Christmas in Wine Country (30 page)

“Yes. They may have been talking long before, there’s no way of knowing, but the offer came in yesterday. Listen, girls, I’ve got another call I need to take. Think about that space on Walker. I could take you by later today if you wanted.” 

Pressing the off button on her phone, Annie’s gaze never left Lila as she said “What. The. Fuck.”

“I have no idea.” Lila’s eyes were wide with shock. 

“Call Jake,” Annie ordered. “I don’t believe this!” she yelled, balling up a sheet of wax paper and taking aim at the industrial-sized refrigerator.

With a shaking hand, Lila reached for her purse. Conveniently, she’d recently programmed his number into her phone, giggling and dreamy from kisses as she did it. In the wee hours of the same day that he’d apparently bought the storefront right out from under them.

Stepping out the back door onto a concrete step for some air, Lila felt a few drops of rain. She’d left her coat back at the bookstore but just then getting caught in a rain shower seemed apropos. Her breathing shallow and ragged, she waited, phone ringing, alternately hoping he’d pick up and make it all go away, and then hoping he wouldn’t pick up because she wasn’t sure she could handle hearing the news all over again from him. The latter wish won. This time, his low, scratchy voice on his message sounded mocking.   

Her hand shaking, Lila began leaving a message. “Jake? You bought our store? I don’t understand…” Trailing off, she lost confidence in the point of the call. Why was she putting herself out there just to get smacked down again? What, did she want him to call back and gloat?

Hanging up, she wondered if she could have sounded more pathetic if she’d tried. She could hear Annie yelling and stomping around the kitchen in a rage. As for herself, she took a good look at the dark gray storm clouds gathered overhead, noted the rain now coming down at a steady clip and felt like passing out.

“What did he say?” Annie burst through the door to join Lila on the stoop.

“He wasn’t there.”

“What’d you say in your message?”

“I don’t know.” Lila looked down at her feet, honestly wondering once again if she was going to vomit. “I guess I asked him why he bought our store. I don’t know why this is happening. He knew how excited we were about it.”

“Wait.” If possible, Annie seemed to get more upset. The silence of her pause veritably crackled. “You told him about it? How we were about to lease the store?”

“Well, yeah.” Lila started to feel defensive. “We talked about everything—”

“You told him were about to close? Two days ago? You told him?”

“It came up.” Lila squirmed uncomfortably, nervously rubbing her phone with her thumb.

“Are you kidding me?” Annie’s hands flew up in exasperation.

“Annie, calm down,” Lila pleaded.

“Calm down?” Annie shouted as she began to pace. “Do you realize what you did? You gave our idea to him! What did it take, Lila? One kiss and a half a glass of wine and you handed the whole business plan to him?”

“What are you talking about?” Roused from her shock-induced torpor, Lila felt a wave of indignation. “Are you saying this is my fault?”

“What else am I supposed to think? The place is vacant for months, no interest. Then right before we close you tell the richest guy in town about this awesome plan to
open
a store there. So he goes and does it himself.” Throwing her hands up once again in anger, she asked, “What, are you saying it’s just a coincidence?”

“It wasn’t like that.” Lila felt herself losing confidence even as she said it.

“Well, then, call him and tell him to fix it. If he’s the Prince Charming you seem to think he is.”

Lila buried her face in her hands, ashamed and sick and lost, not wanting to hear the mocking tone in Annie’s voice, not wanting to remember the conversation with Jake, and especially not wanting to have what was happening happening.

“You give up so easily!” Annie shouted, her dark hair falling out of her ponytail and cheeks flushed. “Why aren’t you fighting?”

“What’s to fight, Annie?” Lila asked weakly, shaking her head. “Except fight with you, which I don’t want to do. It just makes me feel worse.”

Turning, she spun away before she could hear any more.

*
             
*
             
*

             
Tugging the blanket closer under her chin, Lila turned up the volume on her TV. If there’d been a setting “loud enough so you can’t hear yourself think” she would have chosen it. The announcer hyped the starting pitchers
in
game
seven
of the American League Championships. The Red Sox vs. The Yankees. The winner would be h
eading to the World Series.
As t
he
commentators debated the
good vs. evil/Darth Vader vs. Luke Skywal
ker/Cain vs. Abel type match-up,
Lila
used all
of
her energy to blow
her nose loudly into a tissue
. Then she sank once again int
o a
lethargic torpor on the couch.

             
It was Saturday night, the night she was supposed to be on her big date with Jake. Instead of her skinny jeans she
wore
old sweats with a hole in the knee. Instead of styling her hair into loose, soft curls and dreaming of Jake toying with them once again, she had all of it bound on top of her head in a giant neon leopard print scrunchie. She wasn’t even sure how she’d ended up with such a hideous thing—maybe it had
once belonged to Venice or Valeria back in SF. This might be her new look, she decided, now that she was friendless, dateless and stuck in a dead-end service job in a tiny town in the middle of nowhere. 

Funny how things could change so quickly. Or maybe this was how things had been all along, she’d just let herself succumb to delusions of happiness. She’d grown relaxed and happy, Redwood Cove-style, doing yoga and sleeping through the night. She’d become soft and started expecting things to work out instead of treating life like a constant fight, armor up and guard firmly in place at all times. And so life had come in with a giant cartoon boxing glove, found her soft, Pillsbury dough boy center and given her a sound wallop. She should have seen it coming.

Instead, she’d been shocked and then shocked some more, right up through Jake’s return call less than an hour after she’d left the shaky and nearly incoherent message from Annie’s. She’d been having a crying pity party in the shower so she hadn’t heard the phone ring. Listening to his message later on, she’d held her breath, standing dripping in her towel, hoping that he’d have no idea what she was talking about. “What? Someone bought your store????” she’d hear him, indignant and ready to champion her cause. Maybe he’d even express some righteous outrage—“How could this happen???” Instead, there was some lame, “hope you’re not too upset about this,” with some “it’s just business” and “my father was set on it” finished up with an infuriating “call me back so we can talk about it.”

She’d tossed the phone right into the trash. She’d fished it out later, of course, but the hard thock of
plastic
against metal had felt satisfying in the moment.

He’d called a few more times in the last two days but Lila had let it go straight to voicemail. How was she supposed to answer the phone when it required getting off the couch? She had a cold, first of all. A stuffed up nose and a scratchy throat. Plus insomnia had rushed back in the front door like a loud, unwelcome houseguest. At 3am she could almost hear it cackling, “So, you thought you were rid of me, little Miss Zen?” 

The Yankees hit a home run. With heavy eyelids, Lila watched their rookie showpony jog around the bases, blowing kisses to the sky. After the next guy hit a pop fly and a Sox outfielder remembered how to catch, the second inning wrapped up and they went to commercial. A fast food restaurant. Maybe
she
could get a job working there, serving up fries.  

Technically, she hadn’t lost her job at Cover to Cover. Yet. Marion couldn’t be too happy about her calling in sick the past two days, but that axe had yet to fall. Maybe it was time to quit, though. Move back to Hyannis. Curl up on her old twin bed. Maybe they’d hire her back at the Snack Shack if they didn’t find her over-qualified. She’d have to wear a paper hat. “Would you like sprinkles on that, sir?” Her mother would probably call Colgate and ask if they could revoke her diploma due to lack of use.

With a groan, she realized tomorrow was Sunday. She’d have to tell Gram all about it. Gram was sure to expect an entirely different call, celebratory, anticipatory, full of laughter and details about launching the bookstore café. Instead, Lila had a few choice words about Betrayal. By best friends. By handsome would-be suitors. By her dad—she could always throw him into the mix when feeling particularly low. The worst
of all, though, was how she’d betrayed herself, falling like a house of cards for that slick, top Bay Area bachelor. 

Closing her eyes only made things worse. She could see a vivid replay of stupid moments when she’d been utterly charmed and swept away. Like an infant or the hunchback village idiot, she’d been distracted and entranced by little more than a shiny apple and a key chain. Give the girl a glass of wine, a few crooked smiles and that was that.

Annie had apparently been right all along. It didn’t make Lila feel any better about having been yelled at. Yes, she sucked at picking guys, but it could be worse, she thought defensively. She could be one of those women who fell for prison inmates, starting as a pen
pal, drawn in by the bad
boy, winding up getting married to a serial killer in a state penitentiary.

The next commercial showed a luxury car whipping around a curvy coastal road, sweeping panoramas of a dramatic, rocky shoreline. It almost looked as if it could have been filmed in Redwood Cove. Scowling, Lila recalled the views from Jake’s cottage. Yeah, well, he could keep his panoramic vistas. If Lila scrunched up good and close in the far corner of her kitchen, craning her neck at just the right angle, she could catch a glimpse of surf, too. 

Jake
was probably there with another girl right now
.
He
was probably twirling that girl’s hair
, telling her about how he saves
bluebirds and cares for the planet.

The Yankees’ lead-off hitter knocked one out of the park. T
he Red Sox
went down 3-1.

Time for
some
ice cream. Standing at the fridge, spoon in hand, Lila opted out of the whole dish formality. A scoop of ice cream, a spoonful of hot fudge and a spritz of whipped cream made a sundae right in her mouth. Tipping her head back, tilting the whipped cream canister and letting it rip, she realized that this was exactly the type of embarrassing scene custom-made for Jake to walk in on. Picturing him finding her in her leopard-print scrunchie and pajama bottoms, guiltily clasping a carton of ice cream and a jar of hot fudge with her mouth full of whipped cream, she spurted out a laugh. Like the spout of a whale, whipped cream launched out of her mouth in an arc. It landed all over the refrigerator door with a splat. Looking at the mess, Lila
’s
laugh turned into a whimper. Jake wasn’t going to walk in. Because Jake didn’t like her. Nobody did.

“Get a grip,” she told
herself out loud. Because talking to yourself was what winners did. 

Putting the goodies away, she gave herself a pep talk. So, she didn’t get the dream guy. Nor did she get to own and operate her own business. And her best friend had yelled at her. Somewhere, there was a tiny violin playing for her in deep sympathy. But, honestly,
she needed to
quit moping
and get some perspective on how good she really had it
.

             
Oh God, she’d been such an idiot! Cursing, she covered her face with her hands. She’d made out in a car! Again! And she’d been swept away in the romance of it!

Climbing back onto the couch covered in snotty tissues, she added another thing to feel bad about: ho
w bad she was at not moping
. That’s why she’d earned a D in that college seminar on Buddhism. Detached perspective? Not so much. Betrayal. Pain.
Anger. Jealousy. Now these were concepts she could sink her teeth into. That’s why she’d done so well in her mythology class. Hubris, now that was a concept. There she’d been, sitting on that bench overlooking the ocean, feeling everything was going so well. She’d been wearing wax wings, baby.

Life had been so much easier back in school. The goal had been clear: As. The path to it just as clear: work really hard. That she could do. She’d always done well in those rat-seeking-cheese environments. Even at the advertising firm, she’d felt a certain security in being able to see the next step, the promotion she was working toward. Not that that had worked out at all, she thought, giving a loud snort of derision before covering her nose, wondering if she was going to have to add ‘frequent inadvertent snorting’ to her list of woes. 

The same clip promoting the same new TV show she must have seen 17 times by now came on yet again and Lila hit mute. Did they think it helped to see the same thing over and over again? Actually, yes, it did, she remembered AdSales’ survey research. All she knew was the girl in the show had great hair, thick, glossy, straight and honey-colored and she tossed it around like she hadn’t a care in the world. Bitch. Lila decided she hated her, too. She hated Martin and Jake and Annie and that girl from the TV show. Maybe she should start keeping a list.