Chapter 14 #2
The following afternoon leads me to the Lost Valley Vineyards.
Mild, cloudy weather has me taking my walk later than usual, and Jo invites me for a wine-and-cheese-and-grapes-and-crackers kind of lunch on the stone patio outside the tasting room.
Though as I sit enjoying her company and the impromptu lunch, a part of me is already looking forward to leftover brown beans and cornbread for dinner tonight.
And then I laugh out loud, partly from the wine and partly because I don’t recognize this person having these thoughts.
“What’s so funny?” Jo asks from across the table.
I smile, shaking my head. “Only that I guess I’m really starting to appreciate the little things in life.” Then I tell her about Grace’s beans.
“Beans are that exciting?” she asks. Clearly they don’t have them in California, either. “I may have to snag myself an invitation to Grace’s for dinner.” Today Jo is wearing a much more attractive straw cowboy hat than Matt’s, along with a loose sundress and her usual John Lennon sunglasses.
Conrad is in his usual place, somewhere among the grapes. “What does he do in there all the time?” I ask.
And now she’s the one laughing. “Pruning, pruning, pruning. It’s all about making sure the grapes don’t get too much shade from the leaves, but also not too little. For a one-man operation, it’s kind of a full-time job. Though I think it’s also his personal form of meditation.”
She invites me to come and look, so we venture into the vines.
The grapes are lush and translucent and pleasingly smooth as I run the tip of my index finger over them.
Tiny curlicues of vine curve around them, almost protective and decorative at once.
She tells me they’ll be harvested come late summer.
When I start the walk home, after I’m probably twenty yards away, I look back for some reason. She lifts a hand to wave, still as striking to me as when I first met her weeks ago. And suddenly I understand why.
I don’t know why I haven’t put it together before. She’s talked about growing up a California hippie and told me specific years that she and Conrad lived different places—but now I see it. For the first time. She’s over seventy years old.
I never noticed before because she’s so simply beautiful. Even with wrinkles and sags. It’s her confidence, her choices, the ease with which she navigates life. She makes growing older look effortless. Way more effortless than I’ve treated my early forties.
I think more about her, and also about Grace, as I walk beneath the clouds—two strong, brave, beautiful women who probably wouldn’t have complained a bit if they’d ever lost their hair to chemo.
On both sides of the road, the fields are awash in Queen Anne’s lace and tall purple clover.
Now that I notice such things, I have to wonder what else I’ve been missing—what other simple, beautiful things in life I just haven’t seen.
From wildflowers to the charm in an old woman’s face.
I resolve to keep seeing them. It suddenly seems, well .
.. like a crime not to notice beautiful things.
Surely God put wildflowers in this field for that purpose, because I can’t think of any other.
I’m walking up Lost Valley Lane, aware of a dragonfly making a swirly path around me, when a pickup truck I happen to recognize as Police Chief Matthew Cordray’s approaches. I haven’t seen him in a couple of days, which I still think is best, even if it surprises me that he hasn’t been around.
I suspect anew that he’s probably going to stop and chat with me, or suggest we grill out again, and I’m still going to be cordial but decline any such invitations.
So of course I’m not surprised when the truck eases to a halt and the window goes down. His police uniform tells me he’s off to serve and protect. “Hey there, neighbor,” he says with the usual grin.
“Hey.” I smile back, just a little. Noticing again that he definitely looks better without the hat.
And that maybe the unshaven look he sports gives him a slightly rugged vibe.
Maybe I picked a bad time to start noticing things.
Even so, I brace myself for being pleasant yet not encouraging to whatever he’s about to say.
“I was gonna mow your yard today before my shift, but Grace asked me to move some stuff and then it got too late. Get to it tomorrow.”
“Oh. Okay.” I’m nodding, once again thrown by his ... lack of wanting to get together.
“See ya,” he says.
“See ya,” I return.
And off he goes.
Maybe he was completely lying and thinks I look hideous without the hat and that’s why he’s suddenly keeping his distance.
Or maybe Joy Lynn came back around.
Oh my God, stop. You don’t even want him to pursue you, remember? If he doesn’t find you attractive, that’s probably a good thing.
Only ... if I’m honest with myself, it was nice, so very nice, to think he truly liked my face better without my hair. Nice to think it was possible for someone—anyone—to think that. Even if I don’t.
I turn and watch his truck amble on down the lane, wondering when on earth I started caring if the cowboy next door wants to spend time with me.