At the Corner of King Street Read online

  “When are you supposed to take the meds, Janet?” Somewhere along the way I became the oldest child.

  “It’s not for a while. I’m fine. You don’t need to worry.”

  I swirled my fork in a lump of chocolate icing. “I’m not worried. Just wondering when you’re due to take the meds.”

  She sighed. “Not until six o’clock tonight. So there. You don’t need to worry.”

  I glanced at the clock on the wall. “Janet, it’s after eight.”

  She stared blankly at invisible puzzle pieces lying in a jumble. “It can’t be after eight, Addie. I left the bakery at four with your cake and came straight here.”

  “You sure you came straight here?” Sheila McCrae would not have sold her a stale cake.

  “I didn’t stop at a bar, if that’s what you think.”

  “I didn’t think that.” The edges of Janet’s plateau cracked and crumbled like the dry cake. “Why don’t you let me call Zeb? He’s worried about you.”

  “No. Don’t call Zeb.” She dragged the tips of her plastic fork against the paper plate until she dug a rut.

  “Why not? He’s a good guy, Janet. He loves you.”

  A deep frown furrowed her brow. “You and Zeb think alike. All you two see are my screwups. I’m always wrong where you two are concerned.”

  This fake normalcy thinned like ice cream on a hot day. Soon it would drip, run, and melt away. “Maybe we should go get your medicines. I’ll drive you home.”

  “No. I don’t want to go home.”

  “Why not?”

  She jabbed agitated fingers through her hair. “Because.”

  I dropped the fork and knife, no longer able to keep up the pretense that I was enjoying the stale, soggy chocolate mess. “Why, Janet?”

  She tightened her jaw and moved to slide her hands again into pockets that weren’t there.

  I met her gaze and could see the confusion mingling with the frustration. “What’s happened? Are you and Zeb having trouble?”

  “No trouble. Not exactly.” She fisted her fingers. “I moved out. It was all getting too crazy in the apartment. The baby was crying. Zeb was upset and frustrated. I couldn’t take it.”

  Even Zeb’s once-steady demeanor couldn’t navigate these waters. “Where are you staying?”

  “In a motel.”

  “Which one?”

  Janet sniffed. “I hate it when you judge me. First, you light the candles, and then you ask me about meds, and now you want to know where I’m staying. So many questions. You were always like that. Asking questions.”

  And with that, the ground under the almost peaceful moment vanished, and we plunged. I collected our dishes and dumped them in the trash. “Let me drive you. Is your car parked out front?”

  Janet flipped a lock of her wet blond hair out of her eyes. “I can drive myself.”

  “Let me drive, Janet. The rain is coming down hard, and I know you don’t like the rain.”

  She turned to the glass storefront window and stared at the pelting rain splashing on King Street and washing into the gutter. “I don’t like rain.”

  From under the counter, I grabbed my purse. “I can drive.”

  She moved to the door, opened it an inch, but let it close immediately when the water splashed her face. “The demons like the water.”

  I grabbed my rain jacket, too tired to point out that the demons weren’t real, and laid it over her shoulders. “Let me have your keys.”

  “They’re in the car.”

  “Where’s the car?”

  “Down the block.”

  “Let’s get to the car.”

  Cringing, she stared at the rain pelting the windows. “I don’t want to go.”

  I held out my hand. “We’ll go together. I’ll drive.”

  Eyes wide with fear, she shook her head. “You’ll protect me?”

  “Yes.”

  She took my hand. “You fix everything, Addie.”

  Outside under the awning, I locked the front door and then, hand in hand, we rushed through the rain to the white Volvo sedan. By the time I slid behind the steering wheel, my hair and coat were as soaked as Janet’s. Inside the car, the faint scent of old pizza and hamburgers drifted up from a backseat packed full of her clothes, an assortment of groceries, and empty boxes.

  “Do you remember the name of your motel?”

  “The blue one.”

  “Riverside?”

  “Yes.” She let her head fall back against the headrest as her gaze drifted out the side window.

  I started the car. The gauge registered a quarter of a tank of gas. It was enough to get us to the motel on Route One and then to the apartment she shared with Zeb.

  Seeing Zeb didn’t thrill me.

  “I haven’t seen her,” I’d told him. “But she’ll be back. She always comes back.”

  “Always? How many times has this happened before?”

  “A few times when we were teenagers. I thought she’d gotten a handle on it.”

  “I can forgive her. She’s sick. But you, I can never forgive.” Anger had radiated from him. “You must have thought you’d found a real sucker when I came along.”

  Headlights cut through the rain as I backed out of the spot. We were on the main road in less than five minutes and headed across town toward Route One. “Janet, you’re sure you’re staying at Riverside?”

  Long fingers flicked her bangs back and she folded her arms again. “I don’t know why you keep asking so many questions.”

  “Just want to be sure.”

  “Riverside reminds me of the places we lived with Mom.”

  Faded gray carpets, dark floral bedspreads, cheap seascapes of clipper ships and mildewed bathrooms—there wasn’t much to love about those places.

  As I rounded the corner, I was distracted, worried and tired from the long day.

  The windshield wipers fought, but failed, to keep up with the hammering rain. The road’s center yellow line vanished.

  Janet’s gaze brightened with panic and she shook her head as if one of her demons flickered and danced in her peripheral vision. She covered her eyes with her long pale hands and began to moan. “I have to get out of the car.”

  I should have slowed, but an invisible clock ticked louder and louder in my head. Soon Janet’s moans, like Mom’s, would become screams. She needed her medicine and the sooner I got her to the motel and to her meds, the better for Janet.

  She grappled with her door handle, desperate to get out.

  Gripping the wheel with one hand, I glanced at Janet. “Janet, take a deep breath.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t want to be here!”

  “It’s okay, Janet. As soon as we get your medicine, you’ll be better.”

  She raised her fisted fingers to her ears and shrieked.

  Distracted, I lost sight of the yellow line again and the car drifted toward the center. As Janet’s screams shrilled, I glanced toward her. “It’s okay.”

  Suddenly, headlights cut through the rain and blinded me. A horn blared. I swerved hard. Metal crunched.

  Later, the officers would declare it an accident. They blamed it on the rain. Low visibility. No fault.

  Janet walked away from the accident without a scratch. My arm was badly broken and I suffered a concussion.

  Two days later, Janet vanished.

  July 14, 1750

  Traveling into uncharted territory has an exotic, lovely sound to it. It conjures images of sailing vessels, strange and wonderful lands, and fascinating, if not dangerous, people. In reality, traveling is difficult, filled with endless seasickness and the smell of unwashed men. Belhaven, or rather Alexandria, is not what I expected. As I stand on the deck of the ship, now moored in the crescent harbor, I see high up on the bluffs a small scattering of woo
den homes. They are clustered near Mr. West’s tobacco warehouse, perched on the eastern edge of the harbor. It’s all so desolate. I fear I have plunged into the deepest end of an abyss. My dearest husband, Dr. Goodwin, is filled with excitement for this new opportunity to build his practice in the colonies. He is convinced the Virginia Colony is a land where fortunes can be made. He says we will become rich beyond our dreams. A faithful wife follows her husband, but I will confess, I fear this strange and savage land.

  Chapter One

  Glue. No one pays much attention to glue. Doesn’t matter if it’s the white, pasty elementary school, slightly sweet kind or the industrial strength, crazy variety capable of suspending a construction worker five stories in the air. Doesn’t matter if the glue is the human kind that holds families together or keeps businesses running. No one really cares about glue. Until it’s gone and life falls apart.

  My cell phone buzzed with an incoming call and, without a glance, I hit Delay and continued to run through the sales projection numbers for Willow Hills Vineyards. The main thrust of the discussion was simple. Willow Hills Vineyards could not survive on wine alone. Weddings and other special events would be necessary to bridge the gap until wine sales reached their tipping point and would allow us to claim a profit measured in dollars and not pennies.

  “Addie, how do the reservations look for next quarter?” The question came from Scott Cunningham, the vineyard owner and my boyfriend.

  I glanced at my budget numbers. “We have two weddings on the books, but there are two other couples that might still book a last-minute gathering. I should know in the next day or two.”

  Scott swept thick blond hair away from his deeply tanned face. “Not perfect, but it’ll have to do. My big worry is the launch of our new Chardonnay. How are the preparations for the event going?”

  “All on track. All under control. Do you want me to run through the checklist?”

  He glanced up at me and grinned. Just a shifting of muscles, but I drank up the love and gratitude in his eyes. “No. That’s not necessary. I trust you.”

  We sat at the long oak farmhouse table centered in the new tasting room that had been completed months ago. The walls were made of a thick gray stone harvested from the western part of Virginia and the south wall, made entirely of glass, faced toward the rolling hills of the Shenandoah River Valley. Directly to the right of the glass wall stood the tasting bar, handcrafted from knotted pine reclaimed from a nineteenth-century farm in Kentucky. Behind the bar, wine bottles nestled on their sides in hundreds of cubbies. Pendant lights hanging above the bar illuminated sparkling glasses stacked in neat rows.

  I loved the room’s quiet stillness. The calm before the storm. Everything was clean, perfectly aligned, polished to glistening and in its place. Perfect. No chaos. I inhaled, savoring the scent of the lemon polish I’d applied on the hardwood floor early this morning.

  He winked. “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

  “You’d be fine.” I leaned a little closer to him. “You dreamed up the vineyard and gave it life when no one would have dared. This is your dream.”

  “Dreams need to be fed and nurtured. Without you, my dream wouldn’t be what it is today.”

  Drawn, I leaned in another inch, waiting for him to close the gap and kiss me. When he held steady, I tilted forward the last inches and kissed him. His lips carried the flavors of this morning’s taste testing, and he smelled of fresh air and the soft scent of his handmade favorite soap. “I love you.”

  “I love you, too, baby.”

  The display on my phone lit again.

  I deepened the kiss, already looking forward to the end of the day, when we would share a glass of wine on the new stone veranda as the sun set.

  As I drew back, I glimpsed my phone. The display read: Janet Morgan. Fingers of tension rubbed against the nape of my neck. “I have phone calls to make for the wine launch.”

  He winked. “Don’t let me keep you.”

  I scooped up my phone along with my papers and hurried from the tasting room to my office, a small room located at the back of the building. The phone buzzed in my hand, insistent and demanding, but I refused to answer or look at the display. When the buzzing stopped, I shoved out a breath. I waited several minutes, gripping the phone and praying she didn’t call me back.

  Janet was the past. My future, my life, was here now at the vineyard.

  Closing my eyes, I imagined the tasting room five days from now, filled with people from all over the region gathering to taste the new wine that Scott was launching. It was a Viognier aged in French oak barrels. Its smooth, honeyed flavor possessed a tropical twist. Scott had been nurturing these vines for ten years and these were the first grapes he’d withheld from the wholesale market so that he could make his own signature wine.

  The terroir of the Willow Hills Vineyards, like the terroir of any vineyard, was unique. Terroir was not simply the soil, but also the way the sun warmed the earth, how and when the rain fell, and the mix of temperature in summer and winter. A mile or two east or west, north or south ensured the grapes grew differently. Perhaps they’d be better, perhaps not.

  Scott’s gift as a winemaker was his ability to use the land. He worked with the terroir instead of against it. He understood the synergy of man and earth.

  My phone buzzed a third time. Janet. Again. Frowning, I stared at the display. “What do you want?”

  The last time Janet called me, she was living in Chicago and working as a cocktail waitress. She was drinking again and facing a DUI charge. She needed bail money. When I said no, she cried and begged. I maxed out my credit card and got her out on bond. Two days later, Janet jumped bail, leaving me to eat the cost.

  Janet always possessed a talent for reemerging when my life was perched on the edge of hopeful and good. An exam. A job. A new wine. Janet knew when to call and tip over the applecart that I carefully filled.

  Tense seconds passed as I stared at the display. Finally the buzzing stopped. “Stay away from me.”

  The doors to the reception hall opened and, immediately, I lowered the phone and rose from my desk. I hurried into the main hall to find a tall, burly man wearing jeans and a work shirt bearing the name Billy stitched above the pocket.

  “Where do you want the tables, Addie?”

  I blinked, shifting my brain from the past to the present. Tables. For the tasting. In five days. “You brought rounds, correct?”

  Billy owned a party rental company in Staunton, Virginia, which was about twenty-five minutes south of the vineyard. He and I had traded several e-mails, texts, and calls over the last few days as I revised the head count for the opening.

  “Thirty rounds according to the e-mail last night. Looks like you’re gonna have yourself a crowd.”

  “We’re getting more RSVPs than I imagined. It’s exciting.”

  “I’m glad for the business.”

  “You and me both. Start placing the tables in the center of the room, and then we’ll work it out from there.”

  Billy nodded. “Will do.” He headed back out the glass doors to a large yellow truck. As he unlocked the back of the truck and raised the door, Scott entered the room.

  Seven years ago, I left Alexandria with no fixed destination, but determined to go far. And then two hours away, the rolling hills, the white farmhouses, and peace seduced me. The Help Wanted sign posted in the small town of Middleton caught my eye and I decided to apply at Willow Hills. I was hired as a picker during the harvest season, but within days I surrendered to the heat and my aching muscles, which were still strained from the accident. The I-want-to-work-on-a-vineyard was officially exorcised, and I wanted my city life back.

  * * *

  “Give me Park Avenue,” I grumbled in my best Eva Gabor accent as I marched up to the vineyard’s main office, which was little more than a trailer, to quit. Even five days at
the vineyard was enough to show me Scott was a dynamic visionary who spoke passionately to his workers about growing the best grapes and creating award-winning wines. He was a man to be respected. But I wanted nothing more to do with grapes.

  When I knocked on his door, he sounded gruff when he shouted, “Enter.” Tonight, he wasn’t the noble, sun-kissed man riding a tractor up between the rows, but a very tired guy, slumped over a secondhand desk, doing his best to make sense of the day’s accounting numbers.

  “Scott.”

  He glanced up, his gaze gutted with fatigue and confusion. “Addie?”

  He knew my name. There were more than twenty of us working the fields, and I assumed I vanished in the masses. “Scott.”

  “What can I do for you?” Dirt-crusted fingernails dug through sun-drenched hair.

  I stared at his lean face, vivid blue eyes, and deeply tanned skin, and fell a little in love with him at that moment. He was the poet, the dreamer. I never harbored any big dreams and found I was drawn to anyone who did. “I don’t want to interrupt.”

  “You’re not.” A very disarming half smile flashed. “It’s accounting and schedules, and I’m terrible at both.”

  With the rumpled resignation letter in my fist, I stepped forward. “Numbers are kinda my specialty.”

  “You signed on to pick grapes.”

  “I have an accounting degree. I was stepping outside of the box and thinking of a grand adventure.”

  “And?”

  I held up the letter. “I hate picking grapes. I want back in the box.”

  He chuckled. “I love the fields. The sun. The smell of the wind. The feel of the rich soil in my hands. But I get that this life is not for everyone.”

  “Which is why you should be here, and I shouldn’t. I’ll finish out the picking season, but I’m gone in two weeks.”

  Scott nodded. “Fair enough. Fair enough.”

  I laid the note on his desk and glanced at the open ledger and the scrawl of numbers and words. “Thanks for giving me a try.”