Rainshadow Road

Eight

“It’s too soon,” Kevin had protested, when Alice brought up the idea of marriage. “You just moved in.”

She had given him a long, hard look. “What kind of time line are we looking at?”

“Time line,” he repeated dazedly.

“Six months? A year? I’m not going to wait forever, Kevin. A lot of guys are married at your age. What’s the problem? You said you’re in love with me.”

“I am, but—”

“What else is there to know about me? What’s the holdup? I have no problem with leaving, if you feel like this relationship isn’t the right fit.”

“I never said that.”

But Alice had decided that something big needed to happen for her, especially in light of having just lost her scriptwriting job. A call had come from her agent, who had just talked to the head writer of What the Heart Knows. The show had been canceled. The ratings had been so poor that they weren’t even going to finish out the story lines. It had already been replaced with a couple of game shows. The distributor was trying to shop the show to a cable network, but in the meantime Alice would have to sit tight and live off her limited savings.

Marrying Kevin would solve three problems. It would entitle her to his financial support, and it would prove to Lucy that Kevin loved Alice the most. It would also force her parents to accept the union. Alice and her mother would plan the wedding together, and everyone would get swept up in the excitement. It would make the family whole again. And Lucy would have to swallow her hurt pride and get over it.

As soon as she had gotten the engagement diamond on her finger, Alice called her parents triumphantly. She was stunned to discover that instead of offering congratulations, they were harshly critical.

“Have you set a date?” her mother had asked.

“Not yet. I thought you and I would go over some ideas together and—”

“There’s no need to involve me in your plans,” her mother said. “Dad and I will attend the wedding, if you want us to. But planning and paying for it is your responsibility.”

“What? I’m your first daughter to get married—and you’re not going to give me a wedding?”

“We’ll be more than happy to pay for a wedding when our family is healed. But as things stand now, you’ve gained your happiness at the expense of your sister’s. And in consideration for her feelings, that means we can’t support your relationship with Kevin. That also means that we’re not going to be supplementing your monthly income any longer.”

“I feel like I’m being disowned,” Alice cried in astonished fury. “I can’t believe how unfair this is!”

“You’ve created a situation that’s unfair to everyone, Alice. Including yourself. There are so many events ahead of us … holidays, births, illnesses … things we need to go through as a family. And that won’t be possible until you’ve worked things out with Lucy.”

Outraged, Alice had repeated the conversation to Kevin, who had shrugged and said they should probably put off the wedding.

“Until Lucy gets over losing you? She’ll stay single for the next fifty years, just to be a bitch.”

“You can’t make her start going out again,” Kevin said.

Alice was deep in thought. “As soon as Lucy gets a new guy, she can’t be the victim anymore. My parents will have to admit that she’s gone on with her life. And then they’ll have to give me a wedding, and things will go back to the way they’ve always been.”

“Where are you going to get this guy for her?”

“You know a lot of people on the island. Who do you suggest?”

He gave her a startled glance. “This is getting weird, Alice. I’m not going to fix up my ex-girlfriend with one of my buddies.”

“Not a close friend. Just a normal, decent-looking guy who would appeal to her.”

“Even if I can come up with someone, how are you going to…” Kevin’s voice trailed away as he read her stubborn expression. “I don’t know. Maybe one of the Nolans. I heard Alex is getting a divorce.”

“No divorced guys. Lucy won’t go for that.”

“The middle brother, Sam, is single. He has a vineyard.”

“Perfect. How do we get them together?”

“You want me to introduce them?”

“No, it has to be secret. Lucy would never agree to go out with someone that either of us had suggested.”

Kevin considered how to get two people to go out together without revealing that you were the one behind it. “Alice, do we really have to—”

“Yes.”

“I guess Sam owes me one,” Kevin said reflectively. “I did some ground work for him a couple years back, and I didn’t charge him anything.”

“Good. Call in the favor, then. Get Sam Nolan to take Lucy out.”

* * *

Holly giggled as Sam hoisted her spindly body to carry her through the vineyard on his shoulders. “I’m tall!” she cried. “Look at me!”

She weighed no more than dandelion fluff, her small arms loosely wrapped around his forehead.

“I told you to wash your hands after breakfast,” Sam said.

“How did you know I didn’t?”

“Because they’re sticky, and they’re in my hair.”

A giggle floated over his head. They had made s’mores pancakes, their own invention, which Mark almost certainly wouldn’t have allowed had he been there. But Mark had spent the night at his fiancйe Maggie’s house, and when he was gone, Sam tended to loosen up on the rules.

Anchoring Holly’s ankles with his hands, Sam called out to the vineyard crew, who were starting up the Caval tractor. The vehicle was fitted with a huge spool of netting that would cover four or five rows of vines at a time.

Holly wrapped her arms more tightly around Sam’s head, nearly blinding him. “How much are you going to pay me for helping you this morning?”

Sam grinned, loving the slight weight of her on his shoulders, her sugar-scented breath, her endless quick-spun energy. Before Holly had come into his life, little girls had been alien creatures to him, with their love of pink and purple, of glitter glue, stuffed animals, and fairy tales.

In the spirit of gender equality, the two bachelor uncles had taught Holly how to fish, throw a ball, and hammer nails. But her love of bows and baubles and fluffy things remained intractable. Her favorite hat, which she was wearing at the moment, was a pink baseball cap with a silver tiara embroidered on the front.

Recently Sam had bought some new clothes for Holly and put the old ones that no longer fit into a bag for Goodwill. It had occurred to him that Holly’s past with her mother was eroding. The clothes, the old toys, even the old phrases and habits, were all gradually, inevitably, being replaced. So he had set a few things aside to be kept in a box in the attic. And he was jotting down his own memories of Vick, funny or sweet stories, to share with Holly someday.

Sometimes Sam wished he could talk to Vick about her daughter, to tell her how damn cute and smart Holly was. To tell her the ways Holly was changing, and the way she was changing everything around her. Sam now understood things about his sister that he had never thought about when she’d been alive—how tough it must have been as a single parent, how troublesome it was to leave the house whenever you wanted to go on an errand. Because when you had to take Holly somewhere with you, it never took less than fifteen minutes to find her shoes.

But there were rewards Sam had never expected. He’d been the one to teach Holly how to tie her shoelaces. All Holly’s shoes had Velcro fastenings, and when they’d bought her ones with laces, she hadn’t known how to tie them. Since she had been six years old, Sam had figured it was high time for her to learn. He had shown her how to make bunny-ear loops and twist them together.

What Sam hadn’t expected was the feeling that had come over him as he had watched Holly’s little brow furrow in concentration as she worked at the laces. A fatherly feeling, he guessed. Damned if he hadn’t gotten misty-eyed over a little girl tying her shoes. He wished he could have told his sister about it. And about how sorry he was for having had so little to do with her or her baby when he’d had the chance.

But that was the Nolan way.

Holly’s light-up sneakers thumped gently against his chest. “How much are you going to pay me?” she persisted.

“You and are I both working free today,” Sam told her.

“It’s against the law for me to work for free.”

“Holly, Holly … you aren’t going to turn me in for breaking a couple of measly little child labor laws, are you?”

“Yep,” she said cheerfully.

“How about a dollar?”

“Five dollars.”

“How about a dollar and a ride into Friday Harbor for ice cream this afternoon?”

“Deal!”

It was Sunday morning, the vineyard still dressed with mist, the bay a quiet silver. However, the atmosphere was disrupted by the rumble of the Caval as it started up and began to prowl slowly between the rows.

“Why are we going to put netting over the vineyard?” Holly asked.

“To keep birds away from the fruit.”

“Why didn’t we have to do it before now?”

“The grapes were still in the beginning part, when the flowers were turning into grape berries. Now we’re in the next stage, which is versaison.”

“What does that mean?”

“The grapes get bigger and they start to accumulate sugar, so they get sweeter and sweeter as they mature. Like me.”

They stopped, and Sam set Holly down with care. “Why do we call it versaison instead of just calling it grape-growing?” she asked.

“Because the French got to name it before we did. Which is a good thing, since they make everything sound prettier.”

It would take about two to three days to tent the entire vineyard, which would keep it safe from predators but also allow for easy access when the crew went with lopping shears to drop the fruit that was too green.

After the first few panels of netting were laid out, Sam hoisted Holly onto his shoulders again, and one of the crew showed her how to thread twine through the edge of the netting with a short wooden dowel.

Holly’s small hands were deft as she stitched the panels together. Her pink hat glittered in the morning sun as she looked up at her handiwork. “I’m sewing up the sky,” she said, and Sam grinned.

* * *

When it was time for lunch, the crew took a break, and Sam sent Holly inside the house to wash up. He took a solitary stroll through the vineyard, listening to the whisper of leaves, occasionally pausing to rest his fingers against a trunk or cane. He could feel the subtle vibration of health in the vines, the water rising from tap roots, the leaves eating up sunlight, grapes beginning to soften and turn heavy with sugar.

As his hand hovered near the cane growth at the top of the plant, the leaves moved toward him visibly.

Sam’s affinity for growing things had revealed itself in childhood when he’d worked in a neighbor’s garden.

Fred and Mary Harbison had been an elderly childless couple that had lived in the neighborhood. When Sam was about ten, he had been playing with a boomerang he’d gotten as a birthday present, and it had gone through their living room window.

Fred had hobbled outside. His form had been as tall and gnarled as a Garry Oak tree, but there was an innate kindness in his stern, homely face. “Don’t run off,” he had said, as Sam had prepared to bolt. And Sam had stayed, staring at him with wary fascination.

“You can have your toy back,” Fred had informed him, “soon as you do some chores to help pay for that window. To start with, Mrs. Harbison needs some weeding done in her garden.”

Sam had instantly liked Mary, who was as short and round as her husband was tall and gangly. After she had shown him which sprouting green plants were weeds, and which were the flowers, Sam had set to work.

As he had knelt and pulled weeds and dug holes for bulbs and seedlings, he had felt as if the plants were communicating with him, telling him in their wordless way what they needed. Without even asking for permission, Sam had gotten a small spade from the Harbisons’ toolshed and had replanted primulas where they would get more sun, and had put the larkspur and Shasta daisy seedlings in different parts of the garden than Mary had told him to.

After that Sam had gone to the Harbisons’ house nearly every day after school, even after Fred had given back the boomerang. While Sam did his homework at their kitchen table, Mary always gave him a glass of cold milk and a stack of white salted crackers. She had let him pore through her books on gardening, and had provided whatever he told her the soil needed … kelp and seed meal, crushed eggshells, lime and dolomite, even fish heads left over from the market. As a result of Sam’s labors, the garden had burst with flowers and lavish colors, until people stopped their cars on the road to admire it.

“Why, Sam,” Mary had said in pleasure, her face soft and wrinkly-smiled in a way he had loved, “you have a green thumb.”

But Sam had known it was more than that. Somehow he and the garden had become attuned to each other. And he had become aware, as few people were, that the entire world was sentient and alive. He knew instinctively which seeds to plant when the moon waned, and which to plant when it rose. He knew without being told how much water and sun the plants needed, what to add to the soil, how to get rid of fungus with a soap-and-water spray, how to control the aphid population by planting marigolds.

Sam had started a vegetable garden for Mary in back of the house, and it had produced fat, flavorful produce and all kinds of herbs. He had intuited that the squash liked to be planted next to the cucumbers, and that the beans liked the celery but didn’t want to be near the onions, and at all costs never plant the cauliflower next to the tomatoes. As Sam tended the plants, bees never stung him and flies never bothered him, and the trees extended their branches as far as they could to keep him shaded.

It was Mary who had encouraged Sam to dream of owning a vineyard one day. “Wine isn’t about drinking,” she had told him. “Wine is about living and loving.”

Deep in thought, Sam went to the corner of the vineyard, to check on a vine unlike all the others. It was large and gnarled, alive but not flourishing. No fruit, only tightly closed buds. Despite Sam’s best efforts, he hadn’t yet discovered how to make it thrive. And there was no silent communication, no sense of what it needed … just blankness.

When Sam had first bought the property at Rainshadow Road and walked the perimeters, he had found the vine growing wild on an easement. It looked like the kind of European vinifera vine that had been brought to the New World by colonists … but it couldn’t have been. All the vinifera had been wiped out by unfamiliar insects, disease, and weather. The French had developed hybrids with native species that produced fruit without needing to be grafted onto disease-resistant rootstock. Maybe this vine was one of those antique hybrids. But it didn’t resemble anything Sam had encountered or read about before. So far no one else had been able to identify it, not even a specialist who’d been studying the photos and samples that Sam had sent.

“How can I help?” Sam murmured, passing his hand gently across the large, flat leaves. “What’s your secret?”

Usually he could feel the energy in the soil and roots, as well as the signals of what was needed; a change in temperature, humidity, light, or nutrients. But the vine remained silent, in trauma, impervious to Sam’s presence.

Leaving the vineyard, Sam headed to the kitchen to make lunch. He pulled a jug of milk and a wedge of cheese from the fridge. While he was in the middle of assembling grilled cheese sandwiches, the doorbell rang.

The visitor was Kevin Pearson, whom Sam hadn’t seen in a couple of years. They weren’t friends, but they had both grown up on the island, which had made it impossible to avoid each other. Kevin had always been good-looking and popular, a jock who had developed earlier than everyone else and had gotten the best girls.

Sam, by contrast, had had all the physical substance of a string bean, and had walked around with his nose in the latest issue of Popular Science or a Tolkien novel. He had grown up being his father’s least favorite son, the geeky middle one who preferred to study bivalves, mud shrimp, and polychaetes left behind in tidal pools at False Bay. He’d been competent at sports, but he had never enjoyed them the way Mark had, or approached them with the vicious energy that Alex had.

The strongest memory Sam had of Kevin Pearson was back in seventh grade, when they’d been assigned as a team to do a report on someone in the medical or scientific field. It had entailed doing an interview with a local pharmacist, making a trifold poster board, and writing a paper on the history of pharmacology. In the face of Kevin’s procrastination and laziness, Sam had ended up doing everything himself. They had gotten an A, which Kevin had shared equally. But when Sam had protested that it wasn’t fair for Kevin to get half the credit for work he hadn’t done, Kevin had given him a contemptuous look.

“The reason I didn’t is because my dad wouldn’t let me,” Kevin had told him. “He said your parents are drunks.”

And Sam hadn’t been able to argue or deny it.

“You could have invited me to your house,” Sam had pointed out sullenly. “We could have done the poster board there.”

“Don’t you get it? You wouldn’t make it past the front door. No one wants their kids to be friends with a Nolan.”

Sam hadn’t been able to think of a reason why anyone should want to be friends with a Nolan. His parents, Jessica and Alan, had fought with no boundaries, no sense of decency, screaming in front of their children or neighbors, in front of anyone. They didn’t hesitate to broadcast secrets about money, sex, private matters. As they tore at each other and diminished themselves in the process, their children learned something about family life: They wanted nothing to do with it.

Not long after the science project with Kevin, when Sam had been about thirteen, his father had drowned in a boating accident. The family had fallen apart after that, no regular hours for eating or sleeping, no rules of any kind. It had surprised no one that Jessica drank herself to death in the five years following her husband’s death. And there had been no small amount of guilt in the fact that somewhere in the mass of grief, the Nolan offspring had found it a relief that she was gone. No more phone calls in the middle of the night to come pick up a mother who was too drunk to drive after making an exhibition of herself at the bar. No more humiliating jokes or comments from outsiders, no more crises popping up out of nowhere.

Years later, when Sam had bought the land at False Bay for the vineyard, he’d needed to rent some heavy-duty landscaping equipment, and he discovered that Kevin had started his own business. They’d talked over beers, exchanged a few jokes, even reminisced a little. As a favor, Kevin had done some work for Sam at a fraction of his usual price.

Unable to fathom why Kevin could be at his front door now, Sam reached out to shake hands. “Pearson. It’s been a while.”

“Good to see you, Nolan.”

They took measure of each other in a brief glance. Sam was privately struck by the thought that Kevin Pearson, whose family had never allowed a no-account Nolan to cross their threshold, was now visiting his home. The former schoolyard bully could no longer kick Sam’s ass or taunt him with his social inferiority. In all measurable ways, they were equals.

Sliding his hands into the pockets of his khaki shorts, Kevin walked in and cast a bemused smile around the entrance hall. “Place is coming along.”

“Keeps me busy,” Sam said amiably.

“I heard about you and Mark taking care of your niece.” Kevin hesitated. “Sorry about Vickie. She was a great gal.”

Even if she was a Nolan, Sam thought, but he only said, “Holly and I are about to have lunch. You want some food?”

“No, thanks, I can’t stay for long.”

“Want to hang out in the kitchen while I make sandwiches?”

“Sure.” Kevin followed Sam. “I’m here to ask a favor,” he said, “although you may end up thanking me for it.”

Sam took a frying pan from the cabinet, heated it on the stove, and drizzled some olive oil into it. Having long ago realized that Holly wasn’t going to thrive on a bachelor’s diet of pizza and beer, Sam had learned to cook. Although he still had plenty to learn, he’d reached a level of basic competence that had so far kept them all from starving.

While Sam poured the tomato soup into a microwavable dish, he asked, “So what’s the favor?”

“A couple of months ago, I broke up with my girlfriend. And it’s turned out to be a little more complicated than I expected.”

“She stalking you or something?”

“No, nothing like that. In fact, she hardly goes out at all.”

The cheese sandwiches sizzled gently as Sam lowered them into the hot pan. “That’s normal after a breakup.”

“Yes. But she needs to get on with her life. I was trying to think of someone for her to meet—someone she could have some fun with. And from what I’ve heard, you’re not going out with anyone right now … are you?”

Sam’s eyes widened incredulously as he realized what Kevin was getting at. And then he began to laugh. “I’m not interested in your leftovers. And I’m sure as hell not going to be thanking you for them.”

“It’s not like that,” Kevin protested. “She’s great. She’s hot. Well … not hot, actually, but pretty. And sweet. Supersweet.”

“If she’s so great, why’d you break up with her?”

“Well, I sort of have a thing going with her younger sister.”

Sam just looked at him.

Kevin’s expression turned defensive. “Dude, the heart wants what it wants.”

“Right. But I’m not dealing with your toxic waste.”

“Toxic waste?” Kevin repeated quizzically.

“Any woman would have major issues after something like that. She’s probably radioactive.” Sam flipped the sandwiches deftly.

“She’s fine. She’s ready to move on. She just doesn’t know it yet.”

“Why don’t we let her decide when she’s ready? Why are you so interested in finding a new guy for her?”

“The situation has caused some problems in the family. I just got engaged to Alice.”

“That’s the younger sister? Congratulations.”

“Thanks. Anyway … Alice’s parents are pissed off about the situation. They’re not going to pay for the wedding, or help with the planning, or any of that crap. And she wants the family to come together. But the kumbaya moment won’t happen until her sister gets over me and starts going out with someone.”

“Good luck with that.”

“You owe me, Nolan.”

With a scowl, Sam put the soup into the microwave and started it. “Damn it,” he muttered. “I knew that was coming.”

“All that dirt work and haul-off I did for you, for practically nothing. Not to mention helping you transplant that wild grapevine.”

It was true. The vine would have fallen victim to a road project if it hadn’t been transplanted. Not only had Kevin done a good job with the painstaking and difficult process, he had charged Sam a fraction of what anyone else would have.

So yes. He owed Kevin.

“How many times do you want me to take her out?” Sam asked tersely.

“Just a couple of times. Maybe once for drinks, and then for dinner.”

Sam put the steaming sandwiches onto plates, and cut Holly’s into four precise triangles. “After I take this woman out—if I can even get her to agree to go somewhere with me—the score is even, Pearson. No more favors. We’re done.”

“Absolutely,” Kevin said at once.

“How do you want to introduce us?”

“Well, the thing is…” Kevin looked uncomfortable. “You’ll have to find a way to meet her on your own. Because if she knew I had anything to do with this, she wouldn’t go for it.”

Sam stared at him disbelief. “So you want me to track down your bitter, man-hating ex-girlfriend, and talk her into going out with me?”

“Yeah, that’s basically it.”

“Forget it. I’d rather pay you for the dirt work.”

“Don’t want your money. I want you to take my ex out. Once for drinks, once for dinner.”

“I feel like a manwhore,” Sam said sourly.

“You don’t have to sleep with her. In fact—”

“What’s a manwhore, Uncle Sam?” came Holly’s voice as she wandered into the kitchen. She went to Sam and linked her arms around his waist, smiling up at him.

“Manhorse,” he said hastily, reversing the pink ballcap on her head so the bill hung in the back. “It’s what a guy smells like after he’s gotten sweaty working outside. But don’t use that word, or Uncle Mark will rip my lips off.” He bent obligingly as she reached up to pull his head down.

“Who is that?” she whispered.

“He’s an old friend of mine,” Sam said. He gave her a plate with a sandwich on it, sat her at the table, and went to ladle out some soup. Giving Kevin a narrow-eyed glance, he asked, “You got a picture of her?”

Taking a phone from his back pocket, Kevin scrolled through some photos. “Here’s one. I’ll send it to your cell.”

Sam took the phone from him and looked down at the woman in the photo. His breath caught as he recognized her.

“She’s an artist,” he heard Kevin say. “Her name is Lucy Marinn. She’s staying at Artist’s Point, has her own studio in town. She does stained-glass stuff … windows, lampshades, some mosaic stuff … she is cute, see?”

The situation was interesting, to say the least. Sam considered mentioning that he’d already met Lucy, that he’d walked to Artist’s Point with her the previous night. But he decided to keep it to himself for the time being.

In the taut silence that followed, Holly said from the table, “Uncle Sam, what about my soup?”

“Here you go, gingersnap.” Sam set the bowl before her, and tucked a length of paper towel at her neck.

With that concluded, he turned to face Kevin.

“So you’ll do it?” Kevin asked.

“Yeah, I’ll do it.” Sam gestured casually to the doorway. “I’ll see you out.”

“If you like Lucy,” Kevin said, “you should see her sister. Younger and hotter.” As if to reassure himself that he, Kevin, had still gotten the best of the bargain.

“Great,” Sam said. “I want this one.”

“Okay.” Kevin looked more puzzled than relieved. “I have to say, I didn’t expect you’d go along with it this easy.”

“No problem. But there’s one thing I don’t get.”

“Yeah?”

“What’s the real reason you broke up with Lucy? And don’t give me crap about wanting someone younger or hotter, because what this woman doesn’t have, you don’t need. So what is it?”

Kevin wore the bemused expression people sometimes had when they tripped on their own feet and turned around to check out some invisible obstacle on the sidewalk. “I just found out everything there was to know about her, and … it got boring. It was time to move on.” He frowned as he saw Sam’s faint smile. “Why is that funny?”

“It’s not.” Sam wasn’t about to explain that his amusement stemmed from the uncomfortable awareness that he was no better than Kevin when it came to women. In fact, he hadn’t been able to manage anything close to a long-term relationship, nor would he want to.

“How will I know what happens?” Kevin asked, as Sam shepherded him through the front hallway and opened the front door.

“You’ll find out eventually.” Sam saw no need to tell him that he was going to call Lucy that night.

“I’d rather know up front. Text me when you go out with her.”

Leaning one shoulder on the doorjamb, Sam gave him a mocking glance. “No texts, no e-mails, no PowerPoint presentation. I’ll take your ex out, Pearson. But when I do, and what happens afterward, is my business.”