Chapter 27
T he sun was golden in that early September, vineyard-goddess kind of way—the kind that makes you think you’re in a Nancy Meyers movie even when you’re just sweating through your wrap dress and trying not to spill sparkling rosé on your boobs. It was my twenty-fifth birthday party.
My parents had rented out the Maison du Ciel winery. They picked it for its gorgeous Blue Ridge vista and its French name — “House of the Sky” — since I’d be finishing my culinary training in Paris in May.
There were string lights and lush floral arrangements of blush dahlias and coral zinnias spilled across the tables — a picture perfect pairing for the many glasses of Virginia rosé being consumed.
And a classical quartet was playing breathy string covers of Taylor Swift, Beyonce, and Lorde, like they were auditioning for the queen in Bridgerton.
Everywhere you looked there were tasteful linen napkins, artisanal cheeses, and women with glossy waves and investment heels.
It was very much a Winslow Family Affair.
I’d turned twenty-five the week before, but we delayed the party until I was stateside.
Paris had been everything I’d hoped for, and I’d decided to stay for a bit and work for one of the brilliant pastry chefs I’d trained under.
My time there had been full of croissants and courage and crying in alleyways—but tonight was for home and for the past. The guests were everyone from high school, college (well, the two years I actually finished), family friends, vague cousins, and my old high school boyfriend, Alex, who was now engaged to a woman named Blair who wore a white jumpsuit and the expression of someone who had to make herself smile through someone else’s story.
And Fitz. Of course . The man who had loomed like a lighthouse in every summer of my past. He was standing at the edge of the terrace, one hand in his pocket, a glass of bourbon in the other.
I chuckled to myself, unsurprised that Fitz was drinking bourbon at a winery.
He was too buttoned-up for rosé. God forbid he live a little.
He was wearing navy slacks, a white shirt with the sleeves rolled, and the smug, unshakable aura of someone who knew he looked good.
I hadn’t seen him in two years. I was busy taking classes last summer and didn’t make it back to the beach for the first time ever.
I hated missing the month on Lemondrop Lane, but I didn’t hate the tension and the angst and the feelings I had to shove down every time I saw him.
The past two years had been a relief—a soft blur of bistro lights, late-night patisserie runs, and a curated rotation of charming French boys with good cheekbones and even better tongues.
But there he was, talking with Jack, and I was doing my damndest not to notice—or care. And I was doing fine. Truly. Until he laughed, loud enough that I turned my head like a flower to the sun.
I was standing a few paces away with a group of old college friends—girls in soft florals and long-stemmed glasses, talking about the guy I’d been seeing in Paris who played the violin in bed.
They were asking why he wasn’t here. I was saying something witty about passport issues and sexual selfishness, when I heard Jack’s voice—my brother, the birthday toast machine.
“Man, you didn’t bring anyone?” Jack asked, a laugh under his breath. “That’s rare. You usually have some aspiring Mrs. Whitmore III on your arm.”
I shouldn’t have listened; I should’ve floated away.
But instead I leaned, just slightly, toward the conversation drifting over the cocktail tables. Fitz and Jack were standing on the gravel by the edge of the garden, glasses tilted, backs half-turned. Fitz sipped his bourbon and shrugged.
“Nah,” he said. “There’s no one worth making a public appearance with right now. Just a few casual fucks. Nothing ‘meet the friends and family’ worthy.”
Jack laughed. “You’re such a snob. There are tons of pretty girls here tonight. Come dance. Ask someone. Hell, dance with Charlie. She doesn’t have a date either. Y’all could be dance buddies.”
I was close enough to hear them, but he hadn’t seen me. I was standing six feet away in a silk dress that cost more than my flight, wearing highlighter on my collarbones and perfume that smelled like Paris and freedom. I was right fucking there.
But Fitz didn’t hesitate. “No one here’s pretty enough to tempt me,” he said. “Your sister included.”
I felt it like a slap. Sharp, fast, and echoing. I felt my face flush.
I tried to turn my attention back to my present company, enough to hear Blair say something about the lighting being “delicious” and someone else laugh too brightly. I noticed how Alex’s hand brushed the back of his fiancée’s thigh like they had a shared language I’d never learn.
I smiled because I knew how. Because I was a goddamn professional. “Oh my God,” I said, way too cheerily. “Remember sophomore year when I got drunk on two and a half sangrias and told a teaching assistant he looked like an extra from Dead Poets Society ?”
Everyone laughed. I laughed. I lifted my glass and toasted something idiotic.
And when Fitz finally turned and caught my eye—late, distracted, the way men do when they’re only half-listening to the world—I smiled at him like I hadn’t heard a goddamn thing.
But I had .
And later, when I went to the bathroom and stared at my reflection under the antique sconces, I didn’t cry. I just leaned against the cool marble, took a breath, and whispered: “Not pretty enough to tempt him.” Like I was quoting scripture. Like it was carved in stone.
Later, after the string lights went soft and the wine made everyone prettier and louder—he found me.
I was near the dance floor, alone for a moment, watching my parents sway to a cover of Don’t Let Me Be Lonely Tonight .
My heels were dangling from one finger, and I was half-swaying, half-hoping no one noticed how quiet I’d gotten.
“Charlie,” he said from behind me. I turned slowly. “Dance with me?” he asked.
I blinked at him. Then gave him a smile that had more edge than shine. “Don’t do me any favors, Fitz,” I said. “I’m not seventeen and desperate for a dance on the side of the road.”
That made him pause, just a flicker, before he recovered with a soft snort.
“Didn’t say you were desperate, Charlie.
” He stepped closer, hands in his pockets, lazy confidence wrapped around him like cologne.
“I was just going to wish you happy birthday. The big 2-5. What’s your next move?
Or are you going to stay and dally in Paris baking a while longer? ”
I clucked my tongue, sweet as poison. “I plan to dally my ass all around Europe for as long as I want, thank you. I’m not the one pushing thirty.”
He raised an eyebrow.
“I just assumed,” I went on, eyes narrowed like I was inspecting a fine cheese, “you’d be married by now.
Where is your trophy wife, Fitz? You’re behind schedule, aren’t you?
Not living up to the Whitmore legacy. You should be conceiving the next blue-blooded Fitzgerald the Fourth by, what, next spring? ”
That hit—just enough. But he didn’t flinch. Just smiled like I was funny and said, “Charming as ever.”
I lifted my glass and sipped. “What’s that F. Scott Fitzgerald line?” I mused aloud, letting my gaze wander to the dark horizon. “ Thirty—the promise of a decade of loneliness and thinning hair, or something like that.”
“Mm,” he said, lips curving. “You enjoy flouncing around ‘discovering yourself,’ Charlie,” he said, with that particular smirk that made me want to dump a drink down his shirt. “Tarts and existentialism and French boys with vowel-heavy names, oh my.”
He leaned in a little. Low voice, rich and dark like his bourbon. “Wasn’t it also Fitzgerald who said, ‘I’m five years too old to lie to myself and call it honor.’”
I didn’t answer. I just turned my face toward the music, away from him, and walked back into the glow of the party like he hadn’t ever mattered.
T hat night, back in my childhood bedroom, I took off my makeup in silence, folded my party dress over the armchair, and set my birthday cards facedown on the desk.
Then I opened my suitcase and pulled out the little notebook I used for recipe ideas—half-stained, soft-spined, pages fluttering with ratios and pastry shell math. I turned to a blank page and wrote a title across the top in my neatest cursive:
Things That Don’t Rise the Way You Want Them To.
I stared at it for a long time. Then I closed the notebook, shoved it back between my jeans and my charger cord, and turned out the light. I didn’t sleep. I just waited for the sun.
And the next morning, I flew back to Paris and never let myself think about him again.