This Place of Wonder (21)

“You are so welcome.” He pulls me by the hand to sit at the counter. “You started today, right? Did you like it?”

“Yes,” I say honestly, and pluck a chip from the bowl. “I’m intrigued by the roasting process and how it works.”

“Yeah, well, I know Jacob is deep into it, so I’m sure he’d love to regale you with every detail.”

I nod.

“We’re making tacos. Is that good?”

“Sure.” The kitchen smells of cumin and chili powder. He picks up a pint glass full of beer. “We have some NA beers for you. Couple of them come highly recommended.”

My throat aches with longing for the amber ale in his glass. A slight foam floats on the top as he takes a sip, and I can feel it in my mouth, sloshing into my belly. I swallow, reach into my pocket for some Jelly Bellies, and pop one in my mouth. Cotton candy. Or maybe bubble gum. “Can I just get some water or something? I’m kinda worried the NA beer might be triggering.”

“Oh. Oh, sorry. Should I . . . ?” He points to his beer as if to pour it out.

I really want to say yes. Please pour it out and don’t drink in front of me right now. Just for a little while, just until I get used to this. But I don’t, just as I always let Josh choose the music. “No, it’s all right.”

“Topo Chico?” Rory says, reaching into the fridge to pull out two slightly blue bottles of Mexican soda water. “That’s what I’m having.”

I’m grateful. “Yes. No glass.” It’s cold and very fizzy and remarkably satisfying when I glug it down. I seriously doubt she’d be having water if I weren’t here—she’s a card-carrying member of the Mommy Wine Club—but I’m grateful.

Sitting there, in a place I’ve eaten hundreds of times, I feel like an outsider. The square. The uncool one. Unenlightened.

I spill a handful of jelly beans on the counter and pluck out a light-blue one.

“How’s it going with Mom?” she asks, her eyebrows twitching.

“Mmm. Okay.”

“So she’s hovering?”

“Yeah, but she means well.”

“Of course, but she’s also clueless sometimes.” She reaches for the speckled pink jelly bean, and I slap her hand away.

“Tutti-Fruitti is mine.”

“Scuse me.” She leans on the counter. “I know you have more.”

I’ve always had a candy habit. As a kid, it was all the dissolvable varieties, Smarties and SweeTARTS, candy cigarettes. Rory was more discerning—she liked more sophisticated things, such as Heath bars and Toblerone. She struggles with keeping her weight down, just as Meadow does, so she doesn’t indulge much. I raise an eyebrow. “I didn’t want to tempt you.”

“I’ll watch my own weight, thank you very much.” Her eyes widen as I pull out the gigantic Jelly Belly bag. “Jeez, Maya. You’re going to give yourself diabetes.”

Miming scales with my hands, I incline my head. “Cirrhosis, diabetes.”

“Good point.” She straightens. “Have you talked to Josh yet?”

My ex, both romantic and business partner. “No. Probably the only talking we’ll do from here on out is by lawyer.”

“That’s kind of sad. You guys were together a long time.”

“Yeah.” A pang moves through my heart. Unbidden, I see his bright blue eyes, the way his cheeks crinkled when he laughed. We met in college and shared a lot of really big dreams, including the one I destroyed in my drunken rage, a virtually perfect sauvignon blanc. “I guess. But we really had already broken up, you know. I hung on way too long before . . .”

“You took an axe and gave the wine forty whacks,” Nathan says, grinning.

“Haha,” I say, but it’s good to be able to joke about the whole thing.

Rory says, “I thought you’d offered your share of the winery to make up for the damages.”

“He wants to keep the name and label.” Which is my mother’s name, Shanti, and my label design, which is a beautiful logo, meant to appeal to women browsing the shelves. It worked. I’ve given up a lot, but I’m not giving that. “It’s up to the courts to decide.”

“I can’t believe he’s being such a dick,” Rory says.

“Well, to be fair, the entire vintage was destroyed.”

“Man,” Nathan says, shaking his head half in wonder, half in admiration. “That had to be one big mess. Did you swim out?”

I pick out a red jelly bean, letting the night rise up in memory, the bits and pieces that I have—flashes of swinging the axe, of putting out my hands to catch the wine spurting from the barrels, of being as sticky as a child after a carnival, of sloshing through wine to go to the stairs. The cold, starry sky overhead as I dialed the phone. “I definitely needed waders.” I take a sip of my drink, touch the pain in my chest.

“We don’t have to talk about this,” Rory says. “Plenty of time for that.”

“Dinner’s ready,” Nathan says, and takes a big gulp of beer. I watch his throat swallow, then look away.

Rory links her arm through mine. “Sorry about that.”

I’m not alone, I think. Rory will always be in my corner.