Chapter 22
Twenty-Two
“Your forced work break now consists of you revitalizing a vineyard, undermining privacy laws, and hiding from Gavin who wants to jump your bones between tutoring sessions with his niece whom we all want to adopt?” Rue couldn’t be more of a condescending asswipe if she tried. “Did I get that right?”
“Gavin doesn’t want to jump my bones.”
Remy laughs at this. “You’re an idiot.” On her tiptoes, she digs through Mom’s organized tea cabinet and settles on mint. “And I like that shirt. Purple suits you.” She does a double take. “And that lipstick.” She temporarily abandons the tea to rummage through my purse on the counter.
I snatch it from her. “What the hell are you doing?”
“Seeing if that color’s in here so I can try it on.”
“I’m not sharing with you.” I slap her hand away as she fights me for my bag. “It’s Chanel.”
Remy frowns. “So.”
“So buy your own.”
She sticks her tongue out at me then returns to making tea and I toss my bag to the side.
“I keep telling her she needs more color in her life,” Mom chirps from the table.
“Black suits my soul.” It does, but after three days of Banyan telling me that black was harshing the grapes’ ability to get their ripe on, here I am, in purple.
“And I’m not an idiot. Gavin’s infatuated with me because I’m an older woman he had a crush on when he was a kid.
A fantasy. Probably Freudian. It’ll pass as soon as he gets it through his raggedy mug that it’s not happening.
Because it’s not.” At least this is what I’m telling myself.
At their skeptical expressions: “What? It’s basic psychology. Read a book.”
Remy fills the kettle with water. “I read lots of books, thank you. All of them calling this reverse age gap a five-star read.”
“I meant books other than Aunt Mabel’s literary porn,” I say with a sneer.
Remy rolls her eyes but doesn’t argue. Mom’s sister, Mabel, was a nun turned smutty romance author, and Remy gobbles that trash up.
Rue props her feet on a vacant chair at the kitchen table, Mom snacks on a plate of cheese and marmalade—weird—and Remy makes tea as we slip into a recap of our week.
They’re maddening, but it’s also comfortable. I’ve been away from them so long there’s a bit of magic in being pulled back into the everyday fold of us.
I give them a laugh with my latest donor rejection, a man named Marv who somehow had his last name redacted.
Even without it, I was able to find an alternative video streaming platform where he posts videos of himself passionately defending conspiracy theories, including one where he cited his reasoning for donating sperm was “overtaking the system.” It was shocking, even for the internet. And an immediate hell no.
“And the vineyard?” Remy asks.
I replay my mornings with Banyan and the completed clean-up of the tasting room. “And Gavin’s in that shed every afternoon,” I tell them. “The man has an obsession with mowers.”
My sisters and mom exchange a look. Remy says, “You should go out and see it—might surprise you.”
“Surprised by lawn mowers?” I ask dryly. “The reopening is next weekend, I’m too busy for sheds.”
Remy mumbles under her breath as Rue abandons her chair to make a ham sandwich and asks, “You gonna relax and run for mayor after that?”
“President, actually.” I eye the processed meat in her hand and toss her an apple. “That’s bad for conception.”
She tosses the apple back to me and shoves a whole piece of ham in her mouth.
“Did you hire someone to help?” Remy asks.
“I’m doing it alone for now.” I’ve made projections, but until I know what actual revenue streams will look like, I don’t want to bring other people on board until I can confirm it’s viable. Plus, the posting for the job I put up has only drawn subpar applicants—I have standards.
And nobody will do it as good as me.
“We can help,” Remy offers. “Can’t we, Rue?”
Rue cuts her eyes to mine. “Only if Ree-Ree says please.”
“I’ll take my chances alone, thanks.”
“You should see Reese with Addie,” Mom says. “They got into the old home videos and did that Spice Girls dance you three did. You remember?” She laughs. “You thought you were going to be famous.”
My sisters have a whole conversation with their eyes before Rue says, “You were dancing?”
“What?” I pick at a fleck of hot pink paint on my fingertip. “She was struggling with her lines and I needed her to warm up to me.”
After the stretch of silence the first day, there hasn’t been another. Every afternoon when she gets off the bus, we help pack a few boxes at Nancy’s house before coming here. Addie loves asking questions and appreciates every answer I give her.
I showed her the Peloton and told her sometimes I ride it for ninety minutes straight. She looked at me like an Olympian.
Same as when I showed her how to precisely weigh the ingredients for baking sourdough and the color-coded spreadsheet I made for Mom’s appointments and recovery tasks.
She’s genuinely impressed by me for reasons outside of work and despite me having done nothing to help her with her lines.
Also, the dancing was fun.
It happened because I wanted to show Addie a video of Amanda and I from when we were young but got distracted by the tape end scribbled with Dancing Queens.
I couldn’t not watch, and when Addie begged me to try, I couldn’t not say yes.
It turns out, her superpower is getting me to do things I absolutely do not want to do.
And so, we danced—we were terrible—and because we were later than usual, Gavin showed up and witnessed the whole thing. This pleased everyone—especially my mother and Gavin.
“Don’t listen to her,” Mom says around bites. “She was laughing.”
Remy lets out an annoying aww and Rue gasps—I hate them both—then the conversation moves to Mom’s physical therapy appointments and the antique store, and my gaze drifts out the kitchen window to Gavin’s house.
Every time I’ve seen his truck at the shop—which has been daily this week—I’ve literally turned my body away from it.
But the turn doesn’t stop the pull.
To know him.
To be next to him.
To constantly remind myself that I would never enter into a business agreement that doesn’t have a future, and this is no different. I’m having a baby, he lives in Fontain, and we’re completely wrong for each other.
And still.
Every morning he’s sent me a terrible pun, today’s being Coffee gives me grounds for living, and every afternoon he’s thanked me for helping Addie.
I didn’t respond on Monday.
I didn’t respond on Tuesday.
I didn’t respond on Wednesday.
But today, his persistence wore me down enough I couldn’t not. Has anyone ever taught you how to take a hint?
Pretty sure I skipped school that day.
To nobody, I ask, “Do you think it’s weird when older women date younger men?” and it silences the kitchen.
Rue has a knowing look on her face that I want to shove down the garbage disposal, so I defer to Remy. There’s my next mistake because she’s smiling like a psycho. As is my mother.
“Never mind,” I mutter.
“You like him,” Remy says. Then squeals. “Reese likes Gavin.”
“I knew this was a mistake.” They cackle like a house of egg-constipated hens. “I was asking a question. I don’t like him. I’m just—” I suck my tongue against my teeth. “Trying to understand the situation.”
“I fell in love with a traveling substitute,” Rue admits easily. “And am trying to have another baby at almost forty-three. Pretty sure most of life’s a mindfuck.”
“Rue Fletcher,” Mom scolds around a mouthful of marmalade and cheese. “Your mouth is as filthy as Reese’s. And I knew you and Nash were right from the beginning, you just wouldn’t listen.”
Rue waves her off.
“You should just go out with him,” Remy says. “Once. Just to see. What’ll it hurt?”
“And then what?” I ask. “What if I see it’s . . .”
“Hot?” Rue fills in.
I rub my temples, because yes.
“Why is everything about sex with you girls?” Mom snips.
“Says the woman who got knocked up by a pirate,” I shoot back.
Mom rolls her eyes.
“You go again,” Remy says over her mug. “And you keep going.” When I think she’s done, her voice turns high-pitched enough we all flinch. “And you fall in love!”
“And Chicago?” I ask. “I just keep going on dates until I leave?” That sounds like a recipe for disaster. “What about the pregnancy?”
Remy blows on the steam from her tea. “You could stay,” she says. “And fill a Fontain house with a dozen little Gavins instead of worrying about rogue donor genes.”
I scoff. “And my job?”
It’s Rue’s turn to join in on the crusade. “If you can pass a competency exam, Mom and I would love to have you at Old Vines, wouldn’t we, Mom?” She smiles her bitchiest smile. “That toilet won’t scrub itself.”
I flip her off, but there’s so much chaos in my brain that I don’t have a comeback.
I’m barely a week in the trenches at the vineyard—I can’t count on that long term yet.
Stay. The word carves itself onto my skull.
It’s what I’d always thought I’d do—leave to come back—but now the opportunity is here, and I don’t know what to do or how to do it.
“Maybe you have to do this,” Remy says. “Like for work.”
“What exactly does Gavin have to do with my high-paying job?”
She shrugs, cupping her mug with both hands. “Your boss said you need to get a life. Having a social life is part of life. You could be friends . . .” Her voice trails off until she adds, “To lovers.”
I snarl.
“Or just friends without the lovers,” she backpedals. “Seriously, what could it hurt?”
Here’s the hurt: Gavin is too different than me to be part of my life, but he’s also too good for me to lead on and give false hope to.
I wouldn’t do that to him. Ever. I’d never start something we’d never be able to finish, nor would I ask him to uproot his life as much as I’d never want him to ask me to uproot mine.
I’m here because there are things I want, and he’s not one of them. He’s a distraction.
And he also doesn’t know the truth of why I’m here.
At my hesitation, Remy continues. “You really could be friends with him. He’s nice.
He helped Mom. You’re helping Addie and the vineyard.
Even though your firm is behind it, by certain definitions, you’re still working.
And the way you explained it, your boss wants you to be .
. .” Her lips pinch as she works to find the word. “Living.”
“Here, here,” Rue says around her sandwich as she flips through an old magazine. “Then you can stop texting me a thousand times a day.” Her eyes meet mine. “Plus, it’ll give Gavin a chance to realize what a weirdo Mrs. Robinson is anyway.”
I roll my eyes. “Funny.”
She has a point with the texting. I’ve found ways to keep myself busy, but I can only handle my mother and Banyan so much, and the vineyard really doesn’t need much work. And Addie’s only here a couple hours in the afternoons. And, sadly and shockingly, my sisters have lives.
Maybe having Gavin as a friend wouldn’t be the worst thing.
I love spending time with Addie even though we’re making zero headway on her lines.
Over the last four days, she’s memorized exactly one: “There’s no place like home.
” And that’s only because it’s similar to Goldie Hawn’s line in Overboard, “I’m turning the boat around . . . I’m going home.”
Maybe Remy’s right.
Maybe spending time with Gavin will be the nudge I need to have a social life when I go back to the city. Prepare me for dating someone seriously and small talk-filled playdates with other moms. I can spend time with him—with parameters—and this can be nothing.
“How do I be friends with someone who told me that Mom having brain surgery was the best thing that happened to him in years?”
Remy gasps at the same time Mom says, “I’d be offended if it wasn’t Gavin.”
“Just tell him you don’t feel the same,” Rue says. “Does he know about the baby quest?” She laughs at my avoidant look. “There ya go. You don’t want a future with him, just tell him what a psycho you are. Unless . . .”
I take the bait. “Unless what?”
She flips the page of her magazine, nonchalantly adding, “Unless you don’t want him to know what you’re doing because you like him.”
“Why would that matter?”
“Would you want to date someone actively trying to have a baby with someone else?” She gives me a pointed look. “Whom they’re stalking?”
“I haven’t told him because it’s none of his business, not because I care what he thinks.” Why do I feel cornered? “And it’s never come up.”
“Right.” Rue drags the word out in a way I despise. “That question of ‘are you in the market for poached sperm?’ usually takes a few dates to come into play. My fault.”
She is the worst person I know.
Remy guides the conversation to Nora’s birthday party—still being held here in a couple of days—but I zone out.
Trish would want me to do this. What do you do for fun? she had asked the day she all but fired me.
If she asks me when I get back, other than having a baby, I still won’t be able to answer that. And the vineyard . . .
I might need to do this. Spend time with Gavin to ensure I return to Chicago so maternal and socialized the entire firm will choke on their communal happy hour cocktails while I shove a lollipop up Matt’s nose.
My focus floats back to Gavin’s truck—it’s less of an eyesore now that I know it belonged to Greg—and his small house.
I can be his friend.
I already am . . . I think. I could ask him. Is that weird? To ask another adult what the status of a friendship is? It is—we aren’t in second grade—but I grab my phone anyway.
Are we friends?
If I say yes will you go out with me?
I bite my cheek. No.
You know what they call a skeleton with no friends? He doesn’t wait for me to respond: Bonely.
I laugh at my phone, swallowing it when Rue’s dumb face looks my way.
Bad.
This is easy. Safe. So obvious I don’t know why I didn’t think of this to begin with.
I’m self-aware enough to admit I like spending time with him.
And I have lots of time. And me having a baby is none of his damn business.
And I can be friends with him without it becoming something else even if I do like him flirting with me.
Do you have plans Saturday afternoon? I send. I have something to do for work.