Chapter Six
“There’s just something special about spending time in nature, isn’t there?” said Mikaela, bringing the wine glass to her lips. She closed her eyes, took a big whiff of the fermented grapes, and then proceeded to taste the wine before she spat it out in a spittoon.
Sydney, on the other hand, wouldn’t let a single drop go to waste. She had already swallowed back two glasses and was embracing that lovely, relaxed feeling that came with the hot sun and a smidgeon of alcohol running through her veins. “How often do you actually get out in nature?” she asked.
Her friend, albeit lovely and gracious, was no nature bunny.
Mikaela never set a bare foot on the grass.
She refused to join them when they hiked in Point Lobos State Nature Reserve, and in summer, when the sun was warm, she only ever walked around with an umbrella shading her head. They were complete and total opposites.
The only reason they were friends was because Mikaela had dated Sydney’s brother for a long time and when the relationship had ended—amicably according to the two of them—it had felt like she was on the verge of losing a sister.
“Every day, my dear Sydney. I just have to walk out my French doors to be fully immersed in nature.”
“That’s because you live on a wine farm,” Liv pointed out. “And it doesn’t count when you don’t shed a drop of sweat. To enjoy nature, you have to sweat.”
“Says absolutely no one,” Mikaela chuckled. She grabbed the bottle of wine and poured herself another glass.
The three of them were seated at a wooden table set between two lush rows of vineyards. The scene looked like a postcard, with vines stretching in every direction.
Behind them, across a sprawling expanse of grass, a deck extended from an old stone building that was revamped a few years ago.
The real wine tasting took place on that deck and the only reason they were spoiled with their own private table amongst the vineyards was because Mikaela had married the man who owned Calla Bella Vineyards.
They were basically VIPs, and every time Sydney and Liv visited, they were treated like royalty.
Sydney always joked with her brother Vince that Mikaela had to first find the bad fish before she could land the really rich one. It was ironic because Vince was a marine biologist and so every joke Sydney ever made had to do with fish.
“Well, then I’m assuming you’re saying no to our camping trip next weekend in Big Sur?” Liv raised both eyebrows as if she was asking a question when the answer was already an automatic no.
When Sydney and Liv had planned the camping trip with Vince, they hadn’t bothered extending an invitation to Mikaela, not because of the possible tension between the two exes, but because Mikaela would never agree to such a thing.
To her, camping equated to living like you are homeless.
She thought the idea of setting up a tent and making a fire were acts of torture.
If they did want to spend time with her, they usually opted for high teas at the Tea House, or a massage at the local spa.
“It’s a firm no from me,” said Mikaela, confirming their hypothesis. “But I’d love to see the photos. Please take plenty. Maybe even give me a FaceTime while you’re all sitting around the bonfire. You know how I love watching other people eat s’mores.”
“There won’t be any signal.”
Mikaela grimaced. “Are you sure it’s safe to go camping? What if there’s a bear?”
“Not to worry,” said Sydney. “We’ll throw Vince at the bear. It will give us at least a few good minutes to run before the bear bites through his skinny limbs and realizes it wants real food.”
“Your brother’s got the fastest metabolism.”
Liv, who was sitting directly across from Sydney and facing the wine-tasting deck, suddenly flicked her gaze up and over Sydney’s shoulder. Her eyes narrowed, then widened. “Don’t look now, Syd, but Morgan is standing on the wine-tasting deck.”
Mikaela whipped her head toward the deck. “Who’s Morgan?”
“She’s the one Sydney hooked up with from the gallery,” Liv said in that nagging tone that made it seem as if Sydney’s hookups were common knowledge, something for everyone to already know. When, in fact, they were not.
“You mean that older woman?” Mikaela’s nose wrinkled. “The one who’s basically old enough to be your mother, Syd?”
“She’s definitely not that old,” Sydney defended. “She’s like forty years old. You’re closer to her age than you are to mine.”
Sydney had no idea why her skin was suddenly prickling so violently. She had no idea why blood seemed to rush to her hands, and why she felt so defensive, like she wanted to punch anyone and anything that referred to Morgan as too old to date. She wasn’t. Not even close.
“Glad you got that out of your system,” Mikaela said, giving her a look, and then, as if an idea had suddenly dawned on her, she reached for her cell phone and waved it in the air. “Why don’t we invite her to join us? There’s plenty of space at our table. I’ll give Sam a quick call and get her—”
“No!” Sydney exclaimed. “Let’s not.”
“Why not?” asked both Liv and Mikaela at the exact same time. Their expressions even mirrored each other’s. They both shared a look of surprise and confusion.
“Because I think Morgan hates me.”
“Didn’t you say she’s a neurosurgeon?” asked Liv, as she absentmindedly fiddled with the bulbous bit of a cactus in a pot. “She doesn’t hate you, Syd. She’s probably just socially adverse. Aren’t they all so clever and kind of on the spectrum?”
“That’s a terrible generalization, Liv,” said Sydney.
“Well, I’m inviting her over, anyway,” said Mikaela, already pressing the phone to her ear.
She spoke to someone named Sam. Sydney assumed she was the manager of the tasting room.
Before Sydney could even pop out her compact mirror to check her makeup, she heard the soft crunch of footfalls across the grass.
Glancing back, Sydney spotted two burly looking men accompanying Morgan and her friend across the grass.
Morgan looked extremely displeased, as if she’d rather walk barefoot on hot coals than be escorted to a table of strangers. The woman beside her, the cute blonde who was responsible for the house fire, was practically bouncing with glee.
“Hello, ladies.” Mikaela stood up and rounded the table to them to introduce herself. Liv did the same, giving each of the newcomers a kiss on the cheek. Morgan visibly tensed when Liv squeezed her into a hug as well.
Sydney should have done the polite thing and gotten up to greet them, but her body had suddenly stalled, her limbs going on strike.
She just sat there, rude and disrespectful.
Though, in all fairness, it wasn’t her fault.
What was that condition where people felt trapped in their bodies?
Whatever it was, maybe she was coming down with it.
Liv shot her a glare but said nothing as she sat down.
Mikaela didn’t even seem to notice Sydney’s extreme rudeness.
She was far too busy studying Morgan, who, as always, looked hot as hell.
How could someone like that even exist in this world?
It seemed profoundly unfair to the rest of the plebs whose skin didn’t glow with that flawless pale smoothness, or whose hair wasn’t that perfect raven black, or whose curls didn’t surround her face like the most delicate of storm clouds.
Even Sydney, who wasn’t half bad in the looks department, felt a little inferior. Or maybe it wasn’t so much an issue of self-consciousness, but rather longing. A desperate longing to get to know this woman, to be with her. And quite honestly, to be under her.
A thousand flapping moth wings suddenly zoomed into Sydney’s stomach, putting pressure behind her navel and sending a hum through her hips. She reached for her half-full glass of wine, gulped it all down, and then proceeded to promptly refill it before glugging it down again.
Morgan watched her out of the corner of her eye. Something flickered across her face. It looked strangely like… amusement. Well, great. At least Sydney had managed to entertain the woman, even if it wasn’t very classy, even if it made her look like a drunk.
“So, Liv tells me you’re a neurosurgeon,” Mikaela said, taking a seat. She reached sideways for the umbrella and readjusted it to throw the shade over Morgan. A gracious move, considering the woman’s pale skin. Sydney didn’t want to imagine what it would be like after baking in the sun for an hour.
“I am,” said Morgan. There wasn’t a smile on her face, or any glimmer of friendliness. Frankly, the woman looked more annoyed at the mention of her profession than she had looked this morning with coffee all over her blouse.
“You must be extremely smart,” said Liv.
“She’s a genius,” Tessa grinned. She had introduced herself moments earlier, though Sydney had met her formally the day of the fire.
The woman was adorable, with all those soft angles and round, gentle features.
In another life, Sydney could easily have imagined being close friends with her.
She looked fun, like she’d accept a challenge to go rollerblading down the street at midnight for no other reason than to feel the wind in her hair.
“I really am not,” Morgan said coolly. She crossed one leg over the other and leaned back in the chair.
The stained blouse was swapped for a sleeveless one.
She looked cooler than cool, as if she’d just stepped off a movie set in Italy and was about to wrap one of those silky scarves around her head, before she climbed in one of those convertibles and zoomed across the Amalfi coast.
“She was accepted into Mensa when she was seventeen,” said Tessa, looking proudly at her friend.
Sydney wondered how long they’d been friends. If they were close, closer than just friends. Were they close enough to ever kiss behind closed doors?
“Well, that’s very impressive,” said Mikaela, yanking Sydney out of her head.
Good thing, since she was about to go down a dark rabbit hole.
“Are you practicing here in Carmel?” Mikaela asked. “I didn’t even know our hospital was specialized enough to accommodate a neurosurgeon.”
Morgan’s lips tightened. She picked up a loose cork on the table and ran her thumb over one end. “I’m taking a brief hiatus from work.”
There was something about the way she had said it, as if it wasn’t a good thing, far from it, that cracked Sydney’s heart in two. Everyone else noticed it, too. The silence that followed was so loud that Sydney winced. Yet, she didn’t ask why. None of them did, and Morgan didn’t elaborate.
Mikaela, who wasn’t one to let things get too serious, jumped in. “Good. I’m a firm believer in taking breaks. People are forever getting burnt out at work. I was close to burning out right before I met Jack. It’s one of the reasons I’m not working.”
“You married rich,” Liv said plainly. “You don’t work because you married into money, Mikki. Just own it.”
“I hate when you say that,” scowled Mikaela. “Who says Jack didn’t marry rich?”
“You were driving a beat-up Volkswagen Beetle from the eighties before you met him.”
“Don’t hate on the Beetle,” Sydney chimed in. “It was my dad’s car before he sold it to Vince.”
“And before I bought it from him,” Mikaela added. “You know, he charged me way above the asking price.”
“My brother’s a cheapskate,” Sydney chuckled. “You knew that before you two even started dating.”
“He made me pay for the aquarium every single time I went. Which is crazy because he worked there part time, and I was only going there to see him.”
“I once dated a guy who made me buy a cheeseburger at the MacDonald’s down the street, just so we could fill up a Tupperware container with ketchup back when you could still use those condiment pumps for free,” said Tessa.
Everyone around the table laughed, including Morgan—though she looked more like she was just smiling politely than anything else.
The conversation zig-zagged across the table, moving from Tessa’s work as an interior decorator, to Mikaela’s passion for bonsai trees to Liv’s incident at work the other day when she had accidentally lost control of the new hose nozzle in front of a rookie.
Sydney and Morgan were doing very little of the talking. Every so often, their eyes met, only for them to look away quickly, shifting their focus to the table or the vines or the person next to them instead. Anywhere but on each other.
There were moments as well when Sydney was thinking of something to say.
She was trying to come up with something that would impress the neurosurgeon.
She wanted to show her she was clever enough to befriend, smart enough to have meaningful conversations.
Unfortunately, she just ended up saying something stupid like, “When was the last time any of you ate sushi? Don’t you guys just love sushi? ”
And then either Liv, Tessa, or Mikaela would sweep the conversation away to something more interesting. At the moment, Liv was talking about her first queer speed dating experience.
“Five minutes seems like the shortest time ever, but when you’re speaking to someone that just grunts and says absolutely nothing, it feels like a lifetime.”
“So, you were there at the speed dating event too, then?” Tessa asked.
A phone suddenly rang.
It wasn’t Sydney’s. Her ringtone was the opening score from Downton Abbey.
“I have to take this,” Morgan said, suddenly standing up.
It didn’t seem physically possible for the woman to look any paler, but she did.
Her lips were slightly parted, her eyes so light they were rather eerie.
She lifted her ringing phone for everyone to see.
Unfortunately, Sydney couldn’t glimpse the name on the screen.
Morgan didn’t wait for anyone’s approval before walking off.
“Sounds serious,” said Liv.
“Is she alright?” asked Mikaela.
“There’s only one person who can make Morgan look like she’s seen a ghost,” said Tessa worriedly. She glanced back over her shoulder to the raven-haired woman marching across the grass and bit at her lip. “And it’s never a good call.”