Eight Hundred Grapes (7 page)

He nodded. “She told me.”

Finn handed over a fork. I dug into the middle of the large pan. Finn’s look of sympathy turned to annoyance, always annoyance when I took lasagna from the middle of the pan, even though he liked the edges.

I stopped caring as soon as I took a bite. The gooey, cheesy mess, sweet and salty with the first taste. The tomatoes as sweet as strawberries, the whole-wheat noodles buttery tender. It reminded me how hungry I was. It reminded me that I had failed to eat anything all day. Licorice included.

“I already knew, really.”

I stopped chewing and looked at him. “How?”

He shrugged. “Mom has no poker face. And when I showed up unexpectedly for dinner last week, she panicked. She said Dad was at the Science Buzz Café. But it wasn’t Thursday. Then she made me chocolate cake.”

“Great. I get a naked man, and you get cake.”

“It was pretty good too,” Finn said.

Then he motioned toward the vineyard, where our parents were walking together. They were walking the way they normally did, except there was distance between them. My father’s hands were behind his back; my mother’s hands by her side.

It hurt to watch them. I went in for another bite, but he knocked my fork out of the way.

“Slow down on the lasagna,” he said. “Don’t you have a wedding dress to fit into?”

I knew he didn’t mean it. My mother’s lasagna made him do crazy things. To make amends, he cut a small square, moved it toward my side of the pan.

“Make it last,” he said.

“What are we going to do about Mom and Dad?”

“What can we do? I mean, it’s their life.”

“And ours.”

We each took a bite, quietly. Then I moved the contract over, so he could see it for himself.

“It’s been a great day for you, huh?”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

He shrugged. “It was Dad’s information to share.”

My head was spinning thinking about all the things people in this family knew. And the things that people were leaving out.

“He only told me to make sure I didn’t want the vineyard, which I assured him I didn’t.”

“Why did no one ask me? What if I had wanted the vineyard?”

“You don’t want the vineyard.”

I was moving to London in twenty days and joining the new London office of my law firm. London, a city I had been a little in love with since the first time I’d visited for a friend’s wedding after we’d graduated college. After the reception, I decided to walk the city, winding my way down the cobblestone streets outside Chelsea, heading toward Pimlico. I dreamed of walking those amazing streets late at night, lantern-lit streetlights leading the way toward a tiny bistro famous for their rosemary potatoes. I couldn’t believe that bistro was about to be my neighborhood bistro, those streets about to be my streets. Even if my relationship was in shambles, I was excited for those things.

Finn shook his head. “Honestly, Dad knew you don’t want the vineyard any more than I do,” he said.

“That’s not the point.”

“It should be,” Finn said. “Besides, you made me and Bobby sign a contract your second year in law school that said we’d never take over the vineyard. And we would stop each other from doing it. Remember that?”

I did remember. I remembered why I had wanted us to sign it. I’d been having a hard time in law school, and part of me had wanted to come home and quit. But that was what coming home felt like to me. Quitting. Giving up on my dreams to build a life away from here, a life that was more stable than a vineyard felt. And I hadn’t wanted to give up. I hadn’t wanted Finn and Bobby to give up either.

Finn shook his head. “Bobby still fucking has it, I’m sure . . .” he said.

I pointed my finger at him. “What was that? And what is this about you moving?”

He shook his head. “I think you should probably stay out of it,” he said.

“I’d like to, but you both keep dropping hints, and it’s making it pretty hard to ignore.”

He stuck his fork in the lasagna, like he was putting a stake into the ground, blocking off his portion.

“Okay,” he said. “I’ll tell you. But I don’t want your judgment.”

“Of course.”

“No, don’t say of course. You won’t mean it. Not when you hear the details. Because the details are going to make you think that you understand what I’m dealing with. And you don’t understand what I’m dealing with.”

“Why? What did you do?”

“Is that a good place to start?”

I put my fork down, moving the pan physically toward him like a peace offering.

“So I think it’s best, for impartiality, if we just talk about it like we’re talking about other people. People you don’t know. People who aren’t your brothers. A guy named Mark. And a guy named Jesse.”

Did Finn see himself more like a Jesse or more like a Mark? I’d guess Jesse.

“I see what you’re doing. Don’t try to guess which one I am,” he said.

“Any other players I need to know for your story?”

“Just Daisy,” he said. Then he sighed, Finn actually sighed out loud. “Daisy is this woman that Jesse met when he was really young. Daisy. And he loved her since he was very young. But he’s a guy. And guys are stupid. Sixteen-year-old guys are so stupid they don’t know yet what stupid even means. So he decided he shouldn’t have anything to do with her. He met someone else . . . Lana.”

“Bobby is cheating on Margaret?”

“How did you get there?”

“It’s obvious.”

“Except you’re wrong.” He looked at me. “I’m Jesse. Bobby is Mark.”

“And who is Lana?”

“Lana is Annabelle Lawrence.”

I looked at him, confused. Annabelle Lawrence was a girl that Finn had dated in high school. She was short, with tons of freckles and a big laugh, the kind of laugh that made you want to be around her all the time. I cried when Finn broke up with her. And I remembered what he’d said. He’d said there were going to be many Annabelles. He hadn’t been kidding.

Finn picked up his fork, taking two big bites in quick succession. “I can’t help how I feel and I can’t do anything about it. And that’s not new.”

“What is?”

“She has feelings for me too.”

Which was when I knew what he was saying. I knew the people who were in love here and who were being kept apart. “Margaret.”

He nodded. “Margaret. Me and Margaret.”

My heart dropped. How had I not known this? How had it not occurred to me, ever? The summer before Bobby and Margaret had started dating, she had been at the house all the time. She and Finn had been lifeguards together at the Ives pool. She had been Finn’s friend first, before she was Bobby’s wife.

“Please don’t look at me like that,” he said.

“Finn, are you sleeping with her?”

Finn shook his head. “That’s your question?”

“Hey.”

We looked up, the sound of a voice shocking us. It was Bobby, standing in the kitchen doorway. Bobby, who, if he’d heard the end of our conversation, certainly seemed to have no idea it was about him.

He walked in, an overnight bag in his hand.

“Holy shit,” he said. “Lasagna!”

He made a beeline for the table, not even dropping his bag as he reached for a bite. Finn leaned back, not fighting him.

It seemed fair: Something was going on between Margaret and Finn. Bobby should have as much of the lasagna as he wanted.

“What are you doing here?” Finn said.

Finn’s tone was less than welcoming.

“Mom called for reinforcements,” he said, slightly taken aback. “You too?”

“Yep,” he said.

I looked up at Bobby. “So you know about Mom and Dad too?”

Bobby nodded, took another bite. “It’s my second lasagna this week.”

This was when Margaret walked in, a twin on each hip, Peter and Josh Ford, dressed in matching firefighter uniforms complete with enormous red pants, suspenders, and fireman hats. Margaret was that way: five foot ten, long, blond hair, beautiful. And able to carry matching five-year-old firefighters on each hip and make it look easy.

Margaret forced a smile. “If someone’s drinking already, I want in,” she said.

She moved toward the counter, coming over and giving me a kiss. “Say hello to your awesome aunt!” she said, shoving the twins in my direction.

The twins reached in for a hug, their fireman hardhats falling off. They were the hardest part of not living near home, these little versions of their father: blond curls, strong smiles, adorable little boys. I loved them from five hundred miles away, but it wasn’t the same as seeing them more often than that, and I felt it when I squeezed them, thinking how that five hundred miles was about to get exponentially larger.

I wrapped my arms around the twins, nuzzling into them. “What are you guys wearing?”

“We’re firefighters,” Josh said.

Margaret touched the top of Josh’s head. “A fireman came to the boys’ kindergarten to do a presentation,” she said. “It’s their chosen career path for the week.”

Peter looked at her with disdain. “You mean, forever.”

Margaret touched his cheek. “Yes, love, I mean forever.”

I nodded, letting them know that I believed them. But they were already squirming away, starting their fire truck engines and running out the back door to the vineyard to play, to get the kind of love only my mom could provide for them.

“I guess I should go too,” Margaret said. “We’ll catch up later?”

I nodded. “Sounds good, Margaret.”

It did not sound good.

She looked over at Finn. “Hey, Finn,” she said.

Finn looked up, right at her, but only after she looked away. “Hey,” he said.

And it was impossible to ignore what was between them—like it was taking everything they had to avoid looking at each other at the same time.

The room was silent. Margaret followed the twins outside. Bobby moved toward the doorway awkwardly, standing there, biting his nails.

I reached for a fork in the center of the table, holding it up. “Bobby, where are you going?”

Then Finn stood up. “I have to get to the bar,” he said.

Bobby moved toward the hallway. “I’m going to unpack,” he said.

Then they both walked out, in opposite directions. Leaving the lasagna to me.

The Wedding Crashers

S
ynchronization. To operate in union.

On a vineyard, synchronization meant watching and waiting until everything lined up.

You didn’t step in too quickly.

You also didn’t step out.

The night before Bobby’s wedding, Finn got arrested. He would tell you that it wasn’t his fault. He would be right and wrong.

We had been drinking that night at The Brothers’ Tavern. Finn had been good friends with the previous owners and they’d agreed to let him throw an impromptu bachelor party for Bobby. My father had joined us and left. Bobby’s friends had joined us and left. And eventually, Finn, Bobby, and I were the last people in the bar, a candle on our table, too much bourbon between us.

Bobby poured us each another round, and I rested my head on the table. Finn had his head in his hands. Bobby was the only one awake and he was wide-awake, wired. He slapped Finn on the wrist.

“Don’t be a pansy,” Bobby said. “We’re just getting started.”

Finn sat up, startled, and moved his glass closer to Bobby. “Hit me,” he said.

Finn was anxious to give Bobby whatever he needed the night before his wedding. I, on the other hand, was ready to go home. Though that wasn’t an option. When I said that my brothers each played a role in my life—one helping me to be better, one helping me to be better at being
bad—I also should have said that I played a role in theirs. I fixed things for them, when they didn’t even know yet that they were broken. For Bobby, that meant staying up all night to put jokes into his speech for school president, revising his first Valentine’s Day plan with Margaret, which had involved a monster truck show with the football team. And on the night before his impending wedding, in a way he couldn’t name, fixing things for Bobby involved alcohol and nonstop movement.

“I think Bobby wants us to go and do something, Finn,” I said.

“I do!” Bobby said. “That’s exactly what I want. Let’s do something!”

There was nothing to do in Sebastopol at 12:50
A.M.
But, Finn was up, ready to please Bobby. “Where should we go?” he said.

Bobby moved toward the door. “I have an idea,” he said. “I know of a party.”

“I love a party,” Finn said.

We headed up into the hills to a private estate owned by Murray Grant Wines. The lush vineyards surrounded a Spanish mansion that could have held five of my parents’ houses. All the lights were on, a party in action.

“What is this?” Finn said.

Bobby shrugged. “Some girl is getting married. One of the groomsmen was talking about it at the bar earlier this afternoon.”

“Are you crazy?” I said.

“Maybe.” Bobby smiled ear to ear. “I still want to go to a wedding.”

Finn shrugged. “Fuck it, then. We’re crashing a wedding if Bobby wants to,” he said. “Besides, it’s so late. Anyone who’s still out at a party won’t give a shit if there are a couple of new guests. They’ll be glad to have new people to drink with.”

Bobby nodded. “We are crashing a wedding,” he said. “Genius.”

Then Bobby put his arm around Finn.

This was the secret no one knew. For all of Bobby’s accolades at the time (newly minted MBA from Stanford Business School, a primo first job lined up at a venture capital fund), he just wanted to be as comfortable in his own skin as Finn was. (Finn, who still had yet to be employed, except for an occasional bartending shift and the stipend he’d made selling one of his photos to the
Press Democrat
.) And tonight
that meant Bobby doing something ridiculous to prove to himself that even though he was about to write his future in stone, he could still be anyone.

We went into the wedding reception, which was on its last legs. Finn was correct about that. The bride was in her slinky sheath dress, but everyone else was in bathing suits and jeans. They were all drunk, hanging out by the Olympic-size swimming pool. Which made it slightly less awkward that the three of us were walking in in shorts and T-shirts, Finn in his backward baseball cap.