It Starts

by Avery Kirk

  The sun’s contrast to the blue ocean was captivating. The clouds were intricate, almost as if they’d been hand-placed by a brilliant artist. Each cloud was gently marked with peach highlights on the edge. Behind them, the sky was a crisp deep blue that seemed to be fighting with the sun for attention. A bird flew by lazily, and the gentle breeze was constant and hypnotizing.

  I watched the bride and groom with their very small wedding party. The bride had her red hair in a twist and she’d placed large white flowers on one side of the twist. She wore a soft beige dress that picked up the reflection from the sunset in its folds. The dress appeared to be strapless and gathered on her left hip. The pleats from the gather fell softly as they met with her right side. The dress had an unexpected sheer piece that covered her chest with little white flowers, sparse at the top and that then collected artfully in numbers and followed the outline of the woman’s figure down to her hip.

  The opaque part of the dress stopped at her knee and more sheer fabric continued to the floor with a sheer train edged in the same tiny white groupings of flowers. Normally I loved symmetry; I blamed my job. But the floral placement in the sheer areas of the dress was so natural and unbalanced that it looked as if they grew there, just as though they were in a meadow somewhere perfect. Her train waved in the breeze as she held her husband-to-be’s hands. I felt incredibly happy for them, that they would have this to remember.

  I looked over at Kevin. He was also watching and seemed to be taking in the bigger picture. He seemed to be smiling slightly at the grandmother, who was steadied by a man who appeared to be her son. She clutched his arm as they stood off to the side of the couple. The grandmother cried openly and wore a light-green pillbox hat and a pink suit. She dabbed at her eyes with a cross-stitched handkerchief every so often.

  “I met someone,” I leaned and whispered to Kevin, my arms folded.

  He turned to face me, a stunned expression on his face.

  “Spill. Who?” he said, turning toward me.

  I shrugged. “He’s a firefighter. He’s intriguing and super sexy.”

  “OK, don’t spill that much.” He smiled. “Where’d you meet him?”

  “On that job I was telling you about. The one with the small fire.”

  “Oh. What’s his name?”

  “Wren.”

  “His parents are hippies,” Kevin declared, crossing his arms and turning away from me and looking toward the couple.

  I swatted his arm with the back of my hand.

  “What? He’s named after a bird. They’re hippies. It’s almost fact,” he said, trying to keep his voice down.

  “Maybe.” I was preoccupied with the fact that I didn’t realize it was a type of bird.

  “I’m a little concerned,” he said a few seconds later.

  “Why?”

  “You’re telling me you met someone while we’re watching a wedding, so I’m guessing you like him a lot. Why didn’t you tell me before?”

  “Just didn’t think of it, I guess. And please don’t read that much into it.”

  “Mel, I’ve been with you for two days solid, even sleeping in the same room.”

  I shrugged.

  “Are you going out again?”

  “Well, we didn’t really go out on a date the first time. It was a little weird.” I went on to explain my shoeless situation with pajamas on. Kevin was shaking his head.

  “WHAT?” I demanded.

  “I can’t believe you did that.” He paused. “Yes I can. But did you have a bra on?” He whispered the last part hard, turning back toward me.

  I jutted my neck out, with a look of disbelief on my face. “What does it matter? I had a sweatshirt on.”

  “Oh, it matters,” he said, looking back at the wedding. “You didn’t have a sweatshirt on the whole time.”

  “Great.” I rolled my eyes. “Maybe he didn’t notice.”

  “He did.”

  The bride and groom exchanged rings, and we got quiet again, watching. The sun was low enough now that it was only a slice over the horizon. The ceremony finished just before it slipped under the water’s edge.

  We walked away very quietly afterward, feeling that we were privileged to have been able to watch the wedding. A black convertible sat in the parking lot with a couple of young boys decorating what appeared to be the couple’s getaway car. The boys had placed a Just Married sign on the back and were sticking pom poms all over the car. A woman pushing a toddler in a stroller observed them, correcting where they placed the pom poms. The toddler she rocked back and forth in the stroller was eating something out of a plastic bag on her stroller tray.

  I didn’t see it happen. I didn’t even hear it. I saw the woman rocking the stroller holding the toddler’s arms in the air and banging the child’s back with her hand. I looked to my left where Kevin had been walking next to me, and he was gone. He was running to the child.

  He urgently lifted her out of her stroller, spun her around on his forearm so that her little head was in his hand, tilted down toward the ground. He firmly thumped her on her back, and a red grape popped out of her mouth. She cried instantly and he handed her back to the woman, who hugged the little girl, bouncing and soothing her. She mouthed ‘thank you’ to Kevin and moved her hand away from the baby to squeeze Kevin’s hand for a second. I just stood there. I didn’t do anything. I wouldn’t have even known what to do.

  I was quiet on our ride back to the hotel.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “You were incredible back there. I didn’t even know that the little girl was choking,” I said.

  “Thanks. I just got lucky and happened to see. The slapping on the back thing that the mom was doing doesn’t work all the time,” he said.

  “I could tell you exactly what that little girl was wearing. I’m like detail-obsessed or something. She had on pink shorts and a white shirt with dark pink details on the sleeves and collar. She had brown eyes and brown hair.”

  “OK.”

  “Did you notice that?” I asked him.

  “No.”

  “But I didn’t see her choke, and you did,” I said.

  “I’m not sure I understand your point,” Kevin told me, furrowing his brow.

  “Maybe we came here for you to do that. Maybe it’s not me at all. I get too far in the weeds with stuff. You’re so much better at seeing things than I am. We can’t be here for me. Maybe she’s going to be some world leader or doctor or something.”

  “Well, I’m not convinced of that,” he said looking a little uncomfortable. I looked out the window. The sky was now a purple blue.

  “Maybe I didn’t notice what she was wearing because it doesn’t interest me and it interests you,” he offered.

  “Maybe,” I said.

  “But?” He must have heard the hesitation in my voice.

  “Well, what if noticing those types of details isn’t normal? What if I’m crazy?”

  “I always thought that crazy people didn’t know they were crazy. So the question itself puts you in the clear.”

  “I’m serious.”

  “I know. I just think you should relax a bit and try to take a step back. I think you’re trying to over-focus and that never helps to see things clearly. Noticing what a baby girl is wearing doesn’t mean you’re crazy. For me, taking a step back is the best way. We’re having fun, right? Maybe we just focus on that for now.”

  After we returned to the hotel, Kevin went to the lobby to get some more brochures to plan our last full day in California. When he came back, he laid out three brochures on wineries. “This one drives you around in a Jeep! Sweet. Although, I don’t know if wine and Jeep bouncing sounds good to me. Oh, how about this one? It’s really close by. It’s got a tasting room. Perfect!”

  I laughed. This was something. I never pegged us for the wine-tasting types. I didn’t even know what to wear to such a place. Was it fancy? We were from a nautical area where boaters get a pass wearing ultra-casual clothes to fancy restaurant
s. My last clean outfit in my suitcase was jeans and a coral V-neck sweater. Ah, what the hell. They could turn us away, I supposed—but so what.

  “This is a very good idea actually, because I would like to have some drinks to spare me from my thoughts on why we’re here,” I said, my mood lifting.

  “Do you want to just go today? Right now?” he asked quickly, a little mischievousness in his voice. He grabbed the brochure to see the hours and then showed them to me. It was just about five and they closed at 6:30.

  “Really?”

  He nodded. “Why not!? We can do some damage in an hour and a half. It’s just down the road.”

  “That sounds great! Let me just…” I gestured with an open hand to my face so he’d understand what I meant.

  “Sure—go crazy.”

  Twenty minutes later we walked into the winery and began to sample several wines. Kevin was an instant success with our wine server, Gracie. She was all glassy eyed over him and she checked my finger and his several times for a ring. At one point, I set my hand on the counter for a while so she could get a good look at my hand. No ring.

  Before we knew it, the place was closing. Gracie pointed out that they also had a restaurant at the winery with the same wine choices and much longer hours. So we were happy to move our tasting over to the restaurant. Getting some bread in my stomach seemed like a good idea anyway. I stood up and realized that my legs were a bit on the wobbly side.

  Kevin grabbed the back of my head and shook it vigorously, trying to mess with me.

  “Looks like my friend needs something to eat sooner rather than later.”

  “Stoooop,” I said in a baritone, slightly annoyed but laughing while my head was still spinning.

  “Gracie, I very much appreciated your company this evening as well as your recommendations. Everything was wonderful. I need to get my friend some food—we’ve not eaten in several hours—but I think I speak for both of us,” he caught my eyes for a moment, “if I said that we’d be happy for you to join us if you’d like.”

  I nodded at once and tried to smile quickly enough for her to see, although she was deadlocked on his face.

  I was a little surprised since he’d been Lanie-free only for less than two weeks that he was already hitting on someone. He must have liked her because he pulled out his apostrophe trick. The dog. I laughed to myself. He always said that if you wanted to sound smarter, you used different places for your apostrophe. ‘We’ve not’ instead of ‘we haven’t.’ Same basic sentence, but for whatever reason—much fancier sounding.

  She looked down and her face flushed. “I have to…finish up here,” she said, disappointed.

  “Will you be long?” he asked.

  “An hour or two,” she estimated. She sounded a little hesitant. She looked away a couple of times, over toward her co-worker friend, who had a perplexed look on her face as she pretended to dust wine bottles that were resting on a rack covering the entire wall.

  “How about this. We’ll head to the restaurant. We’ll get a table for three. If you’re able to join us, please do. If not, we had a lovely evening just the same.” It had been a while since I heard him in action. Impressive, but a little stuffy for my taste. He flashed her a smile. I rolled my eyes and laughed discreetly as I heard her catch her breath.

  “By the way,” I added abruptly. “We’re just friends. We’re not weirdoes or anything.” I didn’t want her to get any creepy impressions. She smiled widely.

  “Oh, GOOD!” she said with a little too much exuberance. “That’s good,” she echoed quietly—clearly a little embarrassed after her blast of a response.

  Kevin laughed lightly and reached out and touched her upper arm. “Thank you, Gracie. Maybe we’ll see you later then.”

  He turned to walk away, and as I looked back at her to smile, I saw her grab her upper arm as if to check how it must have felt to him. She seemed like a sweet girl. Maybe a bit young for him but still sweet.

  “You like her?” I asked.

  “I do. She’s a nice girl. She’s really awkward, which I love.”

  “Is she? I guess I wasn’t paying much attention.”

  “Yeah, you’re a wine lightweight I think. You were daydreaming for a ton of the time there.”

  “Was I? I hope I wasn’t a drag.”

  “Not at all—I had fun. Now, what do you say to some food?” he asked as he clapped his hands together and rubbed them in expectation.

  “And more wine,” I added.

  “Yeah? You up for more? I don’t want to have to haul your ass back to the hotel.”

  “Please. Bring it.”

  “Don’t call for the dogs if you’re not ready to run, girlie.”

  “Don’t make me say it twice, boy.” He hated to be called ‘boy.’

  “OK, Sheila.” He always called me Sheila when he was trying to embarrass me for being female. It worked. I attempted to push him and I kind of wobbled. So, I hooked my arm around his for stability.

  “Damn shoes,” I mumbled.

  He laughed, not buying my excuse.

  I felt very absentminded and a bit distracted. I chalked it up to my inexperience with wine.

  The restaurant was already decorated for Christmas, even though it was early November. It had kind of a comfy, posh feeling to it. The floor-to-ceiling windows had crescent-shaped tops and heavy, cranberry-colored curtains. At each end of the curtain rods was a bough of evergreen with silver, shiny bulbs.

  In the corner, they had a Christmas tree with gold bulbs and a wine cork garland with white lights. Cranberry-colored bows had been placed all over the tree, and an ivory angel sat on the top.

  The opposite corner showcased a second tree, made entirely out of wine bottles lit from within and giving off a cool green glow. One wall across from the hostess stand was made up entirely of wine bottle bottoms that had been removed and placed on the wall as a kind of tile mosaic.

  We were seated almost immediately, the host bringing us to a table by the fireplace. It didn’t seem cold out to me, but the fireplace was burning some logs. I could hear the crackling. The tables were a rich-colored wood that I couldn’t quite place. Mango maybe. I ran my hands over the top and legs of the table and bent over to look at the underside. The finish was as smooth as silk and impeccably crafted. I decided that if I had my own house and I were a millionaire, it would look like this; it was incredible.

  “So, what aren’t you in the mood for?” Kevin asked me.

  “Hmmmm, no fish, no beef. What don’t you want?”

  “I don’t want chicken or pork,” he said.

  We glanced over the menu, quiet for a few minutes. I spoke first. “OK, if I were you…I’d get the beef Marsala or the veal scaloppini”

  “And if I were you, I’d get the panko-breaded fried chicken breast. You’ll love it,” he said.

  “That sounds great.”

  “I’ll get the veal,” he said.

  “Don’t forget to get it without the capers,” I reminded him. He hated capers.

  “Oh, right. Good call.”

  Our waiter appeared. We ordered dinner and more wine. I vaguely remembered ordering. I was committed to keeping up with Kevin tonight.

  Even though we were actually having a good time, in the back of my mind I kept reminding myself that we were here because of some phone calls and dreams I had. I really felt foolish so far. I guess I wanted to drown that feeling because that was currently my plan. Drinking this way was unlike me, and I knew it. I justified it by telling myself that we were on vacation. A weird, relatively unplanned vacation. I vaguely wondered how far Disneyland was.

  “What’s up, whack job?” Kevin said, interrupting my thoughts.

  “What? Nothing,” I answered, a glob of defensiveness in my tone.

  “You’re a total space cadet today. What’s on your mind?” he asked. “That little girl still?”

  “No, nothing. It’s just weird. I guess I’m preoccupied.”

  “Cut it out.” He raised
his newly poured glass and cleared his throat unnecessarily. “Here’s to the discovery and appreciation of old grape juice in pretty glass bottles.” I laughed and we both drank.

  For the next few minutes, we tried saying ‘Sauvignon’ using many different accents, all the while knowing that we didn’t really know how to say it in our American accents.

  Kevin was awesome at making the best of things. I loved that about him. It was one of his gifts. That, and his ability to make small talk. I was never good at making small talk. If I didn’t have anything to say, I didn’t talk or feel as though I had to.

  “Hey, Mel, remind me to grab a bottle of wine for my parents. My mom would dig on this.”

  I nodded as I finished swallowing a sip. “I like the Chianti better,” I offered. “I think I really like dry wines. I like the ones that suck the saliva right out of my mouth,” I added with a big movement of my hand near my mouth.

  “Nice. Interesting image. Chianti it is. I liked that one too,” he said, laughing.

  I hesitated to bring it up, but I decided to anyway. It might have been selfish of me, but I thought not bringing it up was possibly selfish of me too, so I chanced it.

  “Do you want to talk about with happened with Lanie?” I asked softly. I realized that I should probably be sure that the wine girl, Gracie, wasn’t going to show up. I looked around—no sign of her.

  “We could,” he said, looking down, a little unease in his voice.

  “Do you want to tell me what happened?” I probably had been a bad friend for not asking earlier, but I tried to make it a habit to give people space when they’re upset, unless they ask for help. My mom always told me to do that. She would never give advice unless it was asked of her.

  “Whelp, she didn’t go for the bike shop. I might have overreacted because I was expecting that answer, you know? We got into a fight. Didn’t help that we were both tired. I said some mean stuff, she said some mean stuff. Hard to forget. She’s going back to school and said she wouldn’t have much time anyway, so there it is. We broke up.”