Prologue #2
“Plus,” he says, standing upright so he’s no longer leaning into my space.
“Ben Franklin once said wine was constant proof God wanted us happy. You know that?” He doesn’t wait for me to respond.
“People misquote him to saying beer, but it’s always been wine.
” He grins like this really means something to him. “Seems like a sign.”
“A sign?” I ask with a laugh. “I’m not sure about that. You have a name, Mr. Harmonica-Playing-History-Teacher?”
“Nash,” he says, extending his hand out to me. “Nash Fletcher.”
“Well, Nash.” I put my hand in his and squeeze, the swirls of our palms and fingertips connecting like lost pieces of the same puzzle. “I’m Rue. Rue Conway.”
“Rue Conway.” He gifts me with another smile. “I like that.”
The way he says it, I do too.
My mother joins me behind the counter. “Well, who have we here, daughter dearest?”
I jerk my hand from Nash’s, my face heating by forty-four degrees. Like I’ve just been caught naked with him instead of shaking his hand.
Nash is unbothered. A man like him probably always is. “Nash,” he says easily, shaking my mom’s hand so the bracelets up her arm jangle slightly. With her wild hair, bold-colored clothing, and beads, her arrival is more like a pour from an old bottle of patchouli oil.
“Iris,” she coos, seemingly already in love with him. “Rue’s mom.”
“Nash is a teacher,” I tell her as I fidget with the condom tins. “And was apparently in the market for the old Hohner we had.”
“Is that so?” she asks, regarding him.
“Traveling substitute, actually,” he corrects.
At this revelation, I straighten. Because what the hell is that?
I must not hide my thoughts because Nash chuckles before saying, “Unusual, I know,” then blows a note into his harmonica.
My mom’s eyes light right up behind the lime-green bedazzled frames of her glasses.
He continues. “I couldn’t handle the same classroom year after year—know what I mean?” I do not. “Felt smothering to have everything be so predictable and routine.”
My mom nods, as if completely aligned with this back-ass-ward philosophy. I, on the other hand, have never related to a single sentence less, and my heart sputters.
“Either way,” he says. “Found this company that fills positions—maternity leave, sabbaticals, things like that—with certified teachers at regular salary. Sounded perfect. Move around. Never get bored. I’m trying to hit all the historical hotspots on the Eastern Seaboard.
DC, Boston, Philadelphia, New York, Charleston, Savannah—” He pauses as if swept up in the daydream of his own modern-day Odyssey.
“Maybe even St. Augustine and Key West.”
“Charleston.” My mom clasps her hands, utterly captivated.
“That’s a wonderful city.” I went there once on a field trip in fifth grade and my mother adamantly refused to go, and we’ve never once gone there on vacation.
Other than her having a childhood friend who still lives there, her acting like it’s a city that holds personal significance is complete bullshit. “Hear that, Rue? Nash likes adventure.”
“Sounds like it.” I mindlessly open and close one of the tins, trying to hide my disappointment.
Trying to pretend I didn’t somehow map out our entire lives together in the minutes we’ve been talking, all of them involving us being in Fontain and having 2.
5 kids and a house with a white fence. Me making dinners, him coming home at the same time every day.
“Why are you in Fontain then? Little town in North Carolina’s wine country is as far from any of those places as you can get. ”
“It’s where the job was this time.”
I say nothing, annoyingly crestfallen.
“Iris,” Nash continues, “I was trying to convince your daughter here to show me around.”
I may have been instantly smitten by this man, but that is absolutely not happening.
“I have to work,” I say at the same time my mom says, “That’s a wonderful idea!”
My mom and I exchange a heated look. “Mom has pottery,” I remind her. “A horsehair firing.” To Nash: “Maybe another time.”
“We can close the store early,” Mom says, making my nostrils flare.
I angle my head toward her. “We cannot.” My voice drops to a tense whisper. “This is a business. It only works if we’re open.”
She bats an annoyed hand through the air. “It’s just one day—an afternoon really. Live a little.”
“It is not,” I snap. To Nash: “Sorry. I can’t.”
“Why not?” he asks.
“I don’t want to.”
“I think you do.”
I scoff. “And I think the bright colors of your shirt are making you delusional.”
“What’s the worst that could happen?”
“You could be insane, for one.”
He laughs and the corners of his eyes crinkle. “I’m not insane.” His tone gets a touch more serious. “But even if I were, I think you still want to go out with me. Maybe even fall in love.”
My mother finds this hilarious.
“That doesn’t sound like me.” I fight an irritated smile.
It makes no sense why I’m attracted to him, yet I know without a doubt, if I spend five more minutes with him, I will fall in love with him: a traveling substitute teacher who has no plans on sitting still and I’ll never be able to keep.
I know it the way the wind knows how to blow, and tides rise before falling.
“I don’t know anything about you. I’m busy.
And not interested.” With a sweet smile, I add, “But we do appreciate your business, Mr. Fletcher. Please come back and see us again real soon.”
“I like coffee with flavored creamers,” he says. “Any flavor. Hazelnut, vanilla, pumpkin spice in the fall.”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“You said you don’t know anything about me, now you know my profession and how I take my coffee.” He blows the harmonica then adds, “And, of course, that I’m very skilled with my mouth.”
I don’t take his innuendous bait. “You should consider adding arrogant to your list.”
“Rue likes London Fogs,” my mom pipes in, garnering another withering glare from me.
“I’ve never had one of those. You’ll have to tell me where to get one when you show me around.”
My jaw drops. “I am not showing you around.”
“Ohhh,” he says, smiling like he thinks he’s so funny and cute. “So you’re one of those types.”
“Those types?” Why am I still talking to this infuriating man? “What is that supposed to mean?”
“The types that do the opposite of what they want. You want to go out with me, but instead of saying yes, you’re saying no because…” He squints at me, then smiles. “You want to make me work for it.”
My bitten out “I do not” crashes into my mother’s “That’s exactly who she is.”
I scowl at her; she smiles at him. These two are a match made in hell.
“If you say so.” Nash flips his receipt over, grabs a pen from the old coffee can, and scribbles something on it. “This is where I’m staying.” He slides it to me. “If you change your mind.”
“Presumptuous.” My gaze goes from the address—belonging to a hotel—to him. “Most people start with a phone number.”
“Maybe.” Another grin. “But I don’t have a phone. Hate all that constant need to be connected, you know?”
I simply smile, relieved I’ll never see him again. “Nice to meet you, Nash.”
He winks at me in a knowing way and says goodbye to my mom. “I hope I see you again, Iris.”
She smiles wide. He’s a charmer, I’ll give him that.
At the door, he pauses, looking over his shoulder to add, “And I really hope I see you again, Rue Conway.”
I flick him a slight wave. That won’t be happening for about a million reasons.
In his absence, my mother’s quiet disappointment could be another person in the room. I refocus my attention on the laptop and mindlessly scroll through the prices of condom tins. The mouse actively refuses to click links while my mother’s eyes work to bore holes into me. Both are smothering.
Hands on my hips, I sigh, annoyed, and face her. “Let’s get it over with.”
“Why didn’t you go with him?” she demands.
“I’m working. Ever heard of it?”
“I said we could close up and—”
I groan.
“And,” she repeats louder. “I own the place. My opinion should count more than yours.”
“Ha! Says the woman who logs five hours of work a week between her ever-growing list of hobbies. If we kept your hours, there would be no place to close up.”
We glare at each other, a love language that can only be understood by women who have mothers or are one.
“Pottery is tomorrow,” she finally says. “I got the days mixed up.”
I give her a disbelieving look. “Since when?”
“Since forever,” she argues. “It’s tomorrow. I’ll work this afternoon.”
“Why?”
“Because he’s good for you.”
“Good for me?” I scoff. “We don’t even know him, Mom. He might be a serial killer. And—and—he’s arrogant. And doesn’t want to stay here. Weren’t you listening?”
“I was listening to you laugh.” She says it like it’s the only criteria that should be used to make decisions. “And he’s here now. Stop worrying about what happens tomorrow.”
That is such an annoyingly her thing to say.
And while I’ve never understood that mindset—tomorrow seems like a damn good thing to think about—for the first time ever, I really want it to be my own.
I really want to not care about what’s going to happen and chase this ridiculous harmonica-playing stranger covered with ice cream cones into the sunset.
My heart is pounding, and if my dad were still alive, he’d remind me that it is the singular indicator that a bad decision is about to be made.
On one hand, I viscerally hate this idea—I don’t know anything about him. Any man who can rattle off a list of cities he dreams of living in might as well have born to break hearts stamped on his forehead.
On the other, I have never cared less about the risk of something than I do right now.
“You’ll work?” I ask.
She nods.
“The whole day?”
“God, Rue.” She rolls her eyes. “Give me a little credit.”
My toes tap with my nerves. “And your pottery class is tomorrow?”
“I said it was, didn’t I?”
“This is stupid,” I say, mostly to myself. “But fine. I’ll go to this”—I gesture with the paper Nash left—“address. And if I get killed, I’ll be haunting you.”
She chuckles. “I look forward to it.”
I push through the door, muttering all the reasons why I shouldn’t go, but two steps into the parking lot, I stop.
Because there stands Nash, leaning against an SUV and blowing into his harmonica.
“You waited for me,” I say when I’m in front of him, my hands once again in my pockets and a full-blown smile once again on my face.
He pulls the harmonica from his lips, brown eyes as bright as his ice cream cone-covered shirt. “You seemed like the kind of thing I should wait for, Rue Conway.”
“Really?” I ask. “And why’s that?”
His lips twitch. “It’s not every day you meet someone who reads Tijuana bibles for creative inspiration.”
I laugh at this.
“And I’m pretty sure I’m about to fall in love with you,” he adds.
I look at him sideways, feeling a bit like I’m standing on quicksand. He’s feeding me lines I can spot from nine miles away and I don’t even care. “We’ll see about that, Mr. Traveling Substitute.”
He squints a little and his lips dance a little, like he has more perfect words to say, songs to play, and laughs to laugh, but he’s making me wait for them.
“Wine?” I ask, already hoping this date will end with his mouth on mine.
He circles his SUV, modern and new and way too conventional for him, then opens the door for me. “I thought you’d never ask.”
Before he’s in the driver’s seat, my phone dings with a calendar reminder. MOM’S POTTERY CLASS.
I look at the store. She’s standing behind the glass door, waving at me with a big smile on her face. She lied to get me out here.
“Tell me something about Fontain,” Nash says as he starts driving.
He leans onto his elbow resting on the center console while his other arm drapes easily over the steering wheel. It could be a painting—he could. I wish he were so I could keep him.
“Well,” I say, feeling equal parts terrified and exhilarated about what’s to come. “Fontain was first settled by a French family. You already know that?”
He shakes his head, eyes flicking briefly from the road to me.
“Pierre Fontain,” I explain. “He started growing grapes when he got here because he realized the climate of the region mimicked the area of France he came from.” I gesture to the hill covered in grape vines we’re passing. “Voilà. Now North Carolina has Fontain-grown wine.”
“History between man and land,” he says. “I like that. My personal favorite stories of history have always been the ones that happened between two people.”
We roll to a stop at an intersection and face each other. “Like?”
“Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Stanton. Lewis and Clark. Churchill and FDR.” He’s more serious now.
Passionate just reciting those duos. “The stories where two people unite and change history because of what they become together. A greatness as two that never would have been as one.” His expression stays neutral as he adds, “Especially when one of them is way out of the other’s league and could pick any man she wants. ”
Well played, Nash Fletcher.
“Well,” I say, forcing my gaze out the window, “guess that explains why seeing Popeye and Olive Oyl in the Tijuana bibles is so inspiring for me. Two people coming together and all.”
He laughs a sound I’ll never unhear.
Too soon or not soon enough, we’re at a winery, flights in front of us on a small metal table in a corner of a patio.
I don’t taste the wine or feel the late-May sun on my skin or pay attention to the folksy music playing.
This man is all there is. Him telling me stories about history between sips of cabernet and tunes on his harmonica.
He looks at me like he plans on doing it for the rest of his life.
I laugh and blush and feel more than I have in the first thirty-four years of my life.
And when we end up hand in hand strolling the rows of vines after sunset, I’m the one who kisses him first—I can’t not.
I could blame the wine, but it’s simply him.
Simply us. Lips turn to hands turn to our clothes being shed in the middle of the vineyard.
The weight of him hits the weight of me in a full-blown collision.
Nash was wrong when he said I’d fall in love with him: I crashed into it.
Even though I told myself not to.
Even though it went against every belief I have about being cautious with my heart.
Even though he was a man who wasn’t made to stay.