Constant Pull (16 page)

“Do you want to just go today?
  Right now?” he said quickly, a little mischievousness in his voice. He grabbed the brochure to see the hours. It was just about 5 and they closed at 6:30.

“Really?”

He nodded
. “Why not!? We can do some damage in an hour and a half. It’s just down the road.”

That sounds great! 
Let me just….”, I gestured with an open hand to my face so he’d understand what I meant.

“Sure
-go crazy.”

I re-appeared in the main area of the room
.

“
Good?” I asked, arms out, spinning a bit.

“Good.”
He confirmed. “And we’re off.”

We walked into the winery and
began to sample several wines. Kevin was perfect with our wine server, Gracie. She was all glassy eyed over him and she checked my finger and his several times for a ring. At one point, I set my hand on the counter for several minutes so she could get a good look at my hand. No ring.

Before we knew it, the place was closing
. Gracie pointed out that there was also a restaurant at the winery with the same wine choices and much longer hours. So, we were happy to move our tasting over to the restaurant. Getting some bread in my stomach seemed like a good idea anyway. I stood up and realized that my legs were a bit on the wobbly side.

Kevin grabbed the back of my head and shook it vigorously, trying to mess with me
.

“Looks like my friend needs something to eat sooner than later.”

“Stoooop.” I said in a baritone, slightly annoyed but laughing while my head was still spinning.

“Gracie, I very much appreciated your company this evening as well as your recommendations
. Everything was wonderful. I need to get my friend some food-we’ve not eaten in several hours-but I think I speak for both of us,” he caught my eyes for a moment, “if I said that we’d be happy for you to join us if you’d like.”  I nodded quickly and tried to smile quickly enough for her to see although she was deadlocked on his face.

I was a little surprised that he was only Lanie-free for
less than two weeks and he was already hitting on someone. He must like her because he pulled out his apostrophe trick. The dog. I laughed to myself. He always said that if you wanted to sound smarter, you used different places for your apostrophe. ‘We’ve not’ instead of ‘we haven’t’. Same basic sentence, but for whatever reason-much fancier sounding.

She looked down and her face flushed
. “I have to…finish up here.” she said, disappointed.

“Will you be long?”  He asked.

“An hour or two”, she estimated. She sounded a little hesitant. She looked away a couple of times, over to her co-worker friend who had a perplexed look on her face as she pretended to dust wine bottles that were resting on a rack that covered the entire wall.

“How about this
: We’ll head to the restaurant. We’ll get a table for three. If you’re able to join us, please do. If not, we had a lovely evening just the same.”  It had been a while since I heard him in action. Impressive, but a little stuffy for me. He flashed her smile. I rolled my eyes and laughed discreetly as I heard her catch her breath.

“By the way”, I added abruptly
. “We’re just friends. We’re not weirdoes or anything.”  I didn’t want her to get any creepy impressions. I wanted to say something because people frequently got the wrong idea about us.

She smiled widely
.

“Oh, GOOD!”  She said with a little too much exuberance
. “That’s good”, she echoed quietly-clearly a little embarrassed after her blast of a response.

Kevin laughed lightly and reached out and touched her upper-arm gently
. Thank you Gracie. Maybe we’ll see you later then.

He turned to walk away and I looked back at her to smile
-I saw her subconsciously grab her upper arm to be sure she was happy with how it must have felt to him. She seemed like a sweet girl. Maybe a bit young for him but still sweet.

“You like her?” I asked.

“I do. She’s a nice girl. She’s really awkward, which I love.”

“Is she?  I guess I wasn’t paying much attention.”

“Yeah, you’re a wine lightweight I think. You were daydreaming for a ton of the time there.”

“Was I?  I hope I wasn’t a drag.”

“Not at all, it was good. Now, what do you say to some food?”  He said as he clapped his hands together and rubbed them in expectation.

“And more wine
.”, I added.

“Yeah?  You up for more?  I don’t want to have to drag your ass back to the hotel.”

“Please. Bring it.”

“Don’t call for the dogs if you’re not ready to run, girlie.”

“Don’t make me say it twice,
boy
.” He hated to be called boy.

“
OK,
Sheila
.” He always called me Sheila when he was trying to embarrass me for being female. It worked. I attempted to push him and I kind of wobbled. So, I hooked my arm around his for stability.

“Damn shoes.” I mumbled.

He laughed, not buying my excuse.

I felt very absentminded and a bit distracted
. I chalked it up to my inexperience with wine.

The restaurant was already decorated for Christmas even though it was early November
. It had kind of a comfy posh feeling to it. There were floor to ceiling windows in this place with crescent shaped tops and heavy, cranberry colored curtains. At each end of the curtain rods, there was a bough of evergreen with silver shiny bulbs. In the corner there was a Christmas tree with gold bulbs and wine cork garland with white lights. There were cranberry colored bows all over the tree and an ivory angel on the top. The opposite corner had a second tree made entirely out of wine bottles that was lit from within and gave a cool green glow. One wall across from the hostess stand was made up entirely of wine bottle bottoms that had been removed and placed on the wall acting as a kind of tile mosaic.

We were seated almost immediately
. The host brought us to a table by the fireplace. It wasn’t cold out to me, but the wood in the fireplace was burning. I could hear it crackling. The tables were a rich colored wood that I couldn’t quite place. Mango maybe. I ran my hands over the top and legs of the table and bent over to look at the underside. The finish was as smooth as silk and impeccably crafted. I decided that if I had my own house and I was a millionaire, it would look like this; it was incredible.

“So, what aren’t you in the mood for?” He asked me.

“Hmmmm, no fish, no beef. What don’t you want?”

“I don’t want chicken or pork
.” he said.

We glanced over the menu, quiet for a few minutes
. I spoke first. “OK, if I were you….I’d get the beef Marsala or the veal scaloppini”

“And if I were you, I’d get the panko breaded fried chicken breast
. You’ll love it.”  He said.

“That sounds great.”

“I’ll get the veal.” He said.

“Don’t forget to get it without the capers.” I reminded him
. He hated capers.

“Oh, right
. Good call.”

Our waiter appeared
. We ordered dinner and more wine. I vaguely remembered ordering. I was committed to keeping up with Kevin tonight.

Even though we were actually having a good time, in the back of my mind I kept reminding myself that we were here because of some phone calls and dreams I had
. I really felt foolish so far. I guess I wanted to drown that feeling because that was currently my plan. That was unlike me and I knew it. I justified it by telling myself that we were on vacation. A weird, relatively unplanned vacation. I vaguely wondered how far Disneyland was.

“What’s up wack job?” Kevin interrupted my thoughts.

“What?  Nothing.” I said, a glob of defensiveness in my tone.

“You’re a bona fide space cadet today
. What’s on your mind?” he asked. “That little girl still?”

“
No, nothing. It’s just weird. I guess I’m just preoccupied.”

“Cut it out.”  He raised his newly poured glass and cleared his throat unnecessarily
. “Here’s to the discovery and appreciation of old grape juice in pretty glass bottles.” I laughed and we both drank.

For the next few minutes, we tried saying Sauvignon using many different accents all the while knowing that we didn’t really know how to say it in our
American accents. Kevin was awesome at making the best of things. I loved that about him. It was one of his gifts. That, and his ability to make small talk. I was never good at making small talk. If I didn’t have anything to say, I didn’t talk or feel like I had to.

“Hey Mel, remind me to grab a bottle of wine for my parents
. My mom would dig on this.”

I nodded as I finished swallowing a sip
. “I like the Chianti better.” I offered. “I think I really like dry wines. I like the ones that suck the saliva right out of my mouth.” I said with a big movement of my hand near my mouth.

“Nice
. Interesting image. Chianti it is. I liked that one too.” He said, laughing.

I was hesitant to bring it up but I decided to anyway
. It might have been selfish of me but I thought that it was possibly selfish of me
not
to bring it up too, so I chanced it.

“Do you want to talk about with happened with Lanie?” I said, softly
. I realized that I should probably be sure that the wine girl, Gracie, wasn’t going to show up. I looked around-no sign of her.

“We could.” He said
looking down, a little unease in his voice.

“Do you want to tell me what happened?” I probably had been a bad friend for not asking earlier, but I tried to make it a habit to give people space when they’re upset
, unless they ask for help. My mom always told me to do that. She would never give advice unless it was asked of her.

“Whelp, she didn’t go for the bike shop
. I might have overreacted because I was expecting that answer, you know?  We got into a fight. Didn’t help that we were both tired. I said some mean stuff, she said some mean stuff. Hard to forget. She is going back to school and said she wouldn’t have much time anyway, so there it is. We broke up.”

I shook my head
. I wasn’t sure what to say, so I didn’t say anything.

That’s when it started
. I got terrible pains behind my belly button. I thought it was the chicken but I had barely touched it. We polished off most of another bottle of wine waiting for dinner, but we kept the bread coming. I was unquestionably wrecked but it just didn’t feel like that was why I was feeling bad.

My hand slammed on the table without my permission, grabbing the edge.

What the…

“Mel!?”  Kevin whispered urgently
. “What’s wrong?”  He looked around frantically.

“My stomach….”

I suddenly felt calm and no longer in pain. I released the table and Kevin eased back into his seat relaxing a little, but still leaning forward. Clearly a bit tense.

I smiled
. I felt mechanical. I felt like I was a passenger in my body. I wanted to panic from the sensation but I just stayed calm knowing that it was the better choice.

“I’m
OK.”  I said to him, still smiling a bit. “Let me just go to the bathroom. I’ll be back.”

He nodded easily enough, but the wrinkle between his eyebrows didn’t go away.

I walked to the bathroom, asking for directions along the way.

The bathroom was even more calming
. There was a subtle smell of what I think was lavender and the lighting was very soft. It felt like the bathroom of a wealthy relative. The stall doors were 6 panel, floor to ceiling for privacy. They were little rooms, not stalls.

I sat on the toilet with no intention of using it and put my head in my hands, closing my eyes
. As soon as I did, I got flashes of outside. I abruptly opened my eyes and picked my head up, hands still up from where it rested. I looked around. Just a bathroom, what’s the problem?  I looked around again and I heard a toilet flush, but otherwise nothing was out of the ordinary.

I let my head fall back, this time tipping my face up toward the ceiling. The ceiling had more intricate woodwork
. I closed my eyes. Again, I saw images and my eyes popped open as I unintentionally gasped.

This time, my eyes were forced to close and I wasn’t worried in the least
. I saw her. I saw a pregnant woman. No, too young. A pregnant…..girl. She ran. She was being chased or well, that’s what it looked like. I was very fearful for this girl. An urgency washed over me like a giant wave and suddenly I knew I came to help. I had to hurry. I knew somehow that she wasn’t too far from me. The pull to her was just about uncontrollable. But, what about Kevin?  There wasn’t time. I had to get to her now. I’d tell Kevin where I was going once I knew.