The Shortest Way Home

by Miriam Parker

  “Not the most fun time to go to a concert,” I said.

  “Well, it meant I couldn’t really go to any more concerts. And Everett wasn’t that happy about it.”

  “It’s sad,” I said.

  “Why?” she asked.

  “That you loved each other but couldn’t be together.”

  “Everyone’s living the life they wanted to live,” she said.

  “And you and Everett?” I asked. My only impression of him so far was that he was a bit of a blowhard, and also not the most generous of people.

  “We work well together,” she said. “We combined two wineries. Built all of this. Well, some of it was here. But it needed rehabilitation, you know? We did that. And William; he’s a good kid. We did that too.”

  “It’s amazing,” I agreed.

  “It was important to our families. His father was dying. Mine wanted to retire. We were so young.”

  “I get it,” I said. “Priorities. History took precedence.”

  “Right,” she said.

  “Do you ever regret it?” I asked.

  “You ask a lot of questions,” she said.

  “I’ve been told that before,” I said.

  She looked out the window for a moment. “And how are you doing? Settling in okay?”

  “Change is hard,” I said, accepting the shift in topic. “But I’m excited. I just have to figure everything out . . .”

  “You followed your heart,” she said. “That’s important.”

  “It’s weird,” I said. “I mean, I’ve made decisions before, but I’ve never had to give up one thing for another, something big.”

  “I’m sure it feels scary,” she said.

  I nodded, trying to keep the tears out of my eyes. It was scary. And I couldn’t imagine what was going to happen next. Up until now, I had been deciding. Now things were happening outside of my control.

  * * *

  —

  When we got back, we found Felipe in the tasting room, surrounded by beautiful women. I laughed at him, gave the thumbs-up, and headed into the office with Linda. He followed us in and said, “Please, let me to go back to the wine cellar. These women!”

  “You love it,” Linda said. “I promise not to tell Maria José when she gets here.”

  He smiled. “Okay. They are buying lots of wine.”

  “Of course they are,” Linda said.

  “Good work,” I said.

  “The tweeting,” he said, shaking his finger at me.

  “The tweeting,” I said.

  I grabbed an open bottle of wine from the office refrigerator and headed back up to my cottage. I took the wine, a plate of cheese that Linda had left in the cottage fridge for me, and a glass out onto the back patio. After the day talking about Jackson, I couldn’t help but think about Ethan and what he was doing in New York. He didn’t have an office, and because of me, he also didn’t have a home. I had no idea where he was or what he was doing, and I was too scared to call him to find out. If he was in fact crashing in a gross apartment in Brooklyn with Jesse and Graham, he could have been cursing me daily. Or he could be enjoying it. As fancy as he acted with his rich parents and his private school education, he loved drinking a Miller High Life in his boxers at nine A.M. and yelling at a DVR’d edition of Pardon the Interruption on ESPN. It was the life he never had, that of a male sloth. He’d spent his entire life in a suit and tie: in his private school uniforms, in bespoke suits as an undergrad at the London School of Economics, at his dad’s hedge fund after graduation. At Haas. Sometimes he didn’t wear a tie, but he always wore a blazer. Again, the life he wanted; he chose it for himself, or at the very least his parents chose it for him, but he wasn’t opposed to slumming it occasionally.

  I was definitely the one in the relationship who tended toward getting off message—I could get sucked into a Netflix series that would prevent me from leaving the apartment for two days. I could eat a block of cheese for dinner and be perfectly happy. I often ran out of basic supplies like milk and eggs and regularly forgot to restock the toilet paper. These were qualities about me that drove him crazy. He liked schedules and well-planned meals and having a pantry full of backup paper products. But his family also had a full-time housekeeper when he was growing up and my family was catch-as-catch-can. He was also used to regular vacations planned by a travel agent and, often, led by a tour guide. Drew and I had to plan our own fun in the summers, which included sneaking into the town pool to swim with our friends, playing soccer at the school field with other unsupervised children, and visiting our friend Mary Ellen the librarian.

  I hoped Ethan would just move back in with his parents. That would be comfortable. His mother, Bunny, still had the cook and the housekeeper in the city even though they were rarely home. Maybe he would even have the entire Park Avenue apartment to himself. He could move the start-up in there. Fanciest start-up setup ever.

  Instead of making up stories about what Ethan was doing, it probably would have made sense for me to call him. To see how he was doing. But my fear led to many scenarios. I was afraid that he wouldn’t pick up. Afraid that he would. Afraid that he would yell at me. Afraid that he never wanted to speak to me again.

  And then I thought about William and I got more confused. I knew I wanted to hear from William, but I hadn’t heard from him, either, since he had departed for the same city that my ex-almost-fiancé was in. William was most certainly living in a dirty hovel with black soot on the windowsills, clangy radiators, and some overweight cats. But in my mind that seemed like the right place to write a screenplay about a winery in Northern California. I knew that he would be successful. Something about the film that he had made already, which showed that he had talent, and the way that he talked about the film that he wanted to make. It just sounded good.

  As I was wallowing, I got a FaceTime request from my niece. She always cheered me up.

  “Hi, darling,” I said.

  Gillian went on to tell me about how she wasn’t allowed to get a haircut and was sulking. Being a child was simple. I was jealous. She recovered from her hurts and slights so quickly. Her emotions were more flexible.

  Feeling remarkably inflexible, I kept meaning to call Ethan over the next few days, but life kept getting in the way. It also is worth noting that he didn’t call me, either.

  CHAPTER 11

  After our first-day adventure, we settled into a routine. I would go to yoga or Pilates or a very torturous Bar Method class that I protested vehemently but attended because it was easier to just go than to resist in the morning with Celeste. One morning, I made her go running with me, and she hated it so much that I was able to get a pass from her on going to classes by telling her that I was going running. The weird thing was that I actually did the runs and I even enjoyed them. After exercising, I would come back and shower and drink homemade espresso, make an egg-white omelet, and then head down to the office. Linda gave me a key so I could come and go as I pleased. I found that she wasn’t a morning person and really didn’t get going until around noon. She preferred to work late into the night, while I was winding down around six.

  In the office, first, I organized all of the paper and detritus that was cluttering up the office. I found a few really nice bottles of wine, some unpaid invoices, and a newer Mac laptop computer, which I requisitioned for myself. After the place was clean, I focused on updating the social media—I liked posting photos of Tannin in places around the vineyard, but I also would include quotes from people whom I talked to in the tasting room: “Jane from San Diego says the sparkling rosé is ‘to die for.’” I took Tannin out to the fields with Felipe and posted them together testing grapes, with the caveats “#dogsdonotdrink” and “#donotrythisathome,” because I knew Tannin’s ever-growing fan base would also ask questions if it seemed like he was doing anything dangerous. In the tasting room, I also started coming up with specia
ls—a discount on a third bottle of wine if you bought two, free delivery on cases within ten miles of the vineyard. To keep the burden of my new ideas off of Linda, I decided to handle the ensuing deliveries. It was a nice way to learn the area and check out where people lived. And it gave me something to do on the long, lonely evenings.

  And, of course, I worked on the plans for First Friday. It may have been ambitious to set the first one for just three weeks after I started at the vineyard, but plans seemed to be coming together, especially with Celeste’s help.

  I had also taken over all of the billing and wine club business. When Linda showed me the spreadsheet she was using to track orders, I tried to contain my horror. It was disorganized and confusing. Definitely making her job much harder. All I said was, “I think there are new softwares that could make all of this a lot easier.”

  “But I’m used to this,” she said. “I made it myself.”

  She didn’t seem like the type of person who would want me to say, “I’ll just handle that for you.” But she did respond well to me saying, “What if I take a look at your existing orders and numbers and get it all set up and then I can show you? And if you hate it, you can go back to the old system.”

  She agreed, so I downloaded QuickBooks and moved over all of the restaurant and liquor store accounts, as well as the wine club orders. The system automatically sent invoices and tracked payments; it even sent reminders. It handled the entire wine club business, which was a little bit complicated because it involved preferences, and sometimes people ordered extra things or wanted to change the basic package, which Linda allowed because she was too nice. I wasn’t going to mess with the rules of the place (although believe me, I wanted to). When I was finished setting up the system, I sent a test invoice to Linda. I was sitting across the room from her, so I watched her face as she opened it on her computer.

  “Wow,” she said. “This is a beautiful invoice.”

  “And it’s automatically generated,” I said.

  “You are a genius,” she said. “But I’ll never figure all of this out.”

  “It’s so easy,” I said. “I promise you’ll like it when I teach you how to use it.”

  “Okay,” she said. “But can you just use it for a little while?”

  “Of course,” I said. And that is how I became in charge of billing. As I went back through the accounts, I realized that they just weren’t getting paid on a regular basis from the restaurants and stores they served. Getting completely paid wouldn’t fix everything, but it couldn’t hurt. If I helped them with one thing this summer, getting some cash flow into the winery would be a great thing I could do. It wasn’t all about social media after all. Just boring old cash flow.

  Planning the party helped break up the monotony of billing. I researched companies that provided temporary party help. I also signed up for Eventbrite to sell tickets, created fun little Facebook and Twitter posts about the party, and drove around town posting physical posters on actual corkboards. When I was out doing my deliveries, I also left postcards, which I made myself, with different inns and wine shops around town. Everyone seemed willing to help Everett and Linda. “That place is a Sonoma institution,” the manager of the El Dorado told me.

  “I hope you come to the event,” I said.

  “I’ll do my best,” she said.

  As I was doing all of this, though, I couldn’t help but look at Tyra’s Instagram. She posted a photo of a new Chloé bag, which I knew cost more than two thousand dollars, almost an entire month’s salary for me here at the winery. She also posted photos of a steak dinner at the Palm, a pedicure at the Great Jones Spa, and a red Egg chair (with ottoman) that I was sure was real. All with the hashtag #thanksgoldman. I tried not to cave.

  * * *

  —

  I rarely saw Everett; he was always off somewhere mysterious with Felipe or up in the house doing research or on what he called restaurant research trips. I kind of didn’t blame Linda for wondering what life would be like with Jackson. Life without William and with a barely present Everett in a giant castle couldn’t be that fun.

  On the Saturday after I arrived, my first more casual day—I was due in the tasting room but not in the office—I was sitting on my patio, reading Housekeeping, and drinking Sancerre. I had made a big salad with the vegetables from the garden and had covered it in goat cheese that I had bought at the farmers’ market. I planned to have a piece of defrosted Wonder Bread with Nutella on it for dessert and I was going to pair it with the Syrah Port that William had introduced me to. Highbrow and lowbrow. It was going to be perfect.

  As I finished my salad and poured a dash more Sancerre into my glass before switching to dessert and Port, I felt sophisticated, like I knew what I was doing. I was living the Sonoma life. Just so I could get some witnesses, I posted a photo of the salad on my personal Instagram with the caption “Look at me, being healthy. #Ichooseme.” The first like was from Ethan. I felt guilty that he was seeing that sentiment. I wished I could hide my happy Instagrams from him.

  Just as I was weighing the options of calling Ethan or not, my phone rang. It was my mother. I figured Drew had told her by now that I was staying in California for the summer. I hadn’t been in touch in a while. But I just wasn’t ready to talk to her. I let the call go to voice mail and then listened when she had hung up.

  “Hi, darling. It’s your mother. I saw Drew and Elise and the kids today. They said they miss you and love you and they liked the singing California Raisins that you sent them. They’re about to get out of school for the year and are so happy. It was such a nice day. We went next door to the Andersons and swam in their pool. They’re such nice people. Trudy was there with her daughter. Can you believe our little Trudy has a twelve-year-old daughter? Amazing to think that you two are the same age. I wonder what your daughter would be like if you had one. Anyway, he, Drew, told me about your big California adventure. I wish you would have told me yourself. You know I’m proud of you no matter what. I just like to hear from you, you know? Anyway, I don’t want to criticize. I just want to hear from you. Please call me.”

  The stuff about kids really got to me. But she didn’t know any better. She was from a world where everyone grew up and just had kids; they didn’t think about it.

  She was a good mom. She meant well. Even though the message hurt my feelings.

  But I still didn’t call her back. Sometimes, I wasn’t the best daughter, and I did feel guilty about it. I wanted to be better. Maybe it was because I had this idea of having raised myself and taken charge of my family after my dad died, even though it was my brother and me together. But I was the one who felt resentful about it. I felt like I had done my time. On the other hand, the longer I acted like a jerk, the worse I felt. I had been playing the role of an adult for the past few years, but I was still acting like a resentful teenager. Maybe it was time to grow up a little bit and take responsibility for myself. And yet, I still didn’t call my mom—or Ethan.

  PART II

  Main Course

  Spicy almond flour–encrusted chicken on a bed of freshly picked avocado and arugula

  Pairing

  Lynmar, Pinot Noir 2014

  (Russian River Valley, California)

  Tart plum, raspberry, and touches of cola

  CHAPTER 12

  At the start of my second week at Bellosguardo, after my morning run and my gluten-free breakfast, I went down to work to find Linda in the office, wearing a suit, putting wine into a rolling suitcase.

  “Are you going on a trip?” I asked. Usually she wasn’t even there when I got to work, and today she was all dressed up and about to walk out the door.

  “Sales call,” she said. “Want to come? Felipe is in the tasting room.”

  “Am I dressed okay?” I asked. I was wearing a green-and-white-print floor-length maxidress that I had bought in downtown Sonoma at an adorable store called Perl
é. I hadn’t been able to afford it, but it was exactly the thing I needed for my Sonoma life. I had put it on the interest-free credit card that I had gotten for the summer and hoped it would never come due.

  “Perfect,” she said.

  “Do you want me to drive?” I asked.

  “That would be great,” she said. “Then we don’t have to drag this thing up to the house, where my car is.” She looked honestly grateful. It made me feel like I was starting to figure her out. She just wanted someone to offer to help. We walked through the tasting room, where I gave Felipe a high five.

  “Are you ready for the crowds?” I asked.

  “Please don’t tweet again,” he said.

  “I can’t help it!” I said. “You’re our most popular pourer. And I’m supposed to improve the winery social media.” I snapped a photo of him with a bar towel and posted it to Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook before he could protest.

  * * *

  —

  I dragged the suitcase out into the parking lot and Linda followed, carrying her laptop in a Copperfield’s tote bag and staring at her phone as she walked. “We’re going to Healdsburg,” she said. “We’ll take CA 12 to the 101.”

  “Okay,” I said. I didn’t want to remind her that I didn’t really know the area, but . . .

  “I’ll show you,” she said. “Don’t worry.”

  Highway 12 was a beautiful side road; we passed small houses, a few farms, some wineries. “That’s where Celeste grew up,” she said, pointing to a sign that had only a dirt road next to it that led up to a huge house on the hill (although it wasn’t close to a castle). “Her parents make beautiful Chardonnay. They pick their grapes a little earlier than most places, so they minimize the sweetness and use steel instead of oak to keep it crisp. We made ours a little more traditionally, until last year, when Felipe came. Now we’re using steel too, but I keep some of the older style around. Some people still like it. Especially older people. It’s like classic rock.”