Sweet From the Vine

by Jacquie Underdown

  Ellie nodded. ‘Oh, yes, well that would explain the change of mood.’ She sipped at her mojito. ‘Let’s change the subject. The new-not-new girl in town has to spill everything. Why come back to Alpine Ridge now?’

  Matilda drank deeply from her cocktail, buying her time. Ellie and Amy didn’t seem like women who were going to accept vague answers. And, besides, if Matilda wanted to make true friends here, she had to be upfront and honest, from the get-go. ‘I woke up one morning and realised I was living a life I didn’t want.’

  Ellie and Amy looked at each other and nodded their understanding.

  ‘Been there done that,’ Ellie said.

  ‘I think their labelling it now as the female mid-life crisis,’ Amy said with a giggle.

  Matilda nodded. ‘It sure as hell felt like that.’

  ‘What about your life didn’t you like?’ Ellie asked.

  ‘Everything. My job. My husband.’ Their eyes widened as she admitted that.

  ‘So you’re … divorced?’ Amy asked, straw in her hand as she stabbed at the ice in her cocktail.

  ‘In five days I will be. ‘

  ‘No children?’ Ellie asked.

  Matilda cleared her throat. ‘Not yet.’

  Ellie and Amy swapped a glance with each other. They both picked up on the lilt in those two words. An inflection that said there was much more to her answer than what she was saying.

  And perhaps she meant to imply there was more to this story because she had been silent about it for a long time, except to Mum, and maybe she just wanted to drink a few cocktails and talk about it with other women her age.

  She pressed the straw to her mouth and sipped. This was a great tasting mojito.

  Ellie pressed her elbows on the tabletop and leant forward. ‘That’s why you’re back? To have a family.’

  Her heart thumped three strong pounds against her ribs hearing someone else say that out loud. Not in opposition to those words, but with … encouragement.

  Yes, she was back here because she wanted a family. She wanted to raise her children in this lovely little town, so they had the joyous childhood she had. She wanted a man who was ambitious but also held small-town values—authentic, community oriented and didn’t take oneself too seriously—because deep at her core, those were the same values she had never been able to do away with.

  Matilda lifted her chin and said, ‘Yes. I want children. My husband didn’t. So I left him.’ She held her breath, waiting for the barrage of bewildered statements.

  But they didn’t come.

  Amy simply smiled and said dreamily, ‘Tom and I are planning to have children soon after we’re married. I’m so ready. He is even more so. Having Sophie in our lives and now Livvy,’ she said with a soft glance at Ellie, ‘We’ve been so clucky, it’s ridiculous.’

  ‘Sam and I are still adjusting to our new little family.’ Ellie ran her finger around the rim of her glass. ‘But we’ve spoken about children. If all goes right, I can see them in our future.’

  ‘Sam found out six or so months ago that he is a dad,’ Amy clarified. ‘His daughter, Livvy, she’s seven, has come to live with him.’

  Ellie frowned. ‘Livvy’s mother passed away, so it was best she live with Sam.’

  Matilda’s eyes widened. ‘Wow. I’ve been so long out of the loop, I can barely keep up.’

  Amy laughed. ‘You’ll catch up soon enough.’

  ‘As Mitch said to me when I first arrived here, my personal business is now the town’s business,’ Ellie said with a chuckle. ‘How right he was.’

  Amy raised her cocktail in the air out in front of her. ‘To homecomings.’

  Matilda smiled, a sense of pride filling her chest to not only be a part of this town again but to be accepted back. ‘To homecomings,’ she said, chiming her glass against Amy’s and Ellie’s before taking a long drink.

  Already her head was a little muzzy. ‘These are strong.’

  ‘Just how I like them,’ Ellie said.

  Amy ran a hand through her blonde hair and grinned mischievously. ‘So what’s it like working for your ex?’

  Matilda drained the rest of her glass. ‘That type of question requires more drinks. Who’s up for another round?’

  ‘I won’t say no,’ Ellie said finishing the last of the sweet and sour concoction in the bottom of her glass.

  ‘Me either,’ Amy chimed.

  Matilda sauntered off to the bar for three more mojitos taking the time to scout the room for familiar faces. She caught the eye of Brad Meyers, the man Mum had tried to set her up with.

  Mum was right in that he had grown into a handsome man in that rugged kind of way. Her cheeks burned with warmth as he smiled at her. She managed a smile back, inwardly berating her mother for putting her in this situation.

  Mothers definitely should not set their grown, newly divorced children up with anyone—it crossed all kinds of weird boundaries.

  ‘What can I get for you?’ A well-timed distraction from the barman.

  She looked away from Brad and listed her drink order. As she awaited the cocktails, she didn’t care to look back at Brad. She was unsure why exactly—he seemed a completely reasonable man with whom she could quite reasonably have a future with.

  Drinks in hand, as she was turning from the bar, a familiar woman came charging up to her, a huge grin on her face. ‘Oh my god. Matilda James? Is that you?’

  Matilda planted her drinks back on the bar just in time before, who she now recognised from the long red hair and beauty as Tiffany Beckett, hugged the life out of her. ‘Tiffany. How are you?’

  ‘I’m great. It’s so good to see you. Are you back for good?’

  Matilda nodded. ‘I sure am.’ Tiffany was in her grade at school. She used to play on Matilda’s netball team. ‘It’s good to see a familiar face.’

  ‘Oh, we so need to catch up. What are you doing? Who are you with?’

  ‘I’m with some new friends for tonight, but I’d love to meet up for a coffee or a movie.’

  Tiffany pulled her mobile out of her bag. ‘Totally.’

  Matilda gave Tiffany her phone number, they hugged again as though they had always been such great friends, and strode off to join a group over in the back corner.

  Matilda collected the cocktails off the bar and juggled them back to the table.

  Ellie leant forward and asked with an arched brow and a cheeky smirk, ‘Seems you’ve won yourself an admirer already.’

  Matilda rolled her eyes with good humour. ‘You mean Brad?’

  Ellie nodded.

  ‘My mother. She wishes to play matchmaker. He is contender number one.’

  Amy rolled her head back and laughed. ‘Coming from Felicity, I would totally believe that. The first conversation I had with your mother was something along the lines of how happy she was to have your brother finally married.’

  Matilda blew out a long breath as she shook her head. ‘That’s my mother. One of a kind.’

  ‘I’m amazed she’s not force-feeding you Cupid cupcakes. She swears by them,’ Amy said.

  Matilda rolled her eyes but with good humour. ‘Don’t worry, she did mention it. But you beat her to the punch. That wasn’t on purpose now, was it?’

  Amy laughed again, bumping her shoulder against Ellie’s. ‘My offering of those particular cupcakes can be taken two ways. If you believe that a cupcake could possess the magical powers to unite fated lovers, then maybe it was intentional. Or I was simply giving you a sample of my best-selling product.’

  ‘I, in no way, shape or form, believe the first option.’

  Amy shrugged and grinned smugly. ‘Then there’s nothing to worry about.’

  Matilda grazed her bottom lip with her top teeth. ‘But … if they did by chance create some kind of placebo effect that drew me towards a good potential husband, I wouldn’t be offended.’

  Ellie and Amy burst into laughter. ‘That’s most people’s response.’

  Ellie’s expression turned sombre. ‘
I saw you talking to Tiffany up at the bar.’

  Matilda’s brow furrowed as she nodded, unsure why the sudden change in mood. ‘Yeah, I went to school with her.’

  ‘You’re good friends?’ Ellie asked with an intentional nonchalance, but Matilda saw right through to the tension beneath.

  ‘I wouldn’t say we were great friends. I haven’t spoken to her before tonight for fifteen years. Why is that?’

  Ellie shook her head.

  Amy leant closer and lowered her voice. ‘She had a brief fling with Sam a while back and is not very happy he is now in a relationship with Ellie.’

  Matilda’s eyes widened. ‘Well. The plot keeps on thickening.’

  Ellie tilted her head to the side. ‘Speaking of relationships … past ones in this case.’

  A great change of subject, Matilda noted. ‘And here I was thinking you’d both forgotten about that line of questioning.’ The cocktail was going to her head, freeing up her words.

  ‘Oh, we don’t forget the juicy matters,’ Amy said.

  After another long sip, Matilda said, ‘What can I say about Mitch Mathews?’

  ‘Anything you like,’ Ellie said.

  She met Amy’s eyes—a glance that communicated that she would tread carefully because she understood that he was her best friend’s husband. And then she silently reminded herself that these two women would definitely tell their partners—Mitch’s brothers and Matilda’s bosses—what she said here tonight.

  She carefully chose her words. ‘Mitch and I became a couple over the Christmas holidays just before the start of grade eleven. I’d had the biggest crush on him since primary school.’

  Ellie’s sigh was whimsical. ‘High school crushes were so intense.’

  ‘Ridiculously intense. He was the captain of his AFL team, and I would go watch him play every single weekend without fail. I always assumed he thought of me as just a friend. But, turned out I was wrong. He said I used to make him extra nervous about playing well.’

  ‘How cute,’ Amy said. ‘I can’t imagine Mitch a teenager.’

  ‘He was the hottest boy in school.’ Matilda giggled to herself, shocked at how easily all those teenage emotions and memories were coming back.

  ‘I assume all the Mathews brothers were,’ Ellie said.

  Matilda nodded as she had another sip from her straw. ‘They were the prize of every girl at that high school. But they were so oblivious to it. I think Mr Mathews made sure they were always level-headed and modest. But that only made them all the more attractive. So when he finally asked me out, I thought I was the luckiest girl in town.’

  ‘Naw, Mitch,’ Amy said. ‘How did he ask you?’

  Matilda cupped her drink with both hands, a smile flickering on her lips as the memory zoomed into focus. ‘Do they still hold the Alpine Ridge dance?’

  Amy nodded.

  ‘It was the first year Mum and Dad let me attend the dance. I was able to buy a beautiful white Bohemian dress. I thought I looked so good in it. Not sure I’d be caught dead in something like that now,’ Matilda said with a laugh. ‘I was standing with my friends off to the side when he came up to us and asked me if I wanted to dance with him.’

  ‘How grown up,’ Ellie cooed. ‘That’s totally Mitch.’

  ‘Yeah, he was always a real gentleman. So, of course, I said yes. And while we were dancing, he admitted that he really liked me and asked if I’d like to be his girlfriend.’

  Matilda’s tummy tugged with the remembered sensations of that moment—a young girl getting asked out by the cutest boy in school. ‘We were inseparable after that. Until we finished school and he had the vineyard as his future and I had another path altogether.’

  ‘So that’s why you broke up? Because you moved away?’

  ‘Yeah, I had always wanted to get out of this town.’ She lifted her cocktail to her mouth and had a long drink, attempting to swallow down the bitterness that admission left on her tongue.

  She had thought a teenage relationship was something she shouldn’t make decisions around. But after all this time, three solid relationships later, that time with Mitch was as meaningful as any other, regardless of their ages. ‘So I chose university in Melbourne over him.’ She glanced down at her drink, trying to smile, but it was coming out more so as a tense frown. ‘I really broke his heart. Mine too. It took a long time to get over Mitch Mathews.’

  For months and months afterwards, she had called her mother nearly every week and cried to her that she wanted to come home, that she missed Mitch, but her head always dictated that her future was more important than fleeting schoolyard romances.

  ‘That’s kinda sad,’ Amy said.

  Matilda nodded. ‘At the time, it was really difficult.’ Society, or rather Matilda, had a tendency to devalue young love. But young love was as real as any other.

  ‘So what now?’ Ellie asked.

  Matilda waved her question away as though the imminent answer was utterly trivial. ‘I’m totally over Mitch now. Lots of water under that bridge—for both of us.’ She met Amy’s gaze when she said that and quickly looked away. ‘We’re professional acquaintances, I guess you’d say.’

  ‘Still, it must be … a little weird,’ Amy said.

  Matilda shrugged, had another deep drink of her cocktail. ‘Maybe at first. But I got it all out in the open right from the beginning and we moved on.’

  Ellie and Amy both nodded, but there was a hint of humour to their expressions, as though they didn’t quite believe what Matilda was saying. Maybe Matilda didn’t fully believe what she was saying either.

  ‘Do you regret leaving Alpine Ridge in the first place?’ Ellie asked. This woman had guts. Or maybe it was the cocktails giving her courage to ask such upfront questions. Or perhaps the question wasn’t upfront, only the answer that sat in Matilda’s mouth like a sharp stone.

  ‘No. I’ve had lessons to learn that staying here would never have given me. Firstly, that I should never be ashamed of this town and my roots here.’ She lowered her gaze to her straw as she stabbed at a piece of ice. Well, that was a revealing statement, Matilda.

  Before this moment, she hadn’t realised that she was ever ashamed of being a country girl and growing up in a small mountainous town with a population of less than one thousand. A town with only one school—a public school.

  Ashamed that up here their accents—where the syllables were loose, drawn out much longer than you’d find in the city—were noticeable, criticised and as she well knew, difficult to lose.

  Ashamed that somehow if she stayed and married and had children to her high school sweetheart, she’d be that country-girl cliché that those who had left before her, ran so fast from and those who stayed pretended was exactly what they had chosen for their lives.

  Her cheeks burned—a combination of the strong alcohol heating her blood and hot embarrassment that she had not only listened to small-minded bullshit but that she had actually believed it.

  Ellie tilted her head to the side and nodded. ‘I can understand that. Sometimes our biggest lessons are learnt the hard way. The story of my life to date,’ she finished with a giggle.

  ‘Cocktails. We need more cocktails because I see this evening getting even deeper,’ Amy said, standing. ‘Like rabbit-hole deep.’

  Matilda shook her head. ‘No rabbit holes. We’re just going to float above the surface, nice and gentle like. No underground business.’

  Amy laughed. ‘Too late. We’re knee deep already. After the next drink, waist deep at least.’ She strode away chuckling to herself.

  ‘Amy’s great at creeping up on you with questions, and you don’t even know she’s asked one until you’ve spilled your life story,’ Ellie said.

  ‘You’re pretty good at that too.’

  Ellie laughed. ‘Amy’s taught me a thing or two since we’ve been friends.’

  ‘And how long has that been?’

  ‘Since I first moved to town about six months ago.’

  ‘Wow, so you’
ve only been here six months and have already snavelled up a Mathews brother?’

  She shrugged, smiled. ‘Hey, what can I say? When you meet your soulmate, there is nothing coming between that, including time. But, in saying that, Sam was hard-earned. But that’s a whole other story we can delve into another time.’

  A voice came over the speakers—the front singer for tonight’s band. Soon, music twanged—a country rock song filling the atmosphere with a liveliness that pushed its way into Matilda’s body.

  She grinned and nodded towards the band. ‘They’re good.’

  ‘This is shaping up to be a good night. Strong drinks, a good band, who knows what else will happen,’ Ellie said with a wink.

  Amy was back with the drinks. She piled them onto the centre of the table and they each grabbed for their own. ‘Sex on the beach,’ Amy said.

  Ellie lifted her glass out in front of her. ‘Yes, please.’

  Matilda could definitely do with some sex on the beach. Or just sex in general—where? She wasn’t fussy. It had been a year. She had given herself nine months to ease her marriage somewhat from her system before she started dating again. And she had gone on a few dates before she left San Francisco. But what she didn’t anticipate was how fussy she had gotten as she had aged, so no date progressed long enough to reach the bedroom.

  ‘No need to gloat, you two,’ Matilda said with a laugh but held her colourful cocktail up too.

  ‘To new friends, new lives in old towns, and here’s to the future virile husband of Matilda’s, who doesn’t yet know how lucky he is.’

  Matilda laughed but chimed her glass against the girls’ drinks before she drank some of the fruity concoction.

  With music pumping and alcohol soaring through her veins, her head was buoyant and muzzy.

  ‘So what exactly are you looking for, Matilda?’ Amy asked.

  Matilda cocked her head to the side, narrowed her eyes. ‘How so?’

  ‘Men. What do you want from a man other than he be willing to have children?’

  ‘I want someone who is on the same wavelength as me. I want someone who is my friend as well as my lover. Someone who will be a doting, caring father. And of course, there has to be some level of attractiveness.’