She shrugged. “She just likes saying torts. It’ll pass.”
He shook his head. “Bobby doesn’t want to get married.”
She took her husband’s hands. “That will pass too.”
He leaned in toward his wife and said it, what he’d never admitted before, even to himself.
“It makes me sad that none of them want the vineyard.”
She looked up. “We raised them to want their own things.”
He nodded. “I know, but . . .” He shook his head. “It’s silly. I’m being silly. I’m glad that they’re doing what they’re doing. I’m glad for each of them. I’m just feeling nostalgic.”
“I bet that you are,” she said, but she moved closer to him.
“I was the one who discouraged her from staying here. I told her to go explore new worlds.”
“And?”
“She seems like she isn’t happy with the one she chose, not the way I’ve seen her happy.”
“Then she’ll find her way home.”
They heard loud music coming from the guest bedroom, punk rock, blasting downward.
“What’s wrong with Margaret tonight?”
“Bride’s nerves?”
He looked up, deciding whether to throw a rock at the window or just run upstairs and ask his future daughter-in-law if she was going crazy too.
“I’m taking you somewhere,” she said.
She took him down the vineyard, to Block 14, the small opening there, where she had a blanket and a bottle of wine and a small radio. They couldn’t hear the music from here. They couldn’t see anything but each other. Dan started kissing her, soft at first then harder, pulling up her dress from behind. She gripped his waist, his hip, bearing against him as he pushed himself into her. His hand holding her stomach.
He pushed her curls off her face. “Can this be the first time we’re doing this?”
It was the first. It wasn’t the last.
Have-to-Have When I arrived at the house, the driveway was full of trucks, catering trucks and a florist truck, a van from a furniture company called Moving Up. The staff was in motion, setting up for the evening. They moved through the house and over the lawn, carrying candles and lanterns and flowers, lemons and grape leaves in glass vases, sofas on their backs.
“Hey there.”
I looked up to see Suzannah standing behind me, in the middle of the driveway, wearing a long blouse like a dress, short booties. Eight months pregnant and gorgeous. Like she belonged there.
“I’ve arrived,” she said.
She held out her arms to hug me, and I jumped in, so happy to see her it was crazy.
“What are you doing here?”
“What do you mean, what am I doing here? What do you think I’m doing here? I’m pawning off my work.”
She squeezed me hard, then she let go.
“Um. How did you leave out that Michelle Carter was the baby mama? That is the craziest part of this whole thing.”
“What does it change?”
“How I’m going to tell this story to everyone else.” Her eyes went wide. “Is it true that she does a honey cleanse every January and the rest of the year lives on French fries and burgers?”
“Where did you hear that?”
“I read it somewhere. That’s not the point.”
“What is?”
“Can you find out how she does it exactly? I love French fries and burgers.”
I tilted my head, looking at her. “Did you really drive all the way up here?”
“No. I flew and rented a car. For eight hundred dollars.”
“That is crazy.”
“For you, since you’re insisting on paying me back.”
I smiled. “You are amazing.”
She rolled her eyes. “Can we avoid going over the obvious? There is a time crunch. I have fifty minutes until I have to catch a flight back to Los Angeles.”
“You don’t want to stay for the harvest party?”
She cradled her stomach. “Sweetie, if I can’t drink, it may as well be the dentist.”
Suzannah and I walked through the vineyard. “So let’s start with what matters, okay?”
I nodded.
“What on earth are you wearing and why are you wearing it?”
I looked down at the jean shorts and peasant top I’d found in my closest, my hair in two loose buns. “This is how we dress in Sonoma County. It’s casual.”
She pointed at her own dress. “No, this is casual,” she said. “That is circa 1971. Pull it together!”
I smiled. “Working on it.”
“Good, because I have some advice for you, and it isn’t easy.”
“Okay.”
“I know I said you should marry Ben, but I thought about it and you shouldn’t marry Ben. You’re doing the right thing walking away.”
“What are you talking about?”
She linked her arm through mine. “I’m talking about how Charles cheated on me in high school. I’m talking about how that was its own form of betrayal I had to get over.”
“But that was your evidence for why I should stay with Ben.”
“I know, which is my point. I could forgive Charles because I knew I never would have to compete for him, not really.” She shook her head. “I knew he really believes, as ridiculous as it is, that I’m the most beautiful woman in the world. That I’m his have-to-have.”
She paused.
“I don’t think Ben is yours.”
That stopped me. “Why not?”
She squeezed my arm tighter. “I always thought Ben got you, that you guys got each other. That’s why I’ve given him so much latitude with all of this, but . . I think if you came to that same conclusion, you’d know that you want to stay with Ben.”
“I do.”
“What do you mean you do?” she said.
“We’re working things out.”
She stopped walking. “What are you talking about, working things out?”
I shrugged, thinking about how to explain it to her, which was when she got there.
“He’s your have-to-have?” she said.
I smiled, thinking about how I trusted that he was again. I was letting go enough to do it, to try to be happy.
“So you’re all good?” she said.
“Well, apparently I’m throwing out these shorts, but yes.”
“Good,” she said. “That’s good.
She looked in the direction of her rental car, realizing something else. “I got on a plane and drove from San Francisco for nothing? You’re going to have to do a better job of keeping me posted.”
The Harvest Party
It made me happy and sad at once, looking down over the party.
From the upstairs bathroom, I could see people arriving, the bluegrass band playing them in. The tent was lit up with lanterns, tables inside lined with pizza and wine, gourmet pizza but pizza all the same—a tribute to the early harvest parties when that was all my parents could afford to serve. Tonight felt glamorous under the lanterns. Everyone was happy and excited to celebrate another harvest. My father’s last harvest. It looked, I imagined, how my wedding might.
Ben had left a note on the mirror, fogged into the glass. COME DOWN SOON.