Right All Along

by Heather Heyford

  Alfred and his friends spent their summers covering every inch of the development on their bikes. They built forts out of the mountain of fill displaced by the building of their own houses, keeping a sharp eye out for muskrats after one ran right over Alfred’s foot one winter when he’d stomped through the thin ice of the drainage ditch. Later when they got their licenses, they would drive to Lake Berryessa and dare each other to jump off the bridge.

  He could just imagine Jack at that age, standing along the railing, peering off the bridge into the murky water twenty-five feet below. Jack never would have had the nerve to jump.

  But Harley would have. She was a throwback to simpler times. Whatever Cindy Miller and Tucker Jones’s rumored shortcomings, they had let her be a kid, and Alfred approved wholeheartedly.

  “Are you going to throw me out?”

  “Why start now?” Alfred grinned and looked around at the sea of unruly native plants swaying around their legs. “It’s that time of year. Meadow needs mowed.”

  “I like it like this.”

  He grinned. “You would.”

  In the slanting rays of the late afternoon sun, Harley studied him with her artist’s eye and realized he wasn’t as ancient as she’d once thought. Could be his lines and spots were the result of working outside. Or maybe it was because she was older.

  “It’ll be time to pick soon.”

  Harley noted the instrument in Alfred’s hand, used to measure the amount of sugar in the grapes. You couldn’t grow up in the Willamette Valley and not know about the crush. Even for those not directly involved in the wine grape business, the crush was everything. The grapes were the reason for the new jobs springing up in support of the wine industry, jobs in tasting rooms and bottling plants and restaurants, bringing with them a healthy injection of tax dollars. If not for the crush, the new bypass would never have been built, and Newberry would still be a sleepy, little off-the-grid farm town.

  Deciding when to harvest the grapes was crucial. Harley didn’t fully understand it, but Jack used to say it happened when the sugar, the acid, the pH—and, some said, the phase of the moon—precisely aligned. At that moment, it was like throwing a switch. Night or day, everything else was put on hold. The call would go out for the pickers, fingers crossed that they were waiting on standby for the phone to ring and another vineyard hadn’t beaten you to the punch.

  Alfred tilted his head sideways to look at her sketchbook, lying on the towel. “Still at it, I see. You’ve more than done it justice.”

  “I’ve drawn this house so many times I can do it with my eyes closed. But there’s nothing like drawing from observation. There’s always a fresh angle I didn’t see before.”

  “Tending grapes is a lot like drawing. It’s more than a job. It’s a way of life. Hear you’re up in Seattle now. Ever think about your old stomping grounds?”

  “More than you know. As a matter of fact, I’m back. I just bought the Victorian.”

  Alfred’s eyes widened. “Well I’ll be. The Grimskys weren’t the most social, but they’d wave when they saw me. Heard they were moving to Arizona.”

  “They’re already gone. They took a side trip to Italy, but the point is, they won’t be coming back.”

  “Never even noticed the ‘For Sale’ sign.”

  “It never went on the market. I put my drawings of the house on a set of dishes. That pleased Mrs. Grimsky. So much so that Mr. Grimsky gave me the chance to offer on the house before they signed with a Realtor.”

  “I’ll bet your parents are tickled pink.”

  “Actually, it was all my mom’s idea. She worked for the Grimskys. I have her to thank.”

  “Did you know Jack’s back, too?”

  Harley nodded. “We just ran into each other in town.”

  “Timing’s uncanny.”

  “I didn’t come back because of Jack. I have lots of plans in the works. My fall is going to be as busy as yours,” she said, nodding to his refractometer.

  “That’s right.” He’d been so startled by the irony of Harley and Jack returning at the same time, he’d almost forgotten what he was out there to do. “Time to get to it.” He turned to go. “Good to have you back.”

  But as Alfred walked down the hill, a foreboding crept over him. He wondered if Melinda had heard that Harley was back on Ribbon Ridge.

  Chapter Eleven

  Mother would be waiting for Jack’s report. He dreaded telling her he hadn’t gotten the Grimsky property. He’d been conditioned to back her up at every turn, not go against her wishes.

  Seeing Harley again had dredged up so many memories. He wondered how things would have turned out if he hadn’t gotten Emily Redmond pregnant on their joint family vacation the Easter before graduation.

  When Emily came to him in tears and told him she was late, Jack held her and tried to console her, grateful she couldn’t see the panic in his face as he struggled to come to grips with the consequences of her bolt from the blue. For despite the fact that he’d known her forever, Emily’s body felt foreign in his arms. Yet Emily wouldn’t lie about something like that. In any event, a man took responsibility for his mistakes.

  “What about college?” Emily cried. She was undecided as to what she wanted to do with her life, but he’d been accepted into Portland State. Mother thought he should study business, if only to have the sheepskin to show for it. He gazed blindly over Emily’s shoulder. “It’s a given that one day I’ll take over the winery. I don’t need college for that. And soon,” he gulped, “you’re going to be a mother.”

  He went to Emily’s parents and asked for her hand, as if it were understood that marriage had always been in the cards and the only effect of the pregnancy was to move up the date. It was the honorable thing to do. Besides, the fault was at least half his. And if he hadn’t manned up on his own, his mother would have grabbed him by his ear and marched him over to the Redmonds’ house herself.

  The next eight months went by in a haze. Jack embraced the Full Nuptial. Bought life insurance. Accompanied Emily to her prenatal appointments, where they soon discovered they were expecting not just one child, but two.

  In her second trimester, she complained that as soon as she found a comfortable position his snoring woke her up. Her getting up to pee every hour didn’t do much for his sleep either. He started sleeping on the couch, believing it was only temporary.

  When the doctor vetoed sex until after the births, he breathed a secret sigh of relief. He wanted to feel physical attraction for his wife, but there wasn’t a hint of it to be found. And it had nothing to do with the size of her belly. He consoled himself with the thought that maybe, later, they would bond over parenthood.

  But raising twins proved to be no aphrodisiac. That first, grindingly hard year, they alternated night-shift duty so that at least one of them always woke fully rested. The strategy worked best when the off-duty parent could sleep uninterrupted. It only seemed logical that Jack move into one of the guest rooms.

  In time, Jack learned that babies didn’t flip a switch from bawling to be fed or changed a few times a night to sleeping straight through. Instead, it was a herky-jerky process. Only in hindsight did you notice you’d made it to the light at the end of the tunnel. One day, it dawned on him that he was no longer dog-tired. He counted back to the last time the sound of crying had dragged him out of bed and realized the worst just might be over. By then, he had already reverted back to his comfortable, single guy routine of falling asleep sprawled out spread-eagle by himself and not budging until the alarm went off.

  Then Emily started getting migraines, and the gulf between them only widened.

  On the surface, Emily was everything a man could want. Attractive, agreeable, a doting mother.

  What the outside world never saw were Emily’s crushing headaches, her vague sense of malaise that neither he nor the posse of specialists he consulted could figure out how to remedy.

  “My life has no meaning” was her constant refrain.

&
nbsp; Jack came to dread hearing that phrase. “How could you think that? You have everything a woman could want. A husband who’d do anything to make you happy. Healthy children. A life of ease.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Is there some kind of work you want to do? Do it. Do you feel like you missed out by not going to college? Go. There’s nothing holding you back. I’ll be your biggest cheerleader.”

  Emily wasn’t lacking intellect, nor clinically depressed. She simply had no dreams. No hobbies. And with Jack always working and no interests of her own, it was no wonder she felt neglected.

  Without the glue of romantic love to hold them together, they each sought solace elsewhere, Emily with her family and the cave-like darkness of her room, and Jack in his work. And his studies. His mother had urged him to commute to the local college in his spare time.

  Sometimes, when the loneliness threatened to gnaw a hole in his gut, Jack would go for a ride in his truck and think about how different things would be if he had a chance at a do-over. But not often, because it only led to beating himself up yet again. If only he hadn’t given in to an impulse that, looking back, he couldn’t even recall.

  Yet in all that time, he never wished Harley would come back to Newberry. On the contrary. After the initial shock of her leaving, he was glad she was gone. Living in the same town with her . . . being forced to watch her fall in love with someone else . . . that would have been more than he could have borne. Still, he’d taken some secret solace in knowing she was only a three-and-a-half-hour-drive away.

  Then Mother and Alfred started talking about expanding into sauvignon blanc. Mother said moving to the heart of the sauv blanc market would be educational for the girls, expand their horizons. When they finally moved, it felt like Harley was gone from his life forever.

  At the intersection of Valley and Ribbon Ridge Roads, Jack leaned into the windshield, peering up the hill at the Victorian’s asymmetrical shape, the unusual aqua color of the porch ceiling visible from the road below. It was a local treasure, and yet such an integral part of the landscape that he’d long ago stopped noticing it. Now he saw that Harley was right. Without the Victorian standing guard, Ribbon Ridge wouldn’t be the same.

  * * *

  Jack closed the front door to the estate and tossed his jacket across a chair, bracing himself for the confrontation he knew was coming.

  “When are you going to stop flinging your clothing onto the nearest piece of furniture?”

  He looked up to see Mother behind the railing on the second-floor landing, her mouth set in a line of disapproval, and he plowed both hands through his hair.

  He waited with a sinking feeling for her to descend the stairs, knowing that each step was a step closer to his fate.

  “Well?”

  Jack hesitated, his heart thudding against his ribs. His mother was a formidable woman. Rarely had he openly defied her.

  “Tell me. How much?”

  “I didn’t get it.” Adrenaline surged through his veins. His pulse raced.

  “What?”

  “I got outbid.”

  “What do you mean? I told you to do whatever it took, no matter how much it cost.”

  Somehow, he found the courage to face her head-on. “Did you know who the Grimskys’ buyer was?”

  Her eyes flickered around the room in search of something to land on. “Does it matter?”

  That’s when it dawned on him—somehow, she knew it was Harley. “Yes, it matters. It matters a lot.” Righteous anger crept over him. “What is it with you and Harley?”

  She looked him full in the face. “Harley Miller-Jones was an aimless wild child who grew up without a guiding hand. She was always a negative influence on you.”

  “So she’s a little quirky. What else do you have against her?”

  “A little? Hah! Quirky with a capital Q.”

  “Did you really want that land so badly? Or did you just not want Harley to have it?”

  Mother pressed her lips together. But the look in her eyes confirmed that was exactly what she had wanted.

  “Tell me what happened with the house. Is it too late to repair the damage?”

  “I let Harley have it.”

  Mother dropped her hand from the newel post. She slinked toward him. “You what?”

  “I gave her the Victorian.”

  Given what she’d done for him after the parade, it seemed like the right thing to do.

  * * *

  “How have you been?” asked Harley, still craning her neck to see. “I never see you anymore.”

  “I know.” He should say something more, something to let her know he hadn’t forgotten her during their forced separation following the kissing incident, but he had to focus all his concentration on keeping the float on the road, not staring at her small but perfectly shaped breasts.

  “I miss you.” She tore her eyes from the little opening in the windshield to gaze at his face. She licked her lips. “Do you miss me?”

  Feelings he’d been denying rekindled inside Jack. He could smell her strawberry lip-gloss. He swallowed. His pants felt too tight. His shirt was a straitjacket.

  “Do you?” she asked softly, inching closer, ever closer.

  Jack’s breathing grew fast and hard.

  And then, lightly, Harley kissed his cheek.

  Jack turned his head so their mouths met. As he did, he slid his arm around her waist and pulled her body against his damp T-shirt.

  She was so lithe . . . so luscious . . . so willing. A teenage boy’s dream.

  The float edged forward at a snail’s pace. He was used to it now. All he had to do was keep the wheel straight. That was all.

  He pulled her close until he could reach around her back and fondle one of those tempting breasts.

  She was halfway on his lap. Her head fell back onto his shoulder and she let out a moan.

  A crash split their eardrums and their heads snapped forward on their necks, hitting the windshield.

  People were screaming.

  Jack jammed on the brakes, sending Harley to the floor in a heap. The truck lurched and swayed, and he heard cursing from the bed. Then, in slow motion, they began to fall sideways.

  “Hold on!” he yelled to Harley. “We’re tipping over!” As their little world continued to fall, their arms flew out in search of purchase. And then there was an awful crunch of metal and the shattering of glass.

  Among the spectators who’d pulled them from the wreckage was none other than Mother and the bank president.

  “What happened?” asked Mrs. Polanski.

  “It’s all my fault,” said Harley. “I was supposed to be telling Jack where to go, and I wasn’t paying attention.”

  As Harley’s stretcher was being loaded into the ambulance, Jack heard Sylvie Collins yelling, “My leg hurts! Can’t you see that? I’m bleeding!”

  “It doesn’t look serious,” said the EMT. “I’ll get you a Band-Aid.”

  After the parade float incident, Harley’s spontaneous admission of guilt had let Jack save face, and at the same time kept Mother in the bank president’s good graces. All this time, he had let the whole town go on believing that the wreck was her fault.

  Mother’s hand flew to her mouth and she began to pace the foyer, racking her brain. “This is awful. What are we going to do?”

  “Do? Nothing. It’s done. Like I said before, the lot isn’t that big. Besides, Harley said the house is a landmark, and I realized she’s right. It’s been there ever since I can remember. It’d be a shame to tear it down.”

  “And you wonder why I’m not willing to give you greater responsibility.”

  Shame and anger washed over Jack.

  “It’s time!” Alfred stuck his head in the door, his usually placid face transformed with excitement. He held his refractometer high. “The Brix is at twenty-four. I’m calling time to pick.”

  The name Alfred Ricasoli was synonymous with Arabella Cellars. Nobody knew the vineyards better than h
e did. Even their winemaker deferred to Alfred’s opinion.

  “No!” shouted Jack, halting Alfred in midstep. “I’ll call the picking crew.” He snatched his jacket from his mother’s fingertips.

  Rather than taking offense, a surprised grin broke over Alfred’s face.

  “What are you doing?” Mother asked Jack. “You can’t worry about the crush. You just flew halfway around the world. You need to get to bed and get some sleep.”

  But Jack was already scrolling through his list of contacts.

  “Alfred,” said Mother. “Say something.”

  “He’s got a point,” mumbled Alfred, earning him dagger eyes.

  “Jack.” Mother lowered her voice and touched his arm. “You’re exhausted. What with the girls acting out, keeping tabs on both sides of the business . . . Let me pour you a drink. Debora will have dinner on the table soon, and after that you can get a good night’s—”

  But Jack was suddenly tired of being treated like an incompetent child. He jerked his arm away. “I’m a grown man. I think I know when I’m tired.”

  “I’ll spread the word to our people,” said Alfred.

  “Be there as soon as I get everything set up,” said Jack.

  * * *

  Melinda flew after Alfred, glancing over her shoulder to make sure Jack wasn’t following. But he was still inside, on the phone with his picking-crew chief.

  She caught up with him in the lab off the barrel room. “Alfred. There you are.”

  “Calm down. What’s gotten into you?”

  When Don Friestatt was alive, Melinda scarcely acknowledged Alfred’s existence. After Don died, she was totally unequipped to take over the business, but she was bound and determined to learn every detail, with one purpose in mind: so that one day, it would be there for her son. Alfred couldn’t help but respect that. Jack was a good kid, and it was only right that the operation be preserved to pass on to him.

  As no one had been at Arabella Cellars longer than he had, the job of teaching Melinda the ropes fell to him.

  One day, a year or so after Don’s death, when they had their heads together over a spreadsheet, she kissed him.