by Mae Wood
I walked into Salsa, Memphis’s only SoCal-Mexican restaurant and was happy to find Carly’s face quickly among the crowd at the bar. At least I thought it was Carly. Without the cap and goggles and with real clothes on, I wasn’t completely sure that the girl with a shock of curly brown hair was her, but she’d texted that she was in a green shirt and had curly hair, so I went for it. “Carly?”
“Oh! Hey!” She set down her margarita and after a quick welcome hug, waved at two women next to her. “Drennan, this is Jill and Greta. Drennan swims in the evenings, so I’m glad to have run into her.” Carly’s Labrador retriever like personality made it hard not to like her. “Jill and Greta do the morning workouts with me.”
“I wish I could haul myself out of bed at five a.m.,” I began, already feeling deficient in the face of the three likely hardcore swimmers.
“Oh, please,” said Greta, waving off the compliment. “I have a preschooler at home. My choice is either to be making toast or be in the pool. Pool wins hands down. Hubby gets our early bird.”
I smiled. Okay, two nice people. “Nice to meet you, Jill.”
“Should we get a table?” she asked, already walking toward the hostess stand in a dour gray business suit. Well, Two Out of Three Ain’t Bad, I sang in my head as our group followed her and were quickly escorted to a table.
“Okay, so they won’t seat you until your entire party is here and I’m starving. I was in meetings all day and only got a handful of Cheez-Its for lunch, so I need calories on board now. Sorry about that, Drennan. So you only swim in the evenings?” Jill asked, shrugging off her jacket and rolling up the sleeves on her conservative blue blouse.
“Yeah, I know the official practice is in the morning, but the coach leaves the workout up all day and we night folks just log in.”
“So, you haven’t seen the morning guy yet?” Her perfectly sculpted eyebrows raised as she sipped her peach margarita. “Gets my butt out of bed.”
I looked at Greta and Carly for answers. “You mean the coach?”
They all shook their heads in unison while Jill mouthed a long “no.”
“You really should come in the mornings. I know we don’t know each other at all,” said Greta, her hands gesturing around the table as her multitude of gold bracelets danced in the light, “and you know I’m married with a kid, but hottie swimmer is my dirty little secret to staying in shape post kiddo. Let’s just say he gives us all lots to think about during distance swims.”
“Guys, let’s not scare the new girl,” said Carly. She turned to me. “There’s a hottie guy who swims Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday mornings. We don’t know his name, but we all know him. He’s ripped, tatted up, and wears Speedos.”
“Classic Speedos,” added Jill. “Not the bike short looking ones, but the honest-to-God Speedos, banana hammocks.”
“You mean the kind I wish Ryan Lochte would wear?”
The three heads around me nodded again and wicked smiles appeared on all of our faces. The long bike shorts type look of the past dozen years was sorely overrated.
“Gotcha. Too bad the wizard didn’t give Lochte even half a brain.” I flagged down the waiter and ordered a bottle of Pinot Gris, realizing I was more deprived for serious girl talk than I thought. Though dates were easy to come by, girls were a bit harder.
“Wine?” I asked Greta before placing a generous glass in front of her.
“So where are you from?” Jill asked.
“California. Napa Valley area.”
“How’d you end up in Memphis?”
“I’m in the wine industry,” I offered.
“That’s so much cooler than being in human resources,” said Greta. “How’d you get into that?”
“I kind of grew up with it. I went to UC Davis, got my Bachelor’s in wine, then I worked for a wine magazine for a bit, and now I’m on the sales end. There was an opportunity in Tennessee to expand the wine market and I now represent a distributor.”
“Okay, so that is a million times cooler than logistics.”
“You work at FedEx?” I asked Jill. Based on her conservative dress, I’d pegged her for an accountant or lawyer.
“Yes, my job is to make sure packages get to where they are going. Don’t ask more. It is as boring as it sounds. So what was UC Davis like? I’ve heard it’s super granola.”
“I’m not sure how granola it really is, but it’s definitely not Memphis. The main way to get around town is by bike and everything is organic, but it’s a normal college. Pretty good frat and sorority scene.”
“Toby and I did the wine tourist thing a couple years ago. He was finishing his palliative care fellowship and got an interview for a position at Sacramento and we turned it into a vacation. He didn’t get the job, but we had a great time,” said Greta. “Brought home a souvenir to last a lifetime.”
I had no clue what Greta was talking about. “Her son, she means her son,” said Carly. “He’s a cutie.”
“So are you married, boyfriend?” asked Jill.
“Oh, no,” I said perhaps a little too forcefully. I’m sure Greta’s kid was cute, but that was years away for me. Like maybe even a decade. “Playing the field. And I’m not here for good. I’m working a temporary assignment with a wine distributor here.”
“Wow. Wine. I’d rather distribute wine than anonymous cardboard boxes,” said Jill.
“Eh. It’s sales,” I said, waving off their interest. “But the important thing is this: Dear friends and wine consumers, I’d like to introduce you to this stunning Pinot Gris from Who the Hell Cares. Retailing around twelve dollars a bottle, and distributed by my kind employer, please ask for it at your favorite dining establishments and wine stores.”
The three women looked at me as silence settled over the table. “Thanks for sitting through my spiel. Now, really, enjoy the dinner because it’s going on my expense account.” I saw the moment when it clicked and smiles filled their blank faces.
“Cheers to Drennan, her expense account, and Who the Hell Cares wine,” called Greta, lifting her glass. “Great name, by the way.”
Jill, Greta, and Carly strong-armed me into agreeing to swim both the medley and free relays with them, and to do the two hundred back as an individual. They swore it was just for fun. I had two weeks to get ready. I didn’t want to embarrass myself in front of a natatorium filled with swimmers.
***
Work was dragging me down. I was getting tired of taking repeat orders for bottles that wholesaled around the ten-dollar mark. Memphis and the Mid-South were great, but the wine scene was pitiful and almost no restaurants saw their wine offerings as anything other than the standard Cab, Merlot, Pinot Noir set for reds and the Chardonnay, Pinot Gris, Sav Blanc for the whites.
Blends were hard to sell. Everyone wanted at least one French and one Californian on their menu. South American was completely eschewed. Oregon felt like a niche player.
But I did my duty, closed sales, pushed for better deals, and learned the restaurant market in Middle America thrived on the nine dollar by the glass model.
“I’m ready to come home,” I told Kenzie. I tossed my ballet flats in a corner and shook out my legs, which were stiff from the drive for sales calls in Little Rock.
“So you got Lickable Man out of your system. How was he?” I was too tired to play our game of one-upping the other’s sexual exploits that began with her confession about her first French kiss fifteen years ago.
“Nah, that didn’t happen. I’m just ready to come home.”
“Now? How about now. Like tomorrow.”
I laughed at her eagerness, whether at having me back because she missed me or because she was ready to have someone run interference with my dad, her excitement at the idea of me being back was barely contained. “Not quite. I met some girls who are also doing masters swimming. I’m doing a relay with them at a meet this weekend.”
Then Kenzie’s laugh filled the line. “Please have someone video that for me. What are you swimming
?”
“Fly.”
“Rough draw.”
I nodded even though she couldn’t see me. “We chatted about our specialties and apparently while the other three swam in college, the only one who swam fly has a year-old kid and swears that she has absolutely no abs right now and cannot dolphin kick to save her life. Lucky girl got backstroke.”
“She’s not lying. I feel like I have no abs and Leo is three. So just the medley relay?”
“We’re also going to do the free relay.”
“You going to do any individual events?”
“I’ve signed up for the one hundred back, but we’ll see. I may scratch.”
“Well, I’m glad you’re meeting people and getting out and not just you hanging out with a nice Burgundy, a vibrator, and your thoughts of Lickable Man.” How my cousin knew my plans for the night was beyond me.
Instead of responding, I set the phone on the counter and pulled out my rabbit, of the wine opening variety, and popped the bottle of Burgundy that Kenzie had predicted I’d be enjoying. The other rabbit was stashed in my bedroom for later.
“Dren, are you okay?”
“Yes. I mean, no. I don’t know.”
“It’s okay. I don’t know a lot of days either. I’m ready for you to come home.”
“I’m ready to come home, too.” I swirled the wine in my glass and looked at the ceiling while my eyes filled with tears. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be crying to you.” While I’d lost my mom, Kenzie had lost both her parents.
“Oh, yes you should. I miss them, too.” After a moment of companionable silence, she continued. “When’s your swim meet again? I’ll come out for that.”
“No. Don’t. It’s not really a thing. And, I don’t want to pull you away from Leo.”
“Ryan can take care of Leo. They can live without me for a weekend.”
“No really. I’m feeling sad. Don’t tell my dad and definitely don’t force him on a plane. I’m just sad. Probably do need to get laid. Never done it on a diving board. Maybe I’ll pick up someone at the meet.” Now trying to distract us from the creeping melancholy and back to our sex talk game.
“And there’s my baby cousin. So proud of you, as always.”
We’d been raised together on the estate, both only daughters of twin sisters, and while Kenzie had assumed the responsible big sister role, I had always been the playful little sister.
“Okay, give my love to Dad and Leo and everyone else. I’m off to soak in the tub.”
“Will do. Enjoy your soak and visit with Bob.”
“Roger. He’s not Bob. He’s Roger, you know—a rabbit for when I need a good rogering.”
“Seriously, pick up someone at the swim meet and call me back about your locker room romp.”
We said our good-byes and I carried the bottle into the bathroom with me, finishing the first glass as the soaking tub filled—the entire reason I’d rented this furnished corporate apartment. I stripped out of my staid black pants and distributor-issued logoed white dress shirt and climbed in, adding a dollop of rose bath oil to scent the steamy room.
As I sank into the warm water, I thought more about my mom and aunt and uncle. It was nearly four years since the little Piper had gone down outside of Half Moon Bay where they were headed for a wine conference at the Ritz-Carlton. My dad had begged off because of a sinus infection that he said would make it too painful to fly.
I thank God every day my dad had a sinus infection. If we’d lost him too, then Kenzie and I would have found ourselves at the helm of our family’s vineyards and winery at the ripe old ages of twenty-three and twenty-seven.
Our German immigrant great-grandpa resurrected an abandoned vineyard after prohibition was repealed, at the same time other wineries were restarting. In a concession to Great-Grandma, who did not like the wine produced from the Cabernet Sauvignon vines that had escaped the root fungus epidemic of the 1920s, he planted a few Petit Verdot, Cab Franc, and Malbec vines. The vines took root and he named the first traditional Bordeaux blend “Drachenfutter,” the German word for a gift given to pacify an unhappy wife. It literally means something like dragon food.
I never met Great-Grandpa and my only memories of Great-Grandma are fuzzy from childhood and of a tiny frail woman who I can no more picture being a dragon than I can picture Kenzie as a wheeling and dealing vintner, but picture it or not, that’s who she is now. She’ll always be the one who took me to my first kegger.
She was six months pregnant with Leo when the plane went down and ended up in the hospital for pre-term labor. Our grandpa had only recently passed away and our mothers had taken control of the winery, which we knew would eventually pass to us.
I’d graduated from college and was home visiting from New York and my work at Food & Wine when I heard my dad wailing uncontrollably. I raced into the living room to find him crumpled in a ball on the floor. I grabbed my cell and called 911, certain he was dying. I gathered him in my arms as best I could while the tears fell from both our faces. Mine from fear and his from inexpressible pain.
Two ambulances pulled up in the big circular drive in front of the three modest farmhouses that sat in the middle of the vineyard. I was confused until one set of EMTs raced into Aunt Shelly and Uncle Dave’s house while another team helped get my dad onto a stretcher. Kenzie and Ryan were using the house for a little babymoon escape from San Francisco, but I had no bandwidth to even wonder what was going on with them. I clambered into the back of the ambulance with my dad who was still incoherent as an EMT monitored his vitals.
At the hospital, both Dad and Kenzie were whisked away and Ryan told me the news that would break my heart forever.
Chapter Seven
Bert
I dove into the pool early Saturday morning. The cold water rushed over my skin, bubbles filling my vision, and I kicked to the surface, making sure to avoid other swimmers during the crowded warm-up session. I was late to the start because while Grady insisted he wanted to come, he lollygagged around the house until I left him there. He’d come on his own if he could.
I pushed the world away and thought about my stroke, how my shoulder would pivot, sending my fingers slicing through the water. I took my first long pull of freestyle and found myself caressing the full length of a very female body. My head shot up out of the water.
Christ. Where did she come from? I’ve basically sexually assaulted someone in the pool. Accidental touches are common in crowded lanes, but I just felt her up from breast to thigh. I planted my feet on the pool floor and began to offer my sincere apologies at the pink-capped woman treading water while staring at me through her clear goggles.
She said nothing until I was done stammering. With a quick “It’s cool, Bert,” she slipped back into her stroke.
She knows me? I know her? Is this one of Grady’s teachers? One of our wait staff? Please say it isn’t one of the moms from Grady’s soccer team. That would be the worst.
I worried about it throughout the warm-up. Preferable to think about bad news than how lush and soft and lean her body was. No way to disguise a hard-on in Speedos.
By the time the whistle blew for warm-up to end, I’d convinced myself it was someone on staff at the restaurant and I was going to get sued for sexual harassment. Excellent way to kill any lingering desire.
I sat in the bleachers next to Grady, greeting him with a smile as I toweled off my hair. I was actually surprised he’d shown up to see me swim considering he was still in pajamas when I’d finally left the house. Maybe he is growing up.
I scanned the crowd for the woman in the pink swim cap and dark patterned suit. I found her hanging out with three other women, getting ready for the mixed medley relay that would open the meet.
Okay, so I’ll be able to figure out what team she’s on by the lane assignment. Oh, fuck. Downtown YMCA. No wonder she knew me. She’s on my team. I couldn’t place her. Those legs don’t stop and though her body was compressed into a tight suit for racing, there was no hi
ding her generous rack. No way I would have missed that at practices.
“So what are you swimming, Dad?”
Grady’s voice pulled me out of my staring. “Uhm, four hundred meter IM, the two hundred back, and the men’s free relay.”
“You’re doing three events?” My Spidey-sense felt a whine coming on.
“Yeah, you don’t have to stay all day. Thanks for coming. I know it’s just for fun, but it’s cool to have you here.” I wrapped my arm around him and found it quickly shrugged off. Clearly, I’d gone too far in my public display of affection for him. I changed the subject. “You miss swimming at all?”
“Sometimes, but not really. Soccer is my sport.”
“You going to play club soccer at college next year?”
“If I can’t walk on, I will. I’d like to play in college like you swam in college, but I know I’m not good enough for a big school like you and Mom want me to go to.”
“Hey, hey. You get to choose. Not me. Not your mom. Although I hope you pick Vandy.”
“I know. So who do you keep looking at? Is that your girlfriend?”
“What?” My eyes snapped back to him. I hadn’t realized I’d been staring at my groping victim, but if Grady didn’t recognize her, then odds were good that she wasn’t a soccer mom or one of his teachers. Some of the worry slipped away. “I don’t have a girlfriend.”
Grady rolled his eyes, signaling our little conversation was over.
The announcer called for the women’s medley relay and I watched mystery woman’s team, trying to be cool for my son. Yes, a grown man trying to be cool for a teenager. High school never quite leaves you.
I flipped to the list of registered swimmers and scanned for women’s names listed for the Downtown Y. Thankfully, the age bracket was also listed, so I quickly narrowed it down to seven names for the A and Bs. She didn’t look older than thirty-five, so she has to be one of them. J. Fowler, D. McCutcheon, J. Godwyn, G. Herzig, C. Fenner, K. David, B. Brownstein. None of the last names jumped out at me. At least she’s not an employee. How the hell does she know me?