“But?”
“I just have a weird feeling,” I said.
“I do too, actually,” she said. “It just seems like you fit here . . . Okay, this might be crazy, but would you consider staying? Here at the winery? We couldn’t pay you much. But you can have unlimited wine and access to our garden and stay in our guest cottage that’s back behind the winery. It’s a beautiful space, my favorite on the property, really. You can pour during tastings, but really, I’d love your help getting our marketing in order—events, social media, maybe some ads. Help with the wine club; that’s a big deal for us. Maybe even work with distributors and trade magazines? Local stores. Our website. Oh God, we need so much help!”
I could tell that they really did need help by the frustrated tone of her voice. It was a common enough trope that we had talked about it in one of my marketing classes—small business owners often didn’t know how to handle all of the aspects of running a business. “You do need help,” I said. “And I’m just the person.”
“Yes,” she said. “You are! And really, I should be out traveling, meeting sommeliers, wine store owners. Even calling wine club members. And with William leaving . . . If you could take over some of the day-to-day for me . . . Anyway, it would be marvelous to have you.”
“Can I ask you a question?”
“Of course, anything,” she said.
“I saw a For Rent sign outside. What’s that all about?”
“Well,” Linda said. “Things haven’t been great around here, so we were thinking that it might make sense to rent out the winery, and the house if someone wanted it. And let someone run it who knows more than we do. But maybe if you were here, we wouldn’t have to do that . . .”
I couldn’t believe she was saying exactly what I was hoping she would say. The idea had popped into my mind at lunch and I hadn’t been able to shake it. But for her to be thinking the same crazy thing that I was—it meant something. Like it wasn’t a silly plan that I had just cooked up in my brain, but it was a job. An opportunity.
On the other hand, I had already accepted a job that I had fought tooth and nail for all year. I had lost my friend Tyra over it. I had gotten a signing bonus, put a deposit down on an apartment in Tribeca. I had a man in a hotel about a mile away who wanted to propose to me. The comparison between working at a winery and toiling under the fluorescent lights of Goldman Sachs was pretty much the starkest contrast I could think of.
Who wouldn’t choose the winery?
Well, one person wouldn’t choose it, and that person happened to be the person I was dating. So, that was an issue. We had a plan and I was considering changing it, which was basically his worst nightmare. He didn’t know how to go off script.
“I really want to do this,” I said. “I really, really do. But I need to talk about it with my boyfriend. We were supposed to live together in New York and . . .”
“I understand,” she said, looking gloomy.
“I feel like this was meant to be, though.” I knew it was such an irrational thing to decide. It went against everything I had worked for at school for the past two years; it went against societal expectations that a thirty-year-old woman with a boyfriend who wants to marry her should say yes to him; it went against my own expectations of myself that I would have a wealthy, comfortable life. I knew it was literally a crazy thing to do, and possibly also a mistake. But I just couldn’t stop myself. I felt a compulsion to stay. All of a sudden, I couldn’t imagine myself anywhere else. “I just need to have a conversation first. And I need to finish my finals and graduate next week. So, I’d come back in mid-May. Would that work?”
“It would . . .” I could tell she was being tentative.
“The other thing is, I was going to be making a lot of money at this job. And I’ll probably have to pay back this signing bonus that I got, plus deal with an apartment that I rented. And I have those student loans.” Just saying it all out loud was hurting my heart.
“Would five hundred a week work? Plus room and board. And all the wine you can drink? If you stay, we can talk about equity in the winery.”
“Could it be a thousand a week?” I asked.
“What about seven hundred?” she countered.
“Eight hundred?” I suggested.
“Deal,” she said.
“Great,” I said. “I just need to talk about it with Ethan . . . I’ll come back tomorrow morning and let you know for sure.”
“Okay,” she said. “I hope you say yes.”
“I plan to,” I assured her.
“Oh,” I said as I got up from the bar. “Did I leave my wallet here this morning?”
“In fact you did,” she said, producing my giant pink wallet from under the bar.
“I do have a tendency to misplace things when I’m stressed,” I said.
“Hopefully, you won’t feel stressed here,” she said.
“Hope springs eternal,” I said.
Terrified, but simultaneously energized, I walked back to town with a spring in my step, already making a mental list of all the things I was going to need to do to make this happen: fight with Ethan, quit my job in New York, cancel my flight, return all the ugly business suits I had bought. I had lived in California for only two years, and part of that time I had spent in New York at a summer internship. Before California, I had lived in New York for seven years and in Iowa for twenty-one. I had only just gestated in California; I needed more time. It felt right. Rash, yes. But right. All of a sudden, my future became clear, and in Technicolor. Instead of the gray, slightly boring, generic life of suburbs and taupe couches I’d have with Ethan, I would have a colorful scene, filled with jazz and parties and wine tastings and California afternoons on the beach.
I ran back to town to tell Ethan about my offer. I knew he would disapprove, but by this point, I didn’t care. As I walked, I sent a FaceTime request to my niece, Gillian. She picked up, but she held the phone so she looked upside down. “Hi, Auntie Hannah,” she said. “I got a new bunk bed!”
“That’s cool,” I said.
“And my friend is going to sleep over for my next birthday when I turn twelve on September twentieth.”
“Wow,” I said. “That’s a big birthday, although you should enjoy being eleven for the next few months.” I couldn’t believe that she was currently eleven. The same age I was when my father died. She was so much more innocent. I was jealous, but also so happy for her. Her life was going to be okay.
“I like being eleven, but I can’t wait to be twelve. Where are you?” she asked.
“I’m in Sonoma, California,” I said, and I turned the phone so she could see the street I was walking on.
“It’s pretty,” she said.
“Do you think I should live here?” I asked.
“Yes,” she said.
“Why?” I asked.
“Because you’re like me,” she said. “You like pretty things and places.”
“Good point,” I said. “Say hi to your brother for me.”
“Okay! I have to go have a sleepover now.”
She ended the FaceTime with no ceremony, the way only a little girl on to the next adventure can do.
* * *
—
When I got back to the hotel, I found Ethan lying on the bed, the shades drawn, a sleep mask over his face. His bag was packed. His iPhone was playing the white noise app that he knew annoyed me. I wasn’t sure if he was asleep or not, so I tried to be as quiet as possible. I crept into the room, closed the door as quietly as possible behind me, and crawled into bed. I kissed him on the temple.
“Hi,” I said in my sweetest possible voice.
“Did you find your wallet?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I said.
“You’re staying here, aren’t you?” he asked.
“They asked me to,” I said.
&nb
sp; “You’re ruining your life,” he said.
“I don’t see it that way,” I said.
“How do you see it?” he asked.
“Well, I think about how when I lived in New York, I thought everything was dirty. I hated riding the subway and how it was always smelly. Why go back to that when I could stay here surrounded by beauty?”
“But your life in New York would be way nicer now. You could take cabs.”
“Cabs are gross too,” I said.
“God, you’ve become a snob,” he said.
“I’m not a snob,” I said. “I’d be giving up being an elitist for doing something real. Working here is real. Working in finance is fake. After all, it’s not that cool to work at Goldman anymore.”
“Ugh,” he said. “Not everything is political. This is about your future.”
“This isn’t political,” I said. “And yes, it is about my future.”
“Maybe you should have thought of that before you racked up a bunch of loans in business school. When do you need to tell them?”
“Tomorrow. But I said I wanted to discuss it with you first.”
“But it sounds like you’ve already decided,” he said.
“I just . . . It feels . . .” I tried stroking his shoulder, but he turned away.
“I just feel really sad,” he said. “I had a plan. And now . . .”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I know you like plans.”
“I should have known when you moved in with me after two months that your impulsivity would work against me.”
“I’m not always impulsive,” I said. “I just don’t always map everything out.”
“What you’re doing right now is impulsive,” he said. “Moving in with me was impulsive. Even going to graduate school was impulsive.”
“You have to plan to go to graduate school,” I said.
“But why did you want to go? Did you need to? If you were just going to work in a winery?”
“I’m using the things I’ve learned to help them. It’s entrepreneurship. You should be proud of me. It’s what you do, after all.”
“All of a sudden, I don’t know you at all,” he said. “I’m going back to Berkeley. Why don’t you stay here tonight and think about it and come back tomorrow on the bus?”
“But—”
“Feel what it’s like to be without me.”
“Fine,” I said.
“I think you’ll miss me,” he said.
“I know I will,” I said. “That’s the hardest part.” I got up to go to the bathroom. When I came out, he was gone.
CHAPTER 4
I wasn’t sure how much the hotel room was going to cost if I wasn’t splitting it with Ethan, or, to be honest, letting him put it on the family credit card, which he carried around and used for things that were too expensive for graduate student salaries. I wasn’t sure how I felt about his family or their money, but I did appreciate that credit card. But the problem of letting someone else make the plans for you, even if you trust their plan-making abilities, was that you lost some of the control over what the outcome was.
I was alone for the night at the very least. And my plans were my own. I decided not to wallow. After all, I was in a beautiful place. So I took a shower and put on the dress that I was going to wear to dinner with Ethan. It was a dark violet empire-waist dress with flowy sleeves, solidly in my “faux boho” style that Ethan always mocked me for. I had gained a little bit of weight in graduate school and had shifted my style from the sleeker black and gray dresses I had worn in New York to a more colorful, forgiving, billowy style that also seemed to match the California vibe. Tyra had made fun of me for this bohemian style I had adopted when everyone else in grad school was going the other way—toward business suits. But I loved pretty dresses and there were so many of them in the little shops of Berkeley and Oakland. My New York clothing had always felt like a costume to me—like I was playing the role of Serious Lady Who Goes to the Office. I put on makeup—a little bit of foundation, a pop of bronzer on each cheek, and some mascara—as well as a pair of silver gladiator sandals and went down to the lobby.
Betty was still there behind the desk, and I wondered how long her shift was. If it was legal to have her working for so long. But maybe she was the owner. I lingered around the desk for a minute until she said, “Can I help you?”
“Yeah,” I said, feeling sheepish. “I’m here alone tonight, but I want to go out to dinner. Is there a good place to go? Maybe a place that a local would like rather than a tourist. And . . . I need to be able to walk there.”
“Well,” she said, thinking. “You’ve already been to the Girl and the Fig, so you’ll have to go to La Salette. It’s Portuguese. Sit at the bar and get the cod cakes. You’ll love it.”
“Thanks,” I said and headed out the front door in the direction she pointed me. I walked slowly, taking in the smell and the beauty of the plaza. I walked diagonally across it, stopping to turn around and take a mental 360-degree photo of the place. Even if I never came back here, I wanted to remember the night that I took my life into my own hands. Leaving Iowa was the first time I had taken steps on my own, and here I was again at another turning point. I headed to the restaurant and sat myself at the end of the bar.
The bartender was a woman in a black tank top and black jeans with slim, sculpted arms. Her blond hair was piled on top of her head and she had a tattoo on the back of her neck that read, “In vino veritas.” I smiled at her and ordered a glass of Pinot Noir.
“New in town?” she asked as she poured.
“Trying to figure out if I should move here,” I said.
“Best decision I ever made,” she said.
“Seems like a common consensus,” I said.
“What could be bad?” she said. She put a bowl of olives in front of me. “I grew up in Alaska. I was always cold and covered in blankets and sweaters, or mosquito bites.”
“There are mosquitoes in Alaska?” I asked.
“Millions. In the summer they swarm you. I once had an idea to make a clothing line made from mosquito nets, but I decided to move away instead of pursuing that goal.”
I laughed. “That seems wise.”
“Okay if I just bring you some things I think are delicious?” she asked.
“Perfect,” I said. I wouldn’t have to make decisions and I’d have a great dinner. I was already so happy. I pulled my book from my handbag (I always carry one), sipped my wine, and tried to imagine myself as a resident of this beautiful place. I was all but drawn away into the world of Tana French’s Dublin when I felt a tap on my shoulder. I jumped and turned around, my heart racing. It was William. His face was red and he was wearing running shorts and a sweaty T-shirt, but he looked great nonetheless.
“Fancy meeting you here,” he said. “Hi, Alexis.” He gave a quick hug over the bar to the bartender. I looked away so I wouldn’t know if there was anything between them that would make me feel jealous.
“Hi,” I said. “Are you here for dinner?”
“I was just coming to pick up a check for the wine they bought for a private event . . .” He was a bit out of breath and he looked down at his outfit and then almost seemed to remember what he was doing. “After my run, I mean. Sorry, I’m a little smelly.”
“Oh stop. You look great,” I said, trying not to flirt, but maybe trying a little to flirt. “Do you run a lot?”
“When I can,” he said. “I ran cross-country in high school. It helps me think.”
“I like to run too,” I said.
“We should go together sometime,” he said.
“I think you’d be disappointed at how slow I go,” I said. I could already tell he was way faster than me.
“I don’t mind being a pacer,” he said.
“I’ll think about it,” I said. “But aren’t you moving to New Yor
k?”
“Yes, but not for more than a week,” he said. He looked around at the bustling restaurant. “Listen,” he said. “Why don’t you finish your wine and whatever awesome snacks Alexis brings you, and I’ll go home and change, and then we can meet for a drink at Steiner’s Tavern? We can watch some baseball and I can tell you all about working for my parents.”
I nodded and sipped my wine. “Okay,” I said.
“I’ll meet you there. Don’t be late.” He turned and left the restaurant. He had forgotten the check and also hadn’t told me what time “late” was. I shrugged and reopened my book, trying not to think about how he made my hands shake a little bit.
Alexis came back with a tiny dish of salted cod and the check. “Where’d he go?” she asked.
“He left,” I said.
“Scaring them off?” she said, winking.
“I guess,” I said. I didn’t know what any of it meant, but I was excited to find out.
The food was delicious, the fish soft and garlicky but not overpowering. I spooned bits of it onto freshly baked toasted sourdough bread and savored every bite. Of all the breads I loved, sourdough was at the top of the list. The pepperiness of the Pinot Noir was brought out by the food, and I smiled appreciatively at Alexis.
I glanced back at my book, but I was having trouble concentrating with the conversations going at the bar. I had always been a reader, despite the fact that my parents thought it was a strange habit. My brother, Drew, and I had taken weekly walks together to the Winthrop town library. It was a small library, really just a room at the back of the local post office run by a kind woman who had too many books in her house, but she kept it stocked for us—chapter books for me when I was tiny, Little House on the Prairie and Anne of Green Gables as I got older. She introduced me to Agatha Christie and even early Stephen King. I loved Christine and Carrie, but when I got to It, I had reached my limit. Drew, however, loved the man he called “the King” and read not only It and The Tommyknockers, but the entire Dark Tower series. While he was going in that direction, I was gravitating more toward mysteries. I discovered Margaret Truman’s books about Washington, D.C., and loved the fact that she was President Truman’s daughter. I can’t remember anything about them now, but I remember making a little nest for myself in my closet with my nightstand lamp, the cord of which I ran in from outside of the closet, and reading those books.
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