Eli and I don’t talk for the duration of the drive to Blue Yonder.
The familiarity of it is as grating as it is comforting, because it’s us: we’d sit in similar, tense silence in Ubers after bad nights, the city lights playing over our faces angled toward the windows.
But it’s mixed with the memories of turning off this same highway to the winery, laughter bursting out of the open windows of Adam’s decrepit Volvo, Eli smiling at me from the back seat.
That’s us, too, and the way they tangle together makes me want to scream.
I clench my jaw as I catch sight of the rustic white fence that separates the beginning of the vineyard from Highway 29 and turn left, passing by the pale stone and wrought-iron Blue Yonder sign. Beside me, Eli is a pillar of silence, his arms crossed over his chest as he looks out the window. His knee bounces with just enough emphasis to join the sway of the car. He’s stewing, which only increases the nails on my internal chalkboard. I know why I’m annoyed; why is he?
I force the view to distract me, letting it unwind my tension like the road unwinds ahead of us. The oak trees on each side reach for each other, creating a sun-dappled tunnel. As we drive the final short distance, the main building comes into view. It’s what the Coopers call the Big House—a gorgeous white farmhouse on steroids that holds the visitors’ center and offices, set on a gentle slope of land plunked in the middle of sixty acres of vineyards. The area around it is expertly landscaped with native plants, bright explosions of wildflowers, lavender bushes, and glossy-leaved trees. Behind it, the rolling green height of the Mayacamas mountain range stretches toward the sky.
Even before I stepped foot inside for the first time, I knew it would be a place that held laughter and conversation on tap; I’d never have to go
looking for those things I craved so much. The quiet was different, too, weightless and content.
It’s no wonder Eli and I loved this place so much. It was the sanctuary we both needed, the roots that tethered us to what felt like a permanent place. And each other.
I want to turn this car around and drive back to San Francisco. The cake is screwed. Nothing is going right. The last thing I want to do is keep failing and live alongside all the memories of Eli and I at our happiest while he’s acting so strange.
Unfortunately, we’re stuck in this situation, but I’m ready to fling myself as far away from him as possible until Saturday comes.
I pull into a parking spot to the left of the house, the engine barely off before I’m throwing open the door. I’m already at the trunk by the time Eli unfolds himself from the passenger seat, giving me a look so full of awareness that I feel momentarily naked.
But then he glances back toward the Big House, scanning the emerald lawn that wraps around toward the wine cellars and the building that holds the tasting rooms, along with the still unfinished indoor reception area, which is a stunning white building with floor-to-ceiling windows. I follow his gaze to the edge of the property where the familiar black-trimmed white cottages we’ll be staying in are, the pool tucked into the courtyard. The air is still, mild for August, and filled with birdsong.
Our old stomping grounds. The place where my dad could send me for ten weeks, knowing I was in the best hands. Where Eli felt like he could breathe because he didn’t have to listen to a soundtrack of grown-up arguments or worry about money and his future plans.
The place where we had that last, idyllic summer. Where Adam and Grace are going to get married. Where we’re all going to be together for what could realistically be the last time in a long while, if recent patterns continue and I move to Seattle.
I want it to be perfect—the wedding, the whole night, my part in it. If I’m going to leave, I want to plant that memory deep in the soil here, keep my roots to this place and these people.
But if we can’t even get a cake secured, I have my doubts about the rest of it.
Eli’s sigh winds around my neck. I wait for the wide spread of his shoulders to drop the way they used to here, but they stay tense.
“Have you been here lately?” he asks without turning around.
I squint up at a puffy cloud drifting across the endless sky. The real blue yonder. “Not since Adam’s grandparents’ fiftieth anniversary.”
Eli doesn’t react except to let out a slow breath. He was invited to the party two years ago but couldn’t make it. Jamie and I got drunk on a bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon produced the last summer Adam, Eli, and I were here. Adam and Grace were loved up on each other the entire night, which made Jamie weepy since she was fresh off a terrible breakup. I was trying to push away memories. Same shit, different day.
Eli tilts his chin up toward the sky. The sun touches his face in a pattern my fingers used to take. “It looks the same.”
My chest twists at the wistfulness he can’t hide, but I don’t bother with a response. Instead, I blink away, popping the trunk.
Eli packed it like our bags were Tetris blocks, so despite the mighty yank I give my suitcase, it doesn’t budge. It doesn’t help that he’s in my periphery, giving off Beautiful, Lonely Man Stares at Nature vibes as he inhales deeply, then exhales slowly. Out of the corner of my eye, I watch his mouth move minutely, like he’s counting.
And then he turns on his heel and our gazes collide. My hand slips from the suitcase handle, feet skidding on the pavement.
He braces one hand against my back to steady me, wrapping the other around the handle.
I resist the urge to smack his hand away, hooking my finger around the inch of space he’s left. “I’ve got it.”
He slides me a look as we both yank the suitcase, levering it up a quarter of the way. “You don’t.”
“I do,” I grunt, yanking again, just as he does. We get another inch. “Just let me—”
“What if you just let me?” I shoot back with faux pleasantry. “And while we’re at it, what if you had just let me deal with the bakery like I asked you, instead of barging in?”
We’re smashed together, neither of us willing to let go, our noses inches apart. I can smell the cinnamon on Eli’s breath from the gum he popped in the car, can feel his frustrated exhale against my mouth.
“I came to help you.”
“I told you I had it.” God, it feels good to get mad out loud. “I texted you not to come in and you didn’t listen.”
He huffs out a short, irritated laugh. “Your text to me and your text to the group told two different stories. You were flustered, so I read between the lines and took a risk, okay?”
“And we got kicked out of the bakery of Grace’s dreams.” I let that sink in before throwing the dagger. “And we have no cake.”
“First of all, this is not all on me. That woman was annoyed before I stepped foot in that shop, and I put the flavors they wanted on your list. You just didn’t look at it.”
I let out an indignant noise that he steamrolls over.
“Second of all, Adam and Grace own some of this, too. They didn’t follow up on what they wanted.”
He pauses, an invitation to insert my rebuttal. Unfortunately, he’s making good points. I let the muscle-memoried irritation over Eli’s work call throw me off my game, then let the panic of trying to win over an unwinnable Margot lose it completely. I don’t own the full scope of this disaster, but I do own some of it.
Eli’s eyes move over my face, his expression softening. “That doesn’t really matter, though. I don’t think she had any real intention of helping us out. She was just getting off on some weird power trip.”
“She would’ve helped me,” I say petulantly, yanking on the suitcase again. It doesn’t give.
He gives me a look as he readjusts his hold on the handle. When he pulls, I do, and it slides halfway out. “You wouldn’t have been able to let’s- be-best-friends your way into her good graces. Sorry.”
He doesn’t sound sorry at all, actually.
“You should’ve stayed outside,” I repeat. “And FYI, there’ll be plenty of opportunities for you to prove to Adam that you’ve changed, but charging in late to an appointment he told us not to be late for because you were on a work call probably isn’t going to do it.”
He lets out the most exasperated sound ever recorded from a human. “It wasn’t a work call, okay? I had a therapy appointment. On the count of three, pull so we can get this fucking thing out.”
He counts, but I barely hear it over the roar in my ears. His words ping- pong against my rebooting brain as he demands “go” in a low, tight voice.
The suitcase springs free with our shared yank, nearly decapitating me on the way to the ground. Eli stares down at it, hands on his hips, his ears bright pink.
I stare at him. “Am I hallucinating or did you just say you’re going to therapy?”
He rubs at the stubble on his cheek; it abrades his palm, a soft burr that tickles my skin. “I did. I’ve been going weekly for nearly a year.”
He tried when we were still together but had to cancel more often than not until he stopped going altogether. That he’s been regularly seeing someone for this long is a miracle.
It’s hard to identify all my emotions. There’s shock and confusion and a tiny ache I can’t push away for both of us. There are others, too: pride that he’s doing this for himself, finally. An unfurling curiosity at the impetus for this. A heart punch that his anxiety and our crumbling relationship years ago wasn’t enough.
And, of course, disbelief that he bailed on his therapist to white knight for Adam’s cake when I had it.
“God, Eli,” I breathe out. “You should’ve stayed on the phone with your therapist. One misspelled all-caps text didn’t warrant you bailing on something so important.”
“I didn’t bail. I explained the situation and he actually encouraged me to show up for—” His mouth presses into a firm line, before he continues
carefully, “He told me what we were doing was important. He told me to go.”
“You must not have mentioned the other text I sent, then.”
His eyes latch with mine. “I don’t regret going in there. I knew if you’d looked at the list, you would’ve seen what the flavors were. The fact that you didn’t told me you were spinning out. You live by your lists.” I open my mouth to argue, but he holds up a hand. “I made the right choice, Georgia. You’re not good at communicating your needs, especially when you’re drowning.”
It’s a direct press on an old, painful bruise. “I didn’t need—”
I cut myself off before I say you, but Eli hears it anyway. He huffs out a short, humorless laugh. “Yeah, I got that loud and clear.”
Swallowing hard, I turn away, focusing my suddenly blurry eyes on the nearest oak tree while I settle my emotions.
My pathological refusal to, as Eli so therapeutically put it, communicate my needs is something I’ve tried to move past with the help of my own (neglected, as of late) therapist. But in times of stress or triggers, it’s the first coping mechanism I cling to. I learned so young that other people’s needs were default, that mine had to be scheduled to be met, or, more easily, taken care of myself. It was reinforced by my dad, who did his best while juggling a demanding career but only dropped the balls with my name on them; by my mom, who walked away because my mere existence was too much to handle; by the friends who didn’t stick like Adam and Jamie and Eli, who were cool until I needed things or felt too much.
Eventually Eli did it to me, too, but first he made sure I never had to say what I needed out loud; somehow, when we were best friends and even in the first couple years of our relationship, he just got me. It’s why things were so much harder when it all went bad; I could measure it against when things were good. Easy. Perfect, in some ways.
“Georgia.” Eli says my name softly, with regret, like I’ve said all this out loud. It’s a glimmer of the way he could read me before I stopped letting him.
“I didn’t mean it like that,” I say, rubbing at my forehead. “Not that it matters.”
“Of course it matters.” His voice is closer now, a low murmur near my ear.
I don’t want to feel any of these feelings bubbling up and I don’t want to rehash this old argument—not ever, but especially here and now.
I need to focus, make sure next Saturday goes off without a hitch, and I can’t do that if Eli’s around. He can do his part, too, but it has to be away from me.
“Listen.” I shift my expression into neutral as I turn around. “It’s been an intense couple of days and we’re not used to being around each other this much, especially unsupervised.”
Eli’s eyebrows arch up. “Unsupervised?”
I arch mine back. “Can you think of a better word for it?” After a beat, he says, “Not at the moment, no.”
“I don’t want to blow this, and neither do you, so it’s probably in our— and, more importantly, Adam’s—best interest if we stay out of each other’s way.”
“You’re not in my way,” he says with an edge of frustration. I press my lips together so I don’t say, well, you’re in mine.
“I didn’t mean to snap at you,” he continues, mistaking my silence for doubt.
“It’s not about that. It’s not about you or me or—” I careen around the nearly blurted us. “I don’t want to turn Adam and Grace’s disaster into an even bigger disaster because we can’t get our shit together, so let’s take our split-up lists as our to-dos for the week. No hard feelings.”
Eli stares at me, his eyes clouded with emotions I can’t identify and don’t want to. His jaw tightens, releasing as he looks over toward the Big House.
“All right. No hard feelings,” he echoes. “Why don’t you take your stuff inside? I’m sure everyone’s anxious to see you.”
I watch, confused, as he rights my suitcase, then pulls out my garment bag. When I don’t move, he cups my elbow, making a hook out of my arm
so he can drape the bag over it.
“Are you not coming inside?” I ask, trying and failing to ignore the sparks that fly over my skin at his touch.
“I’m going to call Adam first and let him know what happened with the bakery.”
I nearly drop the garment bag. “Now?”
“You know it’s just a matter of time before he’s stalker-calling us.”
“Well, yeah, but—” I hadn’t even thought about having that conversation. “What are you going to tell him?”
“I’m going to give him some shit for not getting back to Margot and play up what a beast she was so he isn’t as disappointed.” Eli scratches at his jaw, eyeing me. “I’m not going to say anything bad about you. Or myself, honestly. Margot can take the fall for us.”
“I wasn’t worried about you saying something bad about me,” I say, insulted on behalf of both of us. Despite our history, he’s never come close to criticizing me. “I’m just wondering why you’re willing to take that conversation on alone.”
“Because I know it’ll kill you to disappoint him.” He gives me a small, wooden smile as he pulls his phone from the pocket of his backpack, nestled next to his suitcase. “And because I’m used to it.”
