A Forty Year Kiss

11

It was Thanksgiving Day. A few minutes after one thirty in the afternoon. He had not slept the night before. Too much to worry about, too much to do. Cleaning, cooking, setting the table. The whole house. And it was not a small house either. He knew that. Knew that the house was too much for just him. Him and Blueberry.

Part of the reason he was so excited, so damn excited for them, was this event, the whole day: the meal, the decorations, the music, the togetherness. That was part of his lack of sleep. He was excited. He could not remember putting so much effort into anything. It was not just all the necessary steps of preparing each dish. It was the dusting and vacuuming. Cleaning each bathroom. Washing the linens for the guest rooms. Hell, the day before he had even ventured out to the margins of his land and selected a balsam fir as his Christmas tree. The walk to the tree through the knee-deep snow had been challenging enough. He even stopped twice to catch his breath. But the trek back, dragging that tree in, had exhausted him. And then all the work of getting the tree into its stand. No easy feat for a person working alone.

But now, the house was everything he wanted it to be. Candles glowed here and there, the small flames wavering with the old house’s drafts. A fire popped in the woodstove; the air outside smelled of woodsmoke. A cast-iron pot on top of the woodstove boiled, and the resultant steam filled the house with the scent of cinnamon, cardamom, cloves, and orange peels. The kitchen was rich with the aroma of turkey, mashed potatoes, two varieties of casseroles, cranberry sauce, and fresh rolls. On a counter waited three varieties of pie. And a fresh green salad. Blueberry lay on the newly washed wood floors, chewing a bone. There was a natty green and gold handkerchief tied around his neck. The Packers were playing later that afternoon.

A plan was slowly forming in his mind. Ever since Halloween, he’d wanted to suggest, to ask if Vivian and Melissa and the girls would consider, just consider, moving in with him. He knew it was a dramatic suggestion. Moving to a new community forty-five minutes away. Moving in with a man who was a new and at least partly unknown commodity in their lives. It was such a dramatic suggestion it bordered on an insane idea. So he endeavored to move slowly. Very slowly.

He still hadn’t met Melissa, which left him more confused than ever. But to have this meal together, to share this day, and to show them how he lived—he felt like it was a good and expansive gesture. To make them feel at home. He had gone so far as to repaint two of the guest rooms in a palette he felt might be more welcoming to her granddaughters. Variations of yellow. He wouldn’t ask anything of them tonight. Maybe not for a few months yet. Better to let the idea come to them organically. That this was a possibility. A logical choice. He would invite them over again, before Christmas. That much he knew, even now.

The twelve bottles of wine he kept stowed in the kitchen along with all his bottles of whisky stored up high in the liquor cabinet, and each bottle of beer kept cold in his refrigerator, he carried it all down into the basement, to the small room he’d made his wine cellar. That way, if he felt the urge to have a drink, it wouldn’t be quite so easy. He hoped the urge would not arise. He cracked a can of root beer, poured it over a glass of ice, and took a sip. There was something good about the carbonation and sweetness, but it was not the same. Did not take him to the same place. A root beer or a Coca-Cola might hit the spot, but it didn’t make the world fuzz with happiness and promise.

He lowered himself into a leather chair aimed at the woodstove and gently rubbed Blueberry’s head. Only he was so excited he could dance, so excited he could sing. He stood up and walked to the bank of windows facing his long driveway, the road beyond obscured by a line of cedars. And then there they were, as he saw Melissa’s minivan turn and slowly make its way up the drive to his house. Now he wanted a drink. To celebrate, to relax, to slow things down. There was time, he reckoned, time for a quick belt of whisky. But she would know. She would know from his breath, from his lips, from his body language. He took another long drink of root beer, closed his eyes, and took five deep breaths. Do not mess this up, he told himself. Relax.

He greeted her at the door. Kissed her on the lips, proud he had nothing to hide, that he had controlled himself. He almost thought he could see that pride reflected at him in her eyes. She was happy, he could tell. And she smelled lovely. Oh, he thought, all the years I wasted, like a goddamn fool.

Your place, Charlie, she said with a hint of incredulity, is really, really nice.

Well, thank you, he said. I mean, I should have invited you out here sooner. Your family too. This is long overdue. Anyway, I inherited the place. So sinking money into it to fix it up wasn’t so difficult. It just needed a little work, some updating. May I take your coat?

You’ve been holding out on me, she said, shrugging out of the cold jacket. I never realized.

He shrugged his shoulders, casually. I mean, it’s not a mansion.

Charlie, she said, it’s beautiful. Look at all the old woodwork. The trim and moldings. She glanced out the window. Charlie, you even have a barn.

I guess, he said. Then, with a trace of mischief in his voice, Maybe you all could spend the night here? If you’d like, that is. I have a few spare rooms. The beds are all made up. No pressure, of course. I just wondered if it would make things easier…

She rested a hand on his chest and whispered, Charlie, are you trying to get lucky? She kissed him again.

Maybe I am, he confessed.

Melissa, Ainsley, and Addison came up the walk just then, and in his nervousness, Charlie found he couldn’t stop smiling; his face was so tense it ached. The girls hugged him around the waist and then poured into the house, and behind him he could hear them playing with Blueberry, who was an older dog, and only wanted his head scratched and his white belly rubbed. The girls, seeming to have intuited this, were all sprawled on a rug, saying sweet things to the dog, who now issued groans of contentment.

Hi, he said to Melissa, I’m Charlie. Charlie Fallon. Really happy to meet you. Your mother talks about you all the time.

Melissa, she said kindly enough, shaking his hand and passing him a bottle of cheap red wine. Thanks for having us over.

There wasn’t much warmth there, Charlie thought. As if the young woman didn’t expect this to last. As if she thought this day, these festivities, were all a bit hasty. That this was not part of some new tradition, but just an outlier. A day they would later remember only for its strangeness. That was okay, he allowed. She didn’t know him. All she knew for sure was that a long time ago he had divorced her mother.

I’ve enjoyed getting to know your daughters, Charlie said to Melissa, but her back was turned as she hung her jacket on a hook. Then she picked up the girls’ jackets, just then lying on the floor, and hung them up as well. Sweet kids, he said.

Oh, she said, sighing, yeah, they’re a handful.

You must feel very fortunate to have your mom around, he said.

They were just standing there, in the entryway, having this balky conversation, skating on the surface of new ice, while below, there was so much more he wanted to say. So much more, he assumed that she might have wanted to say too. But for now, they would just skate a polite distance away from each other, moving lightly over this cool white plane, while bubbles rose from below only to stop at that thick translucent surface, unable to pop.

I think it works out for all of us, she said, crossing her arms.

Well, he said, glancing quickly at the wine’s label. Can I get you something to drink?

I could use it, she said.

And so, he showed her the way to the kitchen, walking past Vivian and the girls playing with Blueberry, who seemed to be in his tired old glory. He unscrewed the cap of the bottle and reached for a wineglass, poured. Handed her the glass.

We should say a cheers, Melissa said. Then again—wait. Where’s your drink?

He found the nearly empty glass of root beer and said, Cheers, to a happy Thanksgiving. I’m sincerely so happy to meet you. So happy you’re here. He realized, with a start, that an aspect of adulthood, or parenthood, that he had never had to engage was this optimism he was now displaying. This impossible facade of positivity, generosity, and kindness. Melissa couldn’t care less about him, he saw. But he couldn’t mirror those feelings, couldn’t reciprocate in kind. He needed to represent hope, radiate implacability.

They touched glasses, and she never took her eyes off him.

I thought you liked to drink, she said. I thought my mom told me that. Yeah, that you knew your way around a bottle. Or a lot of bottles.

He nodded his head. It was the truth. I do like to drink, he admitted. Then looked at her, meaningfully. Maybe I like to drink too much.

She nodded her head and smiled at him in a not especially kind way. This would probably be way easier, she said, if we were all drinking, don’t you think? She swallowed a little wine and winced. You seem like the kind of guy who might have some nice bottles kicking around.

He bit his lip and stared at the kitchen tiling. For him, Thanksgiving had always been about wine. Every bit as much as it was about food, or fellowship. He may have never had a family of his own, but through the years, he had visited his parents, his aunts and uncles, cousins, and later, friends, always bringing a case of stellar wines that he had selected over the past year. He did not claim to be an expert in many areas or even when it came to wine. But he knew more than most people. Years of living alone had provided the space and means to become as obsessive as he chose to be. And for years, there had been no one to spend his money on. So much of his income was immediately funneled into investments, or his hobby—wine.

You’re really going to do this to me? he asked, glancing at her. Not angrily. Just—resignedly.

Do what? she said with a smile.

You know what, he countered, staring at the kitchen island. We’re going to drink? Aren’t we?

I just like to be real.

Fine, he said, let’s drink. Come with me. Like you said, I might have a few nice bottles kicking around.

He led her into the basement, to the last place he knew he should be going. But all that alcohol had a gravity. A dark pull. Those bottles down there held more than wine. They held laughter and great music and more laughter still. They held love and intimacy and honesty. Raw honesty. Bravery. Courage. Poetry. They held lingering sunsets and star-pierced nights. They held raucous dining rooms in far-flung restaurants. Basement bars hidden away from the eyes of the city. They held flirtations and liaisons. He turned on the lights as they went through the perfectly organized space, aware that his basement alone was larger than the house the four of them occupied in Chippewa Falls.

He knew that to any serious wine collector, his cellar was nothing. Two or three hundred bottles at any given time. A few truly exceptional bottles in here he had squirreled away over time. From trips to California, Oregon, and Washington vineyards. From friends in the hospitality industry. But world-class wine was so much harder to come by in the Midwest. Certainly here in the middle of nowhere, in the hinterland. The cellar was just a fifteen-by-fifteen corner of this basement. But he had taken some pride in its construction. The walls were the original sandstone block, newly restored. The shelves and storage all beefy dimensional lumber from a nearby barn that had blown down. Wood well over a century old. White pine and cedar and tamarack. The ghosts of this landscape.

She ran her fingers over the bottles, touched each label like she was reading braille. She blew the dust off the dark green glass as if blowing out a tiny candle.

So, she said, you know your wines.

He shrugged and smiled. I know a little bit. I worked in California for a stretch, he explained. When I had time off, I’d go up to the wine country. Healdsburg, mostly. This was before everything took off. You could buy a case of wine for just under fifty bucks, easy. Wines that might now cost, I don’t know, hundreds more. I learned a few things. Made friends with folks just starting those first great vineyards. We stay in touch. So, I get access to stuff that, uh, most people probably can’t. But, he coughed, I am trying to quit, Melissa.

It’s hard to be sober in Wisconsin, she said. Alcohol is like air here.

She continued looking at his collection. Occasionally picked up a bottle and spun it slowly in her hands.

I was a sales rep for a wine company for a while, she said. Over in Minneapolis. So, yeah. I made friends too. Chefs, sommeliers, vintners, restaurateurs. I probably would have moved out to California and worked out there but then, uh…

Then what? he asked.

Well, she sighed, as she tapped a fingernail on the label of a 1995 Chateau Mouton Rothschild and arched her eyebrows. I got pregnant with Ainsley, she said, pointing upstairs. And I knew I’d need help. It just seemed like the smartest thing to do. To come home.

He nodded.

Where do you work now?

Oh, she sighed again, I don’t want to think about it right now. She emitted a sad little sound. Sorry. No. That’s rude. During the day, she said with a quick, deliberate smile, I work for a company that sells natural gas. And propane. I’m an accounts manager, which means, mostly I answer phone calls and bill people. Nights, she continued, I waitress a little here and there. Or bartend. She nodded. So that’s me. Super exciting. What about you?

She continued circling the room, examining bottles.

I’m retired, he said. Thirty-plus years working for Union Pacific.

Yeah, she said, smiling at him, but…that doesn’t exactly explain it. All this. Right? I mean, your cellar might be worth, what, fifty thousand dollars? That’s not normal. Definitely not around here. And this house? You’ve got a lot of money tied up here. You drive a new truck. Buy your clothes from, where, Orvis and Patagonia? So, like, there’s something else… Not family money. Mom would know about that. She pressed a bottle into his chest and said, This one for sure.

A 1996 Chateau Margaux. Worth about $1,600. Why not? he thought. The regret of draining the bottle might be outweighed by the joyous experience of drinking it. He did not need to be lying on his deathbed thinking about the dozens and dozens of bottles of beautiful wine he never actually drank.

I, uh… Well, back in the mideighties I was working for Union Pacific. Out in California, as I said. I did track maintenance back then. And, uh, I met this kid. I mean, he wasn’t really a kid. He was a college guy. Cal Poly. And he kept telling me about this company. Apple. How they made computers. I didn’t know anything about computers. I just thought that was something only governments could own. Militaries. But he kept telling me that someday, off in the future, everyone, or every family at least, would own one of these things. I couldn’t even spend my money back then. I was always traveling. I didn’t even keep an apartment, you know? What was the point? I wasn’t married. No kids. Having stuff didn’t really matter. So I invested.

In Apple? she asked, smiling now in a genuine sort of way. What year?

With Apple, eighty-six, he said, allowing a small trace of a grin. Satisfaction. A good guess gone right as rain. But, I mean, later there were some other great recommendations from that kid. Like Google. Like Cisco Systems. Microsoft. Later yet, Facebook. Amazon. He owns a hedge fund now, skis in Switzerland, surfs in Tahiti. Still takes my calls too. Good kid.

What did a share cost?

About eighty cents. Give or take.

She shook her head, rolled a bottle of Lokoya Mount Veeder cabernet sauvignon around in the palm of her hand, like a bowling pin. How many shares?

Through the years, about fifty thousand shares.

She was working the math in her mind. A big number.

I got very lucky, meeting him, he said. He taught me plenty. But I manufactured some of my own luck too. There were a few other good guesses. Feelings I had. I remember liking the commercials for this drink company? Snapple comes to mind. I used to like to drink that on the railroad. Cool bottles. Bought quite a few shares of Snapple. But I mean, I’ve never had any kids. I’ve been divorced three times. Heck, I’d have a hundred thousand shares but my third wife, not your mom, took half.

He laughed.

What? she said.

Just—that was an expensive divorce.

Oh?

Yeah, that third time around lasted longer than the others. About six years. She lives in Panama now. Owns a coffee plantation. Sleeps with the president sometimes. Or his cabinet. I don’t know. I used to keep track.

And here we are outside of Spooner, Wisconsin, she laughed, just living our best lives.

She tossed him a six-thousand-dollar bottle of wine like it was a baton.

Christ, he murmured, you’ve got expensive taste. And a good eye. This is one of my better bottles.

Well, I know you want to impress me. Come on, she said, those will need to breathe.

***

This was it. What life was. Young children, her grandchildren, in the kitchen, sniping bites of food. Soft music playing, like a warm breeze. The scent of food cooking. A warm house. A fire crackling. Outside, more snow falling slowly, as if sifted down from above. Huge flakes. The girls wanted to go outside and make a snowman. There was still time before the meal, so Melissa offered to take them. Three bottles of wine sat waiting on the granite kitchen island.

We’re drinking, I guess, Vivian said.

I guess so too, he said, sidling close to her. There was patient rhythm in his mind, now, like that Willie Nelson song, Christmas Blues, that just made him want to bob his head real gently and sway his hips. In such a fashion that he might not be dancing. But he might be. He kissed her and then slowly wrapped his arms around her waist, resting his hands in the small of her back. She was dancing now too. The same secret rhythm. She rested her head on his chest and exhaled.

I want to take care of you, he said.

Hmmm, she purred. That sounds nice.

What do you want? he asked.

More times like this, she said.

I can’t believe it, he said, my luck. That this is happening. Does it feel right to you?

It does, she said quietly. It almost scares me.

Scares me too, he admitted. I don’t want to screw anything up.

But we’re not the same people, she said. Not the same people that we were. So young.

Yeah, he said, who wants to be young?

He worried though, that in the most important ways, he was. The same person. He could almost feel the bottles of wine breathing behind him. Like fat men at a table, breathless for a rich meal.

He’d uncorked the bottles effortlessly, surely, if with reverent ceremony. Melissa sat on a stool, extending a hand to sniff the cork, raising her eyebrows with appreciation, nodding her head in approval. They were both that sort of monster. And the wine was a monster too. Ready to slink into their bodies like a shape-shifter and make of the night what it wanted. Magic or tragic. It was always impossible to know until he’d gone a sip too far. A thimble too much.

He moved away from her. We should eat, he said.

I’ll gather everyone up, she said, moving towards her coat and snow boots.

When he was sure she was outside, he poured himself the tiniest sip and closed his eyes, hoping the night would only be magic.

It was.

Everything slowed and blurred in a gentle glow. There was the quality of sitting on a carousel, watching the faces of people you love slide past. Warm light. Rich food. The fresh forest smell of the newly cut pine tree. And with the wine, his body felt as if it were floating, as if he were weightless. In some other man’s dream. Melissa kept refilling his glass, and her own, and occasionally Vivian’s, and time did not exist. Or if it did, then to no great effect. There was nowhere to go and nothing to do.

After the meal, Melissa and Vivian insisted on cleaning up, and he sat back in his leather chair and closed his eyes. But the girls wanted to watch something on TV, so he tried to show them how his fancy remote worked, which they found hilarious, before they settled on How the Grinch Stole Christmas. Somehow, they had never seen the classic cartoon before and sat rapt on the thick rug, with Blueberry there beside them. His great muzzle in Addison’s little lap. How perfect was Boris Karloff’s voice. He closed his eyes. So warm. Safe. Full.

When he woke up, he was afraid he had slept the night away. He stood unsteadily. The fire had died down. It was very dark outside now, the snow falling more heavily. It dissolved slowly against the windows.

Hello? he called.

Blueberry trotted towards him, then yawned. Stretched before collapsing back onto the floor.

Hello?

The dining room was clean. As it was before. No trace of the holiday. No trace of his guests. The kitchen, too, was immaculate. He opened the refrigerator, where all the leftovers had been packed neatly into Tupperware containers and marked with tape: stuffing, turkey, cranberries… He closed the refrigerator door. Leaned his head against the refrigerator. He had gotten good and drunk and passed out. Passed out, like a lush. A stupid lush.

Stupid, stupid, stupid, he said, banging his head not softly on the refrigerator door. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Hey. It was Vivian. Standing there in the doorway. Her socks were off, toenails painted red. She scratched her calf with one foot. She looked tired. Concerned. What are you doing?

You’re still here?

Melissa took the girls home. She has the day off tomorrow.

She was okay? To drive?

Yeah. We sat for a long time, drinking coffee. Eating pie. Trust me, she was fine. She is fine.

I’m sorry, he said. I didn’t sleep last night. Guess I was just…I was so excited, I couldn’t.

He turned and rested his back against the refrigerator.

I wanted everything to be perfect, he continued. I guess by the time it all came together I was just exhausted.

He closed his eyes but heard her moving slowly towards him.

Come on, she said. Show me where you sleep.

She took his hand and, walking towards the staircase, asked, This way?

They took the stairs slowly, regularly. He liked looking at the arches of her feet. At her soles. He had always liked her feet.

She led him into the bedroom and undressed him. The room was cold. She pulled the blankets back and slid into bed. Then pulled the covers back over her. He did likewise, and she held him. She was almost naked, her breasts pressing against his back. Her mouth against his neck. She rubbed the tops of her feet against the soles of his feet. It felt exquisite. To warm those blankets up together. To look out the window and see nothing but snow expiring against the glass. No stray headlights. No moon. No radio towers blinking red. Nothing. Thanksgiving night.

I’m sorry I fell asleep, he said groggily.

Hey, she said quietly, sternly.

What? he asked apologetically.

Stop saying you’re sorry, she whispered into his ear. Just—thank you for tonight. That was…one of the nicest evenings I’ve had in a long time.

Me too, he said. Me too.