Chapter 29
CASH ME IF YOU CAN
Ginny
Monday morning, I’m in my office, trying to concentrate on a proposal for an old client who asked for more work, but mostly reliving showering with Declan in his apartment this morning, when the mudroom door in the kitchen slams shut.
“Ginny? Mabel?”
It’s Olivia, and her voice is high and tight.
I shove back from the desk, accidentally slamming my chair into the built-in bookshelves behind me, but I’m on my feet and dashing to the kitchen before the thud has stopped echoing in the room.
“I’m here. What’s wrong? What happened? What is it?”
Olivia stares at me wide-eyed as she holds up a white envelope.
The same kind of envelope we found last month.
“It’s another ten thousand,” Samantha breathes behind Olivia.
“We found it in the stockpot,” Olivia says.
“Found what in the stockpot?” Mabel strolls into the kitchen too, swiping her bangs out of her bloodshot eyes. She has a piece of brown felt stuck to her boobs over her usual all-black outfit, and her ponytail’s lopsided. Definitely pulled another all-nighter for her costume clients.
“More money and another note,” Samantha says.
“Are you fucking serious?” Mabel says.
I wince on her behalf. She’s tired if she’s dropping fuck-bombs. We need to get this winery profitable immediately so that she can start sleeping again.
“We got an order for caramel pecan rolls—” Samantha freezes and leans like she’s looking around Mabel to make sure Adelaide didn’t hear her say puh-cahn.
“For caramel rolls,” Olivia says.
“So we went into the pantry for the stockpot to make the caramel—”
“—And there it was—”
“We haven’t touched the pot since the wedding.”
“We only make caramel rolls for special orders, and we haven’t had any since well before the wedding, so it could’ve been there for weeks,” Olivia says.
Samantha winces. “Or it could be more recent. The door to the kitchen over there was unlocked when we got there two days ago. We assumed it was Lav, but…”
She trails off and leaves the rest unspoken.
That whoever’s leaving money might have a key, or they could’ve picked the lock, or Lav unlocking the door shortly before money was found was just a coincidence.
“They want the zin.” Olivia’s dark eyes dart between us. “How would they know the zinfandel hasn’t been claimed unless they’re here?”
They all look at me.
I gape back. “What?”
“Declan’s doing this,” Mabel says with an air of certainty that makes my stomach turn.
“A dead clam’s screwing fish?” Pip says behind her.
“Do Cricket and Dori and Heath know?” Mabel asks Olivia and Samantha.
They shake their heads in unison.
“I’d say that’s a gory show,” Pip says.
“Olivia and Samantha found more money and they think Declan left it, Pip,” I say as Mabel whips out her phone and taps the screen like she’s sending a text.
Pip squints at me. “None of that sounded like a dead clam screwing a fish in a gory show.”
“Just roll with it. Want some coffee?”
“Ooh, I’d love some toffee.”
“Declan’s not in the barn,” Mabel says, confirming what I already know. He said he had to run an errand this morning.
Pip snorts. “What’s with you and the dead clam? Now it’s on a farm?”
“I really don’t think he’d leave around piles of cash,” I say.
“I finally finished using the last envelope two days ago, and suddenly there’s another envelope?
It’s him.” Mabel’s been using the cash for groceries and necessities, along with making deposits small enough to not get flagged but large enough to get the cash off the property over the past two weeks.
“It’s not Declan,” I say.
“Who else could it be, hon?” Samantha says softly to me.
They all know what I’ve been up to this past weekend with Declan.
They also know my feelings are complicated but my vagina is simple and that I’m lying to myself about my vagina being simple and that the sex is actually complicated too, but that I’m happy.
I like him.
I do.
And it’ll hurt when he leaves, but—but I’ve needed this.
I’ve needed to work through a real problem with a real person from my past, come out on the other side, and see that I can make a relationship work.
“Shade,” I say, realizing we haven’t suspected Declan’s director-slash-camera guy before. “It could be Shade.”
“What’s a banana blade?” Pip asks as everyone else studies me.
“What do we know about him?” I ask.
Mabel, unsurprisingly, has a ready answer.
“Grew up in a religious Midwestern family, parents both worked for the local church, dropped out of art school after his freshman year, spent a little time drifting before he hooked up professionally with a rugby player who wanted a social media manager, used that as a stepping stone to get a job in LA through a friend, had an affair with someone whose name I’m not supposed to know, blackmailed him into a job, proved he had an eye behind the camera, and now here he is. ”
“Does anyone in his family have money? Grandparents who left him something?” I ask.
“Not with that background,” Samantha murmurs.
Olivia rubs her back.
Understandable.
Samantha grew up in a similar environment, and to this day, her relatives won’t talk to her because she married a woman.
Mabel takes the envelope and thumbs through it. “Did you count it?”
“No, but it looks similar to last time,” Olivia says.
“Feels similar too,” Mabel murmurs.
“Can I see the note?” I ask.
Mabel hands it over.
Same sticky note.
Same printed font.
Name the zin after me.
That’s all it says.
Just a simple request.
“Um, morning?” Adelaide says softly from the doorway. “Everything okay?”
Mabel slides a glance at her as she tucks the money into her back pocket, then shakes her head. “Just a mystery over a gift someone left us.”
“Oh, that was me.” Her smile holds a touch of guilt. “I was hoping it wouldn’t be delivered until—well, until after I left.”
My jaw goes slack. “You—but the first envelope—”
“Envelope?” Her brow furrows. “If that company delivered a cheese basket in an envelope, they’re doing more magic than my great-aunt Gloria ever pulled off in her lifetime, bless her heart.”
We all shift gears as we process what she just said.
Samantha’s the first of us to speak. “You’re ready to leave then, hon?”
Adelaide glances around at all of us, her eyes going shiny. “It’s time. I did—I did what I needed to do here. I marked something amazing off of Mama’s bucket list, and I did it with the nicest ladies in the world.”
Forget the money.
This is more important.
We surround her, sharing hugs and affirmations and we’ll miss yous like we always do whenever one of our guests leaves.
“We have to get your picture before you go,” Olivia says.
“Oh my goodness, do I get a spot on the wall?” Adelaide asks.
“Of course you do,” Mabel tells her.
Those of us who stay—we’re pretty rare.
But we don’t forget the women who have come and gone after their viral moments. Whenever someone leaves, we hang their picture in the hallway, where we see them every day.
It’s a constant presence reminding us of the good we do here.
“You’ll always have a home here if you need us again,” I tell Adelaide.
“What are your plans? Do you have one more night for a going-away dinner?” Samantha asks.
Adelaide shakes her head. “Oh, no, dinner the other night was—that was everything. And—” She blushes.
“And having the Declan Fox make pancakes for breakfast for us was the pineapple in the upside-down cake. But I got tickets to see Mama’s favorite musical in Los Angeles tomorrow afternoon, so I—I’m fixin’ to head out on the drive after I grab myself a little bit of breakfast. If that’s okay. ”
“Doing what you need to do for you is always okay,” Mabel says.
“Number one priority,” Olivia agrees.
“I hope a cheese basket is enough to say thank you.” She sniffles and takes the tissue that Samantha hands her.
Mabel smiles. “No thanks necessary. Seeing you ready to continue your journey is more than enough for us.”
I’ve heard her say it dozens of times, but it hits different this morning.
This house, this community of women—and Heath—this has been my journey. I belong here. I fit here.
But I’m starting to want something more too.
Something I’ve never trusted myself with.
Something I still can’t have because what I want is also leaving.
I glance sharply at Mabel.
Can’t help it.
“If you want,” she murmurs like she’s reading my mind.
Like she knows I’m asking if Declan will get a spot on the wall when he leaves.
I shake my head. “It’s not the same.”
She doesn’t answer, lets the lingering question of isn’t it? sit between us.
We take in women who’ve gone viral and couldn’t handle the attention, giving them a safe place to escape and cope and work out their problems.
And isn’t that what Declan and I have done?
We’ve worked out our problems.
We’ve created new problems, but the old problem—we’ve worked through that.
Hopefully given him some peace there.
While he’s gone viral for saving our barn, ironically enough.
Dammit.
“Or maybe it is,” I whisper.
“Maybe,” she agrees.
That’s a problem for later.
Along with the mystery of who’s leaving money, the lingering fears that something will go wrong in the fermentation process with the wine and completely wreck us, that something big will break and we won’t be able to afford it, that the bank will question why Mabel’s regularly bringing in random cash deposits between a few hundred and a couple thousand dollars, and the way my stomach rolls over when I think of Declan’s last day here.
We haven’t talk-talked about how he’s leaving.
About how this thing we’re doing is a bad idea for both of us.
We just fall into bed and pretend everything’s fine.
“We’ll at least put Flow on the wall,” Mabel murmurs.
I smile at that. Everything else can wait.
But deciding to honor Flow—“It’s a deal.”