Midnight at the Wandering Vineyard

by Jamie Raintree

  “Shit. I’m sorry.”

  “No, don’t apologize,” he says, waving it off. “Parental expectations are a heavy thing, even if they’re implicit. Look at me. I’m still stuck in Seattle, a short drive from my parents. Still, essentially, working for my dad.”

  “But the expectations on you are real. The expectations I’ve felt buried under are all my own. I just didn’t realize it.”

  “Why do you think that is?” he asks. When I don’t stop pacing, he reaches out and takes my hand, gently pulling me toward him until I’m standing between his knees. I consciously slow my breath.

  “I just wanted them to see me a certain way, you know? I wanted everyone to see me a certain way.”

  “What way is that?”

  I search for the right word. Who is it I see in my mind’s eye when I picture the best version of myself? Or, at least, the most acceptable version?

  “Capable? Dependable? Worthy,” I say, my voice hitching on the last word. I shake my head at myself. “And here I’ve been so judgmental about Kelly’s choices. Did you know her mom told her to put her in a nursing home and move to LA? All this time she’s been convincing herself that she’s been stuck here when the door was open the whole time. And now I realize I may be doing it on the other side of the country, but I’m still drawing a cage around myself in chalk.”

  “Mallory,” he admonishes. “You are all of those things.”

  “Maybe,” I say. “But I’m the one who has to believe it.”

  I collapse back onto the bed and cover my face with my hands.

  Sam laughs. A full, head-back chuckle.

  “You’re laughing at me?” I whine, but in truth, I’m glad to lighten the air. The pressure has become too much. While I’ve learned that my parents don’t have the expectations I thought they did, they aren’t the only people I have commitments to anymore. There’s Kelly and her grief, my boss, my landlord. If I sign the contract Denise sent me, I’ll be committed to New York for two more years.

  Sam leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “If you erased the lines,” he asks, “what would you do?”

  “I don’t know,” I mumble into my palms. “What is wrong with me?”

  “Hey, at least you’re questioning it. Most people go through life never once asking themselves if the life they’re leading is the one they want.”

  I try to imagine what my life will look like if I continue down this road and I can’t. But when I look for off-ramps, my mental image is just as blurry. I didn’t know it at the time, but when everything fell apart with Kelly and Sam, I stopped listening to that voice inside me that used to lead me from one happy moment to the next without thought of the consequences. The voice of my heart. And because I stopped listening, it stopped speaking.

  “Okay,” Sam says. “I’m going to tell you something and I don’t know how you’re going to take it, but I think you need to hear it.”

  “Okay...”

  I sit up and Sam scoots closer until our knees are touching. His intensity shakes me.

  “Mallory,” he says, “you aren’t like any person I’ve ever met before. You’re brave, and exciting, and you have the purest heart. I didn’t know it when I left, but I know it now.”

  I look away, embarrassed by his compliments. “Yeah, well, that’s the problem.”

  “No,” he says. He places his finger to my chin, turning my face back to his. “That’s the solution. Do you remember that wild, funny, happy...woman?”

  He clears his throat. That summer, he never missed the chance to remind me of how much younger I was. He made me feel like anything but a woman.

  I nod. I do remember her. But she seems so far away—my past as blurry as my future.

  “She’s the one you ask,” he says.

  * * *

  I awaken the next morning to the sputter of a coffeepot as it begins to brew. My eyelids fly open and my gaze darts around the room. Soft light dances across the white comforter that I have pulled up to my chin. Sam emerges from the bathroom, his wet hair dripping on his bare shoulders, soaking through his white undershirt. He wears his slacks but no shoes, and somehow it’s the sight of his bare feet that makes this moment too personal.

  “Morning,” he says.

  “Morning,” I whisper.

  “How did you sleep?” He pours a cup of coffee in the kitchenette.

  “I...don’t know... Where did you sleep?”

  After opening and closing the fridge door, Sam comes back to the bedroom and places the mug in my hand, his fingertips gripping it around the lip. “On the floor,” he says.

  “Oh, God. I’m sorry.”

  “It was better than the chair.”

  “Did I...pass out?” I ask, horrified.

  Sam laughs. “I wouldn’t exactly call it that.”

  I thought back to the night before. I was lying down after Sam shared his little piece of advice, and I wasn’t that drunk. I was, however, overwhelmed by our conversation and haven’t been sleeping well since Shannon died.

  “I wasn’t drunk,” I assure him.

  “It would take more than three-quarters of a bottle to put a vintner’s daughter under the table.”

  “Half,” I correct him.

  “Eh,” he says, his smile teasing.

  I groan and take the first sip of my coffee. It warms me down to my toes. “What time is it?” I ask.

  Sam sits in the chair and pulls his socks on. “Eight.”

  “Shit. I’m supposed to be meeting Kelly.” I climb out from under the covers, ungracefully holding my coffee aloft.

  Sam catches me by the elbows and steadies me, putting us face-to-face once I’m on my feet. The squareness of his jaw makes me want to put my teeth there.

  “Um...thanks,” I say.

  “See you later?”

  I nod and escape before I further embarrass myself, taking my coffee with me.

  An hour later, I stumble into the local thrift store fifteen minutes late and apologetic. Kelly is already on the hunt and doesn’t seem to notice my tardiness but the guilt eats at me anyway. I promised myself I wouldn’t be distracted by Sam.

  “I’m so sorry,” I say, breathless as I approach. “I, uh, drank a little too much last night and had a hard time getting out of bed.”

  It’s the truth, I tell myself. I’ve learned my lesson about lying to Kelly. But I don’t think Kelly would feel the need to hear all the sordid details. Grown woman should have some dignity.

  “Can I pull this off?” she asks me, holding a black Pink Floyd T-shirt to her chest, rainbow emblazoned across her left breast.

  “Um...” I’m not sure if she’s serious so I remain noncommittal. This is the unspoken vow of shopping with girlfriends—wait for them to take the lead.

  “That’s a no,” she says and sticks it back on the rack. “Please tell me you haven’t resorted to drinking alone on a Friday night.”

  I busy myself with shifting through the other T-shirts, contemplating how much to say.

  “No. Actually, I was with Sam.”

  “I want to try this on,” she says in return, pulling a dress off the rack.

  “Oh. Okay.”

  Kelly holds up the dress to Joan, the grumpy, middle-aged woman who owns the store, and nods toward the dressing room. Joan, wearing her permanent frown, waves her in.

  Kelly closes herself into the tiny stall and I crumple onto the stool across from the door to talk to Kelly through the slats in the door.

  “You’re mad,” I conclude.

  There’s a long pause in which I watch Kelly’s feet step out of her jeans, and then the hanger disappears from where it was hooked to the top of the door.

  “I’m not mad,” she says.

  “It’s fine if you are. I know I’m older now. I should know better with him.”

&nb
sp; “I’m just surprised, that’s all.”

  “Yeah,” I say. “You and me both.”

  For some reason, Tyler pops into my head and I wonder if he would be as gracious. There are so many logical reasons to go back to New York and pretend I never ran into Sam again—that I never met him at all—but last night proved that logic escapes me when it comes to Sam.

  “After what he did to you, I don’t know you could trust him again.”

  I sigh and bury my face in my hands. “I don’t,” I mumble.

  “Am I missing something?”

  The door swings open and Kelly stands in the doorway.

  “Oh.”

  I straighten in surprise, taking in the lines of her long legs, revealed in plentitude beneath the hemline of the little black dress she’s wearing. It hugs her like a second skin. I don’t know if this is how she dresses now but I’ve never seen her wear anything so sexy. For as long as I’ve known her, she’s been a jeans and T-shirts girl, like me.

  “Wow,” is all I can manage to say. “It’s...different.”

  “That’s exactly what I was going for,” she says, though her stance is awkward, like she doesn’t know where to put her hands.

  She doesn’t explain, just shuts herself into the dressing room.

  It takes me a moment to recover. When I remember where our conversation left off, I stand and pace in front of her door.

  “I feel like I’m right back where I was before with him,” I say. “I feel like I’m having amnesia or something, forgetting how much he hurt me. I feel like I’m going to make all the same stupid decisions I did before.”

  The door opens, Kelly in her jeans and bra. “That’s a lot of feelings,” she says. I stop in front of her, exasperated with myself for allowing myself to get this worked up over Sam again.

  “Why aren’t you mad at me for even thinking these things?”

  Kelly pulls her shirt over her head and frowns. She leans against the door frame.

  “I understand the way people can keep a hold on your heart. Believe me. But that’s not the point. The point is, what are your expectations this time around? Of him? Of whatever might happen between the two of you?”

  “None,” I say. “I’m going back to New York. Nothing can happen.”

  “Would you want something to happen if it could?”

  “Are you really asking me that?”

  “Why not?”

  “Because what’s the point in even going down that line of thought?”

  Kelly drapes her dress over her arm and pulls me to the stools to sit. I keep waiting for her anger to flare up. The last time Sam was here, she could hardly stand to be in the same room with him. But now, she’s eerily calm, which is more nerve-racking.

  “Because there’s clearly something between you still,” she says. “It was always there. Of course he was interested in you. If he hadn’t been, do you think I would have been so upset? He wouldn’t have dragged you along like he did and it would have fizzled out before the grapes turned yellow.”

  She takes a deep breath, as if fortifying herself for what she will say next. She takes my hand in hers.

  “But you, Mallory, are magnetic. Ever since you first came here, you’ve drawn people to you. Everyone, really. Including me. You don’t even realize how easily life happens for you, because it’s so natural.”

  I can’t quite meet her gaze. I’m not entirely sure if I should feel grateful for the compliment or ashamed of my good fortune. To me, life doesn’t feel easy. There have been many people along the way who have been resentful of traits and skills I don’t realize I have. And in comparison to the struggles Kelly has had to overcome, I have lived a charmed life. What right do I have to want more?

  “You and Sam have that in common,” she adds. When I frown, she laughs. “In a good way. I can see why you’re drawn to each other.”

  I never would have put myself in the same class as Sam but there must be something that has brought him back to me. There must be a reason we’re attracted to each other.

  “If you’re trying to figure out what you really want, how can you do that if you write off possibilities before you’ve given them a chance?”

  “Sam isn’t a real possibility.”

  Kelly raises her eyebrows. “He is if you want him to be. If we can learn anything from my mom’s death, it’s that. The truth is, my mom could have walked out of that house anytime she wanted to. She wasn’t stuck there. She chose to live most of her life within those four walls. And I didn’t realize it, but I’ve been making that same choice. Because that’s all I’ve ever known. But once you step out that door, Mal...” Kelly shakes her head. “The possibilities are endless.”

  I look down at our hands and I’m shaking. There was something about Sam being off-limits, merely by being so far out of my league, that made wanting him safer. Deep down, I knew he would never feel about me the way I felt about him. But the idea of actually having him? I’ve never been more terrified in my life. I pull my hand away and clench it between my thighs to make it stop.

  “I can’t believe you of all people are encouraging this,” I say.

  “A true friend would never hold you back,” she says sadly. “Would never make you feel bad for being who you are, or the journey you have to go on to explore your boundaries.”

  “Are you shrinking me?” I ask. She laughs. It suits her.

  Kelly shrugs and holds her dress up. “I’m saying you shouldn’t be afraid of possibilities.”

  NINETEEN

  THEN

  The day following our first kiss was the first time I began to realize that all those silent mornings after might not be entirely motivated by Sam’s hangovers. It was Saturday and my parents had left for Bakersfield. I waited for Sam on the back porch, reliving the night before and the tingle of his mouth on mine. I watched the guest house door, waiting for him to stumble out sleepy and rumpled. Our coffees grew cold.

  When an hour had passed with no sign of him, I took our mugs back into the kitchen, dumped them in the sink, and refilled them before I ventured out to the guest house. I knocked softly and let myself in, but the bed was empty. The bathroom door was open and I didn’t have to peek inside to know he was gone. The energy in the room was still.

  I walked out to the parking lot, and Sam’s car was still there. Confused, I kept walking. There was only one other place he could be.

  A truck was parked in front of the tasting room. I recognized it as belonging to part of the construction crew. I stood there for a long moment, debating whether or not to go inside. We wouldn’t have the privacy I hoped for so I could assess whether or not it was going to be another week of exile in the office, but I had coffee in my hands and I wanted to see him. I wanted to know the night before hadn’t been a dream.

  Balancing both mugs in one hand, I pulled open the new door—made from reclaimed wood that had been neglected inside the barn for decades now, wrought iron hardware, and hand-forged iron that curled its way through the tempered glass, letting light in to brighten up the room. It swung easily.

  When I entered the room, Sam and the foreman, Gene, both looked over their shoulders. Sam was put together as usual, all signs of the night before erased.

  Gene was used to me popping in and out of their conversations so he gave me nothing more than a small wave before resuming his monologue about chandelier lighting and wiring diagrams.

  I smiled at Sam and held out his coffee. He took it, giving me a terse almost smile, before engrossing himself in conversation again, swiftly closing me off like I wasn’t even there.

  I stood stunned for a moment. It wasn’t as if I’d expected Sam to take me into a romantic embrace and kiss me like in a black-and-white movie, but I thought we’d reached a new level in our friendship. Relationship. Whatever it was. I thought, with his kiss, he’d finally admitted to me that we had
something more than a casual working relationship and playful banter. I thought it had meant something.

  Overwhelmed by my confusion—wanting to be strong, but wanting Sam more—I was frozen, my feet fixed to the new ceramic tiles, pretending to listen to Gene’s every word and hoping Sam would give me a sign—a single look, a touch, his body swaying ever so slightly in my direction. But he gave no indication he was even aware of my presence in the room. I felt like a fool.

  Gene left half an hour later and Sam and I stood in silence for a long time, each of us waiting for the other to speak. Finally, he said, “Listen, I’m sorry if I did or said anything stupid last night. I don’t always remember everything that happens when I drink. It’s kind of embarrassing.”

  A soft chuckle escaped his lips but there was nothing funny about it. The bottom of my stomach dropped out and my heart plummeted into it.

  “Oh,” was all I had the courage to say.

  He bowed a little goodbye and left me swimming in my humiliation and heartache.

  Over the next week, we returned to polite work conversation when we were together, but mostly, we were not together. It took me twice as long to do anything he asked of me because I spent so much time analyzing everything, wondering if I’d somehow misinterpreted that night. I didn’t have much experience with men, but I assumed kissing was pretty straightforward. More than anything, though, I feared losing our late-night conversations, his laugh, the tingling behind my belly button whenever he was near me.

  Kelly pushed to do the next item on our bucket list but I was too distracted to commit to anything so we perused the local thrift stores instead, Kelly insisting that we would need new clothes for college. She loaded me down with jeans and simple print T-shirts I would normally pull on and strut around the store for her approval, but under the harsh dressing room light, everything looked so worn, so plain. Not fitting for the woman who would hold Sam’s attention.

  “Nothing?” Kelly asked when I emerged from the dressing room and piled everything back into her arms. I gave an indifferent shrug.