Annie left Seattle early Tuesday morning, driving east on Interstate 90. It was drizzly and cool, typical for October in the Northwest. Within half an hour she had reached the foothills of the Cascade Mountains, shrouded in a light fall mist. Gray clouds hung low in the sky, obscuring the tops of the mountains. By the time she reached the summit, a hard rain was falling.
On a whim, Annie tuned her radio to an oldies station. The first song, “Fire and Rain” by James Taylor, brought memories flooding back: Annie and Taylor on a rainy afternoon in high school, listening to records and talking for hours on end about nothing at all. Consoling themselves at the Frederick and Nelson lunch counter with hot fudge sundaes when neither had made the cheerleading squad. Lying on a friend’s dock on Lake Washington working on their “tans,” even though Annie’s freckled complexion did nothing but burn. Annie smiled when the next song was Simon and Garfunkel’s “Old Friends.”
Annie could still remember the day she met Taylor. It was the first day of Annie’s sophomore year, and the homeroom teacher announced the arrival of several new transfer students. One newcomer drew the entire room’s attention—a tall girl wearing an embroidered denim work shirt, cowboy boots, and skin-hugging Levi’s that were more revealing than any miniskirt. When it was her turn, the new girl stood to her full height of five foot eleven inches without a hint of slouch, flicked her long blond hair over her shoulder and announced, “I’m Taylor North, from Harmony, Washington,” with the total poise of someone at home with her own social superiority.
A half hour beyond the summit, the terrain began to look different. Tall pine trees, virtually nonexistent on the western slopes of the mountains, were now taking the place of the Douglas firs and hemlock. The dominant color of the landscape was changing from green to brown, and the rain, blessedly, was starting to let up.
Minutes after the descent from the mountains into the central Washington valley, the landscape was marked by rolling green and brown hills of fertile ranch and farmland, punctuated with small groupings of trees, grazing cattle, barns, and irrigation systems. This land was working land—its value determined not by aesthetics but by what it could produce.
As she drove, Annie wanted to focus on the positive memories. But as hard as she tried, she couldn’t keep the image of that horrible night out of her mind.
It was the summer after they graduated. Taylor and Annie were house-sitting for a friend of Taylor’s mother in an elegant apartment on the east side. Taylor had told Annie that she and Steve had broken up, and that she was seeing a fellow named Frank whom she’d met at work. At the time, Annie had believed her.
Annie had never met Taylor’s boyfriend, because they always went out on Friday nights, a night Annie had to work. Until one Friday night, a summer storm knocked out the electricity at the restaurant where Annie worked, and she was sent home early. Annie thought this was a great piece of luck, knowing Taylor had a date with Frank at six-thirty and that she would finally get a chance to meet him.
Annie was still rushing around the living room, straightening up, when she heard the knock. Anxious to meet the new man in Taylor’s life, she rushed to the door, opening it without bothering to look through the peephole. The expectant smile vanished when she saw who was standing there.
“Steve.”
Steven Vick’s small eyes narrowed. “Where’s Taylor?”
Annie glanced at her watch. It was six-fifteen. Taylor’s date was supposed to be there at six-thirty. Pausing, she tried to think of something to say to make him go away.
“I said, where is she? And don’t try to tell me she doesn’t live here, because I know she does.” He tried to look past her into the room. “Taylor?… Are you in there?”
Feet firmly planted, Annie said, “She doesn’t want to see you, Steve. I think you should go.”
A tinge of red appeared at his collar and began creeping up his puffy face. “She doesn’t—what the fuck is that supposed to mean? What do you know about it?”
“I don’t want to be having this conversation any more than you do, Steve. Now, this isn’t a good time, so why don’t you just—” Annie tried to close the door, but Steve forced it open with one shove. Inside the room, he looked around like he owned the place.
Steven Vick was six foot one and meaty, with the thick neck of a defensive tackle. He was not really overweight, but his face nevertheless had a flabbiness to it, even in high school. His hair was cut close to the skull. Annie assumed it was because of pre-season football practice. With eyes too small for his big face, Annie always thought he looked like a warthog. Or maybe it was just his personality.
“Taylor?” he shouted, peering down the hallway. Turning back to Annie, he plopped down on the white leather sofa and looked at the magazines on the coffee table. “Architectural Digest, The New Yorker, Wine Spectator… quite a ritzy lifestyle you got going here. No wonder Taylor never wanted to invite me over. She probably thought I’d break something.”
“Look, Steve—”
“Look, nothing. You can’t tell me what to do. I’m waiting for Taylor, whether it pleases your majesty or not.” Absently flipping the pages of a New Yorker, an unpleasant smile on his face, he said, “You still can’t stand me, can you, Annie? I bet just seeing me here makes your blood boil.”
Annie glanced at the door. At any moment, there would be a knock, and some unsuspecting guy named Frank would be standing there. She could picture Steve starting a brawl right there in the living room. She could try to head him off outside, but that would mean leaving Steve alone in the apartment, and she didn’t trust him that much. Annie decided she didn’t have a choice. She’d tell Steve why he had to leave, and if that failed, call the police. She stood with her hand near the telephone on the hall table.
“Steve, listen to me. I don’t know what Taylor said to make you think you were welcome here, but I’ve got to tell you what the situation is. Taylor’s not interested in you. She’s been seeing someone else all summer. His name—”
He was out of the chair before Annie could say another word. “You conniving little bitch, that you would come up with a lie like that!” He grabbed the arm that was reaching for the phone, and gripped her hard enough to leave a bruise. “Does Taylor know what a filthy little liar her roommate is, huh?”
“I’m not lying, Steve.” She tried to fight the stinging pain of his grasp.
“Yeah, and have you met this guy? Who is he? What does he do?”
“No, I haven’t met him, but she’s told me everything about him. She met him at work. He’s going to be here at six-thirty.’’
Laughing, Steve pushed Annie into the kitchen. “As if that isn’t the oldest line in the book. Oh, my protector is going to be here any minute now. Look, the only one who’s going to be here is Taylor.” He opened the refrigerator. “You got anything to eat in here?”
Suddenly Annie wondered if she’d been the one lied to. What if Taylor had really been seeing Steve all along, and keeping it secret from her?
Annie felt sick. All she wanted was to get out of there, but Steve’s large body blocked the door.
Steve pulled out half a cold pizza, threw it on the kitchen table next to Annie, and shut the refrigerator. She tried to run past him.
“Hey, where do you think you’re going?” he said, grabbing her arm with his left hand. She struggled to pull away, but it was pointless. His hand was huge and his grip firm.
“Steve, please. I shouldn’t have interfered. I didn’t understand.” Still, he didn’t let go.
“Shouldn’t have interfered? For Christ sake, all you’ve been doing is interfering since Taylor and I got together. You hate my guts, and you think Taylor should too. Well, I have to tell you, you little bitch, I’m sick and tired of it. I come over here, minding my own business, and you make up some story about another guy, like I’m some kind of moron, or something.…”
“Steve, stop it, you’re hurting me.”
“Hurting you? Like you don’t deserve it, you little bitch?”
With his free right hand, he grabbed a lamp and threw it like a football across the room, where it smashed into pieces. “That’s what I’d like to do to you.” A ceramic vase holding a bouquet of roses was within reach, and he did the same thing, sending flowers and water dripping down the wall and onto the carpet where the vase had shattered. Annie struggled, but Steve pinned her shoulder to the wall. “Is that enough, bitch? Think you’ll be able to keep your goddamned nose out of other people’s lives from now on?”
Gripping her arm, he raised his right hand. She tensed, expecting a hard blow to her face at any second. Out of the corner of her eye she saw a blur in the doorway.
Steve paused. “What? What are you looking at?”
His eyes followed Annie’s gaze. Taylor North stood frozen in the entryway. She had seen everything. When Taylor turned and ran from the doorway, Steven Vick followed, leaving Annie alone in the disheveled apartment.
Annie moved out of the apartment, back to her father’s house, the next day. Confused and hurt, Annie waited to hear from Taylor, but the call never came. Annie never heard from Taylor North again. At least, not until her telephone call that week.
***
Annie drove past the city of Yakima and continued on into the agricultural valley. Following the directions that Galen Rockwell had faxed her on Monday, Annie bypassed the road that would have taken her to the center of Harmony. She took the exit for Wine Country Road and headed north into the hills. Six miles from town, a small blue and white sign for the winery was positioned at the entrance to a gravel road.
Annie had once toured some of the Napa and Sonoma wineries, and she carried an image in her mind of spacious and well-appointed tasting rooms, expansive display vineyards, and busloads of tourists hastily sampling wines before being rushed off to their next destination. She quickly learned that they did things a little differently in eastern Washington.
The gravel road ended at the top of a hill. A large wooden sign reading North Faire Winery—Tasting stood in front of what had once been a barn. A fresh coat of white paint made the enormous gambrel-roofed structure look only slightly less agricultural than the working barns Annie had passed on the highway.
She parked next to a Chevy Blazer with Oregon license plates. Peeking into the back, she could see that the Oregonians had already purchased five or six cases of wine at neighboring wineries. Annie wondered how many wine tastings one could enjoy in a day before being totally obliterated. With twenty-two wineries grouped along a thirty-mile stretch of highway, the Oregon tourists seemed to be attempting to find out.
She walked up a few steps into the converted barn, where the air was chilly. The floor, not the barn’s original, was polished hardwood, and the walls and exposed beams had been painted white. Square-paned windows at eye level every three or four feet let in a soft, natural light.
Annie saw that the old structure didn’t just house the tasting room, but much of the wine-making equipment itself. Along the sides of the building were huge wooden and stainless steel vats, about fifteen feet high. Against the opposite wall were dozens of smaller wooden barrels lying on their sides, their contents labeled in chalk. Stairs at the back of the barn led to a loft, which was stacked floor to ceiling with white shipping boxes, presumably filled with cases of bottled wine.
There was an old oak roll top desk in one corner, and in front of it, a wine-tasting bar had been set up using a plank balanced on two metal filing cabinets. On top of the desk, an enormous marmalade cat lay curled on a stack of burgundy-colored sweatshirts, next to a sign that read Sweatshirts—$22.00 (cat not included). A stocky man wearing one of the sweatshirts was pouring samples for a middle-aged couple, who Annie assumed were the Oregonians with the Blazer, explaining the wines in great detail. He looked up at Annie, reaching for a clean glass. “Can I start you with red or white today?”
“Actually, I’m not here to taste wine. I’m—”
“Annie MacPherson.” Annie turned when she heard her name from the doorway behind her. She saw framed in the sunlight an older, more weathered version of the young woman Annie remembered. Chin-length blond hair framed a face that showed the lines and traces of days spent in the sun. Her tall body was lean from exercise and hard work, and Annie noted that her friend still wore cowboy boots and straight-legged Levi’s. It suddenly felt very good to see Taylor North again.