by Mae Wood
I let my gaze linger for a smidgen too long and I was busted. His fingers that had curled around the glass relaxed, and with a nod, he started asking me about pricing.
All hope for him to notice me in any way other than as his wine rep disappeared and we chatted about wine and nothing else. I left him with some comp bottles and walked away with a hefty order. Back in my car I dialed my cousin McKenzie to bitch about my latest failed attempt to get Lickable Man’s attention.
“I swear Lickable Man only thinks about his restaurant,” I said as soon as she said hi.
“So, still no luck? How far did you amp it up this time? Try showing up in a lace cat suit? And are you sure he isn’t gay?”
“Not gay. He was checking out my legs when I walked in.” I rested my forehead on the steering wheel. “I don’t get it. The girls brought their A game today and everything. I’m wearing a dress with a neckline that would make a Kardashian blush.”
“Wife, then?”
“No, divorced. His ex is a dentist or orthodontist or something,” I said.
“Please don’t tell me you’ve gone mad and are stalking him.”
“No. Memphis isn’t that big and the food and beverage industry is pretty small.
“You need to get laid. You can’t expect me to believe he is the only hot guy in Memphis.”
“He’s not, but he’s just so lickable,” I said with an exaggerated whine.
“I know, I know. You keep telling me. Surely there are some other lickable men or is it all Elvis impersonators and guys in seersucker suits?”
“Feels like it. Date last week wore madras patchwork pants in an unironic way.” Even though Kenzie couldn’t see me, I made a disgusted face and shivered. “Men in their twenties shouldn’t dress like the rich kid extras from John Hughes movies.”
That earned a snicker. “Want me to visit next weekend? We can go out,” she said.
“No. You don’t need to do that. I’m not desperate.”
“Sweetie, if you aren’t desperate, then I’m not sure that word means what you think it means.”
I breathed and righted myself. Just because I wasn’t going out as much in Memphis as I did in New York, that wasn’t exactly a bad thing. Part of my job as a rep was dinners out. To show my face at restaurants. To build goodwill and put my generous expense account through its paces.
But Kenzie was kinda right. There wasn’t as much to do and since my real life was in New York or Napa and sure as hell wasn’t in Memphis, dating for anything beyond fun wasn’t my plan. I wasn’t looking to force anything. A few dates, dinner and a bottle of wine on my company, maybe some fooling around, but not much more in this whistle-stop in my life.
Before she could inquire about Plaid Pants Man, I redirected her. “Did you and Dad get the requests for proposals out to the new marketing agencies?” I asked.
“Yes. Though your dad still isn’t on board with the branding refresh idea on the blends.”
“Tell him that we need to explore it. While the market is great for our high-end labels, it’s the mid-range that we need to capitalize on. The average bottle of wine retails for under fifteen dollars. There is a huge market segment we’re missing out on,” I said.
I tried to sound confident. I’d worked hard trying to understand the business side of wine. And my time in sales had brought me to understand wine consumers better, but it wasn’t natural to me. It was work, hard work, but for our sake, I needed to step up.
“You tell him. He’s exhausting me,” she said.
“Want to know what’s exhausting? Pretending I understand income statements better than I do. All I can tell is that our latest Drachenfutter release is selling more slowly than before. I think the counterfeits are scaring folks from buying.”
“That is squarely within your domain, since you’re all about the business side. Any progress on finding who’s slapping our labels on plonk?” she asked. Her casual tone rankled me. I didn’t relish my role in the business, but she had her own struggles in coaxing fruit from the earth and transforming it into ambrosia.
“Actual progress, no. But the FBI got involved, because organized crime loves wine and art fraud. But there isn’t much we can do but wait. Jean-Pierre, have you talked with him? I can’t remember. Anyway, he’s French and our lawyer for this—Ryan recommended him—and he totally gets it. Morally outraged over counterfeit wine.”
“He’s morally outraged? It’s our family’s wine. When are you done with Memphis?” she sighed.
“December. The distributor’s fiscal year wraps November and I’m this close to having the biggest year over year sales increase of all of the reps. And, being on the front lines everyday has been a great experience. Like my own little crash course MBA in marketing and sales—”
“You can’t stay there forever and leave me here with Uncle Carl in Yountville. You just can’t.” Kenzie’s frustration spilled over, catching me off guard. She’d never encouraged me to move home from New York after the accident and supported the idea of me spending a year working on the business side.
“I’m not. I’m really coming home. It’s just great exposure—”
“And you want to fuck this guy.”
I bristled. “Uhm, no. Okay, yes.”
“Fine. Fuck him. Then get back to Napa.”
I ended the call and drove to the Y, knowing that the upside of my frustrating call with Kenzie’s outburst would be a killer workout.
It’s one thing to work in the food and beverage industry. It’s another to keep my curvaceous figure reasonably fit while eating out almost every night and drinking like a fish. Occupational hazard.
I hefted my exhausted body onto the pool’s coping and ripped off my clear goggles and pink cap. I looked at the lap counter on my index finger and did some quick math. Three thousand meters. That’s about five glasses of wine. Score.
I filled out the masters swim log and glanced through the next workout, which focused on sprinting rather than endurance. Good. Should be fun.
“Hey,” called a girl who’d been in the lane next to me. “How old are you? Are you an A or a B?”
Weird, but not super weird in Swimland. She wanted to know what age group I was in. “I’m twenty-six, so I’m an A.”
“Great!” she said, pulling herself out of the pool, ripping her goggles off her head, and walking over to me, her purple suit layered with a stretched out and holey blue and red striped one on top. A drag suit at a masters swim practice? This girl is serious if she’s wearing extra layers to make the workout even tougher.
“I’m Carly. I’m an A, too,” she said, shaking off the water but not bothering to grab a towel. “There aren’t many of us As, but there are two other girls who swim in the mornings and we’re swimming in the meet next weekend and were hoping to put together a relay. Either free or medley or maybe both. Just thought it would be fun to do a relay again. I haven’t done a relay since college, so if you can put up with someone being slow off the blocks, then we’d love to have you join us.”
“I haven’t done a relay since high school, so I’m pretty sure you don’t want me,” I said.
“How about the four of us meet up for drinks or dinner and see? Okay, this is sounding weird. I’m sorry. The girls who swim in the morning are super nice and we’re looking for a fourth—”
“That sounds cool,” I said, cutting off her babble. I fished around on the coach’s table for a pen and scrap of paper where I wrote down my cell number and email. “Let me know what you guys come up with. I work some evenings, but generally I’m free after five.”
“Great. I’ll check with Greta and Jill and we’ll set something up. It’s nice to meet you. Wait, I’m sorry. I never asked your name.”
I smiled. “Drennan McCutcheon.”
“Drennan?”
I nodded. “Yeah. My grandma’s maiden name.” We chatted a bit more and I straggled home, exhausted but happy to have made a new friend in Memphis who wasn’t connected to wine and food and sta
tistically wasn’t interested in getting me into bed.
Chapter Five
Bert
“Hey, Grady. You coming home tonight? It’s after seven and you’ve got school tomorrow.”
“Practice went long. Maybe I’ll just stay at Mom’s tonight.”
Ever since he got his car, my son didn’t stick to the custody schedule. He set his own. Usually that was fine, as he was approaching eighteen, wasn’t a fuck up, and pretty much split his time between me and his mom, but I missed him. Amy may be ready for him to leave our nests for college, but I wasn’t.
“I’d like to see you off the soccer field sometime and you know Monday is my off night.”
“Fine.” I rolled my eyes at my monosyllabic teenager. “I’ll be home in twenty minutes.”
“I’ll have dinner ready, so don’t eat anything.”
“Cool.” Nothing like the promise of food to bring him back to me. “Bye.”
I pulled two rib eyes from the fridge and went outside to start the gas grill and snip off some fresh rosemary sprigs. Back in the kitchen, I tossed some bacon into a pan for a quick vinaigrette to dress the spinach salad I had in mind, got the seasoned steaks on the grill, and pawed through my beer fridge. Then I remembered the opened Cab that Drennan had left me. Rifling through my car, I pulled out the bottle just as Grady’s black Accord pulled into the drive.
“Drinking and driving again, Dad?”
“When you have a teenage son, come talk to me about it,” I answered with a smile. I pulled him into a one-armed hug and he tried to shake free as we walked into the house.
“What’s for dinner?”
“Steak, salad.” I shrugged.
“Sounds fine.”
“Just wait until you’re surviving on cafeteria food next year and then come tell me what I’ve made is just fine,” I teased. “Go, shower. Food will be up in about thirty minutes.”
We settled down at the table, both dressed in the workout gear that functioned as our pajamas, and dug in.
“Mom wants me to go visit Duke and stay overnight in the dorms.”
“You going to do that?”
“You do know Mom, right?” he said around a mouthful of food. “The bread is really good today.”
“Okay, so you’re going to do that.” Amy has always been a force of nature. “And thanks. I used less whole wheat than normal.”
“I’m also thinking about UC Boulder.”
This is out of the blue. “Why?”
“Because I really liked it when we lived in Colorado.”
“You remember Colorado? You were in elementary school. Other than trips to the zoo, I doubt you remember anything.” That garnered a shrug.
“What about Vandy? It’s great.”
He nodded. “No doubt.”
“How about we go to homecoming this year and you can get a better sense of campus life?”
“Only if you promise no guided tour of all the places you and Mom went on dates.”
“That’s a deal.” And easy to keep because Amy and I never really dated. No movie dates, picnics on a lawn, or anything romantic like that. There may have been a Starbucks run at some point, but I wouldn’t swear on it. We moved from being friends to fucking—a big thank you to tequila for that final push.
Grady and I polished off our meals and began tidying the kitchen. I couldn’t help but notice with a smirk that his nonchalant approach to my steak and salad dinner was a façade. His plate had been scraped clean. Not a lettuce leaf to be found.
As I emptied the dishwasher, Grady started talking quietly with his back to me. “So, I can do math and the Internet exists and . . .”
I froze with a fistful of clean forks. Okay, so this is finally happening. Amy and I had talked about it, knew it would eventually come up. I just didn’t expect it now. I put the utensils in the drawer.
“And you want to know about me and your mom?”
He cringed slightly and turned toward me. “Well, not like that, but—”
“I get it. I loved your mom. I still love her. I love you and being your dad is the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”
“Y’all were twenty-two when I was born.”
I nodded and let out a puff of breath. Okay, no choice but to go forward.
“And I have no regrets. We have no regrets.” I hopped up to sit on the counter and gestured for him to get comfortable. He plopped back down at the kitchen table, avoiding eye contact.
“Your mom and I started dating the beginning of our senior year. Yes, you were a surprise, but again, you are the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”
“So am I why you never had a real job?”
I cocked my head. Real job? What is he talking about? “Are you asking why I took care of you?”
He nodded, keeping his gaze focused on the pattern he was tracing with his index finger into the tabletop.
“Well, I had no clue what I was going to do with my classics degree other than go to grad school, so it made the most sense for me to take care of you while she did dental school and her residency. I hope I was good at being a stay at home dad. I know it’s not exactly typical,” I said, my voice filling with doubt.
Maybe he didn’t think I’d been a good dad. Maybe he wished he’d had a more traditional family. Maybe he wanted me to leave the house every day in a suit with a laptop case slung over my shoulder rather than jeans and a beat up canvas messenger bag off to a cooking class. And to be sure, this wasn’t the life I’d envisioned as a teenager, but it was a life I loved. I’d done right by Amy and done my damnedest to be a good dad to Grady. Plus, thanks to family, we hadn’t exactly struggled to put food on the table.
“And I have a real job. Raising you is a real job and I got to go to culinary school and now with the restaurant . . . That’s definitely a real job.”
We lapsed into silence that neither of us quite knew how to break. I reached for my glass and poured myself a generous refill of the lush cab. Once I got through this, I knew I’d have a long phone call with Amy to wade my way through.
“I’m going to talk with you like the grown up you are becoming, okay? You’re still my child, but you’re not a child? Capisce?”
He raised his face to meet my gaze. “Capisce.”
“No one intends to have a baby during college, but your mom got pregnant and we got married. I wasn’t forced into it by your granddad, and Pops and Mimi didn’t make me either. I married your mom because I loved her and I loved you and I wanted us to be a family. So we made it work. Best day of my life was the day you were born. I need you to understand that. You were a surprise. Not a mistake.”
I paused, noting that Grady had returned to tracing imaginary shapes on the tabletop, but I knew he was listening because he stopped and looked at me with his mouth drawn tight. I took another big sip of wine.
“No one once gave me grief about you and your mom coming first in my life.”
In all the ways I’d been blessed in my life, that was one I was most thankful for. My parents’ reaction to their oldest child knocking up a girl his last year in college amazed me. No visible anger. No recriminations. No guilt about me deferring grad school so that Amy could start dental school as planned. She’d be far better able to support us as an orthodontist unless I lucked out and ended up with a tenured position somewhere.
My parents showered us with love and support as Amy and I decided on a path and found our footing. Her dad took a little while longer to come around, which I didn’t get at the time, but now with my own child about to go off to college, I don’t know quite how to make amends for all of the hard feelings and words I’d directed toward him due to my perceived lack of love for Amy and our unexpected life together.
“I know your mom and I have kept you completely out of our finances. I get a nice income from your great-grandpa’s hard work. He owned a good chunk of Union Planters and the bank did really well over the years, but he didn’t want anyone being spoiled, so I still have to work.”
“We’re rich?”
Finally, a sound from him. I laughed. If he thought that we were anything but, I clearly needed to get him out more often. I took another sip of wine. I’m sure he was imagining making it rain like Fat Joe and Lil Wayne, but that wasn’t happening.
“We’re very comfortable. You’ll have to get a real job, which is why college is important and why your mom is pushing you to go to the best you can get into, but you can go to any college you want and not have to worry about paying for it, okay?”
I saw the dollar signs fall from his eyes and said a prayer that he wasn’t going to follow in his aunt’s footsteps.
“Why don’t you date?”
This conversation was getting way off track. I rubbed my hands together. “I date. I just haven’t met anyone special enough to introduce to you and you know I’m really busy with the restaurant.”
“Mom’s dating.”
“I know.”
“I think she might marry this guy.”
“What guy?” I couldn’t help myself from asking as a twinge of jealousy shot through me.
“His name is Mark. He works at Baptist Hospital. He’s not a doctor. He’s some sort of administrator.”
“Is she happy?”
“Think so.”
“Do you worry she’s going to forget you? Because I can tell you straight away that will never happen.”
“No, it’s cool. I’m glad she’s happy. I want her to be happy.”
“You want to talk about the divorce?”
“Hell no.”
I was so relieved that we didn’t have to delve into that topic. I wasn’t sure if I’d ever be ready to have a grown up conversation with Grady about why my marriage fell apart.
Chapter Six
Drennan