The Lucky One

by Caroline Overington

  ‘She is. She’s the last one left. She’s ten years old, probably. Maybe eleven. One of the ones I took in. Mom takes care of her. She’s not supposed to wander this far up the road.’

  ‘She’s gorgeous.’

  ‘No. She’s loud,’ said Earl. ‘She’s naughty. Always hiding under things, or in things, places where she’s not meant to be. I found her under a wheel arch once. She’s lucky she didn’t get squashed.’

  He closed his door, and drove on while I did my best to keep Queenie’s snout out of my face and claws off my thighs.

  ‘She’s a menace,’ I said, rubbing at the scratch marks she was leaving on my legs.

  ‘I don’t disagree with you. Shut up dog,’ said Earl. ‘We can drop her at the cottage.’

  ‘No, it’s okay. She’s just excited,’ I said, taking a soft ear between two fingers.

  ‘She seems to like you. But I feel like we should drop her at the cottage.’

  ‘Is your dad there?’ I said.

  ‘Probably. He was there when I left ten minutes ago.’

  ‘How’s he doing?’

  Earl shrugged and said: ‘You know.’ But actually, I hardly knew Rex at all, a weird truth since he’d lived in that cottage at the end of the gravel drive for as long as I could remember.

  ‘He’s old and he smokes too much,’ said Earl. ‘He’s coughing all the time, and he’s addicted to cable TV, especially the shopping channel. You won’t believe the stuff that turns up.’

  ‘Okay,’ I said.

  ‘He’s in worse health than your pop.’

  ‘I wouldn’t know,’ I said. ‘I haven’t seen Pop.’

  ‘He didn’t come down this morning?’

  ‘No. Your mom said he might come down this afternoon. She seems worried about him.’

  ‘It’s been stressful for her,’ said Earl. ‘She was living up there in your pavilion and quite liking it and not just because it’s posh! She was keeping a good eye on Owen, doing everything: showers, feeding, toilet. Then your auntie Fiona came back and now Mom’s back with us in the cottage, and she worries. When he goes off he can be a handful. Really rude, and he throws things. And she’s worried about whether Fiona’s coping. And I don’t know how much he even knows anymore. You know, up here,’ he said, tapping the side of his head.

  I let those words sink in a bit, then said: ‘When my mom came to Briar Ridge yesterday, my first thought was, Oh no, Pop’s died. Because I couldn’t figure out why else she’d come and get me. But obviously – thank God! – he’s not dead, so I’m still trying to figure out what we’re doing here. Something’s up, for sure.’

  ‘Something like what?’ said Earl.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘All I can think is, Mom’s got a cunning plan.’

  ‘A cunning plan!’ Earl was laughing. ‘You make her sound like Dr Evil. Although my mom’s been saying the same thing: “Jesalyn’s coming back. Something must be up.”’

  ‘Oh my God, you should have heard the two of them this morning. Back and forth across the kitchen. They’re hilarious. Except it’s not funny. Anyway, do you know why I’m here?’

  ‘No,’ said Earl, solemnly, ‘but if I find out, I hereby swear to tell you.’

  I looked across the cabin. Earl had the palm of one broad and tanned hand firmly against the base of the steering wheel. His elbow was out the window and resting on the door jamb. We both had our windows down, and a strong wind was rushing in. Queenie had settled down, and the open road was ahead.

  We grinned at each other, and in that moment I thought: Well, look at us. Me and Earl, kids who lived together on the same estate, never really all that close, suddenly all grown up.

  Who even cared what our parents were doing, or plotting or fighting about? We were driving a battered old truck on a gorgeous day in central California with nothing but finding beefsteak tomatoes on our minds.

  * * *

  ‘I figure we go to Costco?’

  ‘Paso has a Costco?’ That was new.

  ‘Since about a year ago,’ said Earl. ‘Your aunt Fiona is addicted. She comes here every week.’

  ‘Okay, but I don’t think we’re going to find what Mom wants at Costco,’ I said, as the big red sign loomed into focus. ‘I think she’s looking for things that are more … fresh.’

  ‘Show me your list,’ said Earl. ‘Okay,’ he added, after I’d passed it over and he’d examined it against the steering wheel, ‘I think it’ll be fine. They’ve got a fresh section.’

  ‘They do? But don’t you need membership or something?’

  ‘I’ve got Mom’s card. Let’s give it a go, anyway.’

  We parked the truck in the gargantuan car park and left both front windows open a bit for Queenie. Earl collected a jumbo trolley from the snaking collection, and rode with one boot on the back of it through the automatic doors.

  ‘Wait,’ I said, taking a bacterial wipe from my backpack. ‘Let me clean that handle. Mom says most people don’t wash their hands after they’ve used the bathroom.’

  ‘Ha! You’ve gone all LA!’ said Earl, as he rode the giant trolley past a black-clad security guard and down the first aisle, which was lined with plasma TVs, and then down the second, with beach towels and jumbo sunscreen and the two-packs of diving masks and beach chairs.

  ‘Tell me again what’s on the list?’ he called over his shoulder. ‘Tomatoes? How many?’

  ‘She doesn’t say. Do they have them, like, on the vine? She likes those ones that come on the vine. Also, basil. Not dried. She means fresh. They’re not going to have that, are they? And pasta.’

  ‘Like mac and cheese?’ said Earl, pointing at a shrink-wrapped pallet of maybe fifty boxes of the stuff.

  ‘Not like that! I think she means, you know, gourmet pasta. I don’t know. But don’t get that.’

  We carried on through the store, and I kept looking agog at the plastic kegs filled with goldfish snacks, and other giant products. I realise LA people have a reputation for being a bit … LA. For wanting fresh this and organic that, but some of the things they had – giant cartons of brightly coloured cereal – looked gross to me.

  ‘Are you sure they have a fresh section?’ I said.

  ‘Down the back,’ said Earl, coasting onwards.

  Finally we found it: a small, ultra-cold room full of fresh produce. Earl let me go in, claiming the space was too small for the trolley, but I think it was because he knew how cold they keep it in there. I shivered as I gathered up what I thought might pass muster: a tray of apples – like, thirty of them – and a cardboard carton of tomatoes. A twin-pack clamshell of blueberries and a bag of twenty green bananas.

  I joined Earl for the trolley ride back to the registers. We were standing in the queue, waiting, when Earl pulled a single Twizzler from a pack of three hundred.

  ‘Hey! You going to pay for that?’

  I looked around, thinking: What’s up? The voice of one of the black-clad security guards had come booming across the vast space.

  Embarrassed, Earl took the red stick out of his mouth.

  ‘I’ve got the packet here,’ he said, holding it up. ‘We were going to put it through.’

  ‘You should pay before,’ the guard repeated. ‘You got money this time?’

  Earl fished a five-dollar bill from the front pocket of his jeans.

  ‘I’m good,’ he said, as people looked on.

  ‘You should still pay before you eat it,’ said the guard.

  Earl nodded, compliant.

  I couldn’t work out what was happening and stood, confused, as the girl put our purchases through, while another attendant packed them into an empty box.

  ‘What was wrong with him?’ I said, as we wheeled the trolley, more slowly now that it was fuller, back towards the pickup. ‘He could see we were going to pay.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Earl, shrugging. He manoeuvred the trolley so it stood alongside the pickup and put his key in the driver’s-side door. ‘Let’s forget it. Speaking of whi
ch, you know we forgot gin? They would have sold it by the gallon. We can go back or maybe try the liquor store but I don’t think they’ll be open.’ Yanking on the truck door, he said: ‘Shush, Queenie. Sit down. No. Get back.’

  ‘It’s probably better if I don’t get gin,’ I said. ‘My mom, when she’s with the Alden-Stowes, can drink for America.’

  ‘Understood,’ said Earl. ‘No gin for her. Only for us.’

  * * *

  We were headed back towards Alden Castle, with Queenie well settled and the sun a little higher in the sky when I asked: ‘Do we really have to go straight back?’

  Earl glanced across the cabin. ‘I thought you said your mom was starving,’ he said.

  ‘She’s not starving. She’s just carrying on.’

  ‘I thought you wanted to see your pop?’

  ‘I do. But your mom said he normally takes a nap in the morning. I don’t know. I’m having fun. Don’t you want to drive somewhere?’

  ‘Okay,’ said Earl, carefully. ‘We can do whatever you want. But if you’re up for it, there is something I wouldn’t mind showing you, on your estate.’

  His tone of voice had changed, like what he was proposing was maybe something I wasn’t meant to see.

  ‘Okay,’ I said, warily.

  ‘It’s nothing bad,’ he said. ‘It’s just something I’ve been working on.’

  ‘Okay, so show me.’

  Earl pressed the accelerator slightly harder and we sped past the main gates, then took a short right, and headed north. Like most large properties, the Alden-Stowe Estate had two gates: the main entrance, with the imposing oak-lined drive; and a second gate, opening onto a rougher, country-style road, not of pressed gravel, but loose rocks and sharp stones.

  We went through that gate, and Earl slowed the truck to a near crawl.

  ‘It’s just up here,’ he said, as we jerked along, up and over a small rise, with me clutching the worn strap. Then, there it was. A vineyard. Not a large one. Modest in size, but perfectly constructed, with berms and wires and seedlings, bright green against an otherwise brown landscape, tender and young, amidst the ancient boulders, all set in the shadow of rolling hills.

  I asked: ‘Whose is this?’

  Earl, one hand on the front of his hat, said: ‘It’s mine.’ Proudly, he said it again: ‘It’s mine. Okay, not mine. Technically it’s yours, I suppose. It’s your family’s land. But I planted it.’

  I peered through two clear arcs on the dust-covered windscreen, impressed. The vines were very clearly thriving. The soil looked to be holding moisture. And the biggest miracle of all? There were grapes.

  We got out of the truck, with Earl eager to play tour guide. The soil was clayey and clung to my canvas shoes, making them heavy. He took my hand to help me.

  ‘I’ve been learning about wine,’ he said. ‘There’s a guy in town, he used to work for the Patrick the Llama people, down the road. They sent him to Italy. He knows a lot of stuff.’

  ‘You’re planning on making wine?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I don’t know how yet. I’m going to have to borrow barrels, or get second-hand equipment. There’s some old stuff left from when your pop, or maybe his dad, had a go back in the seventies. Some of it’s still working. But people go for that now. The old oak barrels are hard to find.’

  ‘I didn’t know you knew anything about wine.’

  He looked sheepish. ‘You sort of get a feel for it,’ he said. ‘That guy I mentioned, he helped me get some work at the Patrick the Llama winery last summer. It gets under your skin.’

  I turned to look at him. We were both a little stuck in the clay. Earl’s green eyes were shining in a way I’d never seen anyone’s eyes shining when they talked about the Alden-Stowe Estate.

  ‘You actually love it,’ I said.

  ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Let me show you.’

  We walked into the vineyard, with Earl talking about what he’d planted and about what he’d learnt at Patrick the Llama. It was way more than I needed to know. Like, how they took care with their berries, hand-sorting them to get rid of the smaller fruit; and how they made sure to extract hard raisins and dry leaves; and how they did cold soaking; and how he’d gone up there one morning at 4am to hand-stir the liquid and splash it onto copper sheets.

  ‘People think you plant grapes and you crush them in barrels with your boots on. There’s so much more to it than that,’ he said. ‘You’ve got to think about mouth feel. Aromatics. Sugar load. The slope of where you’re planting, and whether you’re going to get wild turkeys.’

  ‘Are you?’ I said, bewildered.

  ‘I hope not. They can strip your plants of fruit,’ he said, kneeling to lift a perfect handful of dusty grapes. ‘You can get gopher infestations too. But I learnt how to do trapping. And look at these babies.’

  I crouched beside him, watching as his strong hand cradled the fruit. ‘So did Fiona ask you to do this, or …?’

  Earl straightened. ‘Nobody asked me to do it,’ he said, slapping dust from his hands down the front of his jeans. ‘I did this before they got back. I haven’t told them that it’s here. Nobody uses that gate but me.’

  ‘Where did you get the plants?’

  ‘The guy at Patrick, he threw me a bone. Look, I know your family isn’t really into grapes,’ he said, knees cracking as he got back to his feet. ‘But I’ve been looking into it, and I think, you know, if your family invested some money, we could make something of it.’

  ‘You know we don’t have any money?’

  ‘I know. And I don’t either.’

  He rose back up to full height and straightened his hat on his head.

  We strolled along a few rows, with Earl stepping sideways to make some small adjustments to a wire here and there, before heading back across the clinging clay to the truck, where we sat in the front seats, legs hanging out the doors, while we banged the mud off our shoes. The sun had risen higher and the day was warm. I thought about what might be going on in the pavilion – my mom, bickering with his mom; everyone waiting for the rest of the family to arrive from LA – and I said: ‘That was fun. But I still don’t think I’m ready to go back.’

  ‘What do you want to do?’ asked Earl.

  ‘I don’t know. But it’s going to be a long day at the pavilion, with Mom waiting for Fiona. She gets impatient.’

  Earl looked me over. I could feel his eyes lingering on my bikini strap showing under my tank, and he said: ‘I know a place where you can have a swim.’

  ‘Somewhere close by?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘Well, let’s go.’

  I swung round into the truck. My shoes were pretty clear of mud but I kicked them off anyway and put my bare feet up on the dashboard, with Queenie jammed between my chest and my knees. Earl U-turned the truck and we headed off the estate again, through the little-used gate and onto the north-facing road.

  I said: ‘And where are we going?’

  ‘Okay, well, you know how there used to be that old cattle ranch on your back boundary? Some developer came and got permission to build a resort there, but it’s still not open.’

  ‘If it’s not open why are we going there?’

  ‘We’re going because it’s not open.’

  Earl removed his cowboy hat and tossed it into the space behind the driver’s seat. He nestled back, still using just the palm of one hand to steer.

  ‘Okay. And does this place have a name?’

  ‘It’s called Seascape,’ said Earl. ‘See the sign?’

  I looked out the passenger window in time to see the words ‘SEASCAPE: YOU’RE ON THE ROAD TO RELAXATION’ whizzing by.

  ‘But we’re not anywhere near the sea! You can see the sea from up here, but we’re still miles from it.’

  ‘We’re exactly eight miles from the Pacific Ocean,’ said Earl, ‘and that must be good enough for them.’ We drove on, until a smooth fence appeared on the driver’s side of the vehicle. Earl slowed, saying: ‘The boom’s
here. If it’s down, we’ll have to walk.’

  The boom was down, so Earl parked beside the empty gatehouse, while I wiggled my feet back into my sneakers. We left the truck with the windows partly down again, and Queenie’s black nose sticking through the window gap. A few wisps of cloud had formed in the blue sky but it remained warm. We ducked under the boom and began walking along a dead-straight road, lined as far as the eye could see with tall, skinny palm trees.

  ‘Look at these,’ I said, patting one of the trunks. ‘They’re so skinny. The wind could blow them over.’

  ‘I helped plant them,’ said Earl, placing a hand against the trunk. ‘They came up on the back of a truck and everyone was saying they were going to blow over, and why do we need palms, and this is not LA, but look at them. They’ve doubled in height, and it’s only been a year.’

  ‘Yep. I work wherever I can. There’s no work on your estate, and especially not since Tim got back. He can cut up a fallen branch or fix a fence paling as well as I can.’

  ‘Can he really?’

  Earl shrugged.

  ‘No, not really,’ he said.

  I moved away from the tall palm and skipped off down the long road, hands in the back pockets of my torn shorts.

  ‘Where’s this pool?’ I called back.

  ‘It’s coming up,’ he said.

  We continued on, with Earl taking long strides in his hat and boots, and me skipping along until we came upon the main building, which was basically a large house, with a stucco roof and a wrap-around veranda, presumably with guest rooms, as well as a restaurant. Beyond the house was a lagoon-style pool, with a plate-glass fence, and a pebbled surround, with metal outdoor furniture. The pool was tiled in green, mosaic, and it had an arched timber footbridge crossing over, with sunken tea lights along the balustrades, and a swim-up bar.

  ‘Wow, it’s gorgeous,’ I said.

  ‘It’s a virgin pool. Nobody has ever swum in it.’

  Without hesitation, I took the band out of my hair and slipped it over my wrist. I stripped out of my canvas shoes, my shorts and the halter top leaving a puddle of clothes on the pebbled deck. Without so much as testing the water, I grabbed hold of my nose, and bombed off the edge, splashing Earl’s T-shirt.