Thirty-one
The sea grass, tall around the perimeter of the veranda, was loud with the clicking and humming of nocturnal insects. Above, the moon was electrically bright and nearly full. The air smelled damp and of the soil. Leah inhaled deeply, looking out at the vineyard.
The idea of reaching out to book clubs was taking shape. She would start by using her own mailing list from the cheese shop. She could ask Bridget to help promote it on social media. Wine and cheese, wine and books . . . some things just went together. It was a no-brainer.
She noticed movement across the grass and the glow of a phone.
“Sadie?” Where was her daughter going at that hour? She stopped walking, and Leah waved her over.
“Hey,” Sadie said.
“What’s up?”
“Just . . . going for a drive.”
Leah’s maternal antennae went up. “Everything okay?”
“Yes—all good,” Sadie said, leaning over and kissing her on the cheek. “See you in the morning.”
Leah’s phone rang—Steven.
“It’s your father,” Leah said. But Sadie was already walking away. “Hey,” she said into the phone.
“Hey,” he said. “A customer has a special order and I think it’s from that farm that doesn’t have email?”
Okay. All business.
“I can take care of it tomorrow. Just text me what she wants. How’s it going otherwise?”
“Fine. How about you?”
“Oh, the drama continues. Did you get my text earlier? The buyer backed out. I think my mother sees it as a reprieve. But in reality, the longer this stretches out—”
“Leah, it’s going to be a long haul. I know you have good intentions, but you can’t see this through to the end. Come home. I miss you.”
She looked up at the quarter moon, thinking that he was under the same moon. They weren’t that far apart. A firefly alighted in the distance. Could she leave, knowing she could maybe do something to help? She was torn. All she knew was that she wanted both—to stay at the winery and to make Steven happy. But she couldn’t have both. She couldn’t have it all. Life, especially midlife, was all about understanding that.
“I’ll come home soon,” she said.
“How about this weekend? I’ll come out and pick you up.”
This weekend? That was so soon. But Steven was probably at his limit. Past his limit.
She nodded, then remembered he couldn’t see her. “Okay. Great. Sounds like a plan.”
When she hung up, she felt a rush of anxiety.
The truth was, it didn’t matter what kind of ideas she had. Her father would never change. He’d never once asked about Bailey’s Blue beyond a cursory “How’s that little store of yours?” As if she were selling trinkets. Never mind that cheese was arguably as complex as wine. That maintaining a business in New York City was one of the biggest retail challenges imaginable. That she was as knowledgeable in her field as he was in his own. Okay, she didn’t create cheese. But she knew it, she knew it in a way that let her find the perfect variety for each customer. She had inspired more happy pairings than Match.com! And more, she understood the symbiotic relationship between cheese and wine. She doubted her father knew Kunik from Cottage.
Leah stood and began to pace. She thought about the English Wensleydale from the shop in town and wondered why her parents didn’t offer cheese boards at the winery.
In Chances, Lucky had waited for an opening, for a moment of her father’s weakness. Then she stepped in and made it her business to learn everything about his business. She made decisions. In some cases she completed his vision; in other areas she had her own. She didn’t wait for permission. She didn’t apologize.
Leah grabbed her phone and scheduled a reminder to herself to make a run back to Village Cheese the next day. She still had a few more days before Steven arrived.
She wasn’t done yet.
Walking over to Field House at that hour of the night was a crazy thing to do. Sadie knew this, but still she went.
There was no guarantee that if she knocked on the door of the Arguetas’ home, Mateo would be the one to answer. Even if he did, what was she going to say? But if she didn’t do something, she would be up all night. She couldn’t stop thinking about the jolt when they’d looked at each other in the field. Mateo had felt it, too. That was why he’d said, This can’t happen.
That was it, that was what she would say: “Why can’t this happen?”
Did he have a girlfriend? Was it the age difference? She needed to know. She had to understand the stumbling block before she could get it out of their way.
The winery was linked to Field House by a slate path framed by a white wooden pergola filled with winding greenery and purple wisteria. She’d walked by it her whole life, but she’d never walked through; she didn’t have reason to visit Field House. So what she didn’t know was that at the end of the path, just before the house, was a locked gate.
“So annoying,” she said, reaching over the door to see if she could unlatch it. No luck. She could backtrack and go all the way around, but it was so dark out.
Really, the gate was mostly ornamental. She could scale it. Sadie grabbed hold of a pergola beam and climbed onto one of the gateposts. She balanced atop the post, holding on to the beam, gauging the jump onto the other side of the gate. It was so dark, she couldn’t see what was on the ground. She reached into her pocket for her phone, trying to turn on the flashlight with one hand.
The phone fell onto the other side of the fence.
“Damn it!”
Now she had no choice but to jump. She let go of the beam and landed on something hard, then bounced onto the grass. Whatever she’d fallen into kept moving until it made a shattering sound on nearby concrete.
An external house light turned on. Now she’d done it. She scrambled to her feet. The back door opened, and a flashlight shined on her—a strong beam, not a little phone light.
“Sadie?” Mateo said, incredulous.
“Um, yeah.”
“What are you doing here?”
“I got lost.”
“Lost? Oh, man. Did you knock over this potted plant?”
“I might have, um, bumped into it.”
He walked around the small patio adjacent to the lawn, surveying the damage. “This thing shattered.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, mortified. She wanted to just slink off into the night. But her phone. “Um, can you help me find my phone? I dropped it.”
“Where?”
“I’m not sure. Somewhere around here.”
He moved closer, shining the flashlight on the grass. They walked in circles, but the phone was nowhere to be seen.
“Wait, try over here,” she said, reaching for the light to point it closer to the gate. Their hands touched, and her phone was instantly forgotten. She experienced the slight contact as a shiver through her entire body.
Sadie pulled the flashlight from his hand and turned it off.
“What are you doing?” he said.
“I didn’t get lost. I came here to see you.”
“Sadie . . .”
“Look, if you tell me you don’t feel it, too, then I’ll go. But I have to know.”
He was quiet. An animal scurried around in the bushes. She felt herself holding her breath. After what felt like forever, he said, “I feel it. But it’s impossible.”
She stepped closer to him. “Why do you say that?”
“Because I work for your grandparents. My father would kill me.”
“Kill you? Why?”
“It’s disrespectful.”
“Oh, come on. What year is this, 1950?”
The truth was, Mateo’s employment never even crossed her mind. She thought of Javier, not Mateo, as the one who worked for the winery. When she was growing up, Mateo was just an older kid hanging around, keeping his distance.
Now that she thought about it, since he worked for her family, was this sexual harassment?
“I don’t mean to put you in a bad position,” she said. “I’m sorry. But the thing is, you’re already interviewing to leave. The winery is sold. I mean, you’re worried about what my grandfather would think—or your dad would be worried—but it doesn’t seem he’s worried about you.”
“You studying to be a lawyer?” he said, stepping closer to her. Her heart pounded. The porch light cast his face in shadows, enough for her to make out the angles of his chiseled features, but not enough to see the intensity of his black eyes. She wanted to reach out and touch him so badly.
“No,” she breathed.
He took the flashlight from her, his fingers grazing the back of her hand in a way that had to be deliberate. Once more, she felt it through her entire body. But to her disappointment, he turned the light back on and resumed the search.
“There it is,” he said, following the beam to a spot a few feet away. He handed her the phone. She’d never been less happy to see it.
“Great. Thanks.” She didn’t move. “Look,” she said. “I get that there’s weirdness with the whole work thing. But we could still hang out as friends, right? I mean, there’s only so much time I can spend with my mother and grandmother.”
He hesitated, just long enough that she knew he was at least considering it.
“Goodnight, Sadie,” he said.