by Iris Morland
“Oh, sure! I’d love to. I’ll bring my famous Bloody Mary’s.”
“Sounds like a deal. I’ll see you later, then?”
Grace called out her goodbye as Joy left the café, the sun so bright overhead that she had to shade her eyes.
What to do now? She could explore the town some more, but tiredness swamped her limbs at the thought. She desperately wanted to take a nap, but without a bed, that might be more pain than it was worth.
Cake in hand, Joy walked down Main Street, looking in shop windows as she passed. Eventually, she got to the outskirts of town and began walking a well-tread path that she thought would lead to the vineyard. The trees burst with color, emerald green in the sunlight, and she hadn’t seen so much color in one place in what seemed like ages. Chicago was all grays and rust, metropolitan and metallic, but here, it seemed like technology hadn’t even really touched it. They had apparently only recently gotten high-speed Internet, but otherwise, the area felt untouched. Virginal, almost. Joy smiled at the thought. The last place she thought she’d end up would be somewhere virginal in aspect, but her heart calmed simply being here.
If she ever thought this had been a poor decision, being in the midst of such natural beauty put those fears to rest.
Her phone rang, and looking at the number, she saw that it was from a Chicago line. Assuming it was the movers—were they lost a third time?—she picked up. “Hello?”
“Joy?”
She stilled, the voice on the other end one she’d recognize anywhere, but not one she ever wanted to hear again. “Why are you calling me?”
“Because you wouldn’t pick up your phone or text me back. Don’t hang up on me. Please?” Her ex-friend Regina’s voice was pleading. Almost like she was about to cry.
Torn between crying herself or telling Regina to go to hell, Joy said in a tight voice, “What do you want, then?”
“I wanted to make sure you were all right. You up and move to the middle of nowhere and we didn’t know if you’d gotten there or if you were okay. Are you okay?”
Gritting her teeth, Joy continued to walk in a random direction, not even heeding the trees or the birds or the creek bed flowing next to her. Everything was eclipsed by Regina’s voice, reminding her of everything she’d wanted to leave behind. “I’m fine. As fine as I can be after my boyfriend cheats on me with my best friend. So yeah, I’m great.”
Regina sighed. “Look, I know I can’t apologize enough—”
“No, you can’t.”
“But that doesn’t mean I don’t still care about you. Jeremy, too. We want you to be happy.”
Joy laughed, a bitter laugh. Regina wanted her to be happy, after she’d destroyed her life? “You have a lot of nerve. I’m not remotely interested in your condescending hopes that I be happy. You know what would’ve made me happy? My best friend not sleeping with my boyfriend.” She knew the words were harsh, cruel. But she hadn’t spoken to Regina since she’d found out about the affair, and they came spilling out, like a dam breaking. “So spare me your attempts at reconciliation.”
Silence on the other end. Then, “Fine. I won’t try to contact you again.”
“Please don’t.”
“Bye, Joy.”
Joy felt nothing as she turned around, walked back to Main Street. She felt nothing as she climbed the stairs to her apartment, as she set the already melted cake on the kitchen ledge. She felt nothing as she kicked off her shoes and as she climbed into her pile of blankets on the floor.
But the nothingness then filled with something: it cracked, the wound gushing blood once again, and tears flowed in a torrent that she couldn’t stop even if she wanted to.
2
Walking the rows of his family’s vineyard, River’s Bend, Adam felt the world on his shoulders. He passed between the rows, the sun beating down overhead. Where had this warmth and dryness been when they’d needed it? Now, though, it was too late: the amount of buds that should’ve been on the vines was fewer even than last year. Fewer buds meant fewer grapes, and without grapes, little wine could result.
Adam wiped his brow. The humidity was creeping up already, despite it being early morning. It would probably reach close to 100 degrees, as was common in the middle of June. Mosquitoes buzzed about, but he hardly noticed them. He probably should’ve doused himself in bug spray before coming out, but what were a few mosquito bites? He was used to them by now. Any Missouri country boy was used to bugs biting and buzzing and flying about.
At any rate, the bugs weren’t the problem. His sad grape crop was—the extensive rains of March and April had devastated the vines, causing a lot of the new buds to fall off and mildew to wreck havoc on the rest of the crop. What resulted was a sad amount of buds now that would change into hard, green grapes before veraison, or ripening, began in mid-August. If this had only happened this year, it would’ve been difficult, but not impossible. But last year had been a drought, and the year before that had been rainy, and this year had been particularly brutal with all of the rain. The river that flowed just east of Heron’s Landing had almost flooded the town; Adam and his family had had sandbags on hand just in case.
Adam’s head hurt. He didn’t know what to do now. He knew already that the crop would be dismal, and that the vineyard had been hurting for some time. The recession plus climate change had hurt farmers all over the state.
Bending down, he fingered the little buds that had managed to survive the spring. These Norton grapes would eventually become a full-bodied, berry-rich red wine, one of River’s Bend’s signature bottles. People from all over the country—even from across oceans—had visited their vineyard to taste their wines. Adam could remember as a child how he’d looked up to his father, watching him run River’s Bend with precision and insight, taking it to new heights that his grandfather couldn’t even have imagined.
Now Adam was its owner and manager, and his laurels included three years of bad crop and a business that was sinking as surely as a rock thrown into the river. He couldn't exactly control the weather, but that didn’t help his pride one bit. “I was supposed to be even better than my dad and granddad,” he told the buds, which bounced slightly in the morning breeze. “And now look at me: wondering if I can even keep the entire thing open for next year.”
He made his way back to the main building of River’s Bend, which included a renowned restaurant and held wine tastings every weekday. He entered the back entrance, making his way to his office without being seen by either his secretary Kerry O’Brian or his executive chef Jaime Martínez. He didn’t really want to talk about anything at the moment: he preferred to think in peace, figure out solutions to his problems without running to anyone else.
But as luck would have it, Jaime was already there, waiting for him. The man knew Adam way too well, and Adam was tempted to tell his chef and friend to get the hell out. Jaime was striking—that was what Grace had called him, and Adam had to agree, at least inwardly—with dark eyes and medium-brown skin, his hair similarly dark. Amongst the majority white population of Heron’s Landing, he’d stood out like a bright purple grape in a bunch of light green ones, but he’d acclimated well. His parents had immigrated to the States from El Salvador; Jaime had been born shortly after their arrival. He spoke Spanish fluently, although Adam only heard him speak it occasionally, usually to the few Latino workers that came for the yearly harvest. He had a feeling Jaime wanted to avoid outing himself as “other” to the people of Heron’s Landing, which Adam understood but also hated for his friend. Adam knew he was lucky to feel like he always had a place in this sleepy town. He couldn’t imagine arriving here and being seen as some strange foreigner.
Right now, though, he didn’t want to talk to his striking friend, no matter how gorgeous his cheekbones (Grace again) were. “Already have the menu ready for today?” Adam asked casually, sitting down at his desk.
“You act like I don’t know this winery as well as you do. And yeah, it’s ready, and my new sous chef is getting
everything prepared while I talk to the boss.” Jaime sat down in the chair opposite Adam, propping his feet on the desk.
Adam raised an eyebrow. “A new sous chef? I thought you already hired a new sous chef. Or did he quit after you made him cry?”
“I don’t make them cry; they just realize they aren’t up to my standards. Not my fault they’re graduating these losers without even knowing how to butcher an entire cow.”
Adam had a feeling a lot of chefs wouldn’t know what to do with a whole cow, but Jaime had exacting standards. He had to, given his background: people assumed that because he was Latino and his family had immigrated that he was lazy, riding the mythical system of welfare and whatever else non-white people had access to. Jaime was an extremely hard worker, and he’d transformed the restaurant the moment he’d arrived. Adam couldn’t fault him for riding his sous chefs as well.
“So are you here to tell me your newest sous chef is threatening to sue because you’re mean, or do you have something else to tell me?” Adam asked.
“Are you always this pleasant in the morning?”
“Maybe if you’d brought me some coffee before you decided to invade my office, I might be,” Adam replied wryly.
Jaime gave him the bird, but it was done with a smile. “I’m not your kitchen boy, asshole. And I wanted to talk to you about opening up the vineyard for events. Again. You said if the crop was as bad as last year you’d consider it. Or did you conveniently forget that?”
Turning away, Adam turned on his computer, gazing at his vague reflection in the glass of the monitor. Yes, he’d remembered; no, he didn’t want to consider it. It seemed straightforward, he knew—the vineyard needed the business, business meant money, ergo, they should do it—but Jaime didn’t understand that it would change the heartbeat of the vineyard as well. Not to mention, they’d tried doing events a few years ago, and it’d been a disaster all around. Adam shuddered, remembering how the bride had yelled at him, accusing him of ruining her special day.
River’s Bend had always prided itself on not becoming more of an event spot than a vineyard—no brides crying about it being too hot outside, no grooms too drunk to make it down the aisle—and Adam hadn’t seen a reason to change things then and didn’t see a reason to change things now. His granddad and dad hadn’t done weddings and such, so why should he?
Remembering how they’d tried to expand the vineyard into events last go-around made anxiety congeal in his stomach. Four years ago, River’s Bend had needed more revenue, and Adam’s father Carl had still been the de facto manager, with Adam handling much of the accounting and bookkeeping. Carl had decided to try out a few events one summer, telling Adam that the two of them together could more than handle brides getting down the aisle and keeping the grooms from falling into the river.
“You know how much money people spend on weddings these days?” Carl had said. “If we could just get a tiny slice of that, we’d get this place out of the red.”
Adam hadn’t been sure—what did they know about event planning beyond a few wine-tasting classes? Plus, they hardly had time to run the vineyard as it was, let alone weddings. But he’d agreed, hoping that he was just being a butthead—as Grace liked to call him—and that it would turn out to be a great revenue generator.
Unsurprisingly to most everyone except Carl, it had failed. Spectacularly.
Carl didn’t know how to deal with nervous, emotional brides, and his strong suit wasn’t organization or event planning. When the big day arrived, nothing was planned like how the bride had wanted: the chairs were wrong, the aisle runner was wrong, the gazebo was wrong. They’d even made a chocolate cake instead of a red velvet one. It’d had been so disastrous that the bride had burst into tears at her own reception, and had promptly told everyone she knew to never, ever get married at River’s Bend.
“Yeah, I remember,” Adam eventually replied. “You have some grand plan to make that work this time around, or are you just shooting the breeze again? You remember what happened last time. It was a complete disaster, and it lost us money at the end of the day.”
Sighing, Jaime set his feet down onto the floor. “Yeah, I remember. But, look, you know as well as I do that we aren’t going to recoup our losses from last year. We were hit hard by the drought last summer, and now with all of the rain from this spring, the crop is going to be poor. You know it, I know it, everyone and their mom down in town knows it. So we have to find a solution that brings in money. Just because we failed once, doesn’t mean we fail a second time. Make sense?”
“Sure it does. But who’s going to handle all of these events? You? Me?” He scoffed. “Last time it was me, and we know how well that worked. Do I really look like the type of person who wants to talk to demanding brides-to-be, or even worse, their mothers?”
“I’m not saying it would be easy. But there has always been interest in this place hosting events, and it would be a waste to continue to turn away that business just because it wouldn’t be your favorite thing. Plus, most people have forgotten about Becky Harris’s infamous Yelp review.”
Part of Adam had to agree, although he didn’t want to. But even if they started to do weddings here again, they didn’t have the money to hire someone, anyway. “It’s not just that it wouldn’t be my ‘favorite thing.’ I know nothing about event planning. Kerry is already beyond capacity handling restaurant reservations and the wine tastings all week long. Would you add wedding coordination on top of that?”
Jaime made a sound of frustration. “Will you at least consider it?”
“Sure. But that’s not going to change the fact that we have no money to do it.”
The truth was that they could probably finagle a way to hire a new person—at least part-time—but Adam wasn’t going to change River’s Bend like this without a fight. He hadn’t fought hard enough last time, and it’d been a disaster. And even if they did hire someone, who was to say it’d be successful? Then they’d really be in trouble.
Wanting to change the subject, Adam asked, “What’s on the menu for today?”
“Roasted catfish with sweet corn hash on a bed of arugula with the Sauvignon Blanc to accompany it.”
Smiling, Adam couldn’t help but comment, “To think when you started you thought catfish wasn’t worth feeding to a feral cat.”
“It isn’t. But apparently you Americans love it, so I’ve made it work.” Standing, Jaime eyed Adam for a second. “I know you won’t throw away a good opportunity without consideration. Right?”
Adam’s phone rang, and seeing that it was Kerry, he said, “I gotta take this. But I will consider what you’re saying, okay? You haven’t led me in the wrong direction yet.”
Jaime nodded and left Adam to pick up the phone.
“Kerry?”
“Mr. Danvers, we have a visitor who’d like a tour today, if you have time.”
Adam glanced at the clock, and then back at his computer. Technically, he didn’t have the time, but did he really want to be shut up in his office when he could be talking about River’s Bend to someone who was interested in the place?
He didn’t have to give tours—they had other staff who did—but if he could manage it, Adam preferred to be the one who did it. Mostly because he loved showing the place off to people. It was his family’s legacy, and pride filled him each time he explained how they grew the grapes, what was involved in harvesting them, and what types of wine they made. He wasn’t necessarily a chatty man by nature, but give him a subject he enjoyed, and he wouldn’t stop talking about it. Grace liked to tease him about it, but Adam didn’t really mind. He did love talking about River’s Bend, and why shouldn’t he? It was a true jewel here in the heart of Missouri.
Standing up, he snagged his phone and sunglasses as he headed to the front desk. His mom would probably frown at him for not putting on sunscreen, but he was tan enough that he wouldn’t get burned after a few hours in the sun. He wondered who had come to the vineyard today, and a person alone? That was int
eresting. Usually it was couples or families who wanted tours, but occasionally a lone man or woman would show up, too.
As he stepped into the area where the front desk was located, he heard a voice that seemed familiar. He stopped, listened, and then as he rounded the corner, he realized exactly who it was: Joy McGuire, journalist and newcomer who he’d…spoken to at Trudy’s.
Seeing her now, he couldn’t help but marvel at how colorful she was: purple hair with a top that showed a hint of midriff and tiny shorts hugging her ass and hips. She raised her eyebrows when she noticed him, and he had to bite back a groan. He really didn’t want to deal with this right now, and he especially didn’t want to deal with how he traced the lines of her body and wished her top edged higher so he could see more of her creamy skin.
“Oh, Mr. Danvers! Glad you’re here. Have you met Joy? She just moved here,” Kerry said.
Looking straight at Joy, Adam said without a hint of irony, “Yeah, we’ve met.”
3
J oy had needed a project. She had a few clients she still wrote for long-distance, but she wanted to sink her teeth into something here in Heron’s Landing. That was why she’d come, wasn’t it? To get to know a new town and new people? The town wasn’t hustling and moving as quickly as Chicago. In fact, it moved about quickly as an elderly turtle swimming through mud. But that didn’t stop her from looking around for stories.
Drumming her fingers on the arm of her couch—the movers had finally arrived that morning—Joy brainstormed for a few hours. Perhaps she could interview the owner of Trudy’s? Or maybe Mike in the general store downstairs had something worth writing about? She pursed her lips, thinking.
Of course, there was always the vineyard, River’s Bend. It was the jewel of Heron’s Landing, but that seemed cliché. Plus, it was five miles from her apartment, and she really didn’t want to drive that gravel road to get out there. The day had already edged into 100-degree territory: thinking about tromping around the vineyard with the sun beating down did not sound remotely pleasant.