Chapter Five
Hallie stared across the table at Lavinia without really seeing her.
Around them, conversations swelled in the dining room of Othello, her favorite St. Helena bistro. They’d already done serious damage to the breadbasket and were awaiting a family-style plate of spicy butter garlic shrimp with linguine. Naturally, they’d gone with a white wine pairing, and, Lord, it was never a good sign when they ordered a second bottle before the main course made an appearance. They may have cut back on day drinking, but they obviously had no qualms with doing so at night.
For the life of Hallie, however, she couldn’t stop lifting the glass to her mouth. She’d crafted a new state of being. Bewildered drunkenness. In turn, Lavinia’s current state of being was more like irritated anticipation with a side of sloshiness, but she’d imbibed far less than Hallie. So, clearly, there was a first time for everything. Such as drinking a Brit (who’d once been a Gorillaz roadie) under the table.
Or getting a glimpse at the real, adult version of her teenage crush . . . and liking that peek way too much.
Hallie forced herself out of a trance and looked around. Once upon a time, being a regular at a restaurant had been a new experience. She’d enjoyed the process of becoming one. Loved walking into the candlelit Italian bistro and having everyone know her name. Lavinia always sat with her back facing the kitchen; Hallie took the wall. But her grandmother had been around to make normalcy seem . . . well, normal. Now the repetition of coming here made Hallie feel jumpy in the absence of her grandmother’s anchoring presence.
With a long, steadying breath, Hallie fell back in her chair, taking the glass of wine with her. She downed half and pushed aside her one-third life crisis for now. It had been twenty-four hours since she last saw Julian, and she still hadn’t recounted the impromptu hang to her best friend, despite a serious amount of pestering and prodding.
“Come clean, Hallie Welch, goddamn you.” Lavinia leaned in over the candlelight. Close enough to feel the heat on her chin, yip, and flinch away. Maybe they’d both had too much wine. Was this their second bottle or third? “I’ll start smashing dishes. Don’t think I won’t.”
“Okay, okay, okay.” Hallie set the glass down on the table, holding up a finger when the waiter set the massive steaming bowl of pasta between them. Both women sighed as the savory aroma hit them like culinary crack. “Pasta presentation never gets old.”
Lavinia threw an exaggerated chef’s kiss at the swinging kitchen door. “Our deep and undying admiration to the chef.”
“I’ll let him know,” the amused waiter said, skating away.
“Oy, don’t forget that second bottle. Or third?” Lavinia called after him. Loudly.
“They love us here.”
Hallie used the provided silver tongs to settle a heaping portion of pasta onto Lavinia’s plate, laughing when she rolled her finger for more.
“Go on, then. Didn’t have a single donut all day so I’d have extra room for this.”
“You got it.” Hallie forked up some more, sighing as a waft of fragrant steam hit her in the face. “Okay, before this pasta coma collides with my wine coma, I’ll spill.” She took a centering breath, as if preparing to impart very sensitive information. It was obvious Lavinia was expecting juicy news. And that left her wide open to be messed with. “Me and Julian did something pretty . . . intimate.”
“You shagged him.” She put her arms up in the shape of a V, whooping at the ceiling mid-chew. “Jerome owes me twenty bucks. I knew you had it in you, Hallie.”
Hallie’s mouth opened and closed on a sputter. Was she the one being messed with now? “You placed bets with your husband? On whether or not I would . . . would . . .”
“And I won.” An eyebrow waggle from Lavinia. “You and I both did, from the sounds of it.”
“You didn’t let me finish.” Indignation warred with amusement, leading to Hallie giving Lavinia a very pointed look that didn’t quite stick. “We engaged in the intimate act of prank calling.”
Lavinia’s face lost any trace of mirth. She pretended to signal the waiter. “Excuse me. Garçon? I’d like to order a new best friend.” Her eyelids punched shut. “Prank calling? Really?”
“Yes.” Hallie fanned herself. “Best I’ve ever had.”
“There wasn’t even a grazed tit? Or an itty-bitty peck?”
Hallie dug into her pasta with more gusto than necessary, thanks to her overwrought and underserviced hormones. “Nope.”
“But did you want a little bit of action from him?”
No use in pretending. “Since I was fourteen.”
“Then why didn’t you make a move, babe? I raised you better than this!”
It was a totally valid question. Women had to make moves on men these days, or everyone on planet earth would be single. Her attraction to Julian Vos had always been off the charts, and yesterday . . . well, she’d sensed interest. Right? The way he sort of regulated his breathing in her presence wasn’t a figment of her imagination. More than once she’d definitely noticed his attention dip to lower parts of her anatomy. Mainly, her mouth. Like maybe he was thinking of kissing her. But nothing. And she had an inkling as to why.
“We are extremely different people. I think I might even unnerve him a little?”
“Hallie.” Lavinia pushed aside her plate and leaned forward. “A history professor doesn’t sound like a man who operates carelessly or without a lot of thought.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning the attraction can’t be one-sided or he wouldn’t have created an excuse for you to return to the house.”
She gestured with her fork. “There was a gopher—”
Lavinia interrupted her with a groan. “Men don’t ask for assistance without being under extreme duress. Unless they are setting aside that pride in the name of a woman.”
Hallie considered that. She thought of the way Julian had called her to handle the gopher issue when he absolutely could have created the mixture himself. The way he watched her with an almost reluctant fascination. How he’d followed her from the house and down the stairs, like he was barely aware his feet were moving. It all added up to attraction, didn’t it?
Maybe she should have made a move?
Lavinia regarded Hallie, drumming her nails on the tablecloth. “You’re still carrying that torch. Either extinguish it or fan the flame.”
“Fan it? To what end?”
“To your end, if you’re feeling adventurous.”
“Someone needs to cut you off.” Hallie realized she was squinting in order to keep the image of her friend from doubling. Probably because she’d been punctuating the end of every sentence with a gulp of wine. “Imagine me dating a history professor. Ridiculous.”
Lavinia pushed out her bottom lip. “You’ve still got a mad crush, don’t you, babe?”
“Yes.” Remembering those intensely curious bourbon eyes and how they sparked with rare humor during the prank call, Hallie’s chest squeezed. “It’s a hard fascination to explain, but . . . ugh, Lavinia, I wish you could have seen him in high school. He once tutored one of our classmates—Carter Doherty—who’d been struggling to pass physics. I suspect some difficulties were happening at home, but whatever the case, he’d decided to drop out. But Julian wouldn’t let him. Tutored him all the way from a failing grade to a B. And never took any credit. The only reason I knew about it is my grandmother gardened for Carter’s family and witnessed Julian showing up on their doorstep every Tuesday.” She’d swooned right there on the kitchen floor when Rebecca told her, refusing to budge until dinnertime. “Spending time with him last night made the crush worse, even while it forced me to see we’re completely different.”
“You’re horny and pragmatic now.”
“Yes. Does that officially make me a grown-up?”
“Afraid so. That’s what the wine is for.”
Hallie slumped. Took a deep breath. “All right. Well, he’s only here to write the book, and he’ll be leaving again. I’ll just brazen my way through any future encounters. And when he’s gone, I’ll force myself to stop comparing everyone to him—”
“You mean comparing Owen, yeah?” Lavinia popped a shrimp into her mouth. “Give him the green light and you’ll be a fall bride, if that’s what you want. The man is lovestruck for you.”
Guilt flip-flopped in Hallie’s belly. “That’s why I owe it to him—or any other man who I might see in the future—to not be hung up on a ridiculous crush. It’s gone on way too long.”
Lavinia pursed her lips, twirled her pasta. “Then again . . .”
“Oh no. Don’t give me ‘then again.’”
“Then again, you owe it to yourself to really make sure there is nothing there. Between you and Mr. Vos. You’re in heat over a prank call. Imagine if you actually kissed the son of a bitch.”
Hallie sighed. “Believe me, I’ve thought about it.”
Lavinia fell back into her chair and settled her wineglass on her pasta-filled belly. “You should write him secret admirer letters or something. Get all this angst off your chest before you end up walking down the aisle toward Owen with a bridal bouquet of regrets.”
Hallie laughed, trying not to let it show how thickly her heart was beating over those three little words. Secret admirer letters. The romantic inside of her sat up, stars twinkling in her eyes. God, what a unique chance to express the feelings she’d been carrying around half her life without the risk of embarrassment. “Where would I leave the letters?”
Lavinia hummed. “He runs through town every afternoon. He passes the donut shop at two eleven, like clockwork. And he cuts down the trail on the corner of Grapevine and Cannon. No one else uses that path because it leads to Vos property. You could find a tree stump or something to . . .” Her friend straightened in her chair. “You’re not taking this seriously, are you?”
“No.” Hallie shook her head so hard, a few curls fell across her eyes, forcing her to shove them back into place. “Of course not.”
“Me and my big mouth.” Lavinia sighed. “You don’t have to make this complicated. Just tell the man you like him and see what happens. Or is that too easy?”
“You think baring fifteen years’ worth of feelings would be easier in person?”
“All right, no. Not technically, but . . .” Slowly, Lavinia set down her glass, visibly taking time to gather her thoughts. “Look, I know I encouraged you to see him again. But I want you to stop and think before getting yourself into a tangle, Hallie. You know I love you to death, but . . .” She paused. “Since we lost Rebecca, you’ve been a little more quick to wreak havoc where none is necessary.”
Hallie nodded. Kept right on nodding until the back of her neck was too tight to continue.
While on the road with her mother growing up, Hallie had felt like a slot machine. Drop in a coin, pull the lever, and pick a new adventure. A new persona. Clean the slate. Her mother was as ever-changing as the wind, and she took Hallie with her, inventing new stories, new identities in the name of fun.
Hallie recalled that itchy feeling right before her mother pulled the metaphoric lever, and it felt suspiciously like her current, restless state. The state she’d been in since January. And constant, restriction-free movement was the only way to smother it these days. Or ignore it, rather. “Thanks for being honest,” she said, finally, to her expectant friend.
Lavinia reached across the table to lay her hand on top of Hallie’s. “Let’s put the ol’ letter-writing nonsense to bed, shall we?”
“I’ve read it a story and tucked it in,” Hallie said, firmly ignoring the excited static licking at her nerve endings. “Good night, bad idea.”
“Thank fuck,” Lavinia said, raising her wineglass.
Hallie reached for her own glass and found it empty. Blinking away the increasing blur, she poured herself another glass. A final one, she vowed.
Absently, she wondered how late the stationery shop stayed open these days.
Wouldn’t hurt to check on the way home, right?
Surely her Uber driver wouldn’t mind a detour.
* * *
Barbed wire wrapped around Hallie’s skull and it appeared to be tightening with a full twist every five to eight seconds. She walked into Corked, which hadn’t yet opened for the day, and draped herself over the dusty, timeworn counter, burying her head in folded arms.
Knowing laughter approached, and then Lorna patted her forearm with beautifully aged fingers, her cinnamon-and-dish-detergent scent drifting down to Hallie and providing her with a small sense of comfort. Quite a feat considering the circumstances.
“One cure for cobwebs coming right up,” sang the elderly woman, her footsteps carrying her behind the counter. “Overextended yourself last night at dinner with Lavinia, did you?”
“It was a special occasion.”
“What were you celebrating?”
“Saturday night.” She tried to smile at the older woman, but the action juiced her brain like an orange. “Please, Lorna. My Advil is lost somewhere in the wilds of my house. Either that or the dogs buried it in the backyard. I come begging for mercy.”
Lorna clucked her tongue, hummed to herself. “You don’t have to beg.” She fiddled in the cabinet beneath the register a moment, before setting down twin blue pills on the counter in front of Hallie. “You should be right as rain in forty-five minutes.”
“That’s ambitious, but I will attempt to manifest that outcome.” Pills dry swallowed, Hallie stood up a little straighter and focused on the sweetly smiling woman beside the antique brass register. One of her grandmother’s best friends. If she closed her eyes, she could see them sitting together, heads bent over a crossword, giggling like teenagers over a whispered joke. “How . . .” She cleared the emotion from her throat, glancing around the quiet, dusty shop. “Has business been any better?”
Lorna’s smile remained in place, her head ticking slightly to the right.
She said nothing.
Hallie swallowed, shifting in her seat. “Well, have no fear. I’m sure this hangover will be cleared up by the two thirty tasting. And it’s well past time to restock my whites—”
“The last thing you need is more wine, dear. I’m a big girl. I can handle no one showing up for a tasting.” Chuckling, Lorna reached out and squeezed Hallie’s hand. “Would I like to see this place packed like the old days? Of course. But I’m not filling the register with your hard-earned money, Hallie. I’m just not doing it.” She gave Hallie a final pat. “Rebecca would be proud of you for trying to help.”
Tears pricked the backs of Hallie’s eyelids. Didn’t Lorna realize she was being partially selfish? Not only did this place hold a million special memories for her, but . . . Hallie needed it to remain, this piece of her grandmother. The more Rebecca faded into the past, the more anxious and rudderless Hallie started to feel. This place, her routine, everything felt foreign without Rebecca’s stalwart presence. Like her life belonged to someone else.
“Will you at least bag me up a Pinot—” The bell over the entrance dinged, and Hallie’s heart leapt hopefully in her chest. “Oh! A customer . . .” Her excitement faded when she saw the man who entered. The tweed-suited, round-glassed manager from UNCORKED sporting a very brisk, very harried smile on his face. She recognized him from the afternoon she’d gone around town removing their grand opening flyers and he’d chased her half a block.
“Hello.” Just inside the door, he clasped his hands together at his waist and threw a pitying glance at the sparsely stocked shelves. “I’m from UNCORKED next door. And I hate to do this, but we have two bachelorette parties coming to the afternoon tasting and our supply delivery truck was delayed. We are low on wineglasses, if you can believe it. The party got a little out of control last night, and there was some unfortunate breakage. Would you happen to have a dozen or so we could borrow until tomorrow?”
Lorna was already rising from her seat, eager to help. “Of course. I’m sure I can spare a few.” She crouched down to survey her supplies behind the counter. Hallie hopped up to assist before Lorna could lift something too heavy, helping her settle a box of rattling glass onto the counter. “I have two dozen here. You’re welcome to half.”
The young man in tweed sauntered forward, peeling back the cardboard flaps and extracting one of the glasses, holding it up to the light. “These must be the emergency stash. Not exactly high quality, are they?”
Lorna wrung her hands. “Sorry about that.”
“No, no. Don’t apologize,” laughed Tweed Twit, the disingenuous nature of it causing acid to climb the walls of Hallie’s throat. “Well, I guess I have no choice. I’ll take whatever you can give me.” The manager wasn’t even looking at them. He was craning his neck to observe the line forming in front of UNCORKED. “Are you able to spare the full two dozen? It looks like we need the glasses a tad more than Corked,” he said absently.
“Oh. O-of course.” Hastily, Lorna slid the box across the counter. Hallie was too stunned by the sheer audacity of Tweed Twit to offer assistance. And she remained open-mouthed in shock as the manager lifted the glasses with a hurried thank-you and scurried back out the door.
Hallie’s entire body was racked by hot tingles and secondhand embarrassment. Her face was hotter than the sun’s surface, and her throat? Good Lord. Was she transforming into a werewolf or something?
“That . . .” She could barely speak around the cluster of sticks in her throat. “He cannot get away with that.”
“Hallie—”
“I’m going over there.”
“Oh dear.”
This was bad. She knew it the moment she stepped onto the sidewalk and cool air practically sizzled on her skin. This was not a disco-ball-sabotaging level of righteous indignation. It was far worse. This was Hulk-level irritation, and it needed an outlet. A dear, sweet old lady, an institution of the community, had been brazenly belittled to her face by Tweed Twit, and Hallie’s anger demanded satisfaction. What form would it take? She had no idea. Which should have been a signal to return to the safety of Lorna’s shop and regroup, but instead, she found herself ignoring the protests of people in line and yanking open the front door of UNCORKED, the scent of blue cheese and chocolate hitting her in the face.
“Why don’t you wine about it?” sang the robotic automatic door greeting.
“Shut up,” she said through her teeth, seeing UNCORKED for the first time from behind enemy lines. Unlike the soft, homey feel of Corked, this place was a study in bad lighting. Neon signs that said hello gorgeous and good vibes only cast a tacky glow on the endless rows of wine bottles that appeared to be purchased based on the aesthetic of their labels, rather than the quality of the contents. Unfortunately, there were cushy ottomans begging people to sit and lounge for an afternoon and polish off forty-dollar cheese plates. It was clean and new, and she hated it.
What exactly are you doing in here?
At the moment, she was kind of hovering between the door and the counter, the customers who’d made it inside staring at her curiously, along with the register person. A bead of sweat rolled down her spine. She should go—
Tweed Twit’s voice reached her then. He strode behind the counter with Lorna’s box, giving the register person an exasperated smile. “Scrounged up some glasses from the old folks’ home next door. I should probably take them in back and clean them first. There’s probably a decade of dust caked on the rims.”
Hallie’s adrenaline spiked back up, and she glanced around through the red haze, attention landing on the cheese wall. Each block had its own shelf, backlit by pink lighting. Little silver dishes extended out with samples arranged in neat rows, sort of like human feeding troughs. And she was already moving toward it, turning her shirt into a makeshift apron and piling the cheese samples into it by the handful.
This was it.
Grand Theft Gouda would be the crime that finally brought her down.
“Hey!” That was Tweed Twit. “What are you doing?”
Focused on her mission, whatever the hell it was, Hallie didn’t answer. She just needed some sort of compensation for the chunk the manager had taken out of Lorna’s pride. Was it silly? Probably. Would Hallie regret this? Almost definitely, but only because it wouldn’t help Lorna in any way. Not really.
She ran out of room in her shirt apron and started stuffing cheese samples into her pockets.
“Hey!” The manager came to a stop beside her and started slapping at her hands, but she blocked him with her back. “Call the police!” he shouted over his shoulder. “This . . . Oh my God, it’s the same girl who stole the flyers a few weeks ago!”
Uh-oh.
Jerome was right. This was textbook escalation.
Hallie made a break for it.
Tweed Twit was faster. He blocked the exit. She turned, searching for a back door. All of these places had them. It would empty into the alley, just like Fudge Judy. And then she would . . . what? Hide behind the standing mixer again? Would she even be able to avoid the fallout this time? Her temples started to pound, the sounds of the wineshop turning muffled. Her face stung. Some of the cheese chunks plunked to the ground.
And then the craziest thing happened.
She locked eyes with Julian Vos through the glass window of UNCORKED.
He had a brown paper bag in one sculpted arm, and she recognized the convenience store logo. He’d gone grocery shopping. Julian Vos: He’s just like us! The professor’s attention dropped from her face to the mountain of assorted cheese blocks in her shirt apron, and he popped out his AirPod, a single black eyebrow winging up.
Slowly, Julian’s gaze drifted over to the manager—who was simultaneously yelling at her and shouting orders to the person behind the counter—and his expression darkened. One long stride and he was inside UNCORKED. Leaving a chorus of complaints in his wake from people in line, he very effortlessly took command of the whole establishment without saying a single word. Everyone stopped and looked at him, somehow knowing his arrival was important. This man was a bystander of nothing.
The only person who didn’t notice Julian entering UNCORKED was Tweed Twit, who continued to demand she pay for the ruined cheese, listing the crimes she’d committed against the wineshop like broken commandments.
But his mouth snapped shut when Julian stepped in front of Hallie.
“You’re finished yelling at her now.” Hallie couldn’t see his face, but based on the clipped delivery of his words, she imagined his features were tense. “Don’t ever do it again.” He turned and glanced at her over his shoulder. Indeed, with his Very Serious eyebrows and jawline, he resembled a gallant duke come to rescue a damsel in distress. Well, call her Princess Peach Toadstool, because she welcomed his services. “Hallie, please go outside where this man can’t shout at you anymore.”
“I’m fine right here,” she whispered, her belief in chivalry rising like the dead in an old zombie movie. Not even the threat of being bitten by a walking corpse could have convinced her to miss what was happening here. Julian defending her. Taking her side without getting both sides of the story first. Just being all-around wonderful. God, he was wonderful.
Tweet Twit sputtered. “She stole our cheese!”
“I can see that,” Julian said with forced calm, turning back to the red-faced man. He lowered his voice to such a level that Hallie almost didn’t hear his next clipped words to the manager. “You’re still not going to yell at her anymore. If she’s upset, I’m upset. I don’t think you want that.”
Hallie . . . was finding religion. Is that what was happening?
Am I ascending to a higher plane?
Whatever was happening on his face must have convinced the manager that ticking Julian off should be eliminated from his chore chart. “Fine, I’m done yelling, but we’re calling the police,” the manager said, snapping at the counter person.
“You’re going to call the police over cheese samples?” Julian asked slowly. Hallie looked down at his butt—she couldn’t help it, not when he was using the snobbish professor tone of voice—and, God, the way it tested the seam of his jeans almost made her drop the hunk of Parmesan that she’d been secretly planning to keep for herself. “I don’t think that would be wise. Number one, that would upset her, too, and we’ve already established I’m not a fan of that. And two, you’d have to press charges. Over cheese. Against a local. I don’t think the other locals—your customers—would like that very much, do you? We both know I wouldn’t.”
Heaven looked suspiciously like a cheese shop, but surely her personal cloud was around here somewhere. Could she book an angel-guided tour, perhaps?
“She stole our flyers out of shop windows and . . . yeah, I think she might have broken our disco ball?” Uh-oh. Hallie’s stupor popped like a bubble, and she peeked around Julian in time to see the manager throw up his hands. “She’s a menace!”
Hallie gasped.
“You’re probably right,” Julian drawled.
She gasped a second time.
“But if you say another word about her, I’ll break a lot more than your disco ball.”
Tweed Twit blew a raspberry in his outrage. “I can’t believe this—” He stopped cold and squinted up at Julian. “Wait a minute, you look familiar.”
Julian sighed, transferring the paper bag to his other arm. “Yes.” He kept his voice low. “You must be familiar with Vos Vineyard.”
“Vos Vineyard? Not really. We don’t stock anything from those dusty-ass has-beens.”
Hallie almost threw the block of Parmesan at the store manager—and it was definitely a big enough chunk to deliver a concussion. Did he really just say that out loud to Julian? The secondhand embarrassment she’d experienced for Lorna roared back now in his honor, flushing her skin and making her wish she’d stayed in bed this morning, like a good little hungover soldier. For Julian’s part, his reaction was not what she might have expected. Instead of getting angry over the insult to his family business, he merely looked . . . perplexed. Curious.
“Dusty-ass has-beens?” he repeated, brow furrowing. “Why would you call—”
The manager cut him off with a finger snap. “No, wait. I know why you’re familiar. You were in that alien documentary! What was it called . . .”
Julian was already turning on a heel, ushering Hallie out of the store with his free hand. “And that’s our cue.”
“Wait!” called the overdressed twentysomething. “Can we take a selfie?”
“No,” Julian said flatly.
“What alien documentary is he talking about?” Hallie whispered up at Julian’s set chin.
“Quiet, cheese thief.”
“That’s fair,” she muttered, plucking the Parmesan out of her apron and taking a bite.
As soon as they were outside the shop and moving at a brisk pace down the sidewalk, Julian asked a question Hallie really didn’t want to field. “Why did he speak that way about the vineyard? Was it an unpopular opinion or the consensus?”
Hallie gulped. “If I answer, will you explain the alien documentary?”
His sigh could have withered an oak tree. “Deal.”