The Wedding, the Winery, and Will, page 6
“He who smelt it dealt it, huh?” asks Margaret, reading my mind.
“Have I missed something?” Sheryl asks, looking between us.
“Gavin told Meredith Will is stealing from wedding clients at the winery,” Janey explains. “But it sounds like it’s the other way around.”
Sheryl’s face turns bright red. “Will? Winery Will? Oh, that is rich. Will is one of the hardest working people I’ve ever met. Did you know he tried to hire me to run the winery? Said it was clear nobody knew the market upstate better than me. But I told him I was closing up shop soon, moving full time to the compound. Then he offered to buy me out whenever I was ready, including all my stock. He’s a good guy. Little sharp around the edges, but honest. Not like Gavin.” She snorts again, then mutters, “Will, stealing from clients. What a bunch of hooey. Now I’m definitely calling the police.”
I sink into the couch, staring at the ceiling. “I don’t know what to believe.”
“It’s pretty simple,” Sheryl says. “Gavin lied to you to protect himself.”
My heart has gone from hard to aching again as I think how readily I believed the worst in Will, how mean I was to him that morning, how quickly I pushed him away because hating him felt easier than knowing him. I have to fix this, not just for Will, but for me. To prove to myself I’m not broken.
* * *
—
The winery is twenty minutes past walking distance, even for a New Yorker like me, but I do it anyway to clear my head and practice what I want to say, cutting through parking lots and backyards until I reach the old airplane hangar that curves against the wash of stars. It’s Saturday night, so the winery is packed when I go inside. Small groups gather around wine barrels as tables, and I weave through them in search of Will’s height rising above the rest of the crowd. When I pass the bar on the left, I’m not surprised to see no Gavin.
Will is nowhere in sight, so I follow the length of the bar toward the back corner office where Janey iced her face after the dancing incident. As of this evening, her eyes were still ringed with purple and yellow, her eyebrow still swollen with four stitches, and her lip still scabbed. But she says if Peter wants to marry her for life, he can take her at her worst.
The office door is half open, a desk lamp switched on inside. Peering in, I see Will hunched over his laptop at the desk, bathed in the warm yellow glow of the bulb. I didn’t get a good look at his office the other night, but I sweep my gaze around it now. It’s messy, with books on wine stacked high on the table, samples of glasses bearing the winery’s emblem, and clothes draped over the arm of the couch. It looks a little like he lives in here, like he might have slept on that couch. Picturing my office back in the city, I can relate.
When I knock on the door the first time, I’m so nervous that it’s barely a whisper. He doesn’t hear. He keeps typing. I take a deep breath, close my eyes, and rap again, harder.
“Meredith?” He jumps out of his chair. “Come in.”
“Sorry to bother you.”
“You’re not.” He clears space for me to sit on the couch. “Have a seat. Do you want a glass of wine?”
I crack a half-smile. “I don’t know. Do I?”
From the collection of bottles on his desk, he chooses one and holds it up. “I didn’t make it. Don’t worry.”
For a quiet minute, I watch him twist out the cork and pour two glasses.
“Thanks,” I say when he hands me one. The first sip is velvety and rich, comforting as a blanket on a cold night. “Wow. This is amazing.”
“I know I should be able to tell you the weather on the day these grapes were picked and that it tastes like burnt earth with notes of gasoline and strawberry or something, but I think this wine is just really fucking good.”
I laugh. “I’m sold. That’s a much better sales pitch.”
We meet each other’s eyes, smile nervously, and look away.
After another sip of wine, I have the courage to say, “I came to apologize.”
His glass pauses at his lips. “For?”
“For…two things.” My eyes fall to his mouth.
He gets the message, and his lips twist to hide a smile. “Ah. That.”
I force myself to look at him. “I recently got out of something bad, and I panicked. It was a moment of…a lot of hurt catching up to me. But I liked it. Being in the car with you.”
He leans forward—just a little, but I notice—and studies me. “Good. So did I.”
“And earlier,” I go on, “at the coffee shop. I was rude. I was acting on some bad information.”
“Which was?” he asks, but something tells me he already knows the answer. He spins his desk chair around to get the bottle of wine and pours a little more into each of our glasses. When he spins to face me again, he’s closer than before. The edges of his knees graze the edges of mine as we sit facing each other. All of my awareness is tugged toward those two points of contact.
“Gavin told me you were stealing from your customers.”
He nods, disappointed but not a little bit surprised. “It was the other way around, unfortunately. Or, fortunately. Depending on how you look at it.”
I nod. “Yeah. My aunt Sheryl told me.”
Will’s expression brightens. “Sheryl is your aunt? I love Sheryl.”
A smile creeps across my face as I realize that everything is okay between us. Better than okay, if I want it to be. I didn’t break it after all. I am not broken. “The feeling is mutual,” I say with a laugh. “She raves about you even more than she raves about women’s dinner.”
“Do I want to know what women’s dinner is?”
“Some things are better left unsaid.”
“Not everything. Thanks for stopping by. I’m happy to see you.” His gaze settles on me. There’s nothing stopping us now. I bite my lip, my fingers itching to touch him, my skin craving his mouth again. I think it’s about to happen, but then he says, “How’s Janey?”
My metaphorical boner deflates.
“Looking like the Million Dollar Baby,” I say. “But the worst part is, Cracker Barrel canceled her wedding that night because her bridesmaids went there after Thunder from Down Under, and someone threw up all over the bar.”
His brows wind together in a concern that touches me. “What’s she going to do? Isn’t that wedding in a week?”
“It’s at my parents’ house. Not ideal, because it’s so small, but Janey’s being a good sport about it. She’s a good sport about everything.”
“She should have it here,” he says.
I shake my head. “No. She can’t afford it.”
“How do you know how much it is?”
“Gavin told me it’s ten thousand,” I say, but as the words come out of my mouth, I realize they must not be true.
He nods at the floor. “It’s six, actually, but that explains a lot. Anyway.” He looks up, his eyes focused directly on me now, serious and intent. “She can have it here for free.”
The way he’s looking at me makes my stomach hum. “Why would you do that?”
He shrugs. “Why not? Janey deserves it. I don’t have anything booked next weekend. I’m happy to do this,” he says, but it seemed like maybe he was going to say, I’m happy to do this for you.
Or maybe that’s wishful thinking. Either way, I accept. Janey can have her dance floor and her ice cream bar back, and I can even deck this place out with the tiki decorations of her dreams. I’ll finally be able to help her, like she helped me. Save her wedding, like she saved me.
I hold out my hand for Will to shake. He looks at it for a second, then slowly, carefully, slips his fingers into mine. His are strong and warm and rougher than I expected, like maybe he’s been picking grapes himself, and my mind flashes to the cab of that float, feeling that hand wrapping around my waist, easing me back against the seat and curving me into him at the same time. I want him to do that again, to cover my body with his on this couch, but he doesn’t. Instead, he lightly trails his thumb across the heel of my hand, so softly that I wouldn’t be sure it was real if not for the goose bumps racing up my arm.
I tighten my grip on his hand and tug. His rolling desk chair wheels forward, bringing him closer. He grins. “Smooth,” he says.
I smile and tug again, pulling him until our knees are interlocked, mine inside his. I can feel his heat now, hear his breath. Moving slowly enough that either of us could stop at any moment, he takes my wineglass and sets both of ours on the desk beside him. He looks at me. His eyes are honey in the yellow lamplight. I can feel my pulse everywhere.
If our first kiss was sudden and delirious, this one is measured and thoughtful. His lips brush mine, pull away, then catch again. I touch my tongue to his bottom lip, then draw it into my mouth. This kiss feels like testing the temperature of the water, and finding it just right to slip in.
When we draw apart, he traces the pad of his thumb across my mouth, along my jaw, and down my neck, dipping just beneath the neckline of my sweater, never breaking eye contact.
“I have one condition,” I whisper as he continues his slow journey along my collarbone. “You have to be my date for the wedding.”
“Deal,” he says.
I should, I think distantly as his lips graze mine again, listen to my mother more often.
* * *
—
For the whole week, Will and I secretly plan to throw the tiki-winery wedding of Janey’s dreams. We buy grass skirts to wrap around the wine barrels, plastic coconuts to serve cocktails in, and tiki torches to line the front path outside. Will even suggests ordering bags of sand on the internet to scatter thickly down the aisle so Janey feels like she’s walking on the beach. I tell him it’s a bad idea, but at least it’s his bad idea.
I tell Bridget and my parents what we’re up to, but not Margaret because she can’t keep a secret. On Tuesday, Bridget distracts Janey with a honeymoon shopping spree at the outlet mall so Will and I can drive three counties over to rent an actual pig spit. On Thursday, my dad pretends he needs me to drive him to the knee doctor so I can go to the tropical plant store in Albany to buy indoor palms and birds of paradise. And on Friday, my mom and I stage a fight so I can “storm out” and take the car shopping all day on my hunt for floral, beachy maxi dresses for the bridesmaids.
We “argued” over her continued attempts to arrange my marriage to eligible bachelors. Meanwhile, Will and I made out on the desk in his office when I stopped by to stash my haul from the day’s shopping trip.
We have been stealing moments. In the paper plate aisle of a Party City, my back against the display until we noticed a teenaged employee snapping our photo. In the parking lot of a fish store, where we’d gone to gauge how expensive it would be to rent a tank of glittery, exotic fish and possibly a baby shark (it turns out, very). In the drive-thru line of a Starbucks, until the cashier knocked hard on the window, holding our drinks. Wherever we are alone, though we are never alone enough.
On the way to the pig spit rental, Will suddenly pulls over and brakes on the shoulder of an empty road, surrounded by snowy forests. He shifts the car into park and we lunge at each other. His hands skim down my ribs to my hips. Our shallow breaths fog up the winter windows.
“Are you trying to get me alone in the woods?” I whisper against his mouth.
“Does that make you nervous?” His fingers dig into the bare skin of my back, underneath my sweater.
“You make me nervous.”
His lips slide to my neck. “In a good way, I hope.”
“If you consider it good to want to be bad, then yeah.”
He folds over me so we’re nearly horizontal across the front seat, my palm against the window, his snaked under my hips, drawing me close. “I consider it one of your best qualities.”
When Saturday morning comes, I’ve barely slept, too wound up from excitement and nerves. I want everything to be perfect. At 8 a.m., Janey, Bridget, and Catherine arrive at my parents’ house with coffee, muffins, fresh fruit, orange juice, and champagne. Janey insists she didn’t sleep for more than five minutes, but she’s still glowing like she swallowed a diamond. “I’m getting married today!” she cheers as she pops the first bottle, sending the cork sailing into the kitchen cabinets.
“Watch for faces,” Mom warns. “We don’t need any more black eyes around here.”
At 3 p.m., everyone is dressed, dolled up, and ready to party. Bridget and my mom know the plan. I tell Janey I’m going to pick up the cake, even though Will picked it up that morning and it’s safely stashed in his chilled wine storage closet. I tell her for the millionth time how stunning she looks and kiss her cheek goodbye. Then I hop in my dad’s truck and gun it to the winery. We only have an hour to finish setting up before Bridget is going to blindfold Janey and tell her we’ve got a surprise. A phone tree is in place to tell all the guests there’s been a change of venue.
I’m so excited my hands shake as I steer into the winery and park. In the rearview, I glance at myself one last time. I look like a different person than when I arrived home so fragile and weathered. Now, despite tossing and turning all night, I look flushed and happy.
I kick open the car door, eager to go inside.
Is it possible that this town, my family, is exactly what I needed?
I came here because I thought it was my job to save them, but I was the one who needed saving.
Today is bright and warm for December. As I jog across the parking lot in my heels, the sun winks at me like it’s in on the secret.
We have a lot to do in the next hour—hanging grass skirts, mixing cocktails, arranging flowers, igniting the pig spit. It’s going to be tight, and I refuse to let anything slip through the cracks. It must be the wedding Janey deserves. I vow to waste no time making out with Will, no matter how much I want to, no matter how hot he looks in his wedding suit. No making out, I’m warning myself as I pull open the door.
And then I see it.
Everything he’s done.
The inside of the winery is completely transformed into tiki paradise, and Will did it all by himself. The sandy aisle is dotted with seashells and bright pink tropical flowers. The wine barrels are draped with floral tablecloths, like they’re wearing Tommy Bahama. The bar is stocked high with plastic coconuts and drink umbrellas, each one labeled with a guest’s name so they don’t lose it. It smells like roasting garlic and plantains, and there’s even a fish tank glittering with color. I don’t know how he pulled it off, but he did.
I’m standing in the doorway when the tears come, but they’re good ones this time. They blur the white string lights Will draped around the walls.
“What do you think?”
I turn to his voice, trying to swipe tears from my eyes without ruining the makeup Margaret so carefully applied.
“It’s perfect,” I say, and happily waste a little time in his kiss.
For the rest of the hour, we apply the finishing touches, communicating only through head nods and finger points, working as silently and efficiently as ants. We set up the music, light the tiki torches, arrange hors d’oeuvres, set out place cards, handwrite the cocktail menu. At 3:50, my phone buzzes where I’ve shoved it in my bra for safekeeping, and I drop the palm frond I’ve been attempting to turn into a centerpiece to read the text.
Arriving, Bridget says.
“They’re almost here,” I tell Will, my heart pounding so hard it’s almost painful against my ribs. Peering around at the décor, I frantically wonder if this is suddenly too much. What if she was just joking about the tiki wedding, and I’ve taken it to a whole new level?
But it’s too late to change course, because there’s a knock on the door.
“Ready?” Will asks.
I nod, because I’m ready for all of it.
* * *
—
When Bridget removes Janey’s blindfold, her jaw falls open and stays there. We all watch her, holding our breath, especially me, my pulse thumping so hard I’m sure she can hear it. She looks around, taking in the lights and the grass skirts and the fish tank and the table devoted to watermelon slices. She runs the toe of her white flip-flop through the sand.
Eventually, Mom can’t take it anymore. “What do you think?”
“I think,” Janey says, “this is the most amazing thing anyone has ever done for me. You did this?”
She’s looking at my mom, who shakes her head and points at me.
Janey spins to me and holds my gaze. Her eyes sparkle with tears. “Why?”
As I look back at her, all of our memories together spin in my mind, blending into one beautiful mural. “Because I love you,” I tell her. “And I wanted to help you like you helped me.”
Janey presses her lips together, trying to keep from crying. “Don’t make me ruin my makeup,” she says, half-laughing, and crushes me in a hug. “It’s perfect,” she whispers close to my ear. “Thank you.”
“I want to be a better person,” I say back.
“I think you’re pretty great the way you are,” she says.
* * *
—
It is after we watch Janey walk barefoot down the sandy aisle, after Margaret screams when my dad attempts to carve the pig, and after the cocktails in coconuts are such a hit that we run out of rum that Will finds me on the dance floor. Elvis’s “Blue Hawaii” is playing. He’s wearing a short-sleeve button down with palm trees on it and sunglasses, looking thoroughly ridiculous. It’s a much different image from the slim suit pants and pressed collar I saw him in that first night as he stared at his phone, reluctant to engage. This is the real him. What if I’d never given myself the chance to see that?
