Eight Hundred Grapes (62)

When he got home, Jen was sitting on the front steps, making place cards for the reception: so everyone would know where they were sitting at the long farm table, lit by candles and lanterns, shining grape leaves.

She motioned toward Finn’s room. “The bride is sleeping upstairs,” Jen said.

“Margaret? Why?”

She shrugged. “Something about being here to help tomorrow. I sent her to Finn’s room so she wouldn’t see Bobby. Is that supposed to be bad luck? It’s silly for me to think of that. But I do.”

“Finn and Bobby are sleeping at Finn’s place anyway, if they even leave The Brothers’ Tavern. They were all drinking pretty heavily when I left them, your daughter included.”

“That’s comforting.”

“Finn was in a mood. He was going on and on about how the barrel room looks ridiculous, but if worst comes to worst around here, we could rent it out for weddings. Call it the Great Barrel Room and charge fifty thousand to rent it for a week.”

He walked up the stairs.

Jen smiled. “That’s not a bad idea,” she said.

He took a seat next to his wife. “I’m worried about them.”

“All of them?”

“Yep.”

“But I’m the one that worries. You’re the one that says it’s going to be okay.”

“I thought we got to stop thinking about them so much, but this moment feels more important than even when they were young. They are becoming themselves.”

She put more of the place cards in a stack.

“Your sons are good men. You raised them to take care of each other, and your daughter is getting where she wants to go.”

He looked at her. “Are you finding it hard to talk to her?”

She shrugged. “She just likes saying torts. It’ll pass.”

He shook his head. “Bobby doesn’t want to get married.”

She took her husband’s hands. “That will pass too.”

He leaned in toward his wife and said it, what he’d never admitted before, even to himself.

“It makes me sad that none of them want the vineyard.”

She looked up. “We raised them to want their own things.”

He nodded. “I know, but . . .” He shook his head. “It’s silly. I’m being silly. I’m glad that they’re doing what they’re doing. I’m glad for each of them. I’m just feeling nostalgic.”

“I bet that you are,” she said, but she moved closer to him.

“I was the one who discouraged her from staying here. I told her to go explore new worlds.”

“And?”

“She seems like she isn’t happy with the one she chose, not the way I’ve seen her happy.”

“Then she’ll find her way home.”

They heard loud music coming from the guest bedroom, punk rock, blasting downward.

“What’s wrong with Margaret tonight?”

“Bride’s nerves?”

He looked up, deciding whether to throw a rock at the window or just run upstairs and ask his future daughter-in-law if she was going crazy too.

“I’m taking you somewhere,” she said.

She took him down the vineyard, to Block 14, the small opening there, where she had a blanket and a bottle of wine and a small radio. They couldn’t hear the music from here. They couldn’t see anything but each other. Dan started kissing her, soft at first then harder, pulling up her dress from behind. She gripped his waist, his hip, bearing against him as he pushed himself into her. His hand holding her stomach.

He pushed her curls off her face. “Can this be the first time we’re doing this?”

It was the first. It wasn’t the last.





Have-to-Have When I arrived at the house, the driveway was full of trucks, catering trucks and a florist truck, a van from a furniture company called Moving Up. The staff was in motion, setting up for the evening. They moved through the house and over the lawn, carrying candles and lanterns and flowers, lemons and grape leaves in glass vases, sofas on their backs.


“Hey there.”

I looked up to see Suzannah standing behind me, in the middle of the driveway, wearing a long blouse like a dress, short booties. Eight months pregnant and gorgeous. Like she belonged there.

“I’ve arrived,” she said.

She held out her arms to hug me, and I jumped in, so happy to see her it was crazy.

“What are you doing here?”

“What do you mean, what am I doing here? What do you think I’m doing here? I’m pawning off my work.”

She squeezed me hard, then she let go.

“Um. How did you leave out that Michelle Carter was the baby mama? That is the craziest part of this whole thing.”

“What does it change?”

“How I’m going to tell this story to everyone else.” Her eyes went wide. “Is it true that she does a honey cleanse every January and the rest of the year lives on French fries and burgers?”

“Where did you hear that?”

“I read it somewhere. That’s not the point.”

“What is?”

“Can you find out how she does it exactly? I love French fries and burgers.”