Love the Wine You're With

by Kim Gruenenfelder

“Yeah, the thirty-year-old production assistant. But I needed the money and my roommate was production managing, so I took the job.”

  I shrug. Why the confession? “Okay. Hope I was nice.”

  “You were really nice. I cut my hand on something, and you were on a break. But you found a first aid kit, cleaned up the wound, and even put on the Band-Aid.”

  I wait for him to continue. Joe stops making eye contact. He looks off to the traffic light, then down to the ground, then back to me. “Well, anyway, I just wanted you to know that.”

  “Okay. Thanks for telling me,” I say. “Good to know I’m not always a raving bitch.”

  “No. You’re not,” Joe says.

  And for a second there, I think he might lean in to kiss me. Instead, he reiterates, “So Monday. It’s a nondate!”

  “Indeed Monday. Don’t dress up.”

  “Wouldn’t dream of it. Good night.” Joe kisses me on the cheek, gives me a hug, then not only watches me get into my car but waits as I turn it on, back out of my spot, then drive out of the lot.

  Is it bad that there might have been the teeniest, tiniest part of me that wanted to kiss him good-bye?

  Chapter Forty

  JESSIE

  It’s a perfectly beautiful Saturday afternoon, but I still can’t motivate myself to crawl out of bed to make coffee. It’s already one o’clock. I guess I haven’t quite gotten used to my new life as a night owl, because I feel like I’ve wasted the day. But honestly, if your day doesn’t end until four A.M., this is the new normal, right? How do artists, doctors, and insomniacs do it?

  My phone rings that someone is trying to FaceTime me. I grab it, hoping against hope it’s Giovanni, wanting to continue our conversation from last night when we were interrupted by Nat. I know I’m being ridiculous, but I still grab the phone, wishing.

  Kevin.

  Nat’s friend Chris said to wait three days to talk to him if I want him back, so I let the call go.

  I drag myself out of bed, slip on my favorite Tweety bird character slippers, and putter over to my kitchen for coffee. As I fill the water reservoir, my phone beeps a text from (310) and then a number I don’t recognize.

  Your floral arrangement has been delivered.

  What? I didn’t hear a delivery man. I open my front door, and there on my doorstep is a beautiful bouquet of a dozen pastel pink roses. I pick up the arrangement and read the card as I walk back inside.

  These look like some of the roses you’ll find in the springtime in Paris’s Jardin des Tuileries.

  Love,

  Kevin

  Just like Chris predicted, Kevin sent me flowers.

  Hm. Chris said to wait three days, but I rush to my computer and hit Skype.

  Kevin’s face pops up. I forgot how cute he was. “Did you get them?”

  “Yes. And they’re beautiful,” I say, feeling all gooey inside. Then I remember. “But I still just can’t wrap my head around Copenhagen.”

  “I know,” Kevin says. “Which is why I’ve asked them to transfer me to Paris instead.”

  My jaw drops. “What? That’s amazing. How did you manage that?”

  “Believe me, it took a bit of convincing. But I pointed out that while I am fluent in both German and French, I know zero Danish. When that didn’t work, I said I’d take a pay cut—”

  “Kevin, you—”

  “And when that didn’t work, I told them my wife wouldn’t move to Copenhagen, but she’d move to Paris.”

  Paris. I’ve always wanted to visit Paris. I thought about going my junior year, but didn’t. Then thought about it after graduation, then when I was twenty-five, then thirty. But it was never the right time, or I never had the money. And now …

  “You’d move to Paris for me?” I ask, my voice quivering a little.

  “I’d do anything for you,” Kevin answers. “I love you. I want to spend the rest of my life with you. I’m sorry I took so long to figure that out, but I will spend the rest of our lives making that up to you.”

  I take a moment to absorb his answer. “Wow.” And then, “I love you too.”

  Kevin smiles. “Good. So when can you come look at houses?”

  “We can afford a house there?” I ask him, surprised.

  “Well, no. Not if we want to live in the city. But we can afford a Paris apartment. Somewhere near the museums, where you can have a coffee in the middle of the city and people-watch. Then have wine at night at a café and people-watch.”

  Wine. Sipping wine in one of those little Parisian bars with the highly polished black-and-white floors and …

  The bar. For a second there, I totally forgot about our bar.

  “Kevin, what about my bar?”

  “We’ll figure it out,” he assures me. “We can give your friends a great price on your share, or you can just be a silent partner. Whatever you guys decide.”

  I do not see that going over well. I can already hear the fight in my head: Holly prodding me to continue to pursue my dream. Nat trashing Kevin, bringing up all of his sins over the past three years that she only knows about because I told her.

  “It’s going to be complicated,” I warn Kevin.

  “Life’s complicated,” he points out. “But they love you. And I guarantee you that when they come out here as your bridesmaids and see your new place, and see how happy you are with your new life, they’ll be fine.”

  I’m not so sure about that.

  Kevin continues his pitch, “And the minute she finds out you’re pregnant, Holly will inundate us with clothes from Baby Gap.”

  I smile again. Babies. Parisian babies. Wearing Baby Gap. I can take them to museums every week, start them early on art. And the Paris Opera House. (Is that the same thing as the Opéra Bastille? I guess I’ll know once I live there.) And the food. Ohhh … The food. I’ll bet even the baby food is better in Paris.

  “I wonder how quickly we could plan a wedding,” I say wistfully.

  “As quickly as we want. Pick a place, tell people when to come. We can do whatever we want. Where would you like to get married? Paris? London? Venice?”

  That’s right, I could get married wherever I wanted. I mean, granted, it would technically be a destination wedding (which Nat hates; she once referred to a destination wedding as “rich people fuckery”). But I’d be living there, so it would be okay.

  “I think London,” I tell Kevin happily. “And I want to stay at the Goring Hotel. That’s where Duchess Kate stayed the night before she married Prince William.”

  “I’ll make a reservation for the two of us when you come out. We can scope out wedding locations.”

  “Oh, my God, that would be amazing.”

  My phone pings a text.

  “Is that from you?” I ask.

  “Is what from me?” Kevin asks.

  I look at my phone screen and see the text is from Giovanni.

  They just changed the eleventh and twelfth courses. Thought of you. Maybe we should go now.

  Below his text is a picture of a pastel pink background with words on it. I tap the pic and expand it with the flick of my thumb and forefinger. It’s the menu from Gauguin, the restaurant we’ve been talking about. The eleventh course is now a mini cheese plate, with small bites of a Blu del Moncenisio (going to assume that’s a blue cheese), something called Brebirousse D’argental, and a Gouda made in San Francisco. For the twelfth course, a chocolate-avocado mousse.

  I quickly text back.

  Okay, the cheese plate sounds amazing. But why would anyone want to add avocado to a perfectly good chocolate mousse?

  Fine. I’ll eat your mousse, and we can pick up a donut for you on the way home.

  Fair enough. Or you can just trade me your duck breast.

  Get away from my breast, woman!

  “Are you looking up the Goring?” Kevin asks.

  “No,” I tell him. “Sorry. Just texting a friend. I…”

  “Whoaaaa!” Kevin balks.

  “What?” I react. “What�
��s wrong?”

  “Did you see how much the Goring Hotel is?” Kevin exclaims, reading his phone. “And that’s just for one night. Maybe we should rent an Airbnb while we’re in London.”

  “Oh,” I say, disappointed.

  But then again, what was I thinking? I’m not Kate. I’m not marrying a prince. I’m marrying a very nice man who wants to live with me in Paris. Not a bad life. Time to get my head on straight.

  My text pings from Giovanni again. I click on it and see a picture of an ocean view. Underneath the text …

  And the perfect room to stumble back to. Don’t worry—two beds.

  Well, if we do that, we have to do Sunday brunch.

  My very thought!

  Giovanni then texts me a picture of a luscious Sunday brunch that includes lobster tails and champagne.

  So what you’re saying is we’ll need that hotel room for two nights then.

  Ha! Did you see they pair the duck with the Syrah you guys carry?

  “Looking up hotels now,” Kevin says. “There’s an Airbnb flat that has a small kitchen, so you can make your coffee in the morning before we head out. I’m e-mailing you the link.”

  “Can I take a minute to make coffee? I’m starting to get a mild headache.”

  “Sure,” Kevin says, his voice now all business. “In the meantime, I’ll send you some more links of other flats in London.”

  My phone rings La Bohème. “Je vous parle…” I quickly hit the off button on my phone, then click it to vibrate.

  “What was that?” Kevin asks.

  “Nothing. My phone. Not a big deal.”

  Kevin doesn’t seem fazed. “Oh. Okay.”

  Yikes. Good thing I didn’t download Beyoncé’s 50 Shades of Grey version of “Crazy in Love” for Giovanni like I wanted to.

  “Get your coffee,” he tells me cheerfully. “I’m gonna pour myself a scotch. Call me after you check out the links. I’ll also send you a realty Web site for Paris apartments.”

  I can feel my phone start vibrating.

  “Great. Let me call you back in ten,” I tell Kevin.

  “I love you,” Kevin says, sounding all soft and gushy.

  “Me too,” I rush to say. “Let me call you back.”

  I click off Skype, and the moment I know I’m off, I look down at my phone. Giovanni’s call has already gone to voice mail. Instead of checking to hear what he says, I immediately call him back.

  Giovanni answers right away, sounding cheerful. “The chef at Gauguin is about to begin his lecture. They’re doing a live feed if you want to watch; we can text back and forth about his take on blood oranges.”

  “Oh, I can’t,” I say, disappointed. “I have some errands to catch up on before work. E-mails and stuff.”

  “Come on, play hooky,” Giovanni teases. “Don’t you want to know what about the soil makes local asparagus better than shipped asparagus?”

  “Tempting. But I should go.”

  “Okay,” Giovanni says, sounding not only disappointed but also perplexed. “Well, I’m looking forward to Monday. We can talk asparagi then.”

  “Is the plural ‘asparagi’?” I ask him. “Is it Latin?”

  “Honestly I don’t know,” he tells me, still sounding upbeat, but less so. “Just sounded smarter to say ‘asparagi.’”

  I smile into the phone, as though he can see me. We both wait through an odd pause. I give him an upbeat, “Okay, well, looking forward to Monday. I’m gonna go make some coffee and get my stuff done.”

  “You do that,” he says.

  And then neither of us hangs up. “Okay, so I’ll see you Monday,” I repeat.

  “Okay,” Giovanni says.

  “And thanks for the pictures.”

  “No problem.”

  He’s still not hanging up. Then again, neither am I. “Okay, bye,” I say.

  “Bye,” he says.

  And this time he’s off. I look at my cell and sigh. Why did he have to call now? At a moment when everything was perfect?

  I putter over to my kitchen and pop a pod of dark roast into the coffee machine and press Brew. My phone vibrates again. It’s Giovanni again. (Yay!)

  I pick up. “Hey.”

  “I’m sorry,” Giovanni says. “I walked out of the lecture, and I’m in the hall. I know this is none of my business, but did Kevin call you again?”

  I seem to have forgotten how to breathe. “I talked to him today. Yes.”

  “Oh,” Giovanni responds. “So, how did it go?”

  “I told him I couldn’t see myself in Copenhagen,” I announce truthfully.

  A surprised, “Oh … Well, good.”

  I’m going to hate myself for my next sentence, “And then he asked me to move to Paris instead.”

  Another, “Oh.”

  “He requested a transfer. Just for me,” I tell Giovanni.

  “Huh,” Giovanni says. “And what about the bar?”

  The bar. Shit. “Please don’t tell Nat!” I beg. “I haven’t told her yet.”

  “No, I mean what about the bar? You’re not going to let it fold less than a week in are you?”

  I feel like he ripped out my lungs with that question. I mean, I can actually feel my chest constricting. “No, of course not. I would never do that. I’ll just be a silent partner or something.”

  “Huh,” Giovanni says. “Well, it sounds like you’ve got it all figured out.”

  “I never said that,” I joke in a self-deprecating tone.

  “What will you do in Paris?” Giovanni asks me.

  It’s a rather out-of-the blue question, and I don’t know how to answer it. “Spend my days wandering the Louvre and the Musée d’Orsay. Stare for hours at the Monets and the Manets. Go to dinner in the Latin Quarter. Take walks along the Seine. Visit Versailles.”

  “And what would you do the third week?” he asks me, his voice picking up a distinct note of hostility.

  Plan a wedding, I think to myself. But I can’t quite get up the courage to tell him that. “I don’t know. What did you do your third week there?”

  “I went down to Provence and studied wine. Met a lot of the winemakers.”

  “Well, maybe I’ll do that too,” I say defensively.

  “So you’re just going to traipse around Provence? And then what?” he asks.

  Which makes me snap. “Oh, I see. So it’s okay for you to traipse around the world and it’s okay for all of my friends to travel everywhere and have adventures. But I’m just boring, reliable old Jessie. Am I just supposed to stay in the same place forever? Am I also supposed to stay in the same part of my life forever?”

  “That wasn’t what I meant,” Giovanni says quickly.

  I immediately feel bad for barking at him. “I know,” I say much more calmly. “I’m sorry. I wish…” I take a second, trying to figure out how to put it into words.

  I wish I had met you three years ago. I wish you weren’t dating my best friend. I wish life would occasionally not be so much work. That something would just fall into my lap.

  “I wish I knew you better,” I finally say. “Then I might feel more comfortable talking to you about this. But you barely know me, and I don’t want to burden you.”

  “You can burden me,” he promises. “I walked out of the lecture. Seriously, maybe I could help.”

  “You can’t,” I assure him sadly. “And I’ve got a lot to think about, and a lot of stuff to do today. Can I just talk to you later?”

  There’s a pause. Finally, he says, “Of course. Let me know if there’s anything I can do.”

  “Thanks,” I say. “Promise me you won’t tell Nat about our conversation?”

  “What conversation?” he asks.

  “I mean I hate for us to have a secret but…”

  “I’m good with secrets,” he assures me.

  “Thanks.”

  I don’t want to get off with Giovanni but … “I really have to go.”

  “Go. I’m around if you need me.”

  �
��Thanks. Bye.”

  “Bye.”

  When my cup of coffee is ready, I grab it and run back to my computer. I check my e-mail to see that Kevin has sent me several links already. I open the first one, an Airbnb in London that looks …

  Small. And nowhere near the part of the city I want to be in. Sigh.

  Kevin’s Skype rings, and I click on, then look at his next link: an apartment in Paris.

  “Okay, do you see the link for the two-bedroom in the eighth arrondissement?”

  “Looking at it now,” I tell him. The moment the first picture pops up, I sigh in contentment. “Oh, my God, it’s stunning.”

  “Yup. And the kitchen is a nice size for Paris too. Look at the fourth picture.”

  “Oh,” I blurt out, not able to contain my disappointment. “It’s all beige. Even the counters.”

  “Yes. But according to the real estate agent the company recommended, everyone who buys in Paris needs to include money in their budget for renovations. I figure you can redo the kitchen in whatever colors you want.”

  I spend the next five minutes scrolling through Paris apartments and fantasizing about my new life. And I happily decide: Okay, Universe, maybe I was wrong. Maybe my life is easy occasionally. Maybe some days I effortlessly get everything I asked for.

  And the Universe burst out laughing. Because then I get this text:

  I went to all of those places when I was young because I was lost and trying to find my niche in the world. To figure out what I was supposed to do, and where I belonged. I was twenty. I was a baby. I just wanted to find home. I think you are home. You’ve found your calling. Your passion was one of the first things I noticed about you. Paris is stunning, and you should go. Travel is amazing. But there is still no better feeling than at the end of an exciting adventure, when you fall into your own bed.

  And we’re back to our regularly scheduled life. What the hell am I going to do? I type back:

  Thank you. I’ll keep that in mind. And hey, we still need to go to that amazing dinner at Gauguin.

  “Are you happy now?” Kevin asks.

  I give him a big smile and lie, “Absolutely.”

  Chapter Forty-one

  NAT