The Sweet Spot

by Heather Heyford

  Delilah’s eyes grew round, while the man maintained his awkward grip on her.

  Hank closed the distance between them. He yelled to be heard over the music. “Everything okay?”

  The man glared at Hank. “You with her?”

  Delilah yanked her arm free. “Hank and I are friends. Just friends.”

  Amidst the writhing bodies surrounding them, the man stuck out his hand. “Ryan Rowling. Delilah used to be my wife.”

  Delilah has been married and divorced already? They’d only been out of school a few years.

  Still, it was none of Hank’s concern.

  “She didn’t tell you. Hah. I’m not surprised.”

  Apparently, D’s ex thought she was downplaying the extent of her friendship with Hank.

  “Piece of advice? Keep one hand on your wallet.” With that he dropped D’s elbow, grabbed the hand of his wide-eyed dance partner, and melted into the crowd.

  Delilah exited the dance floor in the opposite direction, with Hank hurrying to keep up.

  “It never should have happened,” she said over her shoulder. “It was a big mistake. He begged me, and I finally said yes. But it was never a good fit. Guess he’s still crying sour grapes.”

  “Let’s just go,” said Hank. He’d accompanied Delilah to the benefit as a gesture of appreciation for letting him crash at her town house. But he wasn’t disappointed to leave. Facials would never be his thing, and neither would paying three times the value of a trip, even if it was a tax write-off.

  He found himself wondering what he had missed at the vineyard that day.

  Chapter Seven

  Sunday afternoon, Jamie finally made her eagerly anticipated trip to the tasting room, surprised to find a line to get in the door. Instead of waiting to be served, she headed straight to the front of the line, where she knew she would find the tasting menu. Flight of five wines, it said. Her eye skimmed over the bar. There they were, lined up, labels facing outward.

  She stood back and took stock. Ellie was doing her level best to keep up. It didn’t take a lot of time to serve the customers who bought a glass and carried it to a table or outside. But the ones who bought flights tended to hang at the bar and ask questions. That was the whole point of flights, to educate customers in a pleasant, relaxed atmosphere about the wine and the winery and provide a basis for comparison. Wine epiphany aside, there was bound to be one you liked better than the rest.

  But one whole leg of the L-shaped counter was not being utilized. It seemed like such a waste of space.

  On an impulse, Jamie went behind the bar, grabbed an apron hanging on a hook and slid it over her head.

  Ellie poured with one hand and brushed back a strand of hair that had come out of her braid with the other. She lifted an inquiring brow.

  “Put me in, Coach,” said Jamie.

  With Jamie behind the bar, a new line had already begun to form. An eager hand thrust a ten-dollar bill across the bar at her.

  “You sure?”

  “I’m yours as long as you need me. Just tell me what to do,” she replied.

  “The tasting fee is ten dollars. If you buy two or more bottles you get a refund. Don’t serve anyone who can’t stand up. That’s it in a nutshell. That’s all you need to know.”

  “Got it,” said Jamie, slipping the ten into the cash drawer. Aping Ellie, she slid five glasses from the overhead rack and set up her first round.

  Good thing she’d showed up when she did. The room was soon packed with people happily sipping and sharing their discoveries with their companions.

  Jamie had always loved sharing her love of wine with close friends. Now that circle had expanded.

  And she was no stranger to hard work. In her first year of teaching she had won the award for outstanding achievement by a rookie. Walking up to accept that plaque had meant the world to her. All the extra hours, all the research, all the volunteering she’d done on the student assistant team had paid off.

  True, she and her roommate barely made ends meet. But they were young and energetic and full of ideas. They barely noticed the sacrifice.

  But next school year, everything would be different.

  “Two flights,” said a woman holding out a twenty.

  Jamie took her money and reached up without looking, only to feel nothing where wineglasses should be.

  There was a blast of warm moist air at her side. She turned to see a steaming bin of glasses straight from the dishwasher, which Ellie set on the counter.

  “Perfect timing,” Jamie said. “I needed you, and there you were.”

  “I’m the lucky one,” replied Ellie with toothy grin. “Is there anything you can’t do?”

  Jamie lined up five more glasses.

  Talk about change. Amid the fuss and bustle that went with the end of every school year—spring concerts, grades, the individual education plans required for all gifted students—Jamie hadn’t had time to consider all the challenges her job change would entail. But the weeks that had gone by since school was finally out, plus three thousand miles, were lending perspective.

  As department head she would be in charge of not just her usual four hundred, but all the students in the district. In theory, she would have even greater influence over them. She would have the power to implement her ideas. She’d been given a gift. A blessing. So why was she beginning to have an inkling that she’d be making less of a difference instead of more?

  Change, even good change, is never easy, Jamie. That’s what Dad had told her, to console her when he dropped the bomb about selling the farm.

  She shrugged off her reservations and tried to look at the positives. Now there would be no more stocking bookshelves in the summer to pay for those odds and ends she’d got into the habit of buying to supplement her meager supply budget . . . a pack of clarinet reeds here, a new set of rhythm sticks there.

  But that brought up a new worry. Who would supply those small but essential extras now? For one thing, buying things for the classroom with your own money was against the rules, although most of the teachers Jamie knew didn’t abide by that particular rule. But not every teacher was willing to put her students’ needs ahead of the occasional new top or concert ticket. And others simply weren’t able to. For some, after the basic necessities were paid for, there was nothing left to give.

  Well. Jamie had no control over her replacement’s budget or what she did with it. She had bigger responsibilities now. And the powers-that-be believed in her ability to handle them. Who was she to argue?

  She brushed off the list of concerns that was piling up. Since this truly was the very last summer she wouldn’t have to work, she should make the most of it, not fritter it away worrying about things that she had no control over. And she couldn’t think of a better way than to be standing right where she was, behind the counter of the tasting room of her favorite winery.

  “Next?” she said with a smile to the women at the head of the line.

  Chapter Eight

  Late the next morning, Delilah worked on her laptop at her dining room table while Hank sat stiffly on her straight-backed white couch watching Top Gun. Back home he rarely got the chance to watch aviation movies.

  When the credits started rolling he stretched his arms over his head and leaned back, only to snap his head forward with a sudden grimace and a hand to the pain in his neck. The sofa’s back only came up to his shoulder blades, and wasn’t designed with reclining in mind.

  Delilah looked up. “Movie over?”

  “Yup. Time to get a move on.”

  Before he had finished his sentence she was across the room, curled up next to him, glancing at the device on her wrist that did everything from tell time to graph the stock market. “Your flight’s not for three hours. What’s the hurry? Want another cup of coffee?”

  “No, thanks.”

  “Something to eat? Otherwise you’ll be stuck eating at the airport or worse, airplane food.”

  He patted his stomach. “I’m still
stuffed from last night.”

  She tucked one leg under and turned to face him. “Did you have a good time this weekend?”

  “Great. It would’ve been enough just to have a place to crash. Didn’t expect you to drop everything and plan your whole weekend around me. The trip was worth it for the visit to campus alone.”

  “You liked the tour of the Academy I arranged for you?”

  He scratched his head. He thought he’d made his appreciation clear, but maybe not. “Like I said when we were standing there in the chapel, looking up at that vaulted ceiling. If I’d known there was such a thing as the Air Force Academy when I was a kid, I might even have gone for it.

  “Guess I’m just restless to get back. Not used to having spare time on my hands. Most days, there aren’t enough hours to get everything done that needs doing. That’s the way it is. How it’s always been. Ellie and my parents were always constantly moving. Cooking food, cleaning up food. Planting, irrigating, and pruning the vines. Picking grapes, crushing grapes.”

  “Sounds intense.”

  “There’s a few weeks’ breather in the winter when the grapes rest on their lees. That’s when we traveled. Usually Dad flew us in his own plane. The minute we got back, the racking—transferring wine from one barrel to another to get rid of the sediment before bottling it—began. Then, when spring came, the cycle started all over again.”

  “It was the opposite for me,” said Delilah in a different tone, one that Hank didn’t recognize. This new voice dripped with resentment. “My dad only worked when he felt like it. My mom supported the three of us on her wages from her factory job. Until Dad left for good. Then it was just the two of us.”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.” Her polished image didn’t so much as hint at a background steeped in poverty. “That must’ve been rough.”

  “I swore I was never going to be a single mother saddled with a kid in a dead-end job.” She shuddered. “And mark my words”—she turned to face him head-on—“you won’t find me schlepping a serving cart down the aisle of the plane into middle age, either. Why do you think I started the travel agency? Do you know what it’s like taking orders from demanding, rich women with stacks of gold up to their elbows?”

  “Er—”

  “In fact, I started studying to get my real estate license.

  “Sorry,” she said, at the look Hank gave her. Her laugh sounded forced. “Didn’t mean to . . .”

  “Don’t worry about it.” He twined his fingers loosely as his eyes skimmed the stark white walls. Delilah had been ruthless in cutting anything that hinted of excess. The only objects that had survived the cut were a gourd-shaped, ice-blue bottle containing a single branch that sat on the credenza, a large, abstract line-drawing in a thin gold frame centered between two naked windows, and a porcelain bowl containing five oranges in the center of the dining table.

  The total effect was reminiscent of the glossy, full-page ads from one of those home-goods stores that Ellie was always getting in the mail.

  Apparently Ellie never patronized those stores. Back home, the inn was filled with the kind of comfortable clutter that sparked fond memories of shared experiences. Like the moose head that Dad shot on their hunting trip to Canada in the eighties, mounted above the fireplace. The picture of Hank next to his parents and their plane, the time they went to Alaska. And the geode he’d helped Dad dig out of the creek bank right there on their very own land.

  He checked his watch. “Well . . .” He slapped his thighs. “Think I’ll start getting my gear squared away.”

  He half rose, only to be halted by her touch on his forearm.

  “Hank.”

  He looked down at red fingertips. Is she flirting with me?

  “Wait.”

  He lowered himself back to the couch uneasily, racking his memory of their conversations leading to this visit for some subtle cue he’d missed.

  The sofa cushion shifted as she changed position, facing him where he sat looking straight ahead, arms propped on his knees.

  “You sacrificed a lot, growing up the way you did.”

  “I’m really sorry about the way you were raised,” he replied, springing to his parents’ defense, “but you might be transferring your bad experience onto mine. I actually had it pretty good. Loving family. Three squares a day.” He neither wanted nor deserved anyone’s pity.

  “Still. You just got finished telling me how hard you had to work, even on the weekends and holidays. Think of all there is to do here in Denver. The shopping, the skiing, the snowboarding—don’t even get me started on the restaurant scene. And that’s just for starters. There’s so much more I’ve found since I’ve been living here. So much more I’d be happy to show you, if you wanted.”

  Her enthusiasm was contagious. “I’ll be the first to admit—Denver’s a veritable Disneyland for grown-ups.”

  She threw up her hands in excitement. “I know, right? Why do you think I’ve passed up transfers? I loved this city from the get-go. Of course, anything’s better than the hick town where I grew up. Denver has everything anybody could ever want. Concerts, theater . . .”

  “Just what are you getting at?”

  “Do you ever think of what you would you do if the sky was the limit? Anything. You know. Like—take a cruise around the world?”

  “The one time I went on a cruise I was bored to death.”

  She laughed. “Duly noted. A cruise is out. I know—how about a home in Hawaii? One overlooking the ocean with a lanai?”

  “Rock fever.”

  She sighed, exasperated. “Haven’t you ever thought about doing something more with your life?”

  He opened his palms where they hung between his knees. “What are you getting at? The Sweet Spot isn’t just a job, Delilah. It’s what I was born to do.”

  “Says who—your parents? I’m sorry, Hank, but they’re gone. And I have to believe that if it were between carrying on some old, outdated idea of a ‘legacy’ and being happy, they’d choose the second for you in a heartbeat. This is your future we’re talking about. Your whole life!”

  Of course, there had been times when he had thought of giving up, just walking away. But he’d never uttered that thought aloud. Hearing Delilah say it made his heart race. With excitement or guilt, he didn’t know. He didn’t want to examine it too closely.

  “No. Not really.” It was too much to fathom. Abandoning the vineyards would be going against everything he’d ever been told that he should want.

  “Are you sure?” She gave him a provocative look. “You used to want to be a pilot.”

  “Yeah, and some kids want to be firemen or race-car drivers. Sooner or later, we all have to grow up.” He stood then, her hand sliding off his forearm, pulled out his phone and checked the time yet again. “Now it really is time to get going.”

  With that he jogged up the stairs to the guest room, aware of Delilah watching his every step.

  The summer solstice was almost here. The night he and his dad always used to bury the cow horns in the vineyard. Whether the tradition had any real scientific benefit or was done to appease the harvest gods or whatever, now it was Hank’s job, with Ellie’s help, of course. He would do it in deference to his dad.

  He quickly finished packing his bag, suddenly anxious to get home.

  Chapter Nine

  Hank caught up with Bill when he was feeding the horses not long after daybreak, then returned to the inn to find his grandmother watching the sun come up through the window above the sink.

  “Scrambled eggs on the stove. Didn’t hear you come in last night. How was your trip?”

  “It was good to see the campus again.”

  Ellie cradled the mug she carried over to the table and sat down across from him.

  “It’s a shame you had to leave Denver before you were ready.”

  Hank looked up from his eggs. They didn’t often talk about what had happened. It hurt too bad.

  “It is what it is,” he said, taking a
bite of toast.

  “Sometimes I regret making you come back here, saddling you with all this.”

  “You didn’t make me come back. I came because I wanted to.”

  That wasn’t quite true. But he wouldn’t have his grandmother shouldering any guilt on account of him. “All that rain we got in May’s going to give us a high grape yield,” he said, changing the subject. “You know what that means.”

  “More thinning,” she replied gravely.

  “Hear from Bailey over the weekend?”

  “Not a word.”

  “I was afraid of that. On top of everything else, I can’t be tied up with personnel problems. Been racking my brain trying to think of someone I could hire to take her place. Can’t be guessing if people are going to show up for work or not.”

  “I’m sure something or someone will turn up sooner or later. More milk?”

  “Mm.” He nodded between mouthfuls.

  She poured him some from a gallon jug. “Did you hear about Jamie Martel on the trail Saturday? Bill had her up on Dancer when Crystal got spooked and tore off with that young child. Lucky she was there. Bill’s getting old. He was probably asleep at the wheel.”

  Grandma, calling Bill old? Hank hid his amusement behind a gulp of milk. What she said was true, though. “Bill told me just now when I was out at the barn.”

  “I took the trouble to peek in the dining room at lunch to check on her. Not only was she not eating alone, she was the most popular one in the room. There’s something about that girl.”

  Hank kept his eyes on his plate and tried to keep his voice even. “She said she could ride a little, but you never know. Sometimes people say that and then you find out they don’t even know what side to mount up on. Sounds like she’s the real deal.”

  “That’s nothing. You should have seen her at the tasting room yesterday. We were swamped—”

  Hank looked up from his plate. “I was afraid of that.”

  “Jamie saw how busy I was, and instead of adding to it, she put on an apron and helped me pour.”

  He went back to his eggs. “That so?”