The Other Boy (17 page)

Maddy was quiet. She hadn’t thought about it like that before. Her mom went on. “You know, honey, I haven’t mentioned this to you before, because you did seem to like Brian a lot and he’s not a
bad
person, but I have never really thought that he was smart enough or kind enough for you.”

Maddy started to protest but something stopped her.

Wasn’t that sort of what David had said? “Oh, Mom,”

she said. “You’re just a little biased, don’t you think?”

Her mother stood up from the bed. “Not really. Now, what are you going to do?”

“I don’t know yet,” Maddy said thoughtfully.

“Whatever you do decide,” her mother said, giving Maddy a pat on the arm, “be strong.”

“I will, Mom.”

“I’d expect nothing less from my own daughter.”

Maddie paused. “Mom, I—I’m sorry. For everything, all of it. For what a brat I’ve been all summer. It was incredibly dumb and disrespectful to throw that party.

And I didn’t mean what I said about the vineyard being stupid. I was just frustrated.”

“Well, it’s all in the past. I’m just so glad we’ve had this time together up here, as a family, this summer,” her mother said. “I don’t think it’s turned out the way any of us expected.” She reached over and gave Maddy a little squeeze before softly closing the door behind her.

✦ ✦ ✦

Maddy continued lying on her bed for a while after her mother left, staring out the window at the night sky. She

knew what she had to do. Her stomach did a little flip as she thought about calling Brian, but her instincts told her it was the right decision. She looked at the bedside clock. Nine thirty.
Be strong,
she told herself, and dialed him on her cell.

He answered right away. “Hey, what’s up?”

“Nothing—how’s it going?” she said automatically, hugging a pillow to her chest.

“Okay. Just hanging out by the pool with Chad and the guys.” Great—there were people there.

“Well, um, do you think you could go inside or somewhere private? I have to talk to you about something important.”

“Can’t it wait until later? We’re just starting a hand of poker.”

“No, Brian, it can’t. Please go inside.” She was surprised at how calm her voice was.

He sighed. She could hear the scraping of a chair. “Be right back, guys,” he said away from the phone. There was a long pause. “Okay, I’m in the living room. What’s so important?”

She took a deep breath. “Brian, I don’t know if this is working anymore.” She waited for a second. Silence on the other end. “I just think we might be growing apart.”

More silence. And then, “Are you breaking up with me?” He sounded incredulous.

“No! I mean … maybe. I don’t know.” She could hear him breathing.

“What’s going on with you? You’re acting like a totally different person.”

“I—” The words were on her lips to deny it but she checked herself. “I know.” More silence. She got the impression that wasn’t the response he was expecting. A voice in the background yelled, “Come on, Kilburn!”

“Do you have to go?” Maddy asked, since he still wasn’t saying anything.

“Yeah.”

She waited, but after a minute, she realized that there wasn’t going to be any more. She didn’t know if he was mad or surprised or sad. Apparently, he wasn’t going to tell her. “Okay. Maybe I’ll see you—”

Click
.

He hung up. Maddy stared at the phone in shock.

Then she put it down on the bed and shrugged to herself. She guessed she had her answer to what he was feeling, and it was neither surprise nor sadness.

She rolled over and switched off the light. The soft darkness surrounded her. She tried to evaluate her feelings.

Why wasn’t she more upset? Brian had been her boyfriend for over a year. She felt kind of weird that she wasn’t dev-astated. Then it dawned on her. She had already gone through all the sadness that comes with breaking up—

only for her, it had come before, not after. The phone conversation with Brian had made it official, but in her mind the deed had been done for days. And it felt right.

Exhaustion overwhelmed her as she drew the sheet up under her chin. She listened to the porch cricket’s nightly song and let slumber overtake her.

Bright sun streamed onto Maddy’s face. She closed her eyes against the glare and rolled over, stuffing her head into the pillow. “Arrrgg,” she groaned.

Yesterday’s drama had left her with a headache worse than a hangover.
Why
had she rejected David? She had really screwed up this time.
You totally blew your chance
with an awesome guy,
her helpful inner voice informed her.
Nice work ruining what’s left of your summer
.

“Gah!”
she growled aloud and sat up. Furiously, she kicked back the sheet and climbed out of bed.

Opening the doors to her porch, she leaned out over the railing. The Napa morning was glowing as always.

The vines were silvery with dew, and the air was fresh and piney. These facts did nothing to lift Maddy’s spirits.
“Ahhh!”
she shouted out into the yard, not worrying who heard.

Maddy slammed the balcony doors and turned back into her room. Man, it was a mess. She hooked yesterday’s dirty clothes out from under the bed, dumped them into the hamper, and pulled on cutoffs and a green T-shirt, jerking the dresser drawers so hard one of them cracked. She took a deep breath and forced herself to unclench her aching jaw. Her headache continued drilling farther into her temples. She closed her eyes. A vision of herself screaming at David in the orchard and his shocked, angry expression flashed through her mind.

Maddy pounded down the stairs to the kitchen, where she gulped an enormous glass of water and pressed a damp paper towel to her forehead for a minute to try to cool off her raging thoughts. The room was empty. She wondered where everyone was and then looked at the clock for the first time. It was only six.

Mom and Dad weren’t even awake yet. Whatever. She definitely wasn’t going back to bed.

She yanked open the back door and crossed the yard to the shed where they kept the gardening tools. The threat of a nice collection of snakes, mice, and lizards in the dark, musty depths always terrified her, but today she didn’t even pause to look around. She grabbed a trowel, basket, and rake and stomped outside to the garden. She had to do
something
today, and it wasn’t going to be in the tasting room. She couldn’t just lie around or she’d wind up jumping out a window. She might as well garden. A pang of sadness pierced her frustration as she thought of David, alone in the tasting room. Today he was going to install shelving to hold the wine bottles. She really wanted to see how it looked. But more than that, she wanted to see
him
. Maddy shook her head.
Fat chance,
she told herself.
You can bet that he certainly never wants to see
you
again. Why humiliate yourself even more, Madeline?

Rows of peppers, eggplant, zucchini, and tomatoes stood neatly, soaking up the morning sun, which was already strong, even this early in the morning. The carrots and onions were almost choked with weeds. Maddy put her tools down and started with a row of carrots. On her knees in the sandy yellow soil, the sun beating through her thin T-shirt, she yanked out one weed for losing her temper in the orchard. Another was for wast-ing half the summer worrying about Brian. A giant prickly nettle was for not seeing how great David was right from the beginning. The cluster of dandelions was for all the chances to kiss him she’d never get, and the huge, spiny thing was for her parents dragging her up to Napa so she could get all confused, instead of letting her enjoy her old life back in the city.

Maddy sat back on her heels for a minute and wiped at the sweat on her dusty forehead with the back of her hand. She took a breath and looked behind her at the trail of yanked-up weeds left in her wake. She felt a little better.

“Wow, this is great.” Maddy looked up. Her mom stood at the edge of the garden in her old blue bathrobe, holding a glass of iced tea. She handed the glass to her grubby daughter. “I thought you could use this. Dad and I were watching you out the window.” Maddy got to her feet, accepted the frosty, wet glass, and downed the tea in three long gulps. “You know, it’s nice to see you enjoying your work here in the vineyard. You’ve adjusted so well since the beginning of the summer.”

Maddy smiled grimly. If “adjusted well” meant she was confused and mad about everything in her life, then her mom was right—she was doing just peachy. “Yeah, well, I needed a little exercise this morning,” Maddy explained.

Her mother smiled and turned to go back to the house.

Halfway across the yard, she stopped. “Oh, Maddy, I almost forgot. David and Fred are coming for lunch today.”

“What? I thought they only came to dinner!” Maddy cried. Her mom looked at her strangely. Maddy dropped her eyes and started gathering some of the weeds up into a little pile.

“Daddy and Fred are going into town for the Winemakers License Hearing at the town council, and you know that’s a big deal. So I thought they should come straight here after, and we’ll all have a nice sit-down lunch together, to celebrate clearing another hurdle.”

Maddy sank back on her heels. Great. She’d get to stare David in the face for an entire meal. Her headache started coming back. Then her eyes widened as something stirred in her mind. David had accused her of being the girl he’d always thought she was, the spoiled brat from the city. But what if she could show him that she wasn’t—that she had changed? What if she could catch him by surprise?

Maddy leaped to her feet. “Hey, Mom,” she called across the yard. “You know, I could make lunch today, if you want.” Her mother stopped short and turned around slowly, an incredulous look on her face.

“You want to cook?” she asked carefully.

“Yeah, sure. I’d love to.”

“Well,” Maddy’s mom said delicately, “that would be great. What do you want to make?”

She hadn’t gotten that far yet. Maddy looked around the garden. “Um, I’ll do something with the veggies here.”

Her mother looked doubtful. “Okay, well, that’s fine.

Can you have it ready by one?”

“Sure!” Maddy sounded a lot more confident than she felt. She looked around the garden as her mother disappeared back into the house. The vegetables stood shining in the sun, looking intimidatingly raw. She groaned a little to herself. What had come over her? Was it momentary insanity? She had made scrambled eggs and spaghetti before but … eggplant? Maddy rose and walked over to the shiny purple vegetables. She picked one and held it up. It was light. The smooth skin and springy flesh underneath made it feel disturbingly alive—

like it might actually be an animal and not a plant.

Maddy turned it slowly in her hand.
How the heck do you
cook this? Do you eat the skin? What about the hard green
leaves on top?
What the hell? Everyone was always raving about how good eggplant was. She’d figure it out. She picked six big ones and set them aside.

Picking the zucchini, Maddy found that they were covered with spiky little hairs, which she’d never seen before, and the tomatoes were all misshapen and bulgy, not round like she was used to. There was something else growing that she couldn’t even identify—it was a green object with a long, feathery top and a bulbous bottom. It kind of looked like deformed celery. Whatever it was, there was a lot of it, so Maddy picked several of those too, along with onions and peppers. At least those looked normal.

She loaded everything into a basket and lugged it across the lawn, feeling the sun beating down on the back of her neck, and banged back into the kitchen. Her parents sat at the table, the newspaper spread out in front of them, sipping their coffee. Her father was peacefully munching a plate of toast. In the corner, the radio was playing classical music.

Maddy dropped the basket on the floor and scowled at them, panting. The dirt from the garden had mixed with the sweat on her arms, leaving long dirty streaks.

Her head was pounding and the mosquito bites on the backs of her knees itched ferociously.

“Mom says you’re cooking for us, sweetie!” Her father chirped.

“Mmmm.” Maddy stomped over to the fridge and took out some blueberry pie, which she began devouring straight out of the pan without cutting a piece. She realized her parents had put down the newspaper and were staring at her.

“Pie for breakfast, Maddy?” her mother inquired.

“Do you want me to make you some eggs?”

“No!” she snapped, and then controlled herself. “I mean, I’m fine, thanks, Mom.”

“All right.” Her mother wandered over to the basket of vegetables and sank down on her heels to peer in.

“You picked some fennel! That’ll be interesting.”

“Fennel?” That must be that weird bulbous celery thing with the feathery top. “Oh, yeah. That’s what I thought too.”

Her mom rose and gave her an absent smile. “Well, have fun. Daddy has his hearing soon, and I promised the North Napa Vineyard Association I’d staff a booth at the outreach fair this morning. But everyone will be back by one.”

“Great!” Maddy sounded far more enthusiastic than she felt. “See you then. I have everything under control.”

Maddy stood at the kitchen counter, holding a giant chopping knife and eyeing the stack of vegetables heaped in front of her. Somehow, these were going to turn into lunch for five, though she had no idea how that was going to happen.

It was sweltering in the kitchen, despite the open windows. The thought of turning on the stove wasn’t very appealing, but Maddy had the feeling people wouldn’t be impressed by raw onions and peppers. She had tied her hair into a bun and put on a loose cotton tank top, but it didn’t make much difference. It was just hot. There was no way around it. The sweat beaded up on her arms and at the edges of her hairline. A trickle ran from her neck down the front of her chest. Bleah.

All she wanted to do was leave this inferno of a room, pour herself a glass of iced tea, and lie on the porch chair with a fan aimed directly at her face.