Page 108 of Summer After Summer

“Not until Monday. I’ll make a call and we can do the paperwork tomorrow.” She pulls her phone out and ducks away. Wes and Ann drift away from us, walking further into the garden.

“Where’s Sophie and Colin?” I ask.

“Arguing in the living room.”

“Ah.”

“She wants them to buy a place.”

“I know.”

Charlotte shakes her head. “They need their own life.”

I throw my head back and laugh.

“What?”

“You’ve been living with William this whole time.”

“That’s not the same thing at all.”

“No?”

“All right, all right. But I’m not moving with him now, am I?”

“You’re not. I’m happy for you.”

“Ann changed my life.”

I wrap my arm around her waist and pull her to me. “I’m so glad for you.”

She smiles, then glances toward where Wes and Ann are walking in the garden. “What do you think they’re talking about?”

“How fabulous you are.”

“Wes didn’t think so when we dated.”

“You’re not still mad about that, are you?”

Charlotte lifts her chin. “No, of course not. But Olivia … are you sure you can trust him?”

“No,” I say. “I’m not.”

And then, like Wes knows we’re talking about him, he turns and grins at me in this way he has, like a sunbeam, then puts his hand on his chest, our special way of saying I love you, and my heart skips a beat.

I can’t trust him, but we don’t feel over yet.

Our next stop is the vineyard, and it’s out of this world. Fred’s friend, James Benedict, who he met in the Navy, bought the five hundred acres from the previous owner in a fire sale and has spent the last year updating it with all of the latest technology, making the old winery modern.

He takes us on a personal tour, limping along next to me as he supports himself on a beautiful carved cane. A “war injury” he calls it, and Fred lets us know quietly about James’s act of bravery when they were both in the Navy, saving someone who’d been swept overboard during a bad storm, and how a rope got caught around his leg like a snake and snapped it in two.

The grape fields, the harvesting tents, the manglers, and vast vats where the wine ages—all of it is fascinating to me. James is a good, gentle explainer, and we get along immediately. We have a certain complicity, he and I, and it’s nice to have an uncomplicated conversation with a man.

After the tour, he takes us into the restaurant and tasting room that’s finished, but not yet open, and we’re treated to an amazing five-course lunch with wine pairings.

We’re sitting at two round tables, the group divided in two, with James going back and forth between us. Unlike the bus, where we were divided into couples, I’m sitting with Fred, Sophie, and Ann, Fred to my right and Sophie to my left.

“Wasn’t this a good idea?” Sophie says as she unfolds her cloth napkin and takes in the room around us. It’s a glass box, with two walls made up of enormous wine storage rooms. In front of us lie the grape fields. Behind us an apple orchard. At capacity, the room could hold a hundred and fifty people, James tells us, and its main use will be for weddings.

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