldn’t go so far as to delete his emails. Every word was committed to memory, every letter filed in a special folder under his initial.

  Crisp leaves of gold and orange drifted around her shoulders as she walked to and from school, pulling her wheeled backpack behind her.

  She had survived trial by fire in the tough city schools back East and a cross-country move to a rural district that truly valued education. For the first time, she enjoyed the full support of the parents and the administration. Kids came to school ready to learn, and classes were of a reasonable size. She was able to focus more on teaching music, and less on classroom management.

  She was becoming friendly with two other music educators who had formed a band called T-Bone that played classic country ballads and some crossover rock. It was a time-honored way for music teachers to pick up a few extra dollars on the side.