Grape Juice: An 831 Stories Romance
Author: Eliza Dumais
Date: 2025-11-04 08:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Contemporary; Romance; FIC027020 FICTION / Romance / Contemporary
Description: “The characters are just as vivid as the setting . . . an addictive contemporary that will delight hopeless romantics and armchair travelers alike.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review A gorgeous, seductive fiction debut from wine and dating columnist Eliza Dumais, about parsing romantic clarity amidst the mind-muddling effects of fermented grapes, the French language, and exhausting physical labor. Perfect for fans of Under the Tuscan Sun, French Kiss, and The Pairing. Alice is bored—romantically, professionally, creatively. So when her boss, a prominent wine importer, suggests she work a grap
Publisher: 831 Stories

Praise for Grape Juice

“This book was basically tailor-made for me: a sexy European romance that had me feeling like I’d escaped to France from the very first page.”

—Marisa Meltzer, bestselling author of Glossy and It Girl: The Life and Legacy of Jane Birkin

“Grape Juice is the romantic fantasy that has me refilling my glass time and time again.”

—Jamie Beck, photographer and New York Times bestselling author of An American in Provence

“Our heroine seduces us in a feast of glamorous gluttony. Grape Juice begs to be read ravenously.”

—Rachel Seville Tashjian, fashion critic at The Washington Post

Grape Juice

Eliza Dumais

831 Stories

An imprint of Authors Equity

1123 Broadway, Suite 1008

New York, New York 10010

Copyright © 2025 by Eliza Dumais

All rights reserved.

Cover design by C47

Book design by Scribe Inc.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

Library of Congress Control Number: 2025943280

Print ISBN 9798893310566

Ebook ISBN 9798893310573

Version 250827
www.831stories.com
www.authorsequity.com

For Sophie and Sam, who were right

Contents

Chapter I

Chapter II

Chapter III

Chapter IV

Chapter V

Chapter VI

Chapter VII

Chapter VIII

Chapter IX

Chapter X

Chapter XI

Chapter XII

Chapter XIII

Chapter XIV

Chapter XV

Chapter XVI

Chapter XVII

Chapter XVIII

Chapter XIX

About the Author

Also from 831 Stories

831 Stories Book Credits

Except from Hardly Strangers

I

I don’t know the part about the knees yet. No one has told me that the grapes here will grow so close to the ground. That we’ll all be clipping riesling in these primal postures—doubled over like we’ve been sucker punched, like we’re praying. Then again, no one has told me much of anything, really—save for when to board my flight, how to get where I’m going.

I travel to Alsace by way of Paris. Upon landing, waking to announcements in a foreign language, I pause to marvel at the flight attendants—how brilliantly, impossibly untarnished they seem, even postvoyage. Pristine and postured, hair slicked back, all of their figures shaped like bobby pins.

In my comparative state of disarray, I press on: collect my bags, depart from the airport, board a four-hour commuter train from Gare de Lyon to a station called Saint Joseph. A tiny blue Fiat awaits me in the parking lot, just as my email instructions had promised. The car looks like it’s been through the wash one too many times—darling in a way that suggests it might just short out in the middle of the highway.

A small woman with a cropped gray bob sits in the front seat, typing arrhythmically with her pointer fingers on her iPad. Beatrice. She’s the winemaker’s sister, who I’ve been told manages operations for the domaine.

I tap at the window to get her attention, and she looks at me blankly before sitting up with so much enthusiasm, her body jerks against her still-buckled seat belt. Once she frees herself, she hobbles out of the driver’s seat and nearly skips around the front of the car to kiss me on both cheeks. “Alice, she’s here! In the flesh!” she cries as if announcing my presence to some invisible third party. “Oh, bienvenue! Welcome! Our only American!”

She holds my face, sizing me up in an entirely unapologetic once-over, and I feel my cheeks heat. “Don’t worry, we’ll build you some muscle this month, chérie.”

“Pleasure to meet you, Beatrice!” I say with a grin before berating myself silently for reverting to English. How easy it is to fancy oneself worldly—non-American, at least—until on foreign soil.

“Please, please, you call me Bea. Everyone does. Are we ready?”

I nod, and she rolls my suitcase to the back of the car and hoists it into the trunk, with far more umph than one might expect from a woman of her size, before parading back to the front seat. “Off we go! So, shall we speak in English or in French?”

“Français, s’il vous plaît,” I mutter, flinching at the clumsiness of my accent. “A bit slowly, if you don’t mind . . .”

She smirks knowingly. Then, steadily, with care to enunciate, she begins to deliver her opening sermon: There are a handful of us here right now for the grape harvest, les vendanges. An Italian, a German, an Australian, and, well, the French. There is just one other woman, so we’ll share a room, while the men are split between the two larger ones on either side of the same hallway. Everyone is close to me in age—late twenties, she suspects—so she imagines we’ll get on just fine. Antoine, the winemaker, lives with Bea in a smaller cottage just about a kilometer away.

For the duration of harvest, she will prepare our meals; we’ll eat every night at the house, and lunch will be served in the vines. Breakfast, however, is our responsibility—coffee is available in the kitchen, she’ll show me where, and we’ll need to be dressed, fed, and ready to go by 6:00 a.m. each morning.

In the midst of my furious attempts at translation, I marvel that her words have no borders, no stops and starts. It’s like she’s speaking in cursive.

I’m already plenty familiar with the basic contours of wine harvest: Annually, volunteers flock to a region during the three-odd weeks when the area’s grapes grow maximally ripe. Pick too early, and they’re sour. Pick too late, and they’re overly sweet, too high in sugar. But much like flowers, grapes cut from their stems begin to wilt. So the race isn’t merely about separating bunches from vines; it’s about pressing, de-stemming, sorting, and barreling—all before the fruit has the chance to go leathery.

The other volunteers, I assume, will have their own reasons for attending: things to run from, things to run toward, French to practice, dirt to touch. And I, well, I’m here because I was asked. My boss, a prominent enough wine importer, had offered—nearly mandated, without solicitation—a round-trip flight to France in the hopes that I might spend time with one of his producers and learn something about the terroir to bolster my sales pitches back home.

It all came about with little ceremony: He’d sent me an email just two weeks ago with the subject line “RE: WINE HARVEST” followed by characteristically spare body copy: “Three and a half weeks in Alsace. Lots of manual labor. Will probably change your life. You in?”

I’d hesitated, but what kind of good protagonist declines an opportunity like that? Evidently, even my employer could sense that I was no longer a particularly likable main character (I did not disagree). And this seemed like the sort of thing that might improve my sense of scale or perhaps my whole personality.

By the time Bea and I putter onto the property, the sky has shifted to the gauzy prologue to darkness. In places like this—various vineyards I’ve visited for work—the sun always seems to take its time absconding, the opposite of an Irish exit. Departures are drawn out and loud, full of handshakes and promises of future plans.

Here, in the diluted glow, a long wooden table stands in front of a big farm-style residence. Around it, a buzzing flurry of people at work, most freshly showered, with wet hair and crisp shirts. They lay out silverware, water pitchers, and dishes, oscillating back and forth from the kitchen.

“Perfect timing.” Bea deposits my suitcase at my feet. “I’ll show you to your room, then you can come down for dinner and meet the group.”

I trail behind her as we enter the foyer, which is lined with what look like hundreds of pairs of work boots—Blundstones and tall rubber wellies—all of them slathered in a dusty casing of dried mud. The stairs are dark and wooden, and my room is no different. Inside, four twin beds are arranged in opposite corners, and a square window frames a vineyard view so picturesque, it almost seems trite. A little worn desk sits beneath the sill. On it, a mug nesting a toothbrush is surrounded by the general debris of Girl: face lotion, nail clippers, hairbrush, small tube of sun lotion.

Bea points out the bathroom, small and mirrorless, right across the hall. I’ll share it with all of the other volunteers, she explains, so we’re to keep our showers to under six minutes each.

“Anything else you need at the moment?” she asks.

“Non, merci!” Even as I catalog the visual details of the space, I’m struggling to latch on to the fact that it’s not someone else’s anecdote.

“Why don’t you gather yourself, then come meet us downstairs?” She shuts the bedroom door gently behind her.

I can feel the weight of the day’s travel tugging at my eyelids—the fatigue that accompanies so much newness, the reshuffling of time. But the thrum downstairs beckons, vibrating almost like some benign beehive.

Naturally, I’m well aware that arriving anywhere fresh, inserting oneself into its machinations, is a difficult affair. Right now, I’m loitering at the edge of some new and not-yet-infiltrated group, feeling othered for it. The sentiment is somewhere between loneliness and intimidation. A meager dose of optimism in there too, maybe. I close my eyes—just for a moment—but as soon as I do, the door flings open to reveal a beaming redhead, her hair braided into a crown.

“I’m Ruby!” Her Australian accent is thick, and her hands are on her hips. “Welcome to the animal house!”

“Alice. Hi.” I hold out my hand with a laugh.

She marches over and hugs me effusively, ignoring my corporate, outstretched palm. “I sleep on that bed right there, and we keep a flashlight over by the door in case you need to use the loo in the night. It’s dark, so trust me, you’ll need it. Oh, and it gets chilly in the evenings, but it’s hot as hell the rest of the time so, ya know, dress accordingly. Anyway, glad to have you. Felt like bad luck to have an empty room.”

Already, being near Ruby is like absorbing caffeine through osmosis. I like her instantly. “So glad to meet you! How long have you been here?” I match her enthusiasm as best I can—a fool’s errand, I can already surmise.

“About three weeks. I’d been doing some wine work over in the Adelaide Hills in Australia, so I decided it was about time to spend the summer on a French vineyard or two. Ya know, for context. This is actually the third winery I’ve worked with since June. But hey, enough about me. I hear you’re from New York, right? Never been! Anyway, how’s your French?”

Her sentences come out like DJ mash-ups, each bit of information delivered in remix form.

“It’s . . . rusty, but sometimes I surprise myself. It helps when I’m drinking . . . or I’m in a moving vehicle.” I laugh. “Makes it all sound more fluid.” Really, my French improves any time I stop listening to myself, but that hardly feels worth unpacking out loud.

“Couldn’t understand ya more, honeybee. Mine’s the same. It’s improved heaps since I’ve been here, but most of the Frenchies have decent English, some better than others. And we’ve got internationals too.” Already, she seems so settled here, a fixture of the place—comparatively, anyway.

“Ah, thank God.”

“And you’re here for work? Pleasure? Love? Material?”

“Work.” I drop my gaze. Decidedly the least sexy of her offered options. “My boss sent me. He distributes Antoine’s wines in the US.”

In truth, Alec, said boss, is hardly dull: He, of the famed Alec Golde Selections, spends his weeks marauding back and forth to Chablis and Emilia-Romagna, charming winemakers into offering him custody of their bottles in exchange for the assurance that he’ll make them Burgundy Rich, while I—a “rep” by trade and by accident—hawk his wares in New York.

Nearly two years prior, I’d been Alec’s waitress at a French restaurant in Fort Greene, and at the start of his meal, he’d asked me the difference between two sparkling options. I’d said that one tasted like unripe clementines and the other like whispering. Whether or not my customers enjoyed this particular mode of wine discourse, it seemed apparent that few among them truly knew the meaning of oxidative either way.

“The second is saltier, of course,” I’d added.

“Interesting. I don’t think of Pineau d’Aunis as a particularly coy or quiet grape,” he’d said.

“Nobody whispers about boring things,” I’d replied conspiratorially, and he’d offered me a job on the spot.

In my experience, people were always trying to rescue servers from the plight of serving, when in reality, it was a perfectly solid and entirely lucrative profession that did not feel akin to a slow-burn lobotomy in the way I imagined so many others might. In any case, I’d said yes. It’s nice to be rescued sometimes—even if from nothing.

Within the first few months of working for Alec, I learned that he had a sweet, obsessive quality about him: a tendency to carry on with games of backgammon until 3:00 a.m., a daily squash regimen, a set of his own pool cues, which he gleefully toted between dive bars. With no sport at hand, he would busy his fingers rolling cigarettes, palming tobacco from a plastic pouch. He’d gladly tell anyone who asked that he’d had a nasty narcotics problem, enjoyed a brief incarceration stint, obtained a handful of lightly regrettable tattoos, then reemerged as the largest natural wine importer in the Western Hemisphere.

“Not a bad boss, eh?” Ruby prods, interrupting my silent, jet-lagged soliloquy.

“Can’t complain,” I say through a stifled yawn. “Sorry, long day of travel.”

“The wine’ll help, don’t worry.” Ruby puts a hand on my shoulder. “You ready for your debut?”

I nod my consent, and she squeezes my arm before skipping down the stairs. I trail behind and hear her mimic a trumpet noise with her mouth: “Hear ye, hear ye. Écoutez! Alice has arrived! Elle est arrivée!”

As I join her, she crosses her ankles, bows deeply, and sweeps an arm out in front of her in a sloppy curtsy. I can’t help but grin as I take stock. Bea winks at me from the stove, where she tastes pasta sauce in a stained apron, looking so en place here, it’s as if she’s come up through the floorboards.

“Ciao, bellisima!” a lanky boy calls out, loping over in nothing but athletic shorts and a leather vest, several necklaces armoring his sternum. He kisses me on both cheeks then holds me back to look at me from arm’s length. “You are bellisima! Thank God,” he nearly shouts in a sloped Italian accent. “We need more beautiful girls around if we’re ever going to pick all these grapes without dying of boredom.” I roll my eyes and laugh cautiously.

His name is Pietro, he explains, hardly breathing between clauses, and his father is a rather prominent businessman in Milan. Earlier that year, at the ripe age of twenty-two, he’d been offered a banking internship for the summer via his father’s valuable connections . . . though he’d threatened to run away to Slovenia were he pressed to go through with it. Instead, he’d found work doing vineyard labor here, which was not exactly as good for his CV but might build character all the same—or so his father supposed.

While he speaks, he gesticulates so effusively, he seems to be whirring.

“Cool it, ragazzo. Catch your breath. You’ll scare off the American girl.” Another boy nudges in, holding a stack of cloth napkins. His English is excellent—nimble and well trained even under the tint of his French accent, like he knows how to say what he means. His hair tumbles out from under a navy logo-less baseball cap like cartoon waves, and his shirt, a short-sleeved button-down, is the same color as Bea’s Fiat—a milky weathered blue, shallow like puddles.

“She’s a New Yorker, not an American!” Ruby shouts over her shoulder from the opposite side of the kitchen, sawing away at a baguette.

“OK, New York.” He takes me in from the ground up, his gaze rising like helium, eyes as blue as his collar. “Welcome. I’m Henri.”

I test out the H-less pronunciation in my mouth: Aaaahnrree.

“Alice. Enchanté.” I hold his eye contact.

“Ah, the accent is not so bad, she speaks some French! Elle parle français.” He grins mischievously. “Can she set a table too?” He thrusts the napkins into my arms and gestures toward the door.

I turn on my heels and march outside, clutching the cloth, oddly reluctant to break away. There is something distinctly non–New York about him. He’s tall and sturdy, tan in a way that suggests he’s never been anything but, has never been indoors too long. No visible tattoos, no status sneakers, no designer T-shirt. Bare feet, freckles. He is, it seems, without angles. Not sanded down, exactly, but polished—as if by water.

Outside, the table has nearly reached its final form. Silverware lies at the ready, mismatched juice glasses scattered like mancala pieces. Candles and lanterns are lit. “Coucou!” I hear Bea cry from the kitchen. “Le dîner est prêt, dinner time, on doit manger!”

I watch apprehensively as the crowd assembles, unsure where to place myself. Are there designated seats? A stout, dark-haired boy in an Abercrombie & Fitch T-shirt emerges from behind me, cradling several dusty bottles of wine.

“I see the American is here,” he says in a German accent as he places one in front of me. “I’m Julian. Nice to meet you.”

“She’s a New Yorker, not an American.” Henri’s voice pipes into my left ear as he slides onto the bench beside where I’m standing. “Have a seat, Alice.” He taps the space next to him. It’s an oddly intimate gesture, and I’m suddenly self-conscious, fighting the urge to glance around to see if perhaps there’s another Alice in the vicinity.

As I settle in, Julian arranges himself across from me and proceeds to explain, without solicitation, that he is enrolled in viticulture school in Germany. This is his final internship before he can start making wine of his own. He speaks in brusque, geometric English.

“Has a bit of an ego, that one,” Ruby whispers, sidling up to the place setting on my other side. “Thinks he knows best in a man-who’s-never-had-a-real-job way.” I bite back a smile.

Once the table is fully set and occupied, the whole tableau is impossibly striking. It has the dreamy, slippery quality of a memory, some re-creation of a bygone scene: seven seats, a mess of plates, all of it flanked by vines, multilingual chatter, the warm breath of late summer air.

In French, vu is the past tense for “to see,” like déjà vu. When I first started learning the language in college, the past tense had stuck with me more firmly than the present. For months, I phrased everything like a long-gone missive. Like something remembered rather than something transpiring. That’s what eating dinner in Alsace tonight looks like to me—something remembered.

“Julian, tell us what we’re drinking,” a voice booms out of the near darkness, first in English, then again in French. The pronouncement comes from a man who is now looming over the farthest end of the table. He is tall and wide with a scar shaped like a comma above his left eyebrow and a dark, woolly beard. He has on overalls with plastic buckles at the shoulders, the legs tucked into knee-high rubber boots.

“Have you met Antoine yet?” Henri whispers.

I shake my head.

In blocky, German-washed French, Julian answers: “All Loire Valley stuff tonight. Whites.”

“Ahh, interesting,” Antoine muses. “I suppose we’ll have to ask the new girl to blind taste.”

He strides over, growing larger as he nears, and kisses me on both cheeks with a warm, thunderous laugh. He looks like Santa Claus in his early forties, if Santa Claus went to the gym. “We’re so glad to have you. Our first American!” He places a glass in front of me. “Alec says you’re his favorite. And your boss is the reason we can afford this house.” He laughs, pouring from a bottle Julian passes his way, carefully covering the label with his opposite hand. “By the time you leave, you’ll be able to blind taste vintages. But for now, let’s just start with the grape.”

I can feel the chill of a dozen eyes trained carefully on me, and my heart rate quickens. This is not an unfamiliar practice for me, but I’m unaccustomed to the audience. I close my eyes and inhale from the glass through my nose, take a sip, aerate, swallow.

Henri’s voice, hot in my ear: “You know, you don’t have to close your eyes to blind taste.”

My eyelids shoot open, glare at the ready, and Ruby punches him in the shoulder from behind my back.

I turn my attention to Antoine, eager to make a good impression. “It’s Chenin. Loire? I guess they’re all Loire, Julian already said that.” I shift my eyes back to my glass. “It might be blended with something else, but I’m not sure. Can’t be more than two years old?” I look up at Antoine nervously, wondering if he, too, can hear my heartbeat.

“And what do you think? Do you like it?” Antoine asks.

“It tastes like . . . the sound a bell makes.”

He shakes his head back and forth slowly, and a grin spreads wide across his face. He picks up the bottle and holds the label for me to see. Chenin—nearly four years old, single-variety.

“Close enough, you pass!” He fills my glass and hands the bottle back to Julian to distribute at the table. “Well done! Alec told me to write down everything you say—I suppose now I know what he meant.”

I beam, my cheeks growing warm. Oh, to be praised at this table, of all the tables in the world.

“Pas mal, New York, not bad,” Henri whispers, elbowing me gently in the ribs.

Antoine claps me on the back, then straightens to return to his seat. “I think you’re going to like it here,” he says over his shoulder.

II

The following morning, when my alarm sounds, it’s still dark. Ruby switches on a lamp, and in the half-light, we shrug into tall socks, shorts, tank tops, boots.

“You’ll want another layer, it’s cold in the morning,” she advises just as we stumble out the door.

The group convenes in front of the house at 5:45 a.m. Last night’s table is vacant now and damp with dew, like some relic of another era. It’s chilly outside, and all of us huddle together cloaked in sweatshirts and windbreakers, except Julian, who is filling massive plastic water bottles from a tap by the front door and placing them in a milk crate.

Pietro, the animated Italian, ushers us toward a twelve-passenger van parked at the edge of the property, waving his arms in the air like human windshield wipers, keys in hand. “Get in, bella, this is the techno van,” he shouts across the lot, urging me forward with a toothy grin. “That just means it’s cool,” he explains. “When something is cool, my friends and I, we call it techno.”

We file into the vehicle, which is caked in dried mud and littered with supplies: buckets, clippers, gloves, bottles of water. I Tetris my way into the back and onto a bench seat while Julian flops into the trunk.

“Pardon, make room.” Henri’s boyish voice hits me like an amphetamine. At the sound of it, I’m awake.

He wedges himself next to me in a purposefully clumsy maneuver, wiggling his hips to shimmy his way into a space already clearly at capacity. He’s wearing the same baseball cap and a black nylon jacket, and he smiles at me sideways before reaching an arm around my shoulders. “Too tight in here, trop serré.” I can feel the warmth of him even through the sweatshirt I wore at Ruby’s urging. He grins like he knows exactly what he’s doing.

“No problem, pas de problème.” I smile back, briefly wishing there were fewer layers of cloth between us.

“Techno van! Techno van! Techno van!” Pietro chants rhythmically from up front, pumping his fist in the air.

Minutes later, he screeches the vehicle to a loud, needlessly dramatic halt and turns around sheepishly to survey us for a response. None of his passengers pay him the sort of glowing attention he seems to thrive on, and he shrugs. “Not far to go today!”

As we drowsily climb out, one by one, I realize I’m reluctant to give up my real estate in the crook of Henri’s arm. Stepping off the van’s running board, however, the scene is well worth the trade-off. The sun is slowly inching in, teasing its way out over the vines, and everyone looks haloed and ruddy in the half-light, the vines behind them extending toward infinity. The day laborers, most of whom, I was told, had driven over from neighboring towns, have already begun smoking hand-rolled cigarettes, and the ends pierce like hole punches through the muted light.

“OK, everyone listen up!” Antoine shouts, emerging from the front seat. “I will speak in English first—we have an international harvest crew this year. French second, ça marche?” His gaze shifts over to me and Ruby, flanked by Pietro. The island of ex-pats present. “Everyone, take a bucket and un sécateur—how do you say . . . clippers? I’m going to call your name and assign you a vine. You’ll stay there and pick until I tell you to stop.”

He unloads tall stacks of plastic pails from the truck as he explains: When we fill our buckets, we’ll find baquets, large bins, throughout the vines where we can empty them, and the baquets will be hauled back to the winery intermittently throughout the day. I queue up to collect my tools, and there’s a soft tug at my elbow. “Stay next to me, New York,” Henri whispers. “We can practice your French.” His pointed focus on me is oddly reassuring.

As if on cue, Antoine points at the both of us, leading us to opposite sides of the same vine just ahead. He shows us how to use the sécateur to clip each cluster of grapes by the stem, holding the pearled ends so they don’t fall, how to use the edge of the tool to scrape out vinaigre, dried or rotten bits. “Pinot gris,” he says, holding up a dense bunch so perfect in its arrangement that it resembles an oil painting. “Goûte-le, taste it.”

I drop one of the pristine orbs in my mouth. It’s like ripe pear, permanent marker, jazz apples. I can feel it up front by my teeth.

I make my first snip and hear Antoine shout instructions toward Ruby a few rows away. It’s just Henri and me now.

“Alright, then.” Henri tosses a handful of grapes over the top of the vine and into my bucket. “You’ll speak to me in French, I’ll speak to you in English. It’s good for us. So tell me, what the hell are you doing here?”

“I’m here for work. On business.”

“I don’t believe you. No one travels overseas to crawl around in dirt . . . unless you’re in, like, witness protection.”

His English is much better than my French (I haven’t the slightest idea how one says “witness protection” en français). “I work in wine. I like wine. Those are good reasons, no?”

“I think you can do better.”

I offer him my professional spiel: a top-level summary of what it is to be a rep, Alec’s prestige, the industry cred I’ll earn from the presence of soil under my fingernails.

“You make it sound like you were forced. Surely you could have said no?”

Of course, I could have said no. But it had hardly occurred to me at the time. Whether or not I’d have phrased it as such, I’d practically been waiting for an opportunity like this—something to counter all the monotonous rhythms of work and play I had fallen into. “I wasn’t forced, no.” I rock my head back and forth indecisively, even knowing that Henri can’t see me. “But I don’t think I would’ve made it here on my own if my boss hadn’t proposed it.”

“So you wanted to come. Is that so hard to admit?”

“Fine.” I sigh playfully. Already, I like more than the look of him—his buoyant readiness to spar, his immediate air of familiarity.

I take stock of the mounting fruit in my bucket. “To give you the short answer, I guess I’ve been bored at home. Je sentais ennuyée.” I prepare myself for the oral acrobatics that come with sliding in and out of a language so rubbery and untrained in my mouth. I don’t have the words to make my point properly—which is, more or less, that I have no patience for the specific malaise of apathy, especially when it belongs to me. I’d been looking for a jolt. I didn’t know how to trigger one all on my own.

“Je me sentais ennuyée—it’s reflexive,” Henri corrects, pulling aside a leaf cluster to look me in the eyes. The vine divides us like a verdant hyphen. “And have you been bored for a long time?”

“I’m not sure. That’s a hard question.”

“We have a lot of time. And a lot of grapes to pick.”

“The answer would require lots of backstory—and you, monsieur, are a stranger.”

“Ah, you don’t get it yet. About les vignes. This is what we do here: We talk.” He clears his throat. “Among les vendangeurs, there are no stakes—we don’t know each other in the real world. We don’t have friends in common. We don’t work in the same offices. I’m Alsace; you’re New York. So, all day, while we have no choice but to work right across from each other, we talk. It’s like therapy. Americans love therapy, no?”

A laugh escapes me involuntarily. “Certain Americans, yes.” I grind my teeth, tighten my jaw, weigh where to begin. In truth, proper therapy has never been easy for me; I lack the willingness to concede personal information without equal collateral from my conversational partner. I tend to bristle at the imbalance. “OK, how about you go first? Basic exposition. Tell me why you’re here. Then, I promise, I’ll share.”

He sighs his consent, and through the vines, as we clip, he explains that he’d been living in Lyon with his girlfriend, tending bar at a small spot he’d opened with a childhood friend. A proper dream come true (“Not to be sentimental about it,” he says). Regulars, his own wine list, a record collection. Walls he painted himself, tiles he cemented into place, a chalkboard smudged with rotating menu items. Tragically, however, the bar had closed earlier this year for all the usual reasons, and in a justifiable stupor, he’d come back to Alsace as a bit of a palate cleanser. This is where he grew up, and working the vendanges with his uncle was meant to mark the end of something. “Or perhaps the beginning of something else,” he says. “I’m not sure which. Either way, a balm.”

“Uncle?” I ask, doing my best to ignore the sour flinch in my throat the word girlfriend provokes.

“Ah yes, you didn’t know? Antoine’s family.”

“No wonder he likes you so much.”

“Blood lineage and my winning personality.”

“Of course, of course, bien sûr.”

“Anyway, I’m here for medicinal purposes. That’s the story.”

I understand. “Je comprends,” I tell him. If I subtract the mental image of the partner, it’s easy to picture him in his own amber-lit bar, apron tied around his waist, refilling the glasses of patrons he knows by name. I like it—like conjuring him in the architecture of the real world, even knowing I’ll never encounter him there.

Relatively speaking, our motivations are similar. I, too, had been in the market for something hard edged—some capital-letter Experience to slap me awake—when I left home. The antidote to ennui, whatever that tasted like. Pinot gris, I hoped. “Comment dis-tu ‘jaded’?” I ask him. How does one say it in French?

“What does this mean?”

“It’s hard to explain—boredom about things that are not particularly boring. Being too cool, I guess.”

“I don’t know if we have this word.” Through the greenery, I can make out Henri rubbing his chin. I can almost hear him mining his own mental thesaurus. “Maybe it’s just that we enjoy boredom more than you do.”

By now, the sun has clicked into place overhead. Henri flings off his jacket among the vines, and I do the same with my sweatshirt. It feels like peeling off some protective membrane, and in turn, we start picking faster, speaking more freely. I am somewhere between switched on and ignited with the arrival of true daytime.

“Americans—you’re not so good at sitting still,” he adds, and it’s as though his words are italicized with accent. “If you give it a different name, boredom can be poetic too.”

“It’s a nice thought, but I’m not sure I believe you.”

“Well, tell me about your boredom, then. It’s your turn.”

“Maybe I’ve never properly diagnosed it myself.” I feel warm, and I don’t know if it’s the rising temperature or the continued interrogation. “My job—it’s a lot of shmoozing about things that feel so distant. I develop a script and I perform it—it’s well-informed lying. And it gets exhausting. The whole wine-sales thing. And . . .” I pause, unsure how to frame the next bit tactfully.

“And? Come on . . . it’s a boyfriend thing, isn’t it.”

“Am I so devastatingly predictable to you?”

“Go on!”

“Yeah, OK, fine, you’re right. I concede. Until recently, I was in this relationship—this relationship-adjacent thing—kind of by accident.”

“You ended it by accident?”

“No, I mean . . . the relationship itself was an accident.”

“How, exactly, does that happen to a person?”

“I guess I just never resisted. I kind of feel like it happened to me.”

“That’s cold.”

“Is it?”

“Very.”

We both go silent, and I consider it. Technically, I’d been seeing Jameson for months—long enough to be employing more committal verbs than seeing. He was the GM at a restaurant downtown that charged $12 for buttered bread, and he substantiated my theory that all women are obliged to spend 60 percent of their dating lives with men whose names begin with the letter J.

He was algorithmically handsome in a way that suggested he’d never had to work terribly hard for positive romantic results. In the greater context of our slice of New York, we did the same things, knew the same people, drank wine in the same rooms—places where we could send texts under the table or whisper suggestive things over our Zalto glasses. We made sense together like certain salad toppings or discordant garments—but I never thought about him when he wasn’t there. There was some bizarre, invisible-ink quality to my affection. At times, his name would pop up on my phone screen and I’d realize I’d forgotten about him entirely.

When Alec had emailed me with my departure instructions, annulling my pseudorelationship had been my first order of business—and even I could acknowledge that I’d been all too eager for an “out” . . . especially one that involved a clean, intercontinental exit.

As I finished packing, I’d recounted the details of my so-called breakup to my roommate Emma. “Maybe you’ll fall in love with someone you actually like now. Someone French,” she mused. She’d spent the morning handing me dresses and ballet flats, all of which I’d promptly returned with the reminder that I was not, in fact, heading off to drink pastis by the Canal Saint-Martin with men named Pierre-Yves. I was going to crawl around in dirt, picking grapes with aging, bitter farmers, most likely—ones who spoke in dialects of French I’d find even more difficult to parse than the Parisian version.

“I’m not sure my French is good enough to seduce anyone,” I’d countered.

“You’re pretty enough to be bad at grammar.” She sat on top of my suitcase while I struggled to yank the zipper shut.

“Sometimes you sound like someone wrote you,” I replied, knowing that was just the sort of thing she loved to hear.

“To the baquet?” Henri asks, reasserting his presence. I lift my bucket with one hand and pat my brow with the back of the other, feeling my skin go warmer by the minute.

III

Lunch in Alsace bears no resemblance to the flimsy notion of the meal I maintain in New York, pieces of string cheese and complimentary office pretzels inhaled while drafting emails.

Around noon, Bea arrives at our post in the fields in a truck and begins to unload a swath of folding tables, dead-straight down the vines. We all stand in a line, washing dirt and grape debris from our hands at the spout of a gallon water jug, rinsing our tools and stacking our buckets before helping her shepherd unmarked bottles of chilled wine, silverware, and trays of bread to the tables. Then we line up again, clutching our plates, waiting as she scoops enormous, entirely implausible quantities of lentil goop onto each of our dishes. I’d have thought the whole tableau was some kind of glimmering mirage—this apparition of a feast set amid endless greenery—if I couldn’t smell the food myself.

Instead of queueing up with the rest of the throng, Henri takes a seat and starts methodically rolling a cigarette, seemingly immune to the human ache of hunger. Watching him, I feel some pang of grade school fear—if we don’t enter the line together, we can’t sit together, and I’ll spend the whole of this meal entertaining a lengthy speech about Milanese rave culture from Pietro, or perhaps an even less amusing anecdote from one of the elder Frenchmen.

“What? Not hungry? Too proud to wait in line?” I taunt Henri, circling around the table, taking the long route to pass by him.

“Saving us seats.” He smiles and places his grape-stained palm on the plastic bench to the left of his leg. OK, OK, OK, I think. Even better.

“Ah, merci.” This boy is like a tooth gap. The relentless, curious tug of him.

As Bea fills my plate, I contort my neck to see what, exactly, it is that she’s doling out in such hearty quantities. I make out carrots and sausage in the stew, and my stomach revs with a frantic whir—a reminder that I am not used to spending my mornings like this. I’ve performed more than my standard share of manual labor, and I am hungry.

Walking back to the table, I see Antoine approach Henri, speaking quickly at a low volume close to his ear. They both look up at me in unison before Antoine knocks Henri’s cap to the side playfully and strides off to the opposite end.

“What?” I whisper to Henri, sliding into my seat.

He leans in close and puts out his cigarette in an empty water glass. “He said, ‘Be careful; she’s your type,’” he murmurs through his exhale, and I forget to breathe. He goes to fetch his food, leaving his statement hovering in his wake, shrouded in smoke, and I can feel his words lingering up by my ears. What, exactly, constitutes his type? I wonder. And does that give more or less weight to this fluency between us?

We drink Gewürztraminer out of small juice cups, and I fall into conversation with Marc, the septuagenarian day laborer to my left, who keeps suggesting I might be interested in meeting his grandson. The steady scrape of forks against plates undercuts the murmur of conversation like a bassline.

Once we’re through eating, we help return the table and its accoutrements to the truck, and Antoine redistributes us into the vines. Admittedly, I am tipsy, just ever so slightly, ill-adjusted to the daytime wine—and the beating sun, the shade of the vines. All of it lends a soft-focus, film-grade effect to the afternoon. This is not New York, I think to myself, grinning. This is something else.

As soon as we reassume our positions, Henri picks up precisely where we’ve left off, wasting no time. “OK, so, have you ever been in a relationship that didn’t bore you?” He clips with a renewed, postbreak fervor.

“Of course! It’s not like I’m immune to romance.”

“Prove it.”

I smirk at his unabashed prompting before I realize I’m meant to tell him a story. “Fine . . . well . . . a few years back, there was something. Someone,” I begin, twisting the sinew of a grape stem between my fingers, urging myself to press through my typical brand of reluctance. “Long before the nothing-guy, I had a much larger thing end. And I think, in some ways, I haven’t really felt anything since.” As I say this, I realize how true it is. I hadn’t bothered to pit the relationships so neatly against each other until now.

“How long were you together?”

“Six years, almost. A long time. It was the right thing—I mean, I think it was the right thing. The separating.”

I rarely talk about Max and try to think about him just as infrequently. I’ve devoted a considerable amount of time to building a life that functions entirely independently of his, thus absolving me of this particular breed of conversation.

“But . . . ?”

“But . . . I don’t know, I’m always scared that that was my best thing. I’m glad I got to have it for a little while, but I’m not sure you’re allowed to have it twice.”

“Well, that’s not a very optimistic thought.”

“Maybe everyone says that about the last person they loved? I don’t know.” I fiddle needlessly with a knotted stretch of vine. “After that, I started working in restaurants, and then in wine—these really social, shiny, public-facing jobs. Things I was good at, things I could be entirely absorbed in,” I continue. “And at the same time, I think something switched off, or malfunctioned in my brain. It was like I’d spent too long feeling everything in caps lock, so instead, it all went mute. And it hasn’t gotten loud again yet.”

I can’t remember the last time I’ve spoken about Max—even with Emma. This is the sort of dialogue that usually embarrasses me. But there’s something about Henri’s prompting questions, the steady rhythm of corrected verb conjugations, the green barrier between us that makes it easy. Something about the faraway closeness of us. Perhaps even some long-dormant desire I’ve harbored, unwittingly, to relinquish this narrative to the air.

He pulls aside a leaf and winks at me, an unabashed I told you so smile plastered across his face. “Therapy! See?”

Fuck, he’s right. I grin back. “Therapy.”

“And that man, what was he like? We need all of the details if we’re going to heal you of your ennui.”

I laugh and share the contours with uncharacteristic generosity: The man, tall and sturdy, raised in a Brooklyn Heights apartment too astoundingly charming to be true. A handful of key plot points involving the Rockaways, Thanksgiving, cigarettes on one stoop or another. Intermittently, Henri asks for another detail or clarification, ushering me along like some gentle, almost imperceptible current.

“And there’s nobody, in the whole wide city of New York, who’s held your interest since this ex?”

“Nope.”

“Not a single person?”

“No.”

“OK, so why did you bother with this last guy, then? The accident?”

“It’s not like there was anything wrong with him, but . . .” I try to understand it myself—or, at the very least, explain it in a way that makes me a vaguely sympathetic narrator. “It was bizarre, actually. Most of the time, I wanted to like him. But I just couldn’t feel anything.”

“OK, so, wrong person, wrong time. Right time, wrong person. Right person, wrong time. If you’re having fun, no harm, though, right?”

“Sure. I’m not always very good at having fun, though. My roommate back home always tells me I’m wired wrong.”

He snort-laughs. “You’re wired just fine.”

“You don’t know me nearly well enough to make that assessment.”

“Sure, but give me a week of vine therapy. Maybe two. By the end of les vendanges, I’ll know all about your wiring.”

I wonder if we’re still talking in the same metaphor. “We’ll see about that, mon ami.” I overturn my bucket into one of the baquets. “Your turn. What about your girlfriend? Far more interesting than addressing my nonboyfriends.” I make my voice light and bright. I do and do not wish to know—but by the etiquette of our vine rapport, it would be gauche not to ask.

I feel him hesitate on the other side, shaving vinaigre from a bunch of grapes with a needless attentiveness. “Well, um. We’re on a pause. A break?”

I exhale as quietly as possible, surprised at my own discernible relief.

“I’m not sure I have the right word. I . . . I don’t know. I wasn’t doing so well after the bar closed, and we were fighting a lot, and we thought some time away would be good.”

“Has it? Been good?”

“Well, thus far . . . relieving, yes. But I’m not sure that’s what I’m supposed to feel. For a while now, it’s just been a little . . . empty. Maybe I blame her for what happened with the bar? Maybe we’ve grown out of each other? Maybe it’s just a rough patch? I don’t know.”

“How long has it been?”

“We’ve been together since we were young—even before university. Our families know each other, our friends are close. But sometimes it feels like we’re just going through the motions because we don’t know how not to: parties, laundry, birthdays, emails.”

“Well . . . going through the motions can be nice. You forget how comforting it is to do laundry next to someone else until you’re washing your sheets alone.”

“Trust me, I know. The shape of our life . . . it’s good. Very comfortable. I don’t know why I’m complaining.”

“Why are you, then?” I nudge aside a leaf cluster to look at him. I take in the line of his chin as he clenches his teeth, running his hand across the surface of his mounting haul of fruit before turning to meet my gaze dead-on. “Therapy, remember?” I goad, emboldened by his own tactics.

“Touché. It’s probably because the whole break thing feels good. Really good. Which, if I’m being honest, probably means I’ve been unhappy for longer than I realized. Or . . . I don’t know. I don’t know if I see myself as unhappy. That doesn’t feel like the right word. But something that’s like unhappiness.”

“Go on.”

“It’s this thing that’s next to being sad but isn’t. Not quite.”

“Hmm, I like that. Maybe we’re both just whining because we’re the same flavor of unhappy.”

“Same flavor? So, you think unhappiness has a flavor?” He shakes his head. “What does it taste like?”

“Like pennies,” I declare, reverting to English.

He laughs. “Do you always talk like that?”

“Like what?”

“You know what.”

“Yes, I do. It’s why I’m so boring in French. I don’t have any isms.”

“I don’t think you’re boring in French.”

Now, in the warm, ambient blur of the afternoon, I don’t feel boring in French either. I grin, picturing the two of us from overhead: Mirror images, ambling along slowly on either side of the same vine, down on our knees, mid-confession.

IV

Six minutes is both very short and very long when you’re desperately unclean. When you’re caked in very literal dirt. Before dinner, we take turns scrubbing mud from our knees and grape skins from under our fingernails. I try not to linger on the variety of mismatched French bath products lined up precariously by the frosted window like some hygienic nativity scene.

When I emerge from the small, dark bathroom, pink and rubbed raw, there is Henri, waiting with his arms folded, stationed so close to the doorframe we nearly collide. I cling tighter to the towel wrapped around my sternum.

“That was seven minutes,” he chides, tsking his tongue. “Americans are so wasteful.”

I shoot him a dirty look. “You timed me? I thought the French were famous for fashionable lateness.” I mimic his accent.

“Just keeping you honest.”

“How morally righteous of you!”

“Oh?” He inches closer, leaving hardly a knife’s width of space. We stand like that, face-to-face, no vines to separate us, for several beats too long. Some strange electricity roots me in place.

Beads of water drip from my hair down my back, and the sensation breaks the spell. “You’re holding up the line.” I push past him, and I feel the sweat on his skin against my bare shoulder as I march toward my room. Ruby is in the doorway, grinning mischievously, her hair piled in a towel atop her head.

“That was a bit saucy, now, wasn’t it?” she taunts and taps my nose with her pointer finger. “Henri, huh. I see that for you.”

“Henri? He’s got a girlfriend. Or . . . he kind of has a girlfriend. Had? Not that it matters.”

She laughs. “Right, right, not that it matters. It’s just that we happen to be spending weeks working in the throes of what is arguably the horniest premise on earth. And you’ve got a thing between you.”

I roll my eyes. “This isn’t summer camp.”

“Isn’t it?”

I shrug. She’s right, but I need not concede as much just yet. “We’re basically colleagues,” I correct. “There’s no thing.”

“Suit yourself!” She smirks, bending forward to release her towel from its sculptural perch and rubbing her hair dry. “Have you noticed that all French towels feel like sandpaper? It’s like they want you to walk around naked rather than wrap yourself up.”

As I kneel over my suitcase, I feel the curious tug of a smile—some private joy at the fact that the tenor of my rapport with Henri is palpable from the outside.

I rummage around, extracting a clean white T-shirt and a pair of denim shorts, wishing ever so briefly that I’d taken Emma’s advice. That I had anything to wear that might make me look even moderately feminine—or at least, considered in my appearance.

Downstairs in the kitchen, Bea is playing something operatic over a set of small plastic speakers and singing along with unabashed commitment. When she sees me enter, she smiles and begins to sing louder, doing a rotating, triangular dance with her feet while she hacks away at an enormous globe of red cabbage. “Come help me, aide-moi.” She waves me over. “You’re on dessert duty.” Oh, how I love this place already.

She hands me a bowl with a whisk and a glass dairy bottle. “Tonight, whipped cream and fresh figs! They’re like candy this time of year.”

I empty the silky, viscous liquid into the bowl, winding my arm and watching ribbons of white curl into themselves, just beginning to froth at the edges like waves. I hum along to Bea’s symphony and note the gratifying postlabor ache in my biceps.

“New York, be careful with that thing.” I feel a touch on my elbow, and I nearly drop the bowl.

But of course, I know who it is. Henri smells like bitter lavender and clean cotton. Something about the smell, the palm against my elbow, makes me want to sleep next to him. Not with him, exactly, but beside him. Perhaps on an airplane—a long, overnight flight.

I look at him over my shoulder. His hair is wet and glistening where it slouches over his forehead. “Sorry, did you want to comment on my whisking technique?”

“No, no, great form. Very sturdy. Don’t let me interrupt.”

“OK, OK, enough, assez,” Bea interjects, peering into the bowl and removing it from my hands. “You two: The figs. Enough for everyone. Henri, you show Alice.”

“OK, Alice, follow me! Much to teach you! Allons-y.” He pronounces my name at a slant—Ah-lease—with a thin, trailing ssss at the end. It’s a sound I want to follow.

Outside, he leads me past the edge of the house, where Antoine is rinsing buckets from a spigot. Tucked just out of view, beyond the pasture, is a garden so bright and verdant, it seems like something drummed up by the Disney overlords. Low plots studded with cabbage frame walls of tomato vines that have knotted themselves around lean wire structures. Herbs in tight rows feather the edges, and squash and eggplants lay plump and heavy, splayed out lazily in a way that verges on glutinous. Early evening sun streaks in like something poured.

“What, they don’t have gardens in New York?” Henri teases, looking at me askance.

I realize I’m grinning in that stupid, slap-happy way that comes with forgetting yourself. “Honestly . . . no. Not like this.”

He reaches an arm around my shoulder, carrying his musky male scent with him, and I can sense the proximity of his fingers where they dangle above my collarbone. “Awe-struck looks good on you. Makes you seem more gentle.”

Gentle. I turn the word over in my mouth. It’s not one that’s usually ascribed to me, and it feels out of place, like some small bone stuck in the windpipe. Part of me wants to protest: I am cold, aloof, unknowable. But in spite of myself, I like his assertion, like how it registers in his voice.

By some magnetic instinct, I feel myself lean into him—or I stop leaning away—unthinkingly resting my head on his shoulder. He props the angular dip of his chin on my head and uses his other hand to brush the hair behind my ear. We fit. The shape of him feels sturdy, like scaffolding, something vines can grow around. He exhales, and I notice his muscles tightening around the unit of us, that we’re both working hard to stand still.

Behind us, Antoine drops a bucket with a loud, rolling thud, and we both pull away rubber-band fast, unbraiding ourselves sloppily.

As I lean out to extricate myself from Henri completely, he grabs my hand and pulls me forward. “Bet you’ve never picked your own figs before. Come with me.”

He shows me to the back of the garden, where a tree with long, zealous arms drips fruit that dangles like bracelet charms. The branches stoop low enough for us to pick without climbing, and Henri models the way to pull the figs free, collecting them in the gathered hem of his shirt. Together, we pick until our T-shirts sag. Each fruit looks, to me, like a light bulb. The cartoonish depiction of some miraculous realization.

“Have you ever had a fresh fig? As in, just picked from the tree?” Henri asks, and I shake my head.

Carefully, he frees one of his hands, resting his load on the other forearm, and holds one out to me just in front of my lips. “Bite.”

I lean in, open my mouth, and sink my teeth through the leathery skin to the pulpy-textured insides. It’s sweet and sticky in the way of still-young things. When I pull back, I see the constellation of tiny seeds dotting the jammy interior and Henri watching me intently, searching for a reaction.

“Well? Queen of tasting notes, tell me.” There’s hardly a foot between us, and both of us cradle our bounty like some insurance against getting closer.

“Hmm. Like honey, grass, currant jam.”

“No, no. I want Alice words.”

He bites down on the other half, chewing methodically and tossing the stem on the ground, looking me dead in the eyes as he swallows. A smirk tugs at his jaw.

I laugh, move my tongue along my teeth. “Tastes like . . . the prologue to something. First pages, a preamble.”

He contemplates briefly and then reaches to take another bite of a fig at the top of his pile. “You’re either a genius, or you’re completely nuts.” He tosses the remainder of the fig into a compost pile on the ground.

We turn to carry our harvest back to the kitchen, the two of us beaming quietly as if cherishing something far richer than a bounty of figs.

V

Dinner arrives without time for reflection. I sit beside Pietro, and he delights in recounting some late-night saga—ostensibly for my benefit, though it seems that any willing audience would do. “Untz! Untz! Untz!” he yells, pumping a fist in the air. “Really, the DJ was so good. But, listen, it got crazier after that!”

Something about €200 and a man with a forehead tattoo. A trip to his grandmother’s to locate an emergency cash stash. “We took the money, then when we went back, we couldn’t find the guy . . . and when we got back to the club, we were both rolling on molly, and we had all this money, and it was just about to be sunrise, so we’re thinking, What now? And of course, the only thing to do is to meet some pretty girls and go watch the sunrise somewhere—”

I laugh, mostly awed by the joy he’s deriving from his own tale. There is a certain purity, a detectable youth, in his enthusiasm. I’m not so much older than him—six years, maybe—but his particular dialect of mischief feels far away. “So,” I prod, “did you? Meet girls?”

“Oh, yes,” Pietro smiles contentedly. “Yes, we fell in love, my friend and I. We never saw these girls again, but they were perfect—that was the most in love we ever were at the same time. We both fall in love a lot, but not usually at the same time. Anyway, I think they might’ve stolen our money . . . or maybe we gave it to them.”

I giggle, endeared by his ability to pivot a full-on heist into a rom-com narrative.

“And are you in love, bella? How many times are you falling in love?” Pietro rests his head on my shoulder affectionately, batting his eyelashes.

“Don’t bother asking, she’s jaded.” Henri’s voice cuts in, precise and direct, from across the table. He’s sitting diagonal from me, beside Julian, just far enough to be out of earshot—or at least it had seemed that way. I relish the sound of jaded as he speaks it. My word in his mouth.

“What’s jaded?” Julian asks.

“Henri, mind your business!” Pietro interrupts. “You get to pick in the vines with Alice all day, now it’s my turn. Alice, you tell us.”

I shrug my shoulders, beaming. However choppy and misdirected the attention, it feels good to be sought after. There is a warmth to it, a camaraderie. “When you’re jaded, you’re cold, or removed, or unimpressed. It’s a term I imagine will never apply to you.” I knock Pietro’s shoulder with mine. “But me, well, I don’t fall in love very easily. I have been in love, but it’s been a long time.”

The three of them all look at me expectantly, awaiting some longer-form explanation. I try to give them one. “It’s not that I’m, like, allergic to being in love—or morally opposed to dating,” I justify, registering their disappointment. “It just doesn’t happen easily for me. I don’t have whatever Italian gene it is that predisposes you to romance.”

“She’s lying to us,” Julian says decisively, making eye contact with Pietro. “She’s playing hard to get.”

“Si, ragazzo, I think so too.” Pietro nods emphatically. “I think I am very good to fall in love with, though. I’m sure I can help you with your boy problem.”

“Alice, come with me to bring out the dessert,” Henri interrupts, standing up from the table abruptly. I look down at my plate—it’s three-quarters full. I’d only just begun to make a dent in my meal. No one else has made much progress with the ratatouille yet either.

“He’s stealing her from us again. Que cazzo!” Pietro cries out in a theatrical display.

I know I don’t need to indulge Henri, but still, I step away from my chair and toward his outstretched arm. He places a hand on the small of my back and urges me toward the kitchen. “Is someone jealous?” I taunt once we’re out of earshot.

“Jealous? Of what? L’Italien flirting with you? No, no.”

“I think you are.”

“Pas du tout, not at all. I just thought you might want to take a break from Monsieur Techno. And lucky for you, I am very chivalrous.”

“Ah, OK, then. Lucky me.” Normally, I might bristle at this show of low-grade possessiveness, but the truth is, I believe it myself: Lucky me, lucky me, lucky me.

We pause outside the kitchen door and turn to face each other. The perimeter of his chin is outlined neatly by the glow of the yellowed lamp that hangs at the entryway, its light only powerful enough to dilute the darkness, not cut through it. Though we’ve stopped moving, the hand he’d placed on my lower back is still there. I can’t tell if I feel his pulse in his fingers, where they’re nestled between the ridges of my spine, or if it’s my own blood pumping. Nice to be rescued, I think to myself. Even if from nothing.

“So . . . what have I missed?” he asks gingerly.

“In the ten minutes we’ve been apart?”

“Come on, it’s been longer than that.”

“So you did miss me.”

“Did not. Did you miss me?”

“No.”

“Good.” He reaches up to tuck a strand of hair behind my ear, and his other arm is still firmly in place, keeping me stationary. He is close enough that I can feel the momentum of his exhales—the way the molecules move in waves between us. His eyes trail down to my mouth, and I wait, stock still, to see if he will kiss me.

I’m not used to this version of wondering—the open-ended taunt of flirtation without some physical consummation. Had we been loitering outside of some sweaty dive bar in New York, tipsy and warm in the matte blue-black of summer evening, we’d already be hailing a cab back to one of our apartments. No one I know in the real world—no full-blown adult—entertains this kind of sultry suspense without action.

“Good,” I whisper back.

I have no sense of how long we stand like that in silence, in that precursor to kissing. Only that it is far longer than is standard for two people who have spoken ceaselessly since meeting.

“There you are!”

We both look up, and I feel my breath catch in my throat. Henri drops his hand, and I cross my arms over my chest, as if the gesture might make our tableau less incriminating. And is it? I ask myself. Incriminating?

Antoine is marching toward us with determination, something almost feral in his posture. When he gets close enough, he eyes Henri with a certain sharpness before continuing into the house.

“Don’t worry, I’ll get the dessert, then,” Henri says to the ground and trails after his uncle. For a moment, I stand alone in the limp light, listening to the low rumble of activity in the kitchen on one side of me and the buzz of conversation at the table on the other, belonging to neither one.

I walk back wondering what, exactly, has just happened—why I can taste guilt when I haven’t done anything wrong.

“She returns! There she is,” Pietro shouts in my direction, standing up to pull out my chair with a feverish bow. “They always come back!”

VI

The following morning, Henri hardly speaks while we work opposite each other in the vines. We fill bucket after bucket with Sylvaner, emptying them one by one into the baquet, listening to the relentless thrum of French conversation around us while we harvest in silence. This hush, almost deafening, reinforces my gnawing sense that whatever transpired yesterday was, somehow, a transgression—even if a devastatingly innocent one.

At 10:00 a.m., Julian climbs into the back of the truck and calls out an announcement through cupped hands: “Antoine says he’d like a team of us to start out on a new plot. We have a lot to get through today!” Oh, how he delights in the vague power that comes with his unpaid intern stature.

He jumps down and walks along the outer perimeter of the vines. “OK, you three—come with me.” He gestures toward myself, Henri, and Ruby, and we traipse to the vehicle and maneuver ourselves inside.

“The chosen ones. Aren’t we lucky?” Ruby sings, sitting between Henri and me and placing an arm around each of us. “You think we’re being promoted?”

“From free laborer to senior free laborer?” I joke.

“Maybe demoted,” she amends.

“Feels more likely,” Henri adds.

“With that attitude.” Ruby musses his hair, a brusque, fraternal gesture.

We’ve been picking low to the ground since I arrived, but now we drive past miles of midrange vines within reach at a proper standing height. Then we arrive at a portion of the domaine where the grapes stretch so high, I wonder how we’ll pick them at all.

The answer: We’ll do so perched on stacks of overturned buckets. And within minutes, my calves ache from standing on my tiptoes. Our arms are angled upward as if we’re performing a ritual to will rain from the sky. My triceps throb from holding the prolonged position, a pain that recalls the discomfort of blow-drying my hair (something else that takes too long).

It is hot—scorching enough that the work grows more tedious as the sun beats down on our shoulders. Our pace is glacial. Our buckets fill at a devastatingly slow rate. The size of the fruit, the difficulty of the task, makes it impossible to move quickly. These shriveled, tiny grapes, Julian takes great pains to explain, will be used for sweet or fortified wines, since they’re so overripe, so loaded with late-season sugar.

“God, I’m sweating heaps,” Ruby announces. “You’ll all need to entertain me if we’re going to make it through today. Who has gossip?” With excessive drama, she lugs her bucket several feet to the left to begin hacking away at a new section. “Julian, you’re up. Tell us a secret.”

Julian, who has just removed his T-shirt to tie it haphazardly around his head, looks over in mock anger. “I have no secrets. I’m German.”

“What does that even mean?” Ruby cries and tosses up her hands.

“Not true. Impossible,” I say. “Good characters all have secrets.”

“Just because you and Henri spend all day sharing your oral autobiographies doesn’t mean I have to.” Julian looks between the two of us tauntingly.

“Sure does!” Henri pipes up.

“I’ll tell mine if you tell yours,” Ruby proposes.

It isn’t difficult to siphon information out of Ruby, but in this particular context, there’s something to offering collateral. And Julian seems like the sort of man who requires negotiation to close any deal.

“Fine,” he starts. “I’ll answer any question you want if I can ask any of you a question in return—and you have to answer honestly.”

“Deal,” Henri agrees, and Ruby and I nod.

“OK, then, what exactly do you want to know?”

“Obviously we want to know if you have a lover,” Ruby responds without hesitation, lingering on the syrupy syllables of that last word.

I grin and swell with buoyant affection for her. Ruby, with her hands on her hips, socks pulled nearly up to her calves in her Blundstone boots. Julian is now shirtless, but Ruby’s taken a different sartorial approach: She’s wearing enough fabric to cover the both of them. In a long-sleeved button-down with a handkerchief tied around her neck, she’s committed in full to protecting her alabaster, redhead skin. The overall effect implies camp counselor or zookeeper.

“Oh, well, I’m actually engaged.”

“Like . . . to be married?” Ruby guffaws.

“Yes, doch, oui. My girlfriend and I have been dating since high school. We went to university together, and then she’s been working to go to law school while I’m finishing out viticulture school. And then, eventually, once we’re married and settled, we’re going to inherit her family’s vineyard, and we’ll make wine there together.”

“Wow! A full twenty-year plan! Way to make a romantic story deeply unromantic. At the very least, give us some details,” Ruby prods. “How’d you fall in love? What’s she like? Is she beautiful? What’s her zodiac sign?”

“She’s a Taurus, and yes, she has very nice hair,” Julian answers earnestly. The three of us hiccup with laughter in response. Ah, the austere Julian-ness of it all.

“I don’t know! It just makes sense. I’m not a very romantic person, but yeah, I would like for us to get older together or whatever, OK? Is that not sappy enough for you?”

“But . . . you’ve never dated anyone else? Ever?” Henri sweeps a curtain of hair out of his eyes with his forearm, leaving a small scrim of dirt across his forehead.

“Nein.”

“As in nine people or as in German for no?” Henri pokes.

“No—but don’t make fun of me.” Julian gives him a stern look. “Haven’t you been dating your girlfriend for just as long? At least I had the balls to propose!”

I feel Ruby nudge me in the ribs, a physical acknowledgment that we’ve crossed over into new territory. And though Henri seems just as reticent to answer as I am to hear his response, I know we’re all flagrantly curious.

“The difference is . . . I couldn’t marry her. Can’t marry her.” Henri shrugs and angles himself toward Julian so I can see only the back of his head while he speaks. “We’ve been together since university, but we’ve known each other since we were little kids. We grew up together; we’ve got shared friends and all that. We’ve both dated other people . . . but barely. That’s why we’re taking this break. Or . . . it’s part of the reason, I guess.”

“Is romance dead? My God!” Ruby throws her hands in the air in frustration. “You’re both telling the most unsexy stories about being in love I’ve ever heard.”

Henri laughs gently. It’s an exhale, really, tinted with laughter. Fou rire is a phrase he taught me yesterday afternoon: “giggling.” What sparkling wine tastes like.

“Well,” he continues, still angling his speech toward Julian, “I think we’re both a bit unhappy. But we’ve never been unhappy without the other one. I guess maybe we both sometimes feel like furniture in each other’s lives.”

“I don’t understand.” Julian shrugs and bends a branch down toward him to clip a particularly healthy bunch, letting it fall with a heavy thud into the bucket below.

“Furniture is a good word for that.” I feel compelled to contribute something to the discussion—as if my relative silence is telling on me. As if to prove that I can participate casually, that I’m not rapturous over these tepid declarations from Henri.

“I don’t think of my girlfriend as a sofa, particularly,” Julian retorts, and instantly, the rest of us are doubled over, laughing with giddy fatigue. A rare, unexpected joke, nestled in Julian’s signature deadpan delivery, punching through the melancholia of the exchange. It’s like we’re letting air out of an overinflated thing.

As I giggle, I reach above my head to clip the end of a vine, and my hand slips. My clipper clamps around the end of my pointer finger instead. I draw in a sharp inhale and drop the clippers to the ground to clutch my finger, where blood is blooming like an ink stain at the tip.

“Ça va?” Henri is fast in that boyish, poised-to-protect way. Our first declaratively tender exchange of the day, I think. How relieving, how relieving. He holds my finger and examines it from both sides. “Hmm, yes, we’ll have to cut that one off.”

I roll my eyes, and he smirks. Then he holds my wrist, elevates my hand, and leads me around the back of the pickup truck to our water jug, switching the tap on to rinse my cut. I watch ribbons of bright red mix in with the water and drip down both of our forearms before pooling at our elbows and then the ground. I wonder what’s loosened him up, warmed him toward me. Why now?

When things look clean enough, he pulls my hand out of the stream to reassess, watching as fresh blood finds its way out in small droplets. With an assured, pointed curiosity, he flicks his eyes up toward mine. Then without hesitation, he lifts my finger to his mouth and sucks as if he’s releasing olive flesh from its pit. My other fingers dangle uselessly, debating whether they’re meant to cradle the stubble on his chin or hang limp. I feel the damp, living heat of his mouth, the gentle edge of his teeth. Feel my body respond with desire, the swell of it radiating from somewhere deep inside me.

We stand like that, no longer anxious or shifty about the project of prolonged eye contact, daring each other to look away. He pulls my finger free, inspects it for improvement, then retreats to the cab of the truck.

He returns with a Band-Aid. “All better, no?” He wraps it around my finger.

I nod. “Thank God we have a medical professional here.”

“I think I might’ve just saved your life.”

“It’s possible.”

On the other side of the truck, there’s a loud “Ahem” from Julian, looking askance with his hands on his hips. “If you’re done over there, we’ve got grapes to pick.”

We jog over, smiling, to resume our positions. I glance at my finger with fondness, as though the neatly applied bandage serves as some saccharine souvenir of Henri’s affection.

“Well, now that I’ve got an audience back, it’s my turn,” Ruby starts as soon as we’re in a rhythm, clipping away, shaking out our knotted biceps. “I do, indeed, have secrets.”

“This better be good.” Julian tosses a mangled branch of rotting grapes gently in her direction.

“Of course it’ll be good,” I call back without a clue what she’s about to share.

“It’s true.” Ruby loosens her makeshift ascot as if prepping her vocal cords to begin. “Since you lot seem incapable of delivering, I’ll tell you something that’s actually interesting. Withhold your judgment . . .” She tucks a few rogue wisps of hair behind her ears, emitting a palpable eagerness—as if she’s been waiting for precisely this pack of pseudostrangers, cloistered in this precise patch of no-man’s-land, for her disclosure. “The truth is, I’ve been sleeping with a married man.” She pauses, gazing at each of us slowly, gauging reactions—but no one seems particularly scandalized. We know so little of one another beyond the scope of these vines. As comfortable as I am with her, I can barely envision Ruby transposed into the real world, party to its ethical guidelines. “I don’t know how you feel about infidelity,” she continues, “but I, myself, would have said I was opposed until, well, right now.”

I consider my own stance. Surely, I’d have said the same—opposed!—but then again, nothing about her admission inspires a sense of righteousness in me. It does little to change my perception of her. Ruby, a three-dimensional person, is moving through the world, making choices, submitting to romance, perhaps wreaking a bit of havoc along the way. We all wreak our havocs of varying degrees and intensities, don’t we?

“Anyway, he’s quite a bit older; he’s been married for longer than I’ve been alive.” Her attention is back on the vines. “They don’t have sex anymore, he and his wife—which, I know, not a rare issue. But the thing between us, whatever it is, is very real. And no, I don’t mean that in a deluded way. I don’t pretend like I’d like to marry him, and I certainly don’t want him to leave his wife. But in this particular moment, I think we’re both giving each other exactly what we need. And I have to believe that’s a good thing.”

“And what’s that thing?” Henri asks. “What’s the thing you both need?” I’d wanted to ask the same question.

“To feel like we’re both deserving of being heard, and adored, and ravished. Or maybe just being looked at in certain ways.” She pauses, squinting her eyes up at the sun in thought. “I think people require that sensation, or at least a piece of it, to move through the world. And sometimes you’ve been with your partner for so long, they don’t see you anymore. It’s nobody’s fault, but everyone needs to be noticed.”

“I’m not sure I’ve ever felt that desire,” Julian admits.

“Maybe that’s because you’ve never been without it—that sense of being witnessed. At least, not at an age where the lack-there-of-ness would feel palpable,” I offer. I know, in the marrow of my bones, what it feels like to have your partner look right through you. It requires extreme measures. Leaving. Cheating. Demolition of some kind.

“The problem with things like that is they always become uneven. One of you always wants more than the other,” Henri chimes in. As my finger throbs, I attempt to interpret his meaning. Whether want, in his terms, is a burden or a gift.

VII

By the time we’ve all undergone our six-minute cleansing rituals, it’s dark outside. Clad in soccer shorts and a white button-down, I comb my hair while Ruby weaves her mania of copper curls.

“Have you ever wondered what makes French braids French?” I ask her, watching the way her fingers dovetail nimbly, over and over again, at the back of her skull.

“It’s probably just Europeans culturally appropriating something else.”

“God forbid there was a trend the French couldn’t take credit for.”

She chuckles and winds an elastic band around her braid’s bottom tassel, then plops herself beside me at the foot of my bed. “You want one too?”

I nod, touched by the offer. It seems childish to ask, but I love the affectionate tug that comes from having your hair done—especially at the mercy of hands that feel familiar.

We turn to face the headboard, both of us cross-legged, her behind me, like children miming the act of driving a car.

“So, now that I have you to myself . . .” I feel her gently parceling my hair into three even portions. “Whatcha gonna do about Henri, honeybee? We’re days in, and it practically takes work for you to not go at it in the vines. It’s pretty full-on.”

I feel my face grow warm, and I’m grateful to have my back turned to her. I am not, by nature, coy in this way; I’m not sure I’ve felt myself blush romantically in years . . . probably not since the tried-and-true days of (age-appropriate) slumber-party hair plaiting. I’ve forgotten that there is a certain humiliation that comes with infatuation. A certain mortifying nakedness. How embarrassing it is to feel some palpable, physical yearning for the simple fact of someone else’s proximity. How bizarrely juvenile.

“The thing is, we’re not here for that long. And I have absolutely no interest in blowing up his life, or his relationship, regardless of the whole break thing. I’m not gonna, like, stand outside of his window with a boom box or anything. But . . . I mean, I’d pick him.”

“You’d pick him? Like out of a hat? Off of a vine?”

“No, ha ha.” I enunciate the syllables, suddenly too exposed to laugh in earnest. “I mean, I often feel like I’m circumstantially in relationships. Someone’s there and it makes sense. But I’m not the one who did the choosing. With Henri, well, I’d pick him.”

“In a very evasive, Alice way, that’s actually quite tender.” She ties off the end of the braid and stands up to examine her work from the front. “C’est parfait, my dear. Henri will love it.”

I giggle, responding both to her prodding and to the quiet relief of having relinquished some part of this thing to someone else. I’ve been told this is commonly referred to as letting someone in. “It’s been a long time since I’ve had a crush. I think maybe it feels easy because it’ll never work out. He has a sort-of girlfriend. We live on different continents. It’s all just hypothetical.”

“You think too much for your own good. It’s supposed to be fun, chérie. Let’s go eat. I’m starving.”

Downstairs, the table is already set. The group that remained among the central vines returned early enough to prep dinner. They’ve already taken their places, so just a handful of spots remain for us at the end of the table. Ruby and I sit, surveying the spread by lantern light: an enormous grain salad alongside platters loaded with enough sausage to feed a small army. Julian is directly across from me, Henri to his left.

When Antoine strides in, he looks like he could part seas if he wanted to. I watch as he sidles into the empty chair to my right and promptly loads his plate with so many sausages, I wonder if he’s doing so satirically. “Not all for me!” he clarifies, seeing me eye his plate. “Bringing these back to Bea—she’s at home with the dogs.”

“Ah! That’s kind, c’est gentil.”

He smiles. “Doing well so far? You seem to have taken to things quite quickly.” He gives me a delicate bump on the shoulder with his knuckles. I listen closely for accusatory undertones, snide subtext, but I don’t register any. “This year’s a good harvest crew. Everyone fits together so nicely. Doesn’t always happen that way, does it now, Henri?”

Henri, who has what appears to be half a sausage in his mouth, swallows in one enormous, haphazard gulp. “I . . . yeah.”

I can’t read the rapport here; I’m convinced I’m missing something in their dynamic, and the not knowing is laced with a taught anxiety. I’m entirely uncertain what sort of conversations they’ve had in my absence. Whether our so-called flirtation—a word that feels too crass, too easy, too unserious—is a problem for some reason. One that’s substantial enough to cause a rift between them.

“Everyone has a little more life in their eyes this year, no?” Antoine addresses the larger group now. “And well, the harvest. The grapes are looking so beautiful. Not nearly as much frost as last winter.” I watch as he heaps a sandcastle’s worth of farro salad onto his plate. “Alice, I’ll need your help in the morning with pigeage. Come meet me in the cave at 6:00, ça marche?”

“Oui!” I look up expectantly. Henri still has his head turned down to his meal, gazing so committedly at his food, he might be saying grace.

“Mais . . . pigeage . . . ?” I wonder aloud, directing my inquisition to no one in particular. Well, to Henri, but not to Henri.

“Pigeage, ‘foot stomping.’” Julian maneuvers his hands back and forth in the air as if operating a bicycle with his arms. “We foot stomp the grapes we don’t load into the press. Americans always make jokes about I Love Lucy when they hear about it, but I’ve never seen that movie.”

“It’s a show,” I correct.

“I’ve never seen that show.”

“I have!” Ruby chimes in.

“It’s good experience for you,” Julian continues, making me feel that much less chosen with his typical manner of Germanic precision. “But it’s not as fun and silly as it sounds. It’s like marching in place in wet sand. For a long time.”

“It is fun and silly,” Ruby interjects. “But yes, hard.”

“The folks in the cave don’t speak much English, though. So don’t be surprised when you mistake instructions,” Julian goes on.

“Ta gueule,” I fire back. Shut up.

“Hey, elle a un bon accent,” Henri tells him in French. Her accent is good.

“She’ll be just fine,” Antoine says firmly, his party platter of encased meat still poised in front of him.

VIII

I stand at the sink, feeling my fingers prune in the soapy water. Dirt clings resolutely to the skin under my nails, holding fast even in the pool of dish liquid. There is a certain catharsis to washing dishes—the tactile ease with which a situation can be resolved, debris expunged.

One by one, I pull from the precarious stack of plates beside me. As the others mill back and forth from the table, clearing away dishware, the pile grows steadily in size. I feel a surge of gratitude for the silence of my task. No French to be spoken, decoded. It dawns on me that this is the closest to alone I’ve found myself since arriving—that I haven’t had the opportunity to get acquainted with my own brain material for some time.

I decide that after the clean plates are stacked, the sink drained, and the compost loaded, I’ll call Emma, who will love nothing more than the news that I’ve developed a crush. I can imagine the tinge of hyperbolic awe in her voice: A crush? Is this my Alice we’re talking about? Tell me everything.

I’ll start by telling her about harvest writ large: The geometric impossibility of vines reaching toward some unknowable horizon. The ways in which French has started to change, has fermented into something more available to me. The earnest, endless confessions amid the sacred space of the vineyards.

And then Henri. I want to talk about Henri. I can’t figure out where, exactly, to place him. I know that all of it—the whole of being here—feels so decidedly large, so worthy of reflection. He, however, is different. Separate from the Experience, a more novel plot point for me. I can feel it—whatever it is that I’m feeling—in my sternum. Not quite my heart but the pulsing, vibrating space around it. It feels like hunger.

I finish sponging the countertop clean, and when I turn away from the sink to wipe my hands dry with the dish towel, there he is. Like some willed hallucination.

Henri leans against the doorframe, arms crossed over his chest, watching. I pause, wondering if it’s possible that he’s just stared right through my skull, read the full transcript of my interior dish dialogue.

“What?” I shrug like I’ve been caught.

“Didn’t wanna interrupt you. You looked very zen.”

“I like doing dishes.”

“In that case, you’re welcome to come visit me in Lyon any time.”

“How generous.”

“Wanna take a walk?”

I do, of course. Want to. But the two of us alone, without a grapevine barrier, feels more concrete than hypothetical. Part of me, I’m aware, prefers to enjoy him as a metaphor—some bit of evidence toward my capacity for feeling and being felt, but at arm’s distance.

I can see him register my hesitation, the slight false start. My body’s involuntary draw toward him while my feet remain rooted in place.

“Come on, it’s just a walk. Harmless.”

Who am I kidding? Henri is not an abstraction or some savory bit of gossip. He is right here with his fingertips hooked onto the doorframe. My reluctance is flimsy, performative for my own benefit, and he sees through it, a taunting grin etched across his face. But hell, agency isn’t about making the righteous choice. It’s about making a choice—and I want to breathe this boy’s air.

I walk to him, and he weaves his arm through the crook of my elbow.

“What were you thinking about in there? You were so absorbed.” He opens the door for us.

I shrug.

“Fine, you’ll tell me later. Do you wanna know what I was thinking about?”

“Oui.”

“Your hands.”

I exhale through my nose and bite my lower lip, picturing my wounded fingertip in his mouth. Instinctively, I curl both hands into fists. “Go on.”

“You have crazy hands. Seriously, they’re never still. So much of your personality lives in them—I see it when you talk, when you work with grapes, when you cut food. When you do dishes, apparently. I like it.” He unfurls my fist and loops his fingers through mine, resting his thumb against my palm and pressing down as if to trigger some button-operated response.

“I have, indeed, been known to gesticulate.”

“You know, I think about hands a lot. They’re a thing for me. I’ve watched my uncle’s hands working the vineyards since I was a little kid. I’ve worked in restaurants for ten years. All this time, looking at palms and fingers. And your hands are specific. They’ve got energy in them, like they’ve always got something to say . . . even if you don’t know what it is yet.”

He pauses, lifting one of my hands to his mouth, pressing his lips to my knuckles, resting there as if taking my temperature. For a moment, I relish the gesture for what it is. Then I look at him and sigh. “Henri, before—” Suddenly, I feel soap operatic in pressing him. Nothing in this is meant to be heavy. Summer camp, no? But I’m too tired of our convoluted rapport, this state of limbo, not to meddle. “What about Antoine? What about your girlfriend?”

He locks eyes with me, a certain wounded surprise settling into his face. “Antoine is just protective, OK? Paternal. It’s nothing against you. It’s just that he knows my girlfriend, knows how devastated I was when the bar closed. He thinks I’m gonna make some kind of rash decision and blow up my life. But he doesn’t understand: Charlotte and I chose to take a break. I wanted a change.”

“Charlotte . . .” I feel the contours of her name against the back of my teeth. It had been easy up until now to forget that she was a real person—with a distinct laugh and painted fingernails, probably. “OK, but . . . Charlotte, does she—”

“Look, can we not talk about this right now? We’ve been working all day. I don’t have the energy.”

I can feel him recede a bit, retreat into himself—and I want him back. I resent having ruptured the intimacy between us in my attempt to depose him. I’m not sure I even want to know more about Charlotte. Or Antoine. It seems just as likely that I’m simply trying to squelch my own—rare—inclination toward affection. Making things difficult for impossibility’s sake.

“Oui, oui, OK, désolée. You’re right.” I miss his lips on my knuckles.

“Merci . . . I appreciate it.” He pauses, looking down at his shoes, and slides his now-open hand into his pocket. For a moment, we stand like that, too far apart, and he shifts uneasily from one foot to the other.

“Ah! I almost forgot!” His voice is gleeful now. He unveils an envelope of gold foil and peels back each layer as if unearthing some historic thing to reveal two small rectangles of chocolate. “The best and darkest chocolate there is. So bitter, it’s almost savory. You love the taste of strange things. I thought you’d want to try.”

I reach for a piece and place it in my mouth: The texture is grainy and tough, like soil. It has the sour, acrid drone of coffee grounds or lemon rind, but underneath, it’s still chocolate—cautiously decadent.

Bitter things, I know, once signified danger. Way back when we were untamed and primal, it was how we detected poison—or at the very least, forbidden matter. Now we’ve been coddled into believing we needn’t heed warning signs. Everything has an antidote; danger is relative.

“Tastes like rot.” I swallow. “Like rot on purpose. The good kind.”

“Just like wine, no?”

“Precisely.” I grin in spite of myself.

He says the right things. And what am I to do with someone who keeps on saying the right things?

I watch as he fingers the hem of his linen shirt anxiously—another shift in demeanor. He seems to be shuffling between two modes of being: one flirty, breezy, and cavalier, the other apprehensive and withholding. I wonder if my own shaky indecision is radiating off me just as clearly.

“Alice, it’s hard,” he blurts—as if he’s long been holding this particular statement, fully formed, poised at the front of his mouth. “I’m realizing that people hardly ever leave. They stay, and stay, and stay, like Ruby’s guy. They stay when all the feeling is gone, as long as things aren’t awful. We have no protocol for leaving something that is just fine. I don’t know how it’s done.” He toys with the edges of the foil wrapping, and his forehead creases in thought.

How strange it is to care for someone. Even with plenty of my own selfish Henri-related impulses to gun for, right now, I want to absolve him of his malaise. I want to carry it for him. “Well . . . I think it’s easy to assume that leaving is the solution, but, I mean, you don’t get to arrive anywhere clean. Relocating doesn’t rewire your brain.” I put my hand over his to pause his restless fidgeting.

“Listen: I’d be lying if I said I wanted anything less than a new identity or, perhaps, a fresh code of DNA from this experience.” I realize I’m talking to my feet and look up at him. “But, unfortunately, I have to stay me, and you have to stay you.”

He laughs and chews on his lip. “You know . . .” He takes a step closer. The dark is so complete that the glowing squares of window light from the house appear like floating portals. “You’re quite wise, New York.” Another step closer. “I . . . I’d like to watch you do dishes more often.”

I laugh, run my tongue over the compliment, savoring the perfect symmetry of his delivery. Ruby was right: There’s nutritional value in being looked at in certain ways. It’s nourishing, the way he witnesses.

“Oh yeah? You into that? Dish-doing?”

“I guess I’d watch you do most things.”

I laugh, louder now.

“Sorry . . . too much?” His eyes dart across my face, searching for some legible reaction.

I nod, doing my best to keep my face neutral, to weigh down the corners of my mouth.

“Do you want me to look at you?”

Again, I nod. But this time I don’t suppress my smile. It arrives both because of and in spite of him.

The space between us is so narrow, I can see the gaps between his teeth. It’s almost as if we could transfer air in some closed-loop system, breathing each other in.

“I’d like to kiss you.” His voice is not quite a whisper. Some in-between decibel. I can feel the kinetic force of the acknowledgment. I don’t dare lean in, however desperately I want to. If there is a line, it’s his to cross. Stay still, stay still, I will my feet, repeating the directive like some protective omen. He runs his hand through his hair, bites his lip again.

As if on cue, out of the dense silence: the sound of a glass shattering, sharp and briny. A light switches on in the kitchen, leaking yellow into the dark void where we stand.

“I’d like to kiss you too,” I say, and I turn to walk back toward the house.

IX

I wake up and nudge the debris from my eyes, wondering how much time has passed since I crawled into bed. In New York, I often tossed and turned anxiously, anticipating whether or not sleep would wade in, would last. Here, I tend to lie down only to blink awake at the sound of my alarm moments later, as if the hours between have been nothing but a jump-cut. Two separate days spliced together.

I stumble downstairs, barefoot, for coffee. The espresso machine makes a deep, guttural sound, something like a stomach whining, while it grinds beans and siphons liquid into the thimble-size cup. I bring it to my mouth, and it’s hot enough to burn—just a small singe like some branding of the tongue.

Having woken before Ruby, I dress in the dark, choosing garments suited to the task of pigeage—or my understanding of it, at least. Outside the bedroom window, the sun is just beginning to leak over the vines, and its nascent light is yolky and thin. I tiptoe outside to finish my espresso on a wooden bench that’s flush with the back of the house, and I revel in the quiet. There is something I’ve always loved about waking up first in a house full of people, sampling the day before it’s intended for use. Borrowed time.

As I empty my coffee, a long shadow falls across my lap. Standing there, unapologetically tall, is Antoine, with an espresso of his own balanced atop a saucer. Briefly, I feel a certain nakedness at having gone saucer-less.

He sits beside me and takes a long, drawn-out sip before addressing me. “I love this time of day.” I wonder if he’s selected me for the task of pigeage with intention, sensing we might share some strange affinity for the day’s preamble.

“Me too. It feels so private.”

“It’s true. You know, harvest is quite social, isn’t it? I’m used to being here alone—or mostly alone—for so much of the year.” He set his drink down on the bench. “Then, for this little stretch of time, the whole place feels so alive.”

“Which version do you prefer?”

“This arrangement gets a little exhausting—I like my solitude. But then I have moments when I look at all of you at the end of the day. You’re all tired, laughing, enjoying one another. That’s good for me. There are phases when I get so focused on the vine work, the soil, all the technical stuff in the cellar. Tasting, sugar densities, blending, racking. Sometimes I forget what it looks like to enjoy wine.”

“Really?” I’m not sure why it surprises me that a man so gifted in his technical craft might be just as commendably thoughtful in more nebulous ways.

He smiles softly, gazing down into his cup. “At the start of a meal, I watch you all taste something—you pay attention, you notice, you listen. Then, you forget. You talk to one another with so much enthusiasm. The wine is just there as background noise—that’s how it’s supposed to be. An accoutrement, not the main event.”

I can’t help but grin in that unabashed, anything-but-coy way I seem to do so much here. “That’s really good. You should write that down.”

“Why are you smiling so big?” He nudges my shoulder.

As I consider, I rest my eyes on the yellowing horizon. “Because it’s true. When I got here, that was the first thing I noticed—how layered and loud and rich it was to sit and watch people at a table like that. How it gives the wine a certain taste or, at least, some memorable quality.”

What I mean is: It’s begun to seem to me as if thirst presents in its own extraordinarily palpable ways here—not for wine but for everything. A near-biological yearning for conversation, physical contact, intimacy. Grammatically, in French, you “have thirst”: Tu as soif. As if that kind of desire were something you could hold, a souvenir. As if it were real and essential enough to exist in some three-dimensional form atop the table.

I continue, attempting to convey the vivid desperation and near-violent satisfaction this place conjures for me. “Every day here, by lunchtime, it feels like I have never been hungrier, have never wanted food with such desperation. I don’t think I’ve ever drank—water and wine, both—with such enthusiasm, felt so enrapt in conversation, or so eager to crawl into bed. It’s like this constant rhythm of longing and satisfying.”

Antoine nods slowly, a smirk of his own growing. “I think that’s why people come here. It makes them feel very human.”

“I imagine it’s very therapeutic.”

“Is it? You tell me. You’re the one living it.”

I chew on my lower lip, tug at the hem of my shorts. “I’d say so. I think I forgot what it felt like to want things. Maybe wanting is the opposite of apathy—it’s so vulnerable to want.”

“You didn’t want anything when you got here?”

“I think I was just comfortable at home. Maybe a little numb. I forgot how good it feels to desire.”

“And Henri? Does that kind of wanting count?” he asks. His question is abrupt, but his tone isn’t sharp. My skin prickles with exposure. I feel the anxious groan of shame set in, somewhere in my abdomen, and I wonder if it belongs. Antoine stares ahead, seemingly unfazed, in a way that I hope implies curiosity rather than criticism. I resolve to respond in good faith, treat this as a plainly democratic conversation.

“I . . . yeah. Oui, ça compte, it counts. But I think the wanting is the important part—sort of a healthy thing for the both of us?” I attempt to take a sip from my cup, forgetting that I’ve already emptied it. I don’t mean to speak on Henri’s behalf—I just want Antoine to understand that there is an odd innocence to our intentions. “I like to think the wanting will have been special. Plenty of reasons to leave things unactualized, and . . .” I trail off, curious as to whether my spiel has made sense, has translated properly. And I realize, in some small and mortifying moment of clarity, that I am telling the truth. There’s something so rich about the longing—all the more savory and outsized because it’s an impossibility. I have no need to complicate matters by integrating reality.

Or maybe that isn’t true at all. Maybe it is easier to bar myself from believing I can have the real thing. That way, the absence won’t hurt.

“Hmm. I see, I see.” He scratches his beard. “Listen, people are complicated—I can’t say what’s right for either of you. But be careful: Just because you’re both removed from your day-to-day lives doesn’t mean that whatever happens here won’t travel home with you.”

I nod diligently. Fearfully, almost.

By now, the sun is beaming, and the music of morning is spilling out from the house: phone alarms, spoons clinking against glassware, water running, footsteps and footsteps and footsteps.

“Shall we?” Antoine asks, standing and stretching one arm over his head. He presents as stoic, neither generous nor judgmental.

“Oui, on y va,” I respond, and I rush to deposit our coffee cups into the sink before following him into the cellar.

True to its name, the space is cavernous, with concrete floors and high, rounded ceilings. It’s lined in what seems like a random assortment of casks, tanks, and oak barrels so large, barrel hardly seems the proper term. Nestled between, there are enormous steel presses shaped like the tumblers on the backs of cement trucks and designed to squeeze juice from the fresh grapes we pick each day. They cough out the excess bits—skins, branches, leaves—in a bin beneath.

Antoine shows me how to measure the sugar densities and the temperatures in each separate vessel, marking them down in black marker on a laminated sheet. As the wines ferment, both the temperature and the sugar levels rise. That’s how we know the magic is happening.

I climb into tanks one by one, dragging a rusted ladder with me for access, marching around the surface of each container to press the fermenting grapes gently. Each day, these tanks are pressed by foot, the ever-alluring act of pigeage. Waddling around inside feels like mucking through mud—how I used to imagine quicksand might function when I read about it in novels. At first, the surface feels firm and unyielding—then, as I shift my weight from one foot to the next, I sink slowly until I’m thigh deep. Then I wrench each leg free and go again. Just like that, in circles, fifteen minutes in each tank.

Once the grapes begin to arrive, directly from the picking team in the vines, I stand in empty tanks while the fruit is loaded into each one via a long conveyor belt. The machine is called a giraffe—jhee-raf, Antoine pronounces it—and it does indeed resemble the elongated neck of a zoo animal as it feeds fruit from bins on the floor up over the lip of this enormous cylinder. Inside, my job is to press quickly with my feet to ensure that we are sealing in as many grapes as possible, making room for more.

At the end of the first shift, my legs ache. I crave sunlight. My temples hurt from the darkness and the mental work of translation—just as Julian warned, the cellar operates solely in rapid-fire French. I’m flailing about to keep up, faltering with directions given to me at a breakneck pace.

Once afternoon arrives, I begin to hear engines shorting outside, sputtering to a stop to deposit the pickers, and the faint, undulating beat of techno pulses, courtesy of our Italian boy. I have one tank remaining—the day’s final pigeage. It just happens to be a wide, square vat large enough to serve as a small swimming pool.

“Should only take you two hours!” Antoine teases, winking at me.

I’m rinsing pinot noir off my legs with a hose, and he must see the flash of horror in my eyes. “I’m just kidding. C’est une blague—it’s a joke.” He wraps an arm around my shoulder playfully. “I’ll have Julian send someone in to help you with the last tank. With two of you, it’ll take no time.”

Light unfurls across the floor in wide bands as he pushes open the cellar doors and strides outside, calling Julian’s name. I stand, barefoot and damp, in spandex shorts and a sports bra—my skin, from the knees down, stained a rusted-red hue like a drunken shadow. I position the ladder against the final vat and climb it slowly, rung by rung, careful not to slip as I hoist myself into the tank. The grapes feel gelatinous and cool against my heels—aloe on a sunburn.

Then, in the doorway: Henri, shaped like a chess piece or a good omen.

He holds up a hand in a gentle half wave. I do the same, feeling blithely aware of the distance between the cellar door and where I perch. How many yards—or meters, here—separate us. In painfully slow motions, he reaches down to remove his shoes and socks and picks up the hose to rinse his feet clean. Then, at long last, hands on his hips, he turns to face me.

“You ready for me up there?” he asks, approaching the ladder.

“I don’t know if there’s room for you.” I gesture sarcastically toward the wild expanse of grape acreage in the tank. He laughs and steps from the top rung of the ladder down into the red must with far more grace than I’d managed. The hem of his shorts hangs too low. Already, he is submerged up to his pockets, the cloth blooming red in real time. He looks down, assessing the damage, and reaches to remove his still-untarnished shirt from the equation, pulling the white cotton mass over his head and tossing it lightly over the edge and onto the floor of the cellar.

Thus far, I’ve spent so much time looking at his hands working in vines, his jaw as he speaks. I’ve become so enamored of the smaller appendages, I’ve nearly forgotten about the absolute landmass reality of his body. The tapered shoulder muscles, the ridge of clavicle, the gold chain that hangs like a garnish, twisted so the clasp faces front. His stomach is flat and rigid with muscle, but not so much so as to seem inhuman. Not architectural but alive. A certain softness there too.

“Ahem,” Henri interrupts, evidently amused by my unsubtle assessment of his new half-nakedness. “I’m not a piece of meat.”

I laugh, suddenly aware of my own skin—how much of me is on display. “I beg to differ,” I shoot back, wrapping my arms, by some gravitational instinct, around my ribs to remedy the exposure.

“Hey”—he steps forward and unwinds my arms one by one—“if you get to look, I get to look too.”

He takes a step back, raking his gaze over me from the bottom up in a way that doesn’t feel hungry so much as carnal. Then, as if by some silent cue, we set about our task without breaking eye contact—marching around in operatic, hyperbolic strides, doing our best to maintain our balance, giggling all the while. Outside, Julian turns on loud French pop music over a set of speakers, presumably while he and the team rinse buckets and sort the day’s final grapes.

“I love this song!” Henri shouts with a glint of wild, feral amusement. He snaps his fingers, stepping side to side with exaggerated effort, dragging his legs through the bog of fruit. “Come here, New York! Dance with me.”

He extends a hand and I grin, accepting it like a wrapped gift. He pulls me toward him with a firm jerk of the arm, catching me as I topple into him, and we move, side to side, like some underwater mass, one of his hands in mine and the other wrapped around my waist.

I rest my head on his shoulder, my free hand on his chest, and I feel the human pliancy of him as we trudge through the cold bath of fermenting grapes—this material that is not yet wine, just the beginning of the thing.

X

Ruby and I arrive at dinner with wet, perfumed hair, looking not so much clean as reborn. Henri appears in a shirt so pure white, it seems holy. Antoine is distributing tapered candles around the table. The wind is gentle tonight, he explains, and he thinks we might be able to keep a flame or two in business.

“Would you look at that!” he exclaims, having lit the first. “It’s elegant, no? C’est élégante.” I nod, charmed by the absolute innocence of his delight—this childlike glee sprouting from a man shaped like a Roman column.

“Have you brought out the wines yet?” Bea calls out from the kitchen. “Dinner is nearly ready!”

“Ah, yes!” Antoine abandons his wax display to look for Julian, who is nowhere to be found. “Henri it is, then.” He produces a ring of rusted, cartoonishly antiquated keys from his pocket. “Why don’t you pick three magnums from the cellar while I finish up here with the ambience—we’re having lemon pasta, sardines, bread. Something that’ll pair well.”

Henri elbows me emphatically in the side, jingling the keys, and I can feel his smile even without looking up. The lucent warmth of it. “Come with me,” he says. “Allons-y, let’s go.”

I follow him around to the rear of the house, where he tugs open two iron cellar doors and we descend into the ground. Unlike the clinically clean space where we make the wine, this subterranean tavern gives the impression that no one has so much as considered sanitizing in decades. The place is cobwebbed and filthy, the walls lined with shelves labeled by region on slips of paper in a scrawl that is years past legible. The bottles are so thoroughly cloaked in dust, the whole thing feels like hyperbole for “wine cellar.” I love it, this hard-and-fast evidence of time passed.

Henri pulls the string on one finicky lightbulb that hangs in the center of the ceiling, but it hardly sheds enough light for us to see past the cobwebs directly in front of us. He grabs a flashlight shaped like a tulip from a pile just at the bottom of the stairs and switches it on, spraying a narrow, precise beam across the floor. With his other hand, he reaches behind him and clasps mine, leading me farther into the watery depths of the space.

“OK, what is it that we want?” He casts his light haphazardly across the shelves.

“Citrus for dinner. So something rich and creamy to offset all the acid,” I reply. “We’re eating sharp things. We need something soft. Chablis, probably.”

We weave around, waving the flashlight, blowing dust off of labels like anthropologists.

“Here!” I pull a magnum from a bowling-pin stack, holding the label close so I can read the text. It’s a producer my boss Alec loves dearly—a bottle we opened in the office on his birthday once. “Listen, this is the sort of wine that changed a whole generation,” he’d announced then, taking a dramatic stage sip, extending his pause, looking us each in the eyes, relishing in our anticipation.

Henri steps closer, holding the flashlight at an angle to decipher the label. Then, without warning, he clicks it off. “Henri!” I scold, reaching for him instinctively—grasping at spatial awareness in this container of darkness. He stands stock still, making no moves to flip the switch.

I clutch him, blinking as my eyes adjust reluctantly to the dark. I can see his teeth, his shirt (holy white). His eyes too. His high-wattage gaze set upon mine.

“We lost a lot of therapeutic progress without you in the vines today.” He whispers even though there’s no one else to hear us. “Had to spend all day talking to Julian—and wishing he was you, of course.”

“And how did Julian fare as my stand-in?”

“Doesn’t hold a candle.”

I am painfully aware of my breathing, the sound it makes. I want to mute it, listen to him without dilution. Keep on talking to me, I think. Don’t stop ever.

“I . . .” He pauses, searching for words. Without meaning to—or perhaps meaning to with the full weight of my body—I kiss him. I expect my heart to race, but when I feel his mouth open to me, it calms. Maybe it’s the quiet mask of darkness, the boyish, just-laundered smell of him. Maybe it’s the fact that some part of me has been holding my breath, waiting for this particular moment, since I first arrived.

He pulls me toward him, spreading his hand across my back, and seals the gap between us. It feels good to have this much surface area in contact. His tongue is warm and slow, graceful like calligraphy. He tastes like brûléed lemon. Like a sour-sweet thing, cooked to coax all that hard, bitter pith into tenderness.

Carefully, he removes the bottle I’m still clutching by its neck and places it gently on the floor. Then he draws me close again. Even less space between us now, and I’m euphoric. His fingers nestle neatly into the curvature of my spine. They climb upward, gently feathering the back of my neck. He squeezes me toward him tighter, and still this version of touching is nowhere near close enough. I reach for the nape of his neck, and we both stumble backward, kicking the bottle over.

It falls with a loud, thunderous clank, and we pause, withdrawing. That unkind, now-recurring pang surfaces—of being found, caught, seen.

I reach for the bottle and run my fingers along its contours, determining that it’s not broken. Gratefully, protectively, I scoop it back into my arms, holding it to my chest, hoping it might conceal or at least calm the dramatic rise and fall, the heaviness of my breathing.

“All good?” he whispers, and I nod.

“What are you thinking about now?” he presses.

Kissing, such an odd phenomenon. Already, Henri and I spend so much of each day directing our mouths at each other, speaking ourselves ever closer to something that sounds like intimacy. Unspooling our biographies and our brain material. And yet the simple fact of our mouths, in contact, means something so large. So substantial.

“I’m thinking about mouths,” I reply, and he laughs and presses a finger against my temple.

“Wish I could rifle around in there for a bit.”

“You wouldn’t survive five minutes up there. It’s absolute chaos.”

“Just like New York, non?”

This nod to my real life, my real context, rattles me. My ears prick at the clank of silverware coming from outside—a reminder that we are not, in fact, exempt from the passage of time down here. “We should get back . . . before . . .” I say, trailing off reluctantly. He nods and kisses me hard on the mouth, then switches on the flashlight, pulls two more bottles from the same shelf, and guides me back toward the door.

When we exit, the sky has a slippery, before-dark quality—the richness of proper nighttime diluted with eggshell primer. In the filmy soft-focus, the vines ahead seem to taper into both sky and earth at once, as if they don’t know where they end and the rest of the world begins. Henri’s hand is in mine, and something about his grasp feels that way too: I can’t quite distinguish where our perimeters live, where I end and he begins.

Once more, he pulls me toward him, and our bodies arch away from each other where we cradle the wine in the crooks of our elbows. I press my mouth to his, and already, the taste of him is familiar. I can imagine waking up to it with the lacquer of sleep still on his teeth. As he pulls away, our noses brushing, the light of the emerging moon flashes across his eyes, and his mouth sets in a goofy grin. How large it feels to actualize a thing I want—the ways it satisfies and the ways it merely spawns more hunger.

We turn back toward the house, and I feel Henri halt suddenly. He drops my hand, reestablishing our perimeters—and then I see. There is Antoine, arms folded across his chest, unmoving. I clutch tighter at the bottles in my possession, like some kind of useless armor, and I clock the ways anger—perhaps disappointment or merely sternness—contort his jaw, tempering the rise and fall of his chest. I feel some old, familiar flash of childhood shame—as if I’ve just been caught passing a note in class or hacking away at my own bangs with a pair of safety scissors. I look at Henri, but his attention isn’t with me anymore. He’s with his uncle, engaged in some silent discourse I can’t even pretend to access.

“Dinner’s ready. Bea is waiting.” Antoine approaches only to remove the bottles from Henri’s arms and turn back toward the group. I follow him dutifully, leaving Henri in the dark, feeling like poison matter.

When I arrive back at the table, depositing bottles on either end, Pietro skips over enthusiastically. “Ragazzi, at long last!” He reaches an arm over my shoulder, and in his oversized, floppy enthusiasm, it is more headlock than anything else. “You’re covered in dirt! You crazy girl.”

I look and see my arms are coated in the dark, ashy debris of the cellar—my T-shirt now far from fresh. “Oh no!” I say in mock horror and wipe filth affectionately from my own shirt onto his forearms.

“Terrible! How could you! My beautiful arms!” he shrieks, giggling. “Lucky for you, you’re still my favorite. Go clean your hands and I’ll save you a seat.” He frees me from his grasp, and I traipse into the kitchen, trying to steady myself. The hum of my own panic runs through me like the cool, unwelcome rush of IV fluid. While I watch the soap bubble up over my fingers in the sink, I remember that bit about the “Happy Birthday” song—from start to finish, precisely the time it takes to wash one’s hands properly. Precisely how many musical bars kill toxic matter. I imagine the suds having some sanctifying power, rinsing me clean and absolving me.

I don’t regret kissing Henri, exactly—at least, I don’t think so. But I do resent the concreteness of it. We’ve changed our state of matter. With Antoine as our witness, we are no longer a charged, dreamy plausibility. We’ve dipped our toes into something else.

After rubbing my palms raw and chanting my way through “Bonne anniversaire” silently, I dry them with a dish rag and then return to Pietro, who has already loaded a plate of pasta for me. I thank him with a squeeze of his elbow and lift a forkful to my mouth, chewing slowly.

All through dinner, I am careful to offer appropriate nods, to engage without engaging, and at some point, just as the wine bottles are verging on empty, I hear Ruby call my name from across the table.

“Alice, honeybee, where’s Henri?”

I look around, mimicking surprise at his absence—as if I haven’t spent the last hour registering the lack of him so potently that he’s occupied more space than the living, breathing bodies at the table.

I shrug. “Haven’t seen him since we sat down . . . maybe he went somewhere with Antoine?”

“Humph, their loss.” She twists a final bite of pasta around her fork.

XI

Tonight, for the first time since arriving, my bodily needs—eating, sleeping—refuse to take full-throttle priority. Lying in bed, I wonder if I might hear Henri pass in the hallway. If he’ll knock at my door, usher me outside, offer some reassurance that he wanted this, whatever it is—that he still wants it (me) now that we’ve exited the territory of the theoretical. Then I berate myself for agonizing. You’re not like this, I chastise myself in my head, rolling onto my back. He and I are adults; kissing is small, and plain, and human. Anyway, the allure of Henri is—or was—tied up in his inviability. We are impossible, contextually hopeless. Perhaps we’ve just gotten the thing out of our systems. Now, we’re free.

I consider pulling out my phone to send him a WhatsApp message. We all have one another’s numbers—Antoine had started a group thread for the vendangeurs when we all arrived. But for as long as Henri and I have known each other, our rapport has been three-dimensional, face-to-face—well, face-to-vine, really. We only exist in each other’s company, in the flesh—with all the stumbling, rambling, mistranslated inconveniences that presents. Texting feels like it might rupture something. Like breaching another dimension.

All night, I toss fitfully, feeling the swell of fatigue tighten around my eyes. At the sound of my alarm, I throw off my covers and, pining for some tangible kick start, meander downstairs for a coffee before changing. Waiting by the espresso machine—with a sly, chipper grin on his face—is Julian, pulling a coffee of his own.

“Well, someone’s not looking her best,” he says with a smile, and I grimace in response.

“A bit early for compliments, no?”

“Americans and their compliments. Don’t you all ever get tired of saying nice things to each other?”

“Coffee, Julian. Need coffee.”

He reaches into the cupboard over my head for a cup, sticks it under the machine, and punches the button, urging the gears into motion. We watch with rapt attention as the murky brown liquid flows in dual streams, settling with a frothy scrim across the top.

“Coucou, how did you all sleep?” Bea’s voice greets us from the doorway, where she’s already clad in kitchen clothes and a flour-dusted apron, flanked by Henri in his standard workwear. “Vous avez bien dormi?”

Julian, Henri, and I nod in unison. I look at my feet.

“Some of us better than others!” Julian announces, placing the espresso ceremoniously in my hands.

“Lucky for the three of you, Antoine sent me for, well . . . three of you,” she continues. “He’s in the vines today, but he wants to try doing some de-stemming by hand. We’re going to make a special, very clean cuvée out of this year’s riesling. He says he’s never done this before so we’re going to figure it out together, ça marche?”

Again, we all nod—even more reluctantly this time. The trio of us: myself; Julian, who has the conversational tact of a senile ferret; and Henri, who seemingly prefers to examine any dishware in his immediate vicinity rather than look at me. Why does waiting to be witnessed by him sting?

“Excellent!” Bea claps her hands together. “I’ll go ahead and let the team know you won’t be joining in the vines. Get dressed and meet me in the cave.”

Henri marches up the stairs. Julian shrugs and saunters off behind him—though not before turning toward me with one last bit of commentary: “I know there aren’t many mirrors in the house, but you might consider a hairbrush.”

I scowl but reach my hands up to survey the top of my head and find it matted.

By the time I return to the kitchen, dressed in bike shorts and a T-shirt with the insignia of a youth soccer team, the boys are already in the cave. I rinse my espresso cup in the sink and make my way to join them.

Inside the space, breathy, verbose French rap plays over the speakers, and I feel the clever, rhythmic speech vibrating behind my sternum. Henri is helping Julian lift a large, grated metal screen over an empty steel vat.

“Alice!” Bea calls to me. “Come stand next to this tank. I’d like to see if you can reach.”

I do as I’m asked.

“OK, OK, not tall enough. We’ll need you to see over the tank. Will you have a look for something to make you taller?”

Julian laughs. “If only it were that simple,” he says with a sigh. I brace myself to contend with Julian at his most irritating today while my capacity for grace is at an all-time low.

I rummage around, unearth a stack of square gray crates, flip them upside down at the foot of the tank, and test my weight atop them. They are sturdy and unprecious enough for the task, and I fashion similar pedestals for each of the boys. Very gracious of me, I think.

“We’re not all your height, New York.” Henri removes the top crate from his stack and peers over the grate. I flinch. His proximity, the jocular prodding, all of it without any actual intimacy, scrapes like rug burn. The stubborn avoidance on his part feels like it carries the lazy implication that it’s my move—that I must decide if I’m going to address last night or playact at our normal rapport.

“I’d prefer a few extra inches, frankly,” Julian says, and for the first time this morning, in spite of myself, I’m grateful for him. Or the distraction of him, at least.

Once we’re perched, Bea empties the first crate of grapes—yesterday’s harvest—onto the grate. She demonstrates how to use our hands to rub the grapes in forceful motions against the wires, freeing the fruit from its stems. The flesh plummets through the holes into the barrel below; the stems stay behind in a tangled knot atop the metal until we collect them in crates at our feet. Simple enough. Except there are thirty-six bins of grapes piled beside us.

“OK, ça va? Good to go?” She flicks her gaze over to each of us, one by one. Henri flashes a thumbs-up, and she nods. “I’ll be in the kitchen, then. Call out if you need anything.”

Julian unleashes a mass of grapes in front of us in a single, graceless lurch. Within minutes, I learn the stems are as sharp and angular as the iron cross-hatching of the grate itself. And they are stubborn. Removing them requires repeated, stinging movements that rub my palms raw, the sensation muted only by the numbing cold of the damp grapes—like gentler, more pliant ice on a near wound.

Once we’re at work on the second crate, I sneak glances at Henri intermittently, aching for him to look up at me. But still, with mesmerizing discipline, he keeps his eyes trained in front of him.

I pause to rub my hands together, coaxing blood back into my frosted fingers. Julian gazes up, rolling his eyes in one quick, venomous rotation.

“What? Comment?” I ask, allowing myself to be sharp with him. “My hands just got cold for a second—aren’t yours?”

I wait for Henri to cut in, ever poised to defend my honor, blow hot breath on my palms. But now, nothing.

“Stop being such a girl,” Julian pokes.

“I am a girl.”

“Do some jumping jacks.”

I give him my most dismissive face. It doesn’t seem to elicit the desired effect.

“Blood flow. In Munich, my dad used to make me do them outside in the dead of winter when I got cold. I swear it worked.”

“Brutal.”

“Hey, I’m just trying to help. We’ve got a lot of cases to get through. Like . . . a lot.”

“Maybe we need a distraction.” Henri is serving crumbs—and still, I feel some mortifying rush of gratitude boil up in me. “Something to entertain, take her mind off the sting.”

Which sting? I wonder.

“Well,” Julian tosses a grape into his mouth. “If you recall, when we were picking those terrible reductive grapes the other day, I was supposed to be able to ask you all any question I like. I was not indulged, so I’d like to exercise my right to ask now.”

“Fine, permission granted.” Henri shrugs.

“Hmm.” Julian looks up at the ceiling in thought as he mashes the grapes against the metal. “OK, why are you and Antoine so close? I only see my uncles once a year on holidays, and frankly, I have no desire to increase that number.”

I see Henri’s shoulders inch downward ever so slightly, and his jaw slackens. He is relieved; this is a question he can answer. It’s coming from Julian, after all—not Ruby. Hardly emotionally invasive.

I lean over the grate, my hands prickling with each thrust, and I angle myself toward Henri. I want to hear him speak.

He smiles sheepishly, using the back of his hand to wipe his hair out of his eyes. “I don’t know, je sais pas—he was with us a lot when I was a kid. My parents weren’t always around, exactly. And for a while, before he lived here at the domaine, he lived in our house.” He pauses, glancing around furtively, a particular glaze settling over his eyes. “And when I was in grade seven, my mom moved out.” He’s half a decibel quieter now. “So Antoine and I started spending all of our time together—holidays, afternoons after school, the whole thing.”

Unwittingly, Julian and I both cease to move, pause mid-task. But Henri returns to the grate with renewed fervor, as if the confession has wound something up in him.

“I’m sorry. About your mom.” I want to know more, but I won’t ask for it. I want him to offer it to me.

“All good, no need.”

“What about your dad?” It’s a simple enough question. Polite, even. Nothing emotionally prodding.

“He was around. Is around. But he kind of shut down after my mom left. He’s always been a bit rigid. Not warm, exactly.”

“Mine too—I get that,” Julian adds. “The cold dad thing.”

“I guess the point is, Antoine raised me in some ways,” Henri continues. “I mean, he’s thirteen years older—not a parent figure, exactly. In some ways, we grew up together.” I process this new understanding of their dynamic silently while Julian grunts softly, signaling his own breed of comprehension. We return to our working rhythm, plowing steadily through the mass of green in front of us. “Now my dad’s getting older and his health isn’t great—but we’ve still got this little family, Antoine and me. He comes out to Lyon for the holidays and stays with me and Charlotte, usually. He helped me open the bar—and he saw up close how much it sucked to close it.”

Charlotte. Her name tumbles out of his mouth in italics. “So he’s protective. Older-brother type,” I say, looking up for confirmation, still struggling to meet Henri’s eyes.

“Yeah, something like that. He’s seen me at my most ruined, I guess. My saddest, most hurt, whatever. I think his way of showing love is just to be some kind of barrier between me and anything that might make me feel that way.”

It’s a broad statement, one he makes nonchalantly, but I wonder if it isn’t more pointed. A peace offering or an apology. An explanation at the very least. His own quiet way of unpacking his tendency to go rigid when Antoine is around. Against my will, I can feel myself thawing in response.

Julian and I nod in unison, and all three of us let ourselves fixate quietly on the mounting web of stems. “Some things are worth protecting,” I say to Henri’s hands, hoping he knows that I mean something like forgiveness.

“OK, OK, very tender.” Julian rains another cascade of grapes onto the grate. “Now, perhaps time for something a bit less depressing. Alice, your turn.”

I watch Henri raise an eyebrow in my direction, and I relish a brief bout of prolonged eye contact between us. I notice a certain pleading beneath his lashes.

“OK, hit me, Julian. Do your worst.”

He strokes his chin, leaving a thin film of rose-hued debris. “OK, what’s the deal with your whole can’t-be-loved complex, huh? You dissociate every time we talk about relationships.”

I roll my eyes, but I’m caught off guard. I’d expected a more appropriately surface-level question. The acid bite of the grape stems scrapes against my finger pads. “I . . . well. I’m not sure it’s . . .”

“We want to know,” Henri cuts in. It’s a relief almost, his eager interest.

“You heard the man.” Julian gives the universal gesticulation for “get on with it.” Henri tosses a grape stem in my direction, and there’s a small curve of a smile at the corner of his mouth. The gesture feels like a gift, like something I could unwrap.

“Well, yeah, OK. Almost two years ago, I ended a pretty long relationship. It was the right thing—I mean, I think it was the right thing. But . . . he was my family. His family was my family. And, well, until we broke up, I’d never been alone—I hadn’t known what it felt like to be the sort of person who paid rent, commuted to work, had an email signature, owned a bike, without him. I’d done so much growing up next to him, and I didn’t know what any of it would feel like on my own. But, well. Long story short, he proposed, and I said no.”

Julian winces. “Poor guy.”

“OK, OK, everyone takes his side. But poor me too.”

Henri laughs, and it sounds warm. Not fiery but like something heated low and slow, left to cool. “Why didn’t you tell me that part?”

I shrug, but I know the answer: I hadn’t wanted him to know I could be cruel. I hadn’t wanted him to picture me in that particular position, arched stoically over someone else who was humbled and down on one knee.

“Go on,” he coaxes.

“Fine. The thing was, I watched this boy I loved so much lower himself in front of me, ring in hand, and it just hurt. Saying no—it was embarrassing, obviously. For both of us. I did this unkind, violent thing—even though I knew that the crueler, more violent thing would’ve been saying yes, then changing my mind. But I was never going to be happy if I stayed—not forever.” I pause, grinding my teeth. “I believed for a long time that we’d find our way back to each other again once I’d done a bit more living without him . . . but I think that’s probably just a stupid, comforting thing people tell themselves to mute all the hurt that comes with leaving someone.”

I round up the grape stems in my palms and deposit them in a crate on the floor. “Anyway, I thought we’d be friends—that we’d always know each other because how could we not? We were so large in each other’s lives. But I think he’s still pretty angry at me . . . which is fair. I’m not faulting him for that. It’s just tough for me that he hasn’t come around. It hurts for me too.” I look up at my rapt audience, and I realize I’ve now shared more on this subject with these foreign men in this foreign country than I have with anyone, anywhere in years. “I mean, to actually answer your question, I think I just started to feel like I was some kind of bad, poison thing, romantically. Like . . . noble rot.”

“But noble rot—it’s not bad, not always,” Henri says with a tenderness that makes me blush. He’s right, I know. It’s an infestation in vineyards—gray mold, essentially—that can be harnessed for good. It can even be cultivated with the intention of concentrating sugar in grapes. It’s a benevolent attack of sorts.

“Eh, I’m not a fan of sweet wines.” Julian unleashes another load of fruit. “Noble rot is just rot to me.”

“Ouch,” I say with a laugh, wincing.

“It wasn’t a metaphor! I was just speaking literally!” Julian is adamant, but he bites back a smile. “Anyway, surely your ex is just as responsible as you are.”

“Maybe. But all along, I knew I had it in me to hurt him. And when you have power like that, dormant or not, it still feels malicious. It’s like carrying a concealed weapon. Even if you don’t intend to use it, the fact that it’s there at all still means something.”

“When did you know it was over? That you wouldn’t end up with him?” Henri asks as he discards a cocoon of stems.

I pretend to think, furrow my brow in a posture of contemplation. It’s a question I’ve asked myself countless times, and in truth, I know the answer, though I’ve never opted to share it. I look directly at Henri and run my gaze across the plane of his face before I respond. “I have this wildly distinct memory of seeing him on the sand in the Rockaways—that’s a public beach in New York.”

“Like the Ramones song!” He grins.

“Exactly. Like the Ramones song,” I affirm. “So, I was swimming, and he was on land helping this woman with her umbrella. He’d always been helpful that way, had the kind of face that made people stop him on the sidewalk to ask for directions. She was small and blonde, and while I watched, I couldn’t help but think they looked oddly beautiful together.” Henri tilts his head, but his expression remains static. “And you know, he was the biggest thing that had ever happened to me. But right then, looking at him on the shore, I had this strange feeling: I was hoping he’d happen to someone else.”

I remember, that day, searching my body for symptoms of jealousy, scanning my sternum and pelvis for tightness. But there was nothing there.

“Woah.” Henri exhales, and I do too, somewhat awed that I’ve managed to speak that particular anecdote aloud. That I’ve made it to the end.

“That is extremely specific,” Julian adds. “I can’t imagine having that feeling about anyone.”

“I . . . yeah, woah,” Henri repeats. “Did that make it easier? To leave?”

“Maybe.” I chew on my bottom lip. “But I guess what I didn’t know then is that a person can keep on happening to you after they’ve left.” I don’t tell Henri that when I stopped loving Max, the shift felt violently small, like some mistaken swallow of ocean water. It had tasted like salt, like fruit gone bad, like New York in July.

“Can people happen to you in English? Grammar doesn’t work that way in German,” Julian says.

“Technically, no . . . but that’s what I mean.”

“That’s what it was like after my mom left.” Henri moves his hair off his forehead with his forearm. “En fait, it’s probably still going for me too. The her-ness. Maybe even a comforting thought. Makes a person less gone.”

“Exactly.”

“Fine, I’ll admit it: That is kind of nice,” Julian confesses.

“Wait. En fait . . . ?” I ask. I’ve never heard the phrase before, can’t decipher it.

“‘In fact’ . . . or ‘actually.’”

“I’ve been saying actuellement . . . is that wrong?”

“Faux amis,” the two shoot back in unison. They’re so in sync it feels rehearsed. The x pronounced as a z: foe-za-mee.

There is a certain relief in returning to talk of language. I want Henri alone, want to speak for however-many more hours on the subject of Max, his mom, ocean water, so many things. But for now, the three of us at work, discussing the nuances of vocabulary, is plenty soothing.

“‘Fake friends,’ faux amis—they’re what you call false cognates in English,” Julian explains. “Words that are similar enough to convince you that they’re like terms. But actuellement is kind of like saying ‘right now, in this moment.’”

“Ah, I see.” I grin. “Faux amis, I love that. So much more charming than false cognates.”

“False cognates,” Julian imitates my American accent in a flat, nasal drone.

“What are others?”

“Hmm, coin means ‘corner,’ prétendre means ‘to claim,’” he lists.

“That’s a good one.” I bite into the springy flesh of a grape and spit the seed from between my teeth into the pile of stems beside me. “Librairie means ‘bookshop.’”

Henri spreads a new bin of fruit among us. “Déception means ‘disappointment.’”

XII

By the time we tackle our final case of grapes, my palms are pink and swollen like something undercooked. However slow the progress, there is, blissfully, evidence of our efforts: the mass of jeweled fruit piled high in the barrel beneath the grate, looking bizarrely naked without the web of stems typically attached.

Antoine shows up just in time to share in our victory. “Excellent work, you’ve earned your apero . . . come on outside,” he says with a hand on each of the boys’ shoulders. “Bea and I have a surprise.”

I try to catch Antoine’s eye, to gauge where I stand, but he turns away just as quickly as he arrived. When we emerge, he has two bottles of Sylvaner at the ready—the name of the grape and the vintage scrawled haphazardly on the glass in white chalk. Beside him at the outdoor table, Bea sits bathed in late-afternoon light, a flat plastic tray loaded with oysters in front of her—the enormous, fist-sized French kind, marled and cracked like aging skin. I watch while she expertly maneuvers her shucking knife through the clenched lips of a shell without a rag or a glove to protect her. She makes it look graceful, some ballet of the fingers.

“Had a friend drive by and drop these off!” Antoine beams, merry and buoyant in a way that seems altogether too youthful to suit his stature. He passes an oyster to each of us before selecting a shell of his own and gesturing toward us in a mock toast. I turn to each of the other four, and our lines of sight click together like something far more tactile (train tracks, manual locks). This is a French tradition that continues to delight me, the mandatory meeting of every set of eyes in order to perform a toast. So much more penetrating than the clinking of glassware. When our eyes meet, Bea gives me a warm nod; Julian offers a curt one. Antoine smiles gently—at least, I think he does, though I can’t decipher whether it’s meant for me or is a residual grin. Henri chews his lip and lets his eyes drop from mine and trace down to my neck. As we all tip our shells back, I feel his gaze linger on my throat.

In my mouth, the oyster is swollen and organ-like—a double for the tongue. In that fleeting, briny moment before I swallow, it’s like kissing.

When I take a sip of the wine, it’s almost cutting—angular and sharp but not enough to hurt. It slices through the lazy salinity of the oyster. I look between Julian and Antoine on either side of me, and they seem equally submerged in states of rapture, both of them glassy-eyed and silent. How special it is to taste things, I think. How bizarre that we spend so much time forgetting to do so.

Almost as soon as we finish the first bottle, the picking teams arrive back from the vines, the techno van beating with its signature thrum. The oysters await them, shucked and gleaming—flirting, even. The wine, so golden it seems more metaphor than potable liquid, spills into waiting glasses like some sacramental thing. Something demanding of prayer, or at least expectation.

As the remainder of the second bottle dwindles, so does my ocular discipline, and I watch intently as Henri slides another oyster into his mouth, swallowing with his lips closed and his head tipped back.

“Not bad, no? Pas mal.” Antoine juts his chin at Henri like some gesticulatory question mark.

“Pas mal.” Henri rocks his head back and forth in sleepy satisfaction. “How’d we do today in the cellar?”

“Not bad either,” Antoine replies with a clipped glance in my direction—some sprouting olive branch, I decide. Evidence that the not-bad-ness of the day belongs to me too. Henri looks at me inquisitively, and I shrug, hoping to convey the proper amount of evasion. Why, after all this work whittling our way toward communion, am I reverting to coldness? I reprimand myself silently. Why is coldness still the default?

“We basically just cheese-grated all the skin off of our hands . . . for seven hours,” Julian pipes up and then aerates a sip of wine with a low, liquid gurgle. “I think this glass is the antidote.”

“My hands are in pretty bad shape,” Henri adds and takes a tentative step toward me. “Let me see yours.”

My breath catches, and I hold out my palms like an offering. The skin is crosshatched with evidence of the day, ruddy and parceled off with cuts, scratches, blister constellations. Absentmindedly—perhaps forgetting himself—Henri traces a finger along the largest groove, a wound shaped like a longbow.

I wince. I have the absurd urge to tell him it hurts more than it does, to make myself into a fragile thing—for him to feel responsible for soothing my anguish. It humiliates me, this desire for him to solve this unsolvable problem. This pathetic wish to be delivered from distress. Saved from nothing.

As he assesses my palm, running one finger along the arc of my thumb and another across the crease of my wrist, the empty oyster shell in my opposite hand falls to the ground—as if my digits, distracted by his proximity, have simply forgotten to do their job. At once, he kneels down to retrieve it, lowering onto his left knee.

“Careful, mon ami!” Julian cuts in. “She’s picky about proposals.”

Henri snickers beneath me, and when I search his face, I expect some potent tinge of ridicule in his eyes. But he just looks up at me, his gaze glittering like seawater.

“Well, I’m going to go have the first shower while everyone finishes up,” Julian announces, setting his empty glass down on the table before nodding his polite adieus.

“Wanna take a walk?” Henri asks as he gets to his feet. “We’ve been indoors all day.”

I hardly need convincing. I glance over at Antoine, who is gesticulating animatedly to Bea, and nod. My shoulders drop as if all day they’ve been on alert, waiting for this—the opportunity, at long last, to be alone together. Henri gestures ahead of him, and I lead us, veering left where the nearest pinot noir vines will obscure us from vision.

I take a deep breath, expecting him to launch into some diplomatic “We Need to Talk” exchange. “I have a follow-up question for you.” Henri tucks both hands in his pockets as he walks.

I nod for him to continue.

“Did you stay together after he proposed?”

I exhale. He’s picking up where we left off in the cellar. “Why do you ask?”

“Answer it first . . . s’il te plaît.”

“We tried for a bit.” I pause to linger in a patch of fading sunlight and lift my chin up toward the sky. I like answering his questions. I like that he’s asking them. “But the reality is, human brains like to angle themselves toward a goal, I think. However watery and mysterious it is. If I didn’t want to get married and he did, we were just moving along this parallel trajectory, taking care of each other for what purpose? We’d already achieved this version of Real Thing. But then what? And honestly, for both of us, it was too tempting to think of romance only in absolutes: forever or not at all. If a commitment to eternity is the barometer for relationship success, then we were left with just one option: to reduce ourselves to nothing.”

“What did it feel like? To be alone?”

“A little bit like dying, mostly.” I force a laugh in the hopes of communicating the hyperbole. To make light of the feelings that I’d committed so much time to eradicating prior to arriving here. “Like I was severing off this whole, enormous piece of the world as I knew it. And, you know, I felt that loss like a phantom limb. There were Max-shaped holes in so many rooms I entered, so many tables where I sat down to eat.”

Henri scrapes his hand through his hair. “I’m scared of that. I’m in limbo now, you know? It’s not gone completely yet—Charlotte, I mean—but I’m scared of that feeling. Did you regret it after? Did you wanna take it all back?”

I wonder if I’ll ever stop hearing her name like some kind of thumbtack to the throat.

“I missed him a lot. But I think I missed him more than I loved him, in the end. So no, not regret.” I twist a piece of my hair around my pointer finger. “When I was in the throes of it, I thought a lot about how we don’t have a grieving ritual for breakups. There’s no funeral march, no memorial service, no paperwork, even. When it happens, we’re sort of without a proper place to store that genre of loss.”

I remember it all so well, better than I can remember plenty of things that happened a month ago: When I’d properly fallen in love—could use that turn of phrase without wincing—nothing could have prepared me for what it felt like to be submerged in the actual experience. It sated me in ways that resisted language. Then, over the years, it calcified into something sturdy and real. Something that carried weight. When he was gone, when I made him leave, it hurt in ways that were deafening, that were garden variety, that were hopelessly cliché. Mostly, though, it just hurt. I was constantly resisting the rather obvious (and trite) truth about the version of me that followed: It hurt so badly, I’d actively avoided feeling anything of that caliber—anything like love—again.

“And now? How do you feel now?” Henri plays with a twig suspended from the curl of a vine.

“For a while, I felt a bit like a robot. But now, I feel human again. Some days more than others, sure.” I inhale and press my thumb into my palm as if applying pressure in the right spot could elicit bravery. “Not to be overly saccharine or whatever, but kissing you felt human.”

He looks up, surprise slapped across his face. We’ve safely avoided “us” territory until now. We look at each other silently for a beat. Then he places a hand on the back of my neck and kisses me gently on the cheek, just above the jaw. The place where his lips make contact heats as if from a chemical burn.

“Me too. I felt that way too,” he says with his hand still at my nape. He reaches to tuck a rogue piece of hair behind my ear. I can’t tell if the gesture is to reveal more of me or just a gentle impulse; I welcome it either way. “I liked it, and then I was mad at myself for liking it,” he says. “I think I’ve been leaving in half measures for a long time, and I feel shitty about that. Your way seems braver.”

He fumbles with his hands, then returns them to his pockets. “I like the sound of my own voice a little better when I’m talking to you. I haven’t felt that way in a while. Like you said, liking myself. I forgot what that felt like.” He strides ahead of me, hands on his hips, and then he turns on his heels to face me.

“Anyway, that’s what I told Antoine about you. About why I did it. Kiss you, I mean—which really isn’t some grave offense. Charlotte and I, we are supposed to take this time to live different lives.” He pauses, one hand rubbing the back of his neck. “I think I just hadn’t quite considered that it wouldn’t only be a break. But here, with you . . . I can’t stop thinking that this is what romance is supposed to feel like—giddy at the prospect of all these mundane tasks. I’m not even thirty, and I was already resigned to going through the motions.” He traces a circle in the dirt with the toe of his boot, around and around, as if waiting for the soil to reveal some hidden message, perhaps a cue card. “What I mean is, I don’t know what to do with you.” The word you from his mouth is changed now, rounder and richer, and I like hearing it so much, I nearly resent him for it. The question of what to do with me was never supposed to carry weight. And yet, I can feel it—the heaviness.

He is close to me now, close enough that I can smell the sweet glaze of his spiced deodorant, his skin, his sweat. The tenuousness of his restraint. I think about the thinness of the space between us, I contemplate how permeable plain old air is, and then I lean in and kiss him.

This time feels different. That delicate boundary crossed already. We are no longer toeing a line or probing at a thing. I want him achingly as he presses against me and kisses me deeper, more assuredly. I can no longer taste the glancing notes of trepidation that raced through his mouth in the cellar.

His hand settles on the small of my back, urging me toward him, flattening me against him; I weave my fingers through the hair at the base of his skull, pulling as if it were possible to bring him any closer to me. He bites my bottom lip, slides his tongue farther toward the back of my throat, as if he’s passed tasting.

He slides the fingers of his other hand up the leg of the loose, forgiving fabric of my shorts. His forefinger feathers back and forth, toying with the edge of my underwear. I hold him more firmly, shift my mouth to kiss his neck. Keep going, I try to tell him without saying the words. Don’t stop. I’m afraid of breaking the spell. I’m afraid other bits of logic will slip into my consciousness. Don’t stop is the only phrase I can hear. Don’t stop, don’t stop, don’t stop.

Henri slides two fingers beneath my underwear and inside of me, and I feel so lethally turned on, my skin hurts. Turned on has never seemed so correct a term. Like I’m surging with high-octane energy. Something with enough force to electrocute—to shock.

Slowly, Henri moves his hands to my waist and takes a few panting breaths. I find his eyes, and he looks stricken, stunned. He cradles the back of my head and lowers me to the ground, positioning himself over me, arms on either side of my shoulders. I feel the textured ground beneath me, the combination of divots, rocks, roots. Don’t stop, don’t stop, don’t stop.

“Are you OK?” he whispers, biting my lip.

“Yes. Are you?”

He nods and lurches forward so quickly, his tongue collides with the wall of my teeth. We both laugh—the absurdity of our wanting, the near-youthful exuberance—and he slides his hand up my shirt, running his fingers along the terrain of my rib cage. I pull at his belt, pawing at the latch, and he reaches down to unbuckle it himself, kicking his pants off. Something about his bare legs against the earth looks innocent—white briefs, the Calvin Klein logo circling his waistband.

Then he presses against me, and my head dips back at the hardness of him. I feel a flash of jealousy that his form can so quickly offer that kind of promise, can grow and swell and shapeshift. I nudge at the waistband of my shorts, and he pulls them from my hips, along with my underwear. He props himself up as he tugs his own underwear down to his knees. My eyes jump from his dick to his bicep to the line of his thigh, my brain trying to make a memory of his body. I arch my hips, and a soft, needy whimper escapes against my will. Henri is staring down at me, and his swollen lips part in response to the sound. I place a finger between them, then wrap my free hand around his dick, bringing it closer to me.

“Should I . . . protection?” he asks, verbally fumbling.

“IUD,” I say, and his brow furrows. I grin. An English term he doesn’t know. “Contraceptif. I’m OK.”

I coax him inside me. Two sharp intakes of break, in unison, then: He is thrusting upward, upward, upward, and I am no longer thinking. It’s just him pulsing, beating within me as though he’s connected somehow to my own circulatory system. My fingers curl involuntarily, useless. He urges himself forward, and my vision goes white. I have the distinct and preposterous sensation that just maybe, the right man inside me could be enough to make me believe in something spiritual, something divine.

His fingers move between my legs, and I grasp at the dirt for purchase. “Henri,” I gasp without meaning to. “Alice,” he exhales back, and I feel each of my muscles bracing for release, then all of me shuddering with pleasure. A flood of relief—a reprieve from the tension that has been building, and building, and building.

I palm Henri’s back, and he drops to his elbows, nuzzling his head against my neck. “Henri,” I say, meaning to. “Alice,” he gasps as he comes.

He hovers over me as we both come back to ourselves, the vines. He rolls to his side, his chest heaving, and I collect more pieces of him: the ridge of his sternum, the hair across his chest. He glides two fingers between my legs, feeling the dew of his own cum where it lingers on my skin. He lifts his fingers to my mouth. “Taste,” he whispers, and I close my lips around them.

“Vanilla, ammonium, tinfoil. Like salt and something just heated.”

He kisses me. “Something just heated. That’s you.”

He stretches an arm out so I can roll over onto him, and I rest my cheek against his bicep. He breathes heavily for several beats. “I . . . definitely feel like a human.” He smiles between labored exhales and cups my chin with his hand.

I trace my fingers along the sides of his abdomen, relishing the quietness of being alone, unclothed, side by side. I catalog the constellation of scratches, bruises, smudges of dirt decorating each of our forms. I hadn’t felt it all before, the violence of rugged earth against raw body—but now, we both have this odd latticework of evidence, some testament to the fact that this act indeed transpired, staged on cold earth.

“How are you?” I ask, whispering so close to his face, I can see individual lashes.

He strokes my hair and breaks eye contact to look up toward the sky. “I feel like this was . . . correct. I’m sure there will be other things I feel later, anxiety and all that. But right now, this just feels like it’s supposed to feel.”

I smile, nestling my forehead into his arm.

“And how do you feel?” he asks, turning back toward me.

“Definitely not like a robot,” I reply with a grin. I feel like a person, I should say. How lovely and inconvenient.

“Good.” His smile is sleepy, sated. Wizened, perhaps. “Shall we get back before they send a search party?”

By now, it’s dark enough to imply we’ve been gone too long. Everyone will be showered and downstairs, buzzing around, slicing bread and setting the table.

We sit up and toss our clothes back on, brushing dirt from each other’s limbs, pointing out the scratch marks and indents mottled into our flesh with glee. He removes twigs from my hair and smooths the mass of it down, turning me around as he does so to ensure that he’s assessed our damage from each possible angle.

“Good?” I ask, and he nods.

“Even better. Quite remarkable, actually. And me?”

“Quite remarkable, actually.”

We walk back, shaking out our garments, and as we near the house, he slings an arm over my shoulder—the most outsized, uppercase gesture he’s dared in front of the others. But in this moment, we aren’t hiding. Not from Antoine, not from each other. It feels good, the largeness of him wrapped around me, the two of us moving as one more tethered thing in this landscape of intertwined vines.

XIII

By the time we return to the house, the masses are humming around the kitchen. “Need some help?” I ask Ruby, who is pitting a mountain of peaches at the counter.

“No, but you can surely pretend to help me.” She bumps me affectionately with her hip, and I pull a knife from the drawer below me. “And where’ve you been?” She lowers her gaze and inhales deeply, performatively. “You smell like sex.”

I try to ground the corners of my mouth, project some semblance of nonchalance, but the distinct euphoric bliss of having just fucked a beautiful man in a thicket of pinot noir in rural France—well, that is hard to dilute.

I lose my battle to restrain my glee. A smile widens across my chin, and I wink. Ruby laughs and touches a finger to my nose. “You absolute minx!” she exclaims in a half attempt at whispering. “Where?”

I shrug, flashing her a guilty smirk. “The vines.”

She beams, clapping her hands together enthusiastically. “Cheeky!” This time, she doesn’t feign trying to keep her voice down.

Henri brushes past me to shuck corn with Julian and pulls at my T-shirt gently as he passes. I look at the floor to temper my eagerness, mask my grin—or at the very least, to render it less obvious. But I feel Ruby’s pupils laser-focused on me, and when I gaze up to meet her stare, we both burst out laughing in full-bodied heaves. “You’ll give me proper details later,” she says in my ear and goes back to halving peaches. I stand beside her idly, clutching my still-clean knife like a baton.

At dinner, I feel flayed in a good way. Skinless, exposed to the world. Like I’ve never experienced anything this up close before. We eat white bean salads, corn, enormous vats of coq au vin that Bea has been cooking all day—a row of deep red Le Creuset pots dotting the table like steaming bullet points.

Henri sits beside me and holds my hand under the table, his thumb against my wrist. While we eat, I listen to Pietro wax nostalgic about women’s feet in flip-flops on the beaches in Sicily. Ruby laughs so hard she snorts and spills wine down her front. Hands move across the table like birds, toasting glasses, passing food, gesticulating in maniacal waves. The whole meal is like white Burgundy—tastes like a million dollars bottled right up. Like all the forgivable clichés about decadence and rarity manifest.

Feeling Henri’s pulsing palm against mine, I remember something Emma once told me about proper, full-on romantic affection. That at its absolute best, it makes everything else richer and more salient: jobs, friendships, apartments, bowls of cereal. More Technicolor, better seasoned. And on this matter, Emma is an expert: For her, romance is the gasoline that propels life. She once told me that she’d let a crush pull two of her baby teeth out in the third grade, and the absurdity of the thing made me want to know her forever. Now it doesn’t strike me as so ludicrous. I might’ve offered Henri an incisor too if he’d asked.

For dessert: fresh peaches, basil from the garden, vanilla ice cream, Henri’s palm moving in slow circles on the small of my back.

When the time comes to clear plates, Pietro pinches my cheek tenderly. “You look like you’re on party drugs, amore,” he says, then giggles. “Lucky girl.”

Inside, Ruby and I dry the dishes side by side, bubbling over with the buzz of not-yet-shared gossip. When at long last we can excuse ourselves, we leave the stacks of glasses and trays balanced on the countertop, skip upstairs, and sit cross-legged on Ruby’s bed, both of us clutching our respective plastic Nalgene bottles.

I tell her everything in sloppy soliloquy. The kiss in the cellar, sex in the vines, the Charlotte of it all. I hadn’t realized quite how badly I’d wanted to share—as if I needed to hear it, speak it aloud, to confirm that I’d lived it in the first place.

She listens carefully, bouncing between buoyant, empathetic glee and measured, contemplative acknowledgment. Each fragment of story spills out of me faster than the last: pinot noir, his jaw. The taste of Henri. I hear myself repeat his name again and again, like a spell. “When is it actually good the first time?” I guffaw. “That doesn’t happen.”

When I finish, I start fidgeting at the hem of my shorts, and Ruby reaches over to grab both of my hands. “For one thing, can I just say that’s fucking hot? People spend, like . . . forever looking to feel that way for even a second. So . . . goddamn, how lucky.” She squeezes my palms. “But now that you have it—this rare thing—dare I ask . . . do you want it?”

There are so many ways to want. I hadn’t realized how many ways.

She levels her gaze to look me in the eyes, prompting, and for all my eagerness to narrate the last twenty-four hours of plot development, I realize I am not prepared to answer even this most essential question. The answer is: I do want it. This. Henri. In a certain way.

There’s an asterisk: I want to live in this precise moment via some Groundhog Day fever dream. I want the passage of time—and thus any consequences of my present-tense actions—to disappear. I want to talk to Henri for three days straight without breathing. I want to come with his fingers inside me again and again. I want to ask what posters hung in his childhood bedroom, his best friend’s first name, his last twenty-eight birthday wishes. I want to see what he looks like when he cries, when he folds sheets. I want to come home to find him plating spaghetti in a sauce-stained T-shirt, asking precisely the right questions about my day.

Or maybe what I want is to want less. To live in the holy shelter of this sentiment without any of the pragmatic details of our real lives threatening that house-of-cards infrastructure I’ve constructed purely of desire.

“I guess . . . I don’t know if it makes sense to want anything.” I squeeze Ruby’s fingers.

“Honeybee, no shot in hell there’s nothing you want.”

“It feels so good in this particular moment . . . it kind of hurts to think about how impossible it is, though. It has to be a fling, or else it doesn’t work. I’m at least grounded enough to know that.”

“Listen, you know my feelings about romance: Everything is justifiable in context.”

“I’d needlepoint that on a pillow if I knew how.”

“It’s true, I mean it! And for me, that even includes infidelity—I just have to be OK with the fact that the context has bounds, with knowing that calls will be dropped or plans will be changed instantly if the wife demands something more pressing. I’m choosing this right now, but the limitations that come from being kept a secret? Pretty profound. A kind of coffin, if you will. For you, there’s no world-altering transgression here. You’re not ruining anyone’s life, but either way, the truth is, sometimes romance is contextual. That doesn’t mean it’s not worth it, though—happy ending or not.”

I chew on my lip apprehensively. There is a certain pleading in her voice. “Do you guys talk about the wife?”

She unfurls her crossed legs and lies on her back, depositing her head in my lap. “We didn’t at first—but now, it sort of makes me feel better. I’m well aware that what I’m doing is selfish, and sometimes knowing that she’s still real—that her whole life is still intact—is comforting. It means that when I’m ready to leave, I’ll leave . . . and they’ll continue to operate without me. Nothing in their tidy little universe will be shaken, not really. It’ll be a bit like slipping out the back door, I imagine.” She sighs as if exhaling something much denser than air. “I knew what I was getting myself into. I wanted intensity so loud and so addled with romance, it couldn’t possibly be sustainable. So I found it in something that was never going to be sustainable in the first place. But, honeybee, in your own way, you’ve done the same thing, whether you intended to or not. You’ve chosen an impossible thing on purpose.”

She is right. Of course she’s right. But what if I do want the impossible thing? What if impossibility has its loopholes? “You know, you’re full of sage wisdom,” I say, cauterizing my train of thought.

“Sleeping with older men has really done great things for my philosophical inquiry.”

“OK, Kierkegaard, here’s a question for you.” I keep my voice bright. I don’t want the gravity of my line of questioning to feel apparent—larger than the scope of our little adult summer camp universe. “Even with all the ways you can live in your little intellectual coffin and enjoy the hyperbole of your tryst, knowing full well that it can only take up so much space, how can you . . . not want it to be bigger than that?”

“Oh, I’m certainly not immune to wanting.” She flops toward the edge of the bed, letting her cascade of red curls hang over the edge like a waterfall frozen in place. “But the alternative is apathy. I didn’t choose this thing just so I could be desired, or ogled, or put on a pedestal. I chose it because I wanted to want something so much it hurt too.”

“If and when this thing ends, will you be OK? What will you do?”

“Oh, it’ll ruin me. But better that than nothing.”

I try to assess our dual predicaments, our tangled romantic plotlines, objectively. For the sake of girlhood, I want them to align. But some deeper, dumber part of me believes we aren’t necessarily ambling toward the same fate. There is a glimmer of hope, some plausible alternate ending for Henri and me that I can see if I squint. “You absolute masochist,” I joke.

She prods me with her knee. “Well, I guess that’s the question for you, isn’t it? Are you willing to let something like this ruin you—even on the smallest scale? Even if it leads to nothing but some glaring absence? Even if Henri never leaves Charlotte for good? Even if he goes back to his real life after harvest and you go back to yours?”

“Is that my only option? Ruin?”

“Either he picks you, and dismantles his own world as he knows it, or you restructure your life on his behalf—but more likely, neither of you choose each other, and you both disappear from each other’s worlds. That doesn’t mean it wasn’t real. It’s just that the universe makes all kinds of demands, and romance is just one among them.”

I am far too pragmatic for this to register as a surprise. And yet. “Even the idea of that makes my stomach hurt.” I drop my head over the back of the bed too.

“I know what you mean.”

When I left New York, I’d wanted an experience. I came here in the hopes of feeling. But I assumed I could have that big weighty catharsis . . . and then leave it here. I assumed that the end would be inevitable and thus tolerable. And I was wrong.

I can’t explain to Ruby what, exactly, I want—but the undeniable thing is that I want. And I lack the discipline to put an expiration date on something that feels so rare, so sincere. That tastes so good.

“It’s not like I have solutions here.” Ruby sits up with a labored heave, her hair swinging behind her. “But I can tell you that if you can stomach whatever happens next, maybe this little bit of time you spend together will be remarkable enough to carry you through all the shit that comes after.”

I sit up and lean into her shoulder, and she wraps her arms around me. The smell of her, the press of her sternum where my forehead rests, the weight of her elbows against my shoulders—they all feel familiar. Like we’ve held this pose many times over many years.

“Thank God you’re here,” I murmur into her chest. “Maybe we’ve been the real love story all along.”

“Oh, of course we are, mate. Isn’t it obvious?”

XIV

Before I fall asleep, I type an email to Emma. I think about calling, but it’s midday in New York, and I hate the discordance of talking to each other from the vantage point of different times of day. How can we possibly hear each other correctly while she blinks through daylight, and I, darkness?

So I write. I tell her about the rare flavor of friendship that I’ve found with Ruby, the absolute, violent joy of sitting at this dinner table. Then, Henri—the fact of wanting, the destabilizing whirr of it. The buoyancy, the heaviness. The guilt, the euphoria. At the end, I sign my name and add a postscript.

P.S. Feeling this way about someone tastes like vanilla ice cream. It’s juvenile and innocent—even though, the reality is, it can burn holes through your teeth if you’re not careful.

I fall asleep nearly instantly after hitting send—as if I’ve used up some great quantity of caloric energy shipping the contents of my note through the airwaves and over an ocean into the little Brooklyn apartment that awaits me on the other side of all of this. However impossible it seems that there is an other side to all of this.

When I wake up the next morning, there is already a reply waiting for me.

Listen up, mademoiselle. I’ve got some profound wisdom to offer (you’re welcome): You’re awfully good at tasting things, but you haven’t had an appetite in a long time. I was starting to wonder whether I’d ever see you blasted open and raw to the world again.

I know you were the one who left Max—but that’s heartbreak too. And frankly, I think falling out of love devastated you more than the breakup did. The fact that you had it in you to experience something that large—and that it could vanish. Poof. I think that terrified you (of course it did). So it makes sense that you’re terrified now, huh? You denied yourself an appetite for so long. And now it’s back!

Even if this all ends in a dumpster fire—which it very well may—you’ve still proven to yourself that you’re capable of feeling in BIG (and dare I say healthy?) ways. And if you get off the plane and all you wanna do is lie in bed and subsist on whiskey and peanut butter for several weeks, I will happily lie right on down next to you and do the same.

For now, go make me jealous.

Signed, your utterly irreplaceable, radiant, disarmingly wise best friend,

Emma

P.S. You’ve always been better at postscripts than actual letters.

I black out the screen and hold my phone to my chest like some mummified treasure. Thank God for the friendship of women. Emma, in all her astuteness, is correct: It hasn’t occurred to me that there’s one more fear at play. It’s not just my aversion to full-bleed tenderness; it’s also the stupid psychological specter of falling out of love. The fact that some sentiment could grow to mythic proportions—then somewhere, in my own fallible little brain, it could disappear. A cruel trick of serotonin, maybe. And without admitting as much, I’ve been denying myself the pleasure of love for fear of letting it evaporate.

In the morning, working the vines feels like a montage from some prized, shot-on-film flick with an immaculate Rotten Tomatoes score—the kind produced by Swan Dive or Neon that well-dressed, tastefully tattooed people buy tickets to see at the Tribeca Film Festival. Henri and I inch along each row in tandem, speaking to each other like windup toys, never letting up. At every opportunity, he reaches through the vines to squeeze my hand. And even for all the innocence of the gesture, few things have ever felt so potent.

Every few yards, when the greenery grows sparse enough for us to face each other full-on, unobstructed, he leans in to kiss me gently, quickly. A halfhearted attempt at discretion. At times, he ducks in and out so swiftly, he catches me on the chin or the cheekbone.

In the afternoon, when the sun has shifted, panels of light slip through the vines, framing him in gold. We’re picking Sylvaner, talking about cities. “Tell me about New York,” he says. “About your New York.”

My favorite question. I smile big, even knowing he can’t see it. “I’m biased. It’s my hometown, ma ville d’origine. I’ve been there my whole life.”

“Even better.”

“You know, there was never a time before I started riding the subway—and sometimes it makes me wonder how much of my life I’ve spent underground.” I scrape curdled grapes onto the grass with the edge of my clipper. “It’s not an easy place to live. It’s dirty, and expensive, and impossible to navigate—or impossible to keep up with, at least. It makes your world feel too small and too big. But then, just when you’re ready to give up all hope, it reels you right on back in.”

“But how? Give me an example?”

“I, um . . . I have this thing about riding my bike over bridges. No matter how disaffected or bitter I feel about the city, every single time I ride my bike over a bridge, and I watch the rim of the city unfurl in front of me, I’m hit with this stupid, giddy twinge of awe. I can’t help but be astounded.”

“Why bridges, though?”

“I don’t know . . . from up there, it’s like the city has better posture.”

Henri looks at me with pointed intrigue, his chin cocked. “And that’s what goes on in your head while you commute on your bicycle?”

I blush and keep clipping.

He pauses, moves aside a branch, and kisses my eyebrow. “Tell me what it sounds like. What does New York sound like?”

“Well, it’s loud. It hurts a bit, feels like an affront—this constant cocktail of sirens, voices, car horns, rattling trains, music. But sometimes it’s hard for me to sleep without it.” I empty my now-overflowing bucket into one of the baquet lined up behind me. “And the din of restaurants—that’s the best part. What it sounds like to eat out.”

I’ve always liked din as a word because it’s all wrong. Because it is a naked and tiny thing, nothing like the inside of a restaurant. Restaurants in New York sound like applause. Like winged insects stumbling around cardboard boxes. Like ice in a highball glass. Ice against anything, really. Like for two, chilled red, she’s twenty-five today, I’d recommend, how’s your mom, can I kiss you, have you read? Like we hated it, grinning, over empty plates. Like swimming, like atonement. Everyone bathed in light that forgives.

“What about your bar? What did it sound like in there?” I wonder if I’m slipping into sensitive territory by asking.

“God, so good. Like music—all the mismatched percussion of a thousand meals, conversations, occasions, rubbed up against one another. And in spite of the chaos, it all just worked together. Never sounded like mismatch.” Our knees bump gently through the vine that separates us. “Everyone looked so beautiful in there.”

I press my knee more firmly against his. “Tell me more.”

“Hmm . . . you’d look around and it was like all flaws had been sanded away; everyone left their anxiety at the door. No one ever sat silently. People talked. For hours. And I’d be in the back, taking inventory or restocking bottles, looking out at this absolutely mad, perfect room of bodies and wineglasses and secrets, and I’d feel like I’d unlocked a portal.”

I smile. “What happened at the end, then? What did it feel like?”

He exhales, slow and heavy. “We weren’t making enough money, our landlord sucked. We could hardly afford to hire real staff, which meant we almost never got away. I mean, we had all these big ideas . . . but we couldn’t pull them off without more support. And at a certain point, however magical it all was, it started to feel tedious. Nothing ever got easier. Then we had this big flood. The cellar—which was basically the most valuable part of the whole operation—got destroyed, and we just decided to call it.”

“God, I’m so sorry. That sounds brutal.”

“It was. It’s like what you said about a breakup: There was no funeral, no big ceremony—it just . . . ended. And with it, there was this whole chunk of my identity that was gone.”

“Have you thought about opening something new?” I’m tempted to reach for him, but I don’t want to slow or muddle his response.

“Of course, every day. But, with good reason, I’m terrified—it feels like something I can’t possibly bear to fail at twice.”

“OK, in theory, if you were opening a new spot, what would you do differently?”

“I’d open a place in Paris. There’s this little corner spot in the tenth arrondissement, right by Canal Saint-Martin. I know the owner. Old guy, family friend. Doesn’t wanna run his own spot too much longer. That’s the fantasy.”

“That doesn’t sound like a fantasy; that sounds like a very distinct possibility.”

“I’m just tired of introducing myself by saying ‘Hello, je suis Henri. I used to be someone. J’étais quelqu’un.’”

“Well, you don’t have to open a second bar to do that. In fact, ‘Je suis Henri’ is a perfectly fine introduction.” I feel for his fingers, nestled around a cluster of pinot gris. “I get it. I’ve spent so much of my life borrowing qualifiers. Being someone’s girlfriend or someone’s employee. It’s nice to be just Alice.”

“Juste Alice, ça marche. It works.” I can hear his grin even without looking up.

That night, we slip out of our beds and walk up the street, navigating by the light of our phones, searching for the spot where Henri parked his truck upon arrival, weeks ago. We lug blankets and towels to line the open-air bed of the vehicle. Once we climb in, it’s just us and the star-punctured night sky.

When Henri presses his mouth to mine, I know his taste, the rhythm of his tongue flicking around behind my teeth. I feel like it belongs to me. Like with appetite, with consumption, the more of him I swallow, the more I want. There’s a ravenous quality that makes it nearly impossible to sit across from him at dinner, to view him across the kitchen storing a platter for Bea without aching for physical contact.

When he comes inside me, he digs his nails into my neck, holding fast to my throat as I lean into his grip. I can feel the sharpest corners of his person permeating my skin—as if sex isn’t enough. I want him in my bloodstream.

Then, we sleep, curled into each other like parentheses. As I drift off, I wonder if there’s a metaphor about asides buried in here.

In the morning, in the rearview mirror of the truck, I examine my neck, the chain of half-moon marks from his fingertips. I have the distinct thought that I hope they won’t heal, that they’ll stay with me as this souvenir of whatever it was that we were.

When I try to convey this to him, he smiles slyly. “Souvenir is a French word, you know? Je me souviens: ‘I remember.’” He kisses me softly on the corner of my mouth. “Only in America do you need an object for remembering. You will still se souviens even when the marks are gone, I promise.”

XV

The following days unfurl like some half-drunk hallucination, something sketched in oil pastel. As if someone has turned up the contrast on planet earth, and fuck, have I never seen color before?

Henri and I sleep in the truck bed each night, rolling up our blankets and depositing them in the cab when the nascent sun starts emerging, before anyone else is up. In the afternoons, we pick together in the vines, finding every possible excuse to touch, skin against skin, even in the most mundane ways. I brush a fly off his arm, and he taps my elbow to catch my attention. We harvest figs and tomatoes for Bea; we shell peas together in the kitchen, standing so close, a ruler wouldn’t fit between us. At dinner, we sit together, our utensil-less hands in constant contact. We’re hardly a secret anymore. The opposite, really. But still, we feign some semblance of professionalism, delighting in our minimal acts of restraint.

After dinner, Antoine and Henri often take walks while Ruby and I read and brush our teeth together. Then, while I wait for the others to fall asleep, I write Emma cloying, indulgent emails about what it feels like to wake up in the bed of a Toyota Hilux amid receding stars, sprawling vines, emerging light. About this man whose very smell makes me want to use narcotics or write a poem. The ways in which our back-and-forth feels so comprehensively nourishing, I could live on it alone.

Once it’s late enough, I tiptoe out of my bedroom and into the kitchen to meet Henri, and I feel an outsized affection for the yearning creak of the floorboards as we creep our way out the front door.

This version of living is nothing short of enchanting. Impossibly so. But the problem is, time is passing. And with each day, we continue onward in our unspoken march toward the end of our tenure here. Harvest is finite, part of the horticultural circle of life. And when it ends, this small, guarded world we’ve built—Henri and I but also Ruby, Julian, Pietro, Bea, Antoine—will dissipate.

I’ve known this. But still, the cold reality of it kicks me in the gut when Antoine makes an announcement at dinner about the annual harvest party—a big soiree to celebrate all of our hard work—that will take place the following evening. Though we still have a few more days’ worth of work to do both in the vines and in the cellar, we are ahead of schedule. “And there’s no night like a Friday night for a party,” he says, beaming.

Suddenly, the conclusion isn’t an amorphous thing off in the distance; it has a shape, a structure, a date on the calendar. The largeness of the impending event expands in my skull and dulls the hum of the conversation around me. I only pick up patches of Bea’s explanation of what our preparations will entail: We’ll pull cases of wine up from the cellar and fill grape bins with ice. Someone will need to haul the foosball table out of Antoine’s office and stick it right on the lawn. Oh, and throughout the evening, we’ll all be on duty making tarte flambée to feed the masses.

“You might think Antoine seems like a pretty tame and together guy,” Julian leans over to whisper to me. “But he’s absolutely mad when it comes to throwing a party. This place will be like French Coachella if the median age was forty-five.”

“Way less crochet tops, though.” Ruby giggles to herself while I stare down at my plate.

Later that evening, lying in bed, I listen for Henri’s footsteps, but they never arrive. This is new—unfamiliar territory. It underscores a fear I didn’t know I possessed. As I toss and turn restlessly, the silence seems to grow louder at steady increments. Is there anything so humiliating as waiting?

Sometime after midnight, my agitation has replicated to every cell in my body, and I creep outside. Slinking my way through darkness, I walk the road to Henri’s truck. There it sits, undisturbed—but Henri is nowhere to be found. Leaving my bed, I knew well enough that I wouldn’t discover him here, but the tug of his absence still does something to my stomach. Nothing had changed between us today—there’d been no shift in our obsessively tender rapport. Which makes this jarring breach in our routine feel like a larger betrayal. Am I really so wed to this juvenile routine we’ve cobbled together that I can’t pass a night without it? It means nothing, his absence, I reason with myself. Why would it mean something?

Embarrassed at the sour taste of my own dismay, I tiptoe reluctantly back into bed. Alone, I feel out of place on my mattress, as if the very fixtures of this room have shrunk in the wash.

When I wake, I have an email from Alec glowing in my inbox. Since dinner, I’ve been avoiding the prospect, even knowing its absolute inevitability. I skim the message, not yet ready to ingest the full heft of each individual word: Antoine had mentioned that harvest was wrapping up, it says. Alec had booked my travel home, couldn’t wait to hear everything, looked forward to learning how, exactly, I would put this particular charade into words. Antoine had said wonderful things, and my ticket—for departing two days from now—was attached.

It isn’t a surprise. Well, it is and it isn’t. In the furthest recesses of my psyche, I’ve known this missive would arrive any day—any moment—now.

I click out of the message almost instantly. Alec’s note is my first dalliance with the bluntness of our end date. The hard-and-fast fact of a forty-eight-hour balance remaining—a death sentence spelled out on my phone screen in the form of a seat assignment.

My alarm sings its second snooze warning, and I hold the button on the side of my phone to shut it down completely, rendering it a mere brick of hardware. I tuck it beneath my pillow as if that might make the information it contains any less capable of touching me.

When I hurry downstairs on what will likely be our last day working in the vines, Bea tells us all that Antoine and Henri are staying behind in the cellar, pressing yesterday’s fruit and distributing tables onto the lawn for the party. For the entirety of our drive in the van, my mouth is a straight line. I turn over the prospect of waiting another however-many hours before Henri and I can speak, before he can offer me some assurance or alibi for his disappearance, before I can address my own countdown clock. The hours ahead feel nearly debilitating, racked with a salad of anxiety, melancholy, and dread—all of it laced with guilt that I’m squandering my final moments here.

“Bella, you look so sad on the day of the party.” Pietro and I inch along together, and he watches me as pinot gris mounts in the buckets below us. “This is the day we go wild. Frowning is simply no good.” He throws a grape in the air and catches it in his mouth, chewing with a slow-burn delight before shooting the seeds through his teeth and onto the ground in a tidy arc.

“I just slept weird, don’t you worry. I’ll be in a better mood later.” It’s a suitable excuse, but my tone is flat.

“We’ll amend your spirits while we’re getting dressed—fear not,” Ruby adds, giving me a solemn we’ll talk later look. She tosses a grape at Pietro, who stands with his mouth hanging open, waiting. Naturally, she misses.

“What about me? Room for Pietro at your getting-ready fiesta?”

“If you let Ruby give you a braid crown, you’re certainly invited,” I offer.

“In that case, si, of course. We fix Alice, we braid hair, we do some techno!” He raises a fist in the air, pumping it to his own a cappella beat.

After lunchtime—bread and pâté as a breezy prologue to the evening’s festivities—we are dismissed to begin our primping process. The promise of novelty hangs in the air, given that the lot of us have yet to bear witness to one another in any state not defined by athletic wear, ruddy knees, and grape-varnished fingertips.

In the shower—where my requisite six minutes have come to feel plentiful—I shave my legs, a ritual I’ve nearly forgotten about. I watch while my razor skims my calves, unveiling this pristine, untouched layer underneath. I scrub at my cheeks with a French exfoliant left behind in the shower, and I feel somehow baptized by the shedding of layers.

Back in our room, I massage lotion across my shoulders, my collarbone, and Ruby plays French pop music out of a tinny set of speakers. With a pang of pride, I realize I can hear how the phrases in the lyrics separate themselves, each word distinct in a way I’d been unable to parse when I’d arrived—back when French sounded more like lovely rambling than a decipherable thing. Ruby sings along, wielding her hairbrush like a microphone, her coarse towel wrapped around her chest.

“Seems so strange that we’re about to see each other looking like we do in the real world. Makeup, proper street clothes.” I rifle through my things for a pair of underwear as I speak. “I feel like we’re breaking this bizarre contract with one another.”

“It’s like we’re shattering the fourth wall—all of us, at once.”

“Right, right—and being here at all feels like suspending disbelief.”

She turns to look at me. “Speaking of suspending: I can’t believe you’re gonna leave soon. I’ll be around until the end of the month, and it’s gonna be so quiet in our little chambre with you gone.”

“Well, yeah. Actually . . . about that . . .” I’ve been avoiding the disclosure all day, as if speaking it aloud confirms its reality. Or as if delivering the news to anyone before Henri is an act of disloyalty. “Alec emailed me. I’ve only got about two days left.” Two days. I can’t believe the reality of such a finite block of time.

“No! I won’t have it!” she cries over the music and flings her arms around my neck. “No, no, no.”

I nod into her shoulder. “I’m not ready either.”

“And what about Henri?”

“I don’t know . . .” Merely hearing his name brings the simmering apprehension in my gut to a boil. “I haven’t told him yet. Haven’t seen him all day. Since dinner last night. I . . . I, yeah . . . I don’t know.”

“I get it, honeybee.” She pulls back to take in my face and must sense something fragile in what she sees there. “Why don’t we talk about it later, huh? Tonight’s our last hurrah, and I’ll be damned if we both don’t enjoy it.”

I nod, grateful for the diversion. I know she’s right: I’ll be endlessly disappointed if I squander my final big night. But my eyes are damp anyway. Leaking ever so slightly.

“Let’s get down to business. What are you gonna wear?” She squeezes my shoulder gently.

“I have no idea. You?”

Ruby holds up a vintage-looking button-down top with cap sleeves and large, spirited polka dots along with a pair of black wide-leg trousers.

“I’m thinking these and, well, any shoes at all that aren’t work boots. Might skew a touch primary school art teacher, but alas. C’est la vie.”

“I love it; it suits you.”

“Wait!” She holds up a hand, flinging her own clothes onto the bed. “I have something for you!”

She reaches into the armoire and produces a gauzy white nightgown with thin straps and a pleated panel down the front. “My ginger ass can only wear this to sleep—makes me look like a proper ghost. But you’re so tan now, you’ll look like a little angel.”

In this house of so few mirrors, I’ve hardly been aware of the slow-warming color of my skin, the deepening hue. I pull the dress over my head, my wet hair dripping coolly down my back, and it falls just right, the hem landing a book’s width above my knees, the body hanging loose with just a suggestion of silhouette.

“How’s it look?”

“It’s special—angelic, indeed. Wear it. You’ve got no choice.”

She finds her phone to take a picture—our mirror substitute in all sartorial matters—and I see that she’s right. It fits well, makes me look more feminine than I have in weeks. I like it, this reassurance of my own form. This ability to shift so swiftly from sturdy, capable, and soil dusted to young lady. And of course, I see Henri seeing me in it. I know he’ll like it—know the way his eyes will gleam, the corner of his mouth stretching to the left.

Ruby and I do each other’s makeup—one more solve for our lack of reflective surfaces. A light, bruisey eyeshadow for each of us; mascara (“Blink onto the wand,” she tells me); a mauve lipstick. Ruby plaits her hair with nimble fingers into a tidy French braid, while I let mine air dry, falling long and wavy to the midpoint of my back. After weeks of having the mass of it tied up in some knot of efficiency, it feels indulgent to let it breathe this way, so unrestrained.

“His jaw will drop when he sees you,” she whispers, not bothering to clarify the he. I’m grateful for her soft reassurance, her acknowledgment of the Henri Conundrum—even if we aren’t going to discuss l’éléphant in the room.

As Ruby spritzes herself with perfume, Pietro arrives, knocking softly before pushing the door open enough to peek his head inside hesitantly. “Ah, ragazzi! My God!”

He nudges the door the rest of the way open with his hip and presents three flutes of something sparkling balanced in his hands. “I come with a small treat for the girls!”

He distributes the wine among us, and we clink our glasses together with a sweet, small chime. “Grazie, Pietro, just what we needed.” I kiss him on both cheeks. A tenderness toward him dilutes my gloom as I take in his wild getup—an excellent stand-in for his personality—and I worry that I haven’t gotten enough of him while I’ve been here. That ultimately, my Big Experience has rested far too squarely on the shoulders of some precarious romance.

“You both look so beautiful. Like models!” He gesticulates effusively with his wineless hand. “So much eleganza!”

“What can we say, we clean up nice.” Ruby pops a hip and reaches an arm in the air so as to properly display her outfit. “Well . . . it helps when we clean up at all. But look at you, Pietro!”

He’s wearing his typical collection of gold chains, which hang at different lengths across his chest like rivulets. On this occasion, they’re offset by a leopard-print shirt with one lone button in use near his navel.

His hair isn’t nearly long enough to make use of Ruby’s braiding talents, but nonetheless, he demands a hairdo of any genre. The three of us kneel together in a circle on the hardwood floor, and Ruby sets to work, storing a spray of bobby pins in her teeth while she divides his mane into sections.

As I pass her a comb, another knock. “Entrez!” I call out. “Come in!”

The door swings open to reveal Henri, stepping forward with a measured trepidation. Can everything revealed be called a revelation? I wonder. Or is that term specific to moments like this one?

In brown pants and a navy linen button-down, the sleeves rolled up just above his elbows, he looks like some masculine advertisement for vacation—a case for time spent, without cell service, in sunshine. God, I am relieved to see him. Meeting his eyes feels like encountering a spring . . . and it has only been how long now since my last drink?

“Welcome, mio fratello! The girls are beautifying!” Pietro gestures for him to come in and sit.

He pauses as if some barrier prevents his passage. “I . . . was hoping I could talk to Alice for a moment.”

We hold one another’s gaze, and the incongruous weight of the seemingly plain request makes my heart race. Will I ever tire of my name in his mouth? Does it ring differently knowing there is a dwindling supply of his Alices left?

“Oui, let’s go for a walk?” I stand up, leaving my wine propped carefully next to Ruby, doing my best to avoid the knowing glances between my floor companions. “Don’t let Pietro drink my glass.”

Pietro rolls his eyes, and Henri holds the door open for me. Instinctively, we walk around to the back of the house and toward his truck, traipsing along in a high-decibel silence. I catch sight of myself in the rearview mirror, and I pause. Perhaps it has something to do with how rarely I’ve encountered my own reflection. Maybe it’s the mottled freckles on my skin; the sun-bleached, loosened quality of my hair; the Alsatian light. Perhaps it’s the berry-stain lip color in this land of smashed fruit. Maybe it’s just the distinct experience of moving about in a dress that doesn’t belong to me. Whatever the cause, all of the pieces of me seem to fit together in a way they never have before.

“You look really beautiful,” Henri says quietly as if reading my own surprise and slicing through it with accuracy.

“You do too,” I respond. Problematically so, I want to say. But then . . . he seems jittery, anticipatory, as if overcaffeinated. The space between us—more space than usual—almost vibrates, as if he’s emitting a low, humming sound undetectable to my ears.

We stand in silence, our stilted compliments clouding the air. I exhale. “Are you OK? You seem . . . a little agitated.”

“No, no, I’m good. Excellent, actually.” His voice is a notch higher than usual. “Genial!” He leans forward, kissing me hard on the mouth, and I don’t see it coming. When we collide, it’s more car crash than connection. An aberration. I press my fingers to my lips.

He scans my face. “Sorry . . . was just very excited to see you.” He clutches his hands together. “I, um, I have something to tell you.”

He trails off, and I raise my eyebrows. My stomach clenches as I wait anxiously for him to explain last night’s disappearance, his off-brand, frenetic energy. Why the drawn-out preface? I wonder. We’ve never required verbal on-ramps before.

“I did it. I left her. Fully.” His voice wavers as if he, himself, is shocked to hear his vocal cords shaped into those particular sounds. “We talked last night, for many hours, and I . . . I ended things. Not a break anymore. Just an ending.”

Something swells up in me—quick and violent, like an electric shock. I’ve wanted to hear those words, haven’t I? Have dreaded anything but those words. And yet the fierce reality of our particular scenario is glaring. I am leaving. He is demolishing the scaffolding of his life. And we, well. We are two people now in a position to be a we, should we so choose—with all the burdens that entails. I haven’t asked for this. Have I?

He leans forward to kiss me again, but I take two steps backward. “Alice?” he says with audible concern, and I hear the metallic ring of his voice somewhere deep in my chest—as if he’s speaking not at me but into me.

I can see the hurt as it flashes across his face—confusion at my reluctance, at my lack of immediate and flagrant enthusiasm. And really, why am I reluctant? Where is my immediate and flagrant enthusiasm?

“I wanted to tell you right away. To thank you. I’ve been ready to do it for some time,” he presses onward. “The breaking up, not the telling you. For a long time, actually. But I was too . . . I don’t know. Just couldn’t make myself do it—until now. I needed a reason that I couldn’t talk myself out of.”

His voice shakes softly, and I watch as his hands move toward me and retreat repeatedly—endless false starts. I can feel the weight of his admission simmering somewhere in my stomach, the acid twinge of guilt as it spreads like contagion throughout my gut, coats my esophagus. Am I the cause—the reason this man to whom I’ve promised nothing, who has promised nothing to me, is upending his life?

Charlotte, this living, breathing woman, is exhaling, folding laundry, salting her food, processing the end of her relationship somewhere in Lyon, and I am returning to New York. To Emma. To my own alternate reality.

He reaches for my hand and this time holds it between his, looking at me pleadingly. My heart rate quickens—and not in the way it normally does when the two of us touch. This is an alarm sounding, an alert from the nervous system.

“What’s wrong?” he prods, his apprehensive glee fully transformed into something panic-adjacent. “I thought this would be good news. It means that this—us—is not so complicated. I don’t understand why you’re not smiling?”

I push my tongue around my gums, hoping certain words might bubble up, wanting to recover his shaky, eager joy in some form. But my mouth is full of a citric, iron anxiety. Does he not understand that some portion of the fragile, tentative bliss of us—of all of this—relies on the fact that it can’t exist in the real world? That it can’t survive outside of whatever magical dimension in which we presently stand?

And now, here we are, properly dressed, as our actual selves. I have the odd sense that time is no longer moving in its militant march forward. It’s hitting me sideways, at an angle.

I look down at the hem of my dress, and it strikes me as too revealing of everything underneath. “I just . . . we never talked about the future. I thought there was some tacit agreement that this was all we had. I didn’t ask you to make any choices around me.”

“Alice . . . what are you talking about?” His hands go to his hair. “I’m not, like, asking you to marry me, OK?” Something harsh creeps into his eyes—an impatience I’ve never detected in him before. “I mean . . . forgive me for thinking we weren’t gonna high-five and go our separate ways when harvest ended. Is that so crazy?”

“Viens, my dears!” Bea calls from the front of the house. “Come now, much to do!”

She’s stationed mere yards away, and there is no ignoring her. She stands, hands on her hips; there’s no time to be bought.

As we amble over, I find myself wishing desperately for Emma’s presence. Surely she’d have some idea about what is so disastrously wrong with me. Why I’m so allergic to romantic plausibility. Why the loose ends of this conversation with Henri scratch at my throat like a choking hazard.

XVI

Antoine lights the outdoor brick oven as Bea shows the five of us—so shiny clean we’re nearly reflective—how to make the tarte flambée. She demonstrates how to roll out the dough, slow and steady, until it’s paper thin, then garnish the surface with an array of ingredients spread across the table. The traditional, local version of the dish comes slathered with crème fraîche, slivered onions, and smoky-cured bacon, but Bea has laid out preserved meats, sliced vegetables, and herb sprigs. Once we complete our masterpieces, we’ll pass them to Antoine, who will bake them in his fire-breathing chamber wielding his hulking wooden paddle.

I excuse myself to the bathroom then jog into the house and sit on the edge of the tub to call Emma. I clutch my phone to my ear. Pick up, pick up, pick up, I mouth.

“Alice!” Her voice is dotted with enthusiasm. “I’ve only got a minute—working a double at the restaurant. Talking to you from the walk-in right now.”

I breathe a sigh of relief, picturing her in her work uniform. “God, it’s good to hear your voice.”

“Is that affection? From my Alice? France really has softened you up.”

I laugh.

“So to what do I owe the pleasure of your emergency phone call?”

“How do you know it’s an emergency?”

“Isn’t it?”

“Oui.”

“Go on.”

“Henri broke up with his girlfriend.”

“Shit.”

“What do I do?”

“Have his babies?”

“Emma!”

“OK, OK. I only have a second, so I’ll be fast. First things first, congratulations. You and I both know that this is not always how this particular narrative plays out. So clearly there’s something special about what you’ve got going on over there. Don’t think yourself out of enjoying it. And second, I know this makes things way more real. And thus, way more scary. And way more dangerous. The stakes are higher. But who fucking cares? You literally got on a plane because you were so bored of having nothing at stake.”

I make a noise somewhere between a laugh and a deep sigh. How lovely it is to have a friend who can translate my own brain material so much more astutely than I can—all while standing inside a refrigerator.

“Listen, I can’t pretend like I have any clue what you’re gonna do about the fact that you’re leaving. A long-distance relationship with a Frenchman you’ve known a month doesn’t totally sound like a great idea to me. But you’ve only got a little more time there. So be there. Don’t be calling me from some closet. Later is later’s business.”

I sigh, a smile plastered on my face. “You’re the best, you know that?”

“I know! OK, I love you, gotta go—don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

And with that, the warm, ever-comforting presence of Emma disappears, and my phone goes black. I clutch it to my chest, feeling the mechanical heat, mistaking it for human warmth. She is right: I know it, can feel it in every molecule of my body. I hope—pray, really—that my brain will allow me to just be here, pure and simple. Tenderness is not a cerebral act, right?

As I rejoin the group outside, Julian arrives with two wire baskets, each molded with egg-carton-like divots to nestle six bottles of wine. He sets them on the table and fills generous glasses for each of us.

Antoine raises his in the air. “Quelles vendanges, what a harvest!” His voice booms over the sounds of us gathering around. “I couldn’t have done it without each and every one of you. You always know the vintage will be good when a group like this runs the show.” His gaze moves over each of us. “This is a special place, that much I know. But it’s easy to forget until folks like you arrive, make it feel more alive. We’re all lucky to be here. So . . . cheers to us.”

He raises his glass even higher, looking like the Statue of Liberty or some other beacon of hospitality, and we all do the same. Emma’s diatribe rings in my ears as I look around: With our arms in the air like this, glasses glowing yellow, we are the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.

Someone switches the speakers on inside the cellar. Loud, brass-heavy music drifts through the field, bumping up against tree trunks and wine bottles. The sun is getting milkier. Julian refills our glasses from Antoine’s limitless stash.

From my position at the tarte table, I can’t see Henri—and frankly, I prefer it that way. If we can’t speak properly, I don’t want to attempt to survive passing eye contact.

Ruby, across from me, keeps trying to catch my attention, but we are nowhere near close enough to whisper in confidence. Pietro tosses his round of dough in the air like some caricature of an Italian chef—but he fails to catch it on the way down, coating the tabletop and everything on it in flour. Julian, compelled to taste every bottle he opens, is getting tipsier at a startling rate.

From the corners of the property, guests begin to seep in. The music is interrupted by engine noises as cars park around the domaine with no obvious logic. Families, couples, old winemakers with dripping, storybook beards traipse in—all of them clutching more wine, adding their bottles to the flood of cuvées arranged across every available surface. Each guest claps Antoine on the back, kisses Bea on both cheeks, waves jubilant and joyful hellos to us.

Half an hour passes that way, a slew of greetings offered with flour-encrusted palms. Once we’ve prepared enough tarte flambée for the time being and downed enough wine for the music to sound runny, Bea waves us off. “This is your party.” She shoos us like we’re now in the way. “You’re meant to go enjoy it.”

Antoine passes Julian a magnum of Champagne. “This one’s just for you five,” he says and winks. “Go open it somewhere by yourselves. No sharing.”

Julian takes the lead, directing us toward the garden and up a small ladder to the top of the shed. As we hoist ourselves onto the roof, I look anywhere but at Henri—as if seeing him head-on will rupture something in me. As if I might fling my arms around his neck or punch him in the throat.

Once we’re all gathered, Julian wrenches the cork from the Champagne with a balletic twist, and the pop is like an aural exclamation point. He fills each of our outstretched glasses, and the wine hisses—the sound of relief. We sit in a circle with Ruby on one side of me and Henri on the other. I feel us not touching, and to occupy myself, I dip my ear to my glass.

“What on earth are you doing?” Ruby stares at me incredulously.

“Listening.” I press it closer like it’s a seashell.

“To what, you lunatic?”

“Trying to figure out what bubbles sound like.”

She grins, holds her own ear to her glass, and giggles. “Sounds like first footsteps on fresh ice. That crackling.”

“Ooh, that’s a good one, I definitely hear it.”

“What is wrong with you two?” Pietro guffaws, astonished at the sight of us, contorting ourselves over our glass rims so as to listen without spilling the wine. “Are you drinking through your ears?”

“In a way,” I say with a smirk.

“Oh, go on. Try it.” Ruby flicks a wrist without moving her head.

One by one, the men obey, twisting themselves into serpentine postures for the sake of our experiment. We look like something Dalí might paint, too absurd to exist within the real world.

“Like techno, of course.” Pietro is the first to answer.

“Like bubbles. They sound like bubbles,” Julian mutters, deadpan.

“Like a million voices colliding in a bar,” Henri says, his voice low. “A din.”

I flash him a look, and for a moment, it feels like something has slid back into place. Like whatever complication that exists between us is a feeble thing.

We all pause and listen to the human noise of the party lap against the shed—a sound not unlike Champagne.

“Well then, I propose a toast!” Ruby looks around, shiny-eyed. “In fact, I propose that each of us propose a toast.” She picks up a small pebble, stands, and clinks it against her glass. I shift expectantly to face her. “You lot are a stone-cold pack of absolute nutjobs, and I adore you so very much. Julian, you’re so goddamn German. Pietro, you are a little beacon of joy. Henri, you’re an immaculate listener. Alice . . . God, I love your brain. I feel endlessly grateful for our strange, misshapen little family. So, santé!” She raises her glass, and we all do the same.

She plops down beside me, slinging an arm around my shoulder, and I nestle my head into her neck. “Love you heaps, honeybee,” I whisper in the most exaggerated faux-Australian accent I can muster, and she cackles in response. Below us, the raucous rumble of the party tugs gently like an undercurrent.

“Who’s next?” Ruby challenges.

“I’ll go.” Julian uncrosses his legs to stand, and as soon as he’s on his feet, he begins to pace, taking his brief role as master of ceremonies predictably seriously. “So . . . I’m not one for sentimentality.” He roots himself in place like he’s located his narrative entry point. “But I . . . I will admit . . . I feel very sad to be leaving you all. I didn’t come here to make friends, and in spite of my best efforts, it was impossible not to. So yeah . . . can’t believe I’m saying this, but it’s true: I am going to miss you all.”

“Here, here!” Ruby cries out, visibly rapturous with glee at the breach in Julian’s stoicism. We raise our glasses while Julian returns to his seat and Henri, beside him, ruffles his hair boyishly.

“Me next! Me next!” Pietro calls out. He’s lying on his side with his head propped up on his hand as if posing for a portrait, and from this position, he raises his glass. “I would kiss you all on the mouth right now, but I think Julian would kill me.” Ruby puckers in his direction and he winks back at her. “I loooove you all so much. You will come to Milan, every one of you, and you will stay in my home, and we will party all night, all day. But always, when you come to Italy, my home is your home. Si?”

He raises his glass, Ruby mimics his posture of repose, and I throw my head back gleefully.

“Et moi?” Henri interjects, rising to stand. He assesses each person in front of him individually before lingering, with unwavering focus, on me. “Well, to start, I should probably mention that I just broke up with my girlfriend. And it’s no coincidence that I’m doing it now.” He pauses and looks down at his feet. Ruby elbows me in the ribs, and I chew on my lower lip. Perhaps it was my conversation with Emma, perhaps it’s the Champagne, but this time, the second time, hearing Henri share this news makes me feel light. Giddy, even.

“Obviously, there are some anxieties. But I . . . I feel really good about making big life choices. And changes.” He raises his head again, looking off at some unnameable point in the distance. “So, I guess I wanted to tell you all thank you. You’re bizarre, and fearless, and a nice reminder that the world is so much bigger than the one I’ve felt so trapped inside of for the last few years. I’m, uh, I’m grateful. And I’m hopeful. So, yeah, thank you. Also . . . thanks.” He returns to his seat on the ground abruptly, as if disinterested in the reception.

“Cheers to that!” Pietro coos. “Free man, single Henri, watch out France!” Everyone laughs, myself included, and a smile erupts across Henri’s face. Some of the tension goes from his shoulders like I’m seeing his ligaments loosening in real time.

“New York, it’s your turn.” Henri’s voice is so low, it’s nearly a whisper.

I nod. “I’m not going to stand, OK?” My knees are tucked to my chest, my chin propped on top of them, my arms wrapped around my shins like some kind of armor.

“Lazy, much?” Julian taunts.

“Shut it,” Ruby shoots back, shoving his arm and spilling a splash of wine over his hand.

“You all make for a good metaphor,” I start, beaming my gratitude at Ruby. “For the most part, I fell in love with all of you shielded by the vines.” Ruby squeezes my knee encouragingly. “I’m not quite as stoney as Julian, but I am protected. I don’t share much, don’t lay much out on the line. But here, something about you guys, or about this place, or about the land . . . I don’t know. It unstuck whatever was so guarded in me. At least for a little bit. So, thanks for reminding me about awe. And about honesty. And for correcting my French. I’m . . . I’m not ready for this thing to be done. It feels like we’ve been building toward something, and what a shame to dismantle it just because we’ve run out of grapes.” I can feel my eyes tearing. “Lucky to be here, lucky to know you.”

I release one arm from around my knees and raise my glass. For the last time, the group mimics the gesture. Ruby wraps her arms around me and kisses me on the forehead tenderly. “Me too!” Pietro cries, catapulting toward us and encircling us both in his arms.

“OK, fine.” Julian sighs and shuffles over to join. “Henri, hurry up.”

He does, and for a moment that is both too long and too short, we stay like that, this cocoon of too-new and too-familiar bodies.

“This is what bubbles sound like,” I whisper, and everyone leans in closer, squeezes tighter, holds harder.

Suddenly, the grim sound of shattered glass clatters beneath us, and it shocks us back into form. We move toward the edge of the roof to see what has gone wrong: It’s Antoine, a shattered bottle at his feet, his hand bleeding. He sways just slightly, and I register my own surprise. I’d assumed it would be near impossible to get a man of his stature drunk.

Henri and Julian hurry down the ladder, and I watch as they rush to either side of Antoine to guide him into a seat. Bea appears with ointment and a bandage. Julian locates a broom and a dustpan to sweep up the glass. Henri crouches by Antoine, talking close to his ear, offering platitudes I wish I could hear.

When Pietro climbs down to urinate in the bushes, I realize that we have polished off the magnum—and rather quickly, at that. I am drunk. Drunk-adjacent. Ruby and I lay back, staring up at the wide-open expanse of the blue-black night sky stamped with stars. “I’d say we’re quite good for each other. Right place, right time,” she says, leaning her head against my shoulder.

“Right place, right time,” I respond, nuzzling her closer. “I’ll always have been lucky to know you, even when there are oceans—plural—between us.”

“Nothing gold can stay,” she whispers with a certain singsongy swell. “Some great male author wrote that, right? I think I saw it tattooed on someone at the beach once.”

I laugh. “Robert Frost—good poet, bad tattoo.”

“Isn’t that always the case?”

I stand up and extend a hand to help her. Then together—slowly given our degree of intoxication—we amble down to greet the rest of the world.

At ground level, the party is swelling like an oceanic thing. Empty bottles litter the grass like debris. The tables are strewn with half-eaten plates of tarte flambée, pairs of hands fluttering over squares of rolling paper and pouches of tobacco. The music is a jagged, rumbling form of jazz, akin to the disjointed rhythm of the event.

Across the lawn, I see Henri, now in a blue chore jacket—the kind that you can buy for €5 on the streets in France and $500 in a boutique in New York. He moves through the crowd, the long glide of him, stepping past angled bodies and outstretched hands.

I refill my glass with the first half-empty bottle I spot without bothering to check what it is, then I comb my way through the crowd in search of Ruby, who has gone off to find a real bathroom in lieu of the bushes.

As I wander, I’m pulled into intermittent conversation with the folks peppered throughout the yard—people who want to know what, exactly, an American girl is doing in Alsace. How is harvest treating me? And do I have a visa? Am I married?

I make my way through each exchange inelegantly—though, much to my delight, my French spills out fluidly, void of the stopgap of my sober self-consciousness. Drinking can be useful that way.

By the time I reach the edge of the crowd, my usual compatriots nowhere to be seen, I’m grateful for a moment of reprieve. I lower myself to the ground and gaze out at the labyrinth of vines, the wall of quiet. How unto itself this place is. How far from my own world—and how close too.

I feel a hand come to rest on my shoulder as if I’ve willed it into existence—I don’t need to look up to see who it belongs to. I know his smell, the particular tension in his fingers, the way his touch makes my muscles want to cling closer to my bones.

“Bonsoir,” he says quietly—more to the expanse of vines than to me.

“Bonsoir,” I reply, matching his volume.

“Can we speak yet?”

He is crouched next to me, and I can feel the warmth of his breath on the side of my face. I can’t tell if he sounds drunk—or if, through my own intoxication, the whole world seems that way.

“We can.” I stand up, and he does too. I can’t help but want more proximity, more closeness. More and more and more.

I kiss him, and he kisses me back—the two of us negotiating the space between us trepidatiously this time. But when I reach for the back of his neck, my grip is firm, desperate, pleading, and he presses his mouth harder against mine—a whole conversation of its own.

We pull apart, and he grasps my shoulders, stepping back a footprint to look somewhere deep inside me from arm’s length. “Can you tell me what’s happening in your brain, Alice? I can’t figure out what’s going on.”

“I know, I’m sorry.” I rest my hand on top of his. “All night, I’ve wanted to ask you about . . . about what happened. And if you’re OK. I just . . . we haven’t been alone. And I spiraled a little before.” I look up at him, and he raises an eyebrow.

The truth is, I can’t figure out how to contextualize us now. And more hauntingly, the plausibility of an us at all clarifies the size and shape of my feelings. The largeness, the substantiveness. “It just all feels so real now . . . or at least so possible,” I tell him. “But also, I don’t know . . . what if the sense that it’s possible is an illusion? What if you regret the breakup?” I’m gaining some momentum. “And I know what it feels like to carry guilt around as this thing tethered to romance.” I start to pace. “I spent so long trying to unlearn that—the idea that by loving someone, you’re taking something from them. Causing them pain, offering them false hope. And now there’s no way for me to feel anything other than this impending fear that unless we end up happily married in the south of France, I’ve destroyed your life as you know it. And frankly, even if we wanted to be together in some real way, it’s not viable. We live on different continents, Henri. Different time zones!” The thought of trying to reach him via FaceTime from such different vantage points feels vaguely tragic, the idea of constantly adding six hours to the clock somehow heartbreaking.

“Hey, hey, slow down. That’s not what it’s like—you know, I get a narrative here too.” His voice is tinged with urgency. “Who’s to say I just ruined my life? What if it’s quite the opposite? What if my life was drying up? The only happy ending here doesn’t have to involve you and me and a palace in Marseille. My life has some momentum again. I’m making choices, wanting things. And for what it’s worth, something doesn’t need to be eternal to be valuable.”

“You say that now, but what happens when you make it back to Lyon?” I can hear my own heartbeat, can feel it in my kneecaps. “And you’re figuring out what to do with your apartment? And you’re lonely? And Antoine is cold with you? And you’re dividing your group of friends between you and Charlotte? And I’m not around anymore as some kind of temporary balm?”

“Does it matter? You’re here now. We’re both here now. Why do we need to make that so complicated?”

“Because I leave in forty-eight hours!” I shout. “Even less than that now.”

I know this is an unfair way to give him the news. I’ve been treating it like a stubborn infection ignored until it turns lethal, and I haven’t so much as opened the ticket in my email.

A jolt of panic flashes across his eyes. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

Despite my tactless delivery, I want him to know that I feel equally accosted by this information. “Alec booked the flight—Antoine let him know that we were wrapping up here. I didn’t know until this morning.”

“Well then, what now? What do we do with that?” He wrings his hands, staring at the vines rather than me.

“I don’t know. I really don’t know.” I can feel my eyes prickle. “I . . . it would have been easier to leave if you hadn’t . . . with Charlotte. I just . . . I thought we’d have a clean break. I don’t know . . . I don’t know what I thought. I suppose I knew all along that it wasn’t clean.”

He takes a step closer, and I let myself press into him. I rest my forehead against his chest. He smooths his hand down my hair, down my back.

“OK, we both know—have always known—that you were returning to New York. That I’m staying in France no matter what it is that I go back to in Lyon.” His voice grows steadier, more assured as he speaks. “We picked each other in spite of that fact, not because of it—even if you’d argue the opposite. But Alice, we have forty-eight hours . . . and I think if there’s any unforgivable thing, it’s not leaning in. You’ll be in Paris someday. I’ll be in New York. Or maybe not; maybe this is it. But don’t ruin it now, OK? Let’s not do that.”

I can think of nothing so reckless as lowering my defenses to a person who is so close to disappearing. A person from whom, against my will, I want so much.

Then again, the wanting is louder than everything else.

He reaches for my waist, pulling me into him by the small of my back, and holds my hair back in a fist to kiss my neck, to nuzzle his face into my shoulder. I let out some kind of low-pitched sigh. An exhale that travels across the whole of my body.

“Alice . . .” he whispers and presses his mouth to the dip between my neck and my collarbone. He says my name as if he’s invented the word, as if no one has stacked those precise syllables, in that very order, until right now. He is right; of course he is right. If not now, if not this, then what? I tell myself. Don’t think your way out of this.

Together, one intertwined being, we slip farther into the vines, drifting into total darkness. I tug the ghostly bodice of my dress over my head, and he unbuttons his shirt slowly, his eyes flashing and never leaving mine.

This time, we’re rough with each other, like we want as much as we can get while we can have it. I tug him out of his pants. He laces his hands through my hair at the roots. I climb on top of him and bite his arm as he thrusts into me. He spreads my thighs as wide as they’ll go, my knees scraping across the dirt. Fucking him feels like being underwater—sound suspended, bodies liberated from the tenets of gravity. When I come, his fingers dancing between my legs with an insistent deftness, I feel my orgasm wash over me like a warm, silken tide.

When we’re finished, he pulls me onto him gently. “Let’s pretend like it’s the real thing, OK? You and me. Just ’til you go,” he whispers, and I nod, collapsed on his chest, too content, too sated to resist. So we lay there, trading affectionate sentiments back and forth. Just before I drift off, I think about the saccharine, dismissive ways we use the phrase sweet nothings. How sonnets and pop songs have ruined the term. How it is my pursuit to embrace both—the sweetness and the nothingness—for these last two days. Now closer to one.

We fall asleep curled into each other on the ground, pinned in place by an exhaustion so full-bodied, we can’t possibly move.

We wake in the hazy blue light before dawn, the sound of birds above. He yawns, rubbing sleep from his eyes, and runs a hand along my cheek affectionately. I sit up begrudgingly, the cloud of a hangover hovering over my forehead while we search for our clothes.

Once dressed, we intertwine our hands and tiptoe back into the house, parting by our bedroom doors. He kisses me goodnight—or good morning—and I feel the shape of his smile pressed against my mouth. Then I step into my room, shutting the door as quietly as I can. Ruby lets out a sleepy, guttural groan.

“Alice . . . is that you?”

“C’est moi,” I whisper. “Sorry to wake you.”

She moves to the edge of her twin bed and pats the space next to her without lifting her head. “Get in here, already. It’s not a morning for waking up alone.”

I grin in the dark and crawl in beside her, buoyant with gratitude as she pulls the blanket over me and drapes a heavy, limp arm across my body. “Sweet dreams, honeybee,” she murmurs.

I fall asleep quickly, thinking, My God, how lucky. How lucky, how lucky.

XVII

Since arriving, I haven’t slept past the sun, but this morning, Ruby and I wake around 9:00, wrapped in a tangle of bedsheets and rough blankets. Antoine has let us sleep in—whether for his benefit or ours, I don’t know.

Aligned in our hangovers, Ruby and I brush our teeth in silence, toss on T-shirts and denim shorts, and stumble downstairs to pray at the altar of the espresso machine.

Bea is in the kitchen, preparing enough crepes to feed a midsize village, and the smell of browning butter laced with sugar is so warm and enveloping, I, too, could melt. Out the window, the boys are helping Antoine, his hand bandaged, moving the long tables back to their rightful positions.

We down our acrid coffees, slip on shoes, and head out the front door to scour the property for glass bottles to collect in large black trash bags. There are many, and I’m almost grateful for the bout of manual labor . . . as if I won’t know my place here without a physical task.

Around 11:00, when the domaine has been returned to something of its former glory, we all sit down to eat. We drink more coffee, smother our crepes in sugar and jam, eat in a lazy, cozy silence.

Everyone seems smudged and raw in the aftermath of the party, but Henri’s hand is firm where it rests on mine, our fingers woven together on top of the table. It’s as if he’s reassuring himself that I am still here. Or perhaps it’s me in need of reassurance. Something about the gesture, however small, feels certain. Like we’re playing house, testing the physical boundaries of operating as a unit. We are relishing existing in our liminal space, facing our fragile reality head-on. It tastes like homemade preserves spread over the sour brine of hangover—the antidote to indulgence, an indulgence unto itself.

After we clear the table, Antoine assigns us jobs: picking through a final plot of grapes, de-stemming a lingering barrel, handling pigeage.

“Alice, come with me,” he instructs. “I have a special task for us.”

I change into my work clothes and find Antoine, in his beloved rubber overalls, standing outside the cellar with his hands on his hips.

“I spoke to Alec this morning—I can’t believe you’re leaving already.” He tosses an arm over my shoulders. “I feel like you’ve just arrived. Well, and like you’ve been here for years. Both at the same time.”

“Time moves in such odd directions here.”

“Don’t I know it. How do you feel about leaving? Are you ready?”

“Not in the slightest. But that’s a nice thing.” I chew on my lip, deciding how much of the sentiment to share. “Usually, I actually like the leaving part. But this time, I’m not ready to go yet. It’s a strange feeling.”

He smiles, mouth closed. “Something to do with Henri, maybe?”

I blush—even now, Antoine’s acknowledgment of us feels akin to getting caught under the bleachers. “I . . .”

“We don’t have to talk about it. I just wanted to tell you that he and I have discussed it. You, I mean. And the thing is, I know that boy—that man—quite well. And this is the happiest I’ve seen him in a while. He looks a little lighter. So thanks for that.”

“De rien, it’s nothing,” I say. But I can tell I’m beaming. It is very much something to me.

“You know, I always get a bit sad at the end of harvest. Relieved, of course, because the work is done. But the house gets so quiet. We build this little family, this little microcosm of the world, and then it just goes away. One by one, everyone disappears. After a bit, I settle into the quiet, start to enjoy it. But at first, that quiet feels so loud.” Antoine scuffs the toe of his boot against the ground as if in contemplation.

I look up at the sun, then out across the vines. “It’s hard to imagine how many times this house fills up and drains out. I mean, every year, all these people come, and it feels so new and large to them—to me—even though it’s all happened before. This thing, it’s not specific to us.” I try to put myself into context, to let myself be small in the grand lineage of the vineyard. But I don’t believe myself. Nothing in my time here can be shrunk down into something prosaic or digestible.

“It isn’t, and it is, specific to you all.” He squats down, resting his elbows against his knees. “You know, every year, I tell myself harvest couldn’t possibly be as special as the year that came before. And every year, I’m surprised. Or moved. Or just delighted.”

“Part of me loves that—and the other part of me wants us to be so special. Like, we can’t possibly be repeated.” I blush at my earnestness.

“Of course you can’t,” he says with a laugh. “No repetition, just continuation. Some other link added to the chain.”

I smile. How I adore this monument of a man and his aphorisms, with or without the assurance of his good graces. “You know, sometimes you speak in quotes, Antoine.”

“Ahh, my dear—that’s why I’ve brought you here.” He pushes his way into the cellar and grabs a legal pad, a plastic beaker, and a sponge from his desk. He shows me how to siphon wine from each cask—last year’s vintages—using the sponge to clean the nozzle. “Will you write tasting notes for the four ready for bottling?” he asks with childish excitement. “To send back to Alec along with the tech sheets. No one talks about wine the way you do—or at least, no one I’ve heard. So, well, I want you to talk about my wine.” He winks, hands me a ballpoint pen, and heads into his office.

The first, a Sylvaner, tastes like acid—sharp geometric shapes, antiseptic on a paper cut. It’s lean in the way of women in Manhattan, lovely in the rigidity of its structure. Wine with good posture.

The second, a Muscat, smells like visiting a familiar, fancy, elderly relative—all the perfumy aromatics. Gardenias, French linens, expensive hand lotion.

The third, pinot noir, is fast and loud, with verve. Like the coy urgency of adolescence—too fun to be considered a serious wine, too serious to be considered frivolous.

The last—well, the last is grape juice.

“Antoine!” I call, a mouthful of pure, liquid fruit lacquering my teeth.

He pokes his head out from his office, and I point at the tank. “I . . . something might be wrong. That’s not fermented yet. It’s just pressed grapes.”

He smiles playfully. “Precisely, yes, it’s ‘must.’ But not just any grape juice—that’s yours. You made that. Picked those grapes, stomped them, sorted them, pressed them. That’s your vin d’Alice. And if I were you, I’d taste it again.” He holds the beaker to his nose and inhales. “You know, if you strip away the poetry, all of this is just grape juice.”

I look at the row of casks behind us with their careful fermentation regimens. Their glass bottles and test tubes. Their native yeasts, their oxidation and pressing protocols, their aging requisites. Grape juice.

XVIII

When I finish my tasting notes, I give Antoine my handwritten pages, hug him hard, thank him. I promise to stay in touch and trod off to pack.

After I fold up my clothes, all of them grape stained and tinged with dirt, I write letters. This, I know, I can orchestrate with far more finesse and feeling than an in-the-flesh goodbye—espousals of affection unhampered by nervousness or my seemingly ingrained aversion to effusiveness. Bea has taken most of the crew into town to pick up ingredients for the week’s final few dinners, so hugs are off the table anyway. Henri stayed behind to drive me to the train station. In our future planning, that’s as far as we’ve made it: There’s been no discussion of communication once he’s dropped me off. Just a ride to the station—something I am doing my best to view as a simple, logistical fact and not a Victorian tragedy.

I tear sheets of paper from a notebook. One for Julian, for Pietro, for Bea. I write a soggy, atrociously saccharine note for Ruby. I fold them into squares, scrawl each name across the front in black ink, and place them gingerly in a row on the kitchen counter.

Pressing my weight against my suitcase as I pull the zipper shut, I gaze out the small, perfect bedroom window that’s like a portal into the vines, and I feel something wet against my cheek. I’m not crying so much as leaking—a string of slow-moving tears tracing their way down to my chin. Why does the noneternity of things hurt so much?

I lug my suitcase downstairs, and I find Henri reading a book at the kitchen table. It’s an old Annie Dillard essay collection, a favorite of mine: Teaching a Stone to Talk—Apprendre à une pierre à parler, translated into French. I’d told him about it one night, lying together in our hallowed truck bed. Before coming here, I’d purchased it in French, assuming that I knew the original version so well, I’d be able to parse it. I’d spent far less time reading here than I’d imagined. I’d given my copy to Henri earlier this morning with a message inside the front cover.

H.,

In French and in English, you make good, old-fashioned sentences sound like prayer. I am the better for hearing you—and you’ll be the better for reading this. “I would like to learn, or remember, how to live.”

—A.

Watching him with my book in his hands, it dawns on me that I’ve hardly taken any photos since arriving. Screens had come to feel like an unwelcome intrusion whenever they infringed on our rustic setting. But this, right now, requires camera preservation.

I hold up my phone, and the photograph is this: Afternoon light blinking in; French pots and pans hanging behind the crown of Henri’s head like a personal skyline; the lovely, acute corners of his chin dipped in concentration; my paperback, warped and mottled, clutched in his hands; his legs stretched and his ankles crossed beneath the battered round table where we took so many morning espressos with the toil of a workday looming ahead of us.

He looks up and meets my eyes, and I think I might cry again—feel something so loud coursing through me that I don’t know where to put it.

“Well, I guess we’d better be going, then,” he says, setting the book down and standing to take my suitcase from my hands. The gesture is too big and too small. The clichés are humiliating as they mount; the list of things I would like him to carry for me is long.

As I climb into the truck, I look out once more at this wonderland: Limbed vines, tidy in their rows. The cellar door. The long, weathered table, scarred with archives of the meals passed. A litany of toasts.

“You ready?” Henri asks, hand on my knee, watching me as I inhale my final image of the domaine. “Oui,” I say with a nod, turning back toward him, allowing him to fill my frame of vision.

The drive is short—ten minutes—and I am trying to focus on the joy of it rather than its end. The low drone of French pop playing softly on the radio while wind skips through the window. Grape vines bleeding together on either side of the road.

Henri and I are physically tethered as much as we can be while he’s driving—we hold hands, I lean on his shoulder, he kisses the top of my head—but we are quiet. We have too little and too much to say, and there is an odd peace in sitting this way—not opposite one another but side by side, moving through space at the same speed in the same direction.

Ten minutes pass, and we aren’t at the station. I slip out of my tender fugue state and realize that we’re on a highway. “Wait . . . Henri, I’ll miss my train. Where are we going?”

“We’re driving to Paris.” His delivery is flippant, matter-of-fact, as if there were no other plausible course of action.

“It’s a five-hour drive! What, you’ll drop me off then turn around and go back? That’s crazy, c’est fou!”

“I have an appointment.” The corner of his mouth lifts in a knowing, boyish smirk.

“An appointment?!”

“We need some gas—let me pull over here and I’ll explain.”

We sidle into a gas station, and the motor sputters to a stop while Henri unclicks his seat belt. “I wrote you a letter, actually.”

He produces a piece of white loose-leaf paper from his pocket, folded into a tidy square, and places it into my hand. “Pour toi.” Then he slides out of the driver’s seat, scooping his wallet from the dashboard.

His handwriting has an unapologetic, graceless slant. My breath catches on the point of his A, the curve of his e.

Alice,

I like writing your name in ink.

Here goes. Mostly, I’m writing to tell you thank you—for more reasons than I’d like to list. But firstly, for this: I signed a lease in Paris, that venue space I was telling you about. The keys are mine whenever I’m free to make the trip.

Oh, and thank you, also, for the name: I’m going to call it Faux Amis.

The thing is: I’d like for you to come see it. The bar. I promise I’ll get you to the airport on time.

Will you?

Yours (but only a little bit, in certain light, don’t worry),

Henri

Underneath, he’s written the address. What was it that he’d told me? A corner spot in the tenth arrondissement? I can imagine its proximity to the canal, the way the storefront might crouch on some wide-open boulevard, carrying the weight of a terrace-studded, centuries-old building on its shoulders. I can picture Henri, in his electric-blue chore jacket, writing prices in chalk on bottles as he pulls them from cases and lines them up against the wall. I know the posture he’ll adopt while plating halved figs with triangles of blue cheese, fresh bread, puddles of honey. Selecting records to fill silence in his however-many square meters of space. I can see the checkered floors, the tall wooden stools. I can imagine his hands on all of it.

I fold the paper back into its original form, and there, on the back, are two words, Oui and Non, with empty checkboxes beside them. I laugh with a sting in my throat and rifle around the glove compartment for a pen to hastily mark my answer before Henri can return. My hands shake as I draw my X. How desperately I want to see him in context. To be there too.

When he arrives back at the driver’s side, my ballot is waiting for him on the seat, face up. As he sees it, a grin unzips, wide across his face, and he leans across the driver’s seat, wraps his hands around both sides of my jaw, and kisses me before he’s even climbed in. “It’s a business trip, then,” he teases, bracing the back of my neck and starting the engine. His foot presses the gas pedal, and the truck lurches forward with the same jittery enthusiasm sputtering inside of me.

The train runs alongside us while we drive. It announces its presence with a crescendo of hisses and chugs, skulking along like some haunting taunt, an alternate ending. While we drive, towns and small appellations rising and falling on either side of us, we tell stories. First kisses, sports games, driving lessons, apartment moldings. The rhythm of it all, the eager back-and-forth of prompting questions, my own thirst to understand the texture of the world that created him—well, it all makes me feel like we could keep going for all of eternity, drive clean off the end of the earth.

XIX

Then we’re in Paris. Undeniably in the world, no longer sheltered in our idyllic vineyard enclave. In the city, there are metro signs, commuters, high heels, reasons to spend money. The soft edges of him in this cosmopolitan place with big noises and hard lines feel both misaligned and ideal.

Once he parks the car, we stop for an espresso. I relish the easy lilt of his French as he orders. I’ve never seen him wield a credit card before, hold a to-go cup. It’s as if I’m just learning that he’s made of flesh and blood, the same stuff of my own body. Until now, it had seemed entirely possible that I’d made him up—that this whole month had been a dream, soon to be interrupted by a clanking radiator, the signature tune of New York. But here, in the tenth arrondissement, the realness of him is undeniable. And holding his hand, traipsing together through this city I love, makes us real too.

We are not some wine-country apparition anymore. We are two people walking next to each other on the sidewalk.

And we are now on the doorstep of Henri’s bar.

From the outside, it’s just how I’d pictured it: glass facade, old moldings, tiled floors. He extracts the keys from a lockbox and jingles them. “Something else that sounds like Champagne to me,” he says, then grins and kisses me before setting about the monumentally poetic task of unlocking the front door.

It squeals open gradually, and in he goes, inhaling the air, now his. I watch as his eyes search the room—careful, precise, hungry. I can almost hear the whir of his brain in action, considering improvements and conjuring layouts.

“OK, let me tell you what I’m picturing.” He hops from one foot to the other, vibrating with buoyant energy.

With a series of jubilant, exclamatory gesticulations, he explains what the curtains will look like, where the two-tops will sit in rows beside roomier booths. The bottles on display, the framed artwork, the pass where snacks will arrive, plated, from the meager kitchen. “When you come, here’s where you’ll sit.” He bounces over to the farthest end of the bar. “Corner spot, so I can kiss you each time I refill your glass with something you’ll say tastes like the sound a bell makes—or whatever Alice thing it is that day.”

I can picture it too, with a fiercely terrifying clarity. I want it. I can almost hear the sound of it. I walk over and stand in the spot where my stool will one day live. I feel the corner of the bar there with my fingers, try to read something of the future in it, as if carved in braille.

Then again, I know full well that future is a cursed word. That I should check the time. Should Google our airport ETA. But instead, I stand stock still. “I like it here, this bar.” I say the words before I have a chance to overthink them. “I want this spot”—I knock the surface in front of me—“I want this spot to be mine.”

When he kisses me, I feel carbonated. I vow to remember the taste of him at this particular moment, the hard press of his mouth and the jut of his hip against me. I feel like I could count the molecules moving between us. I slide my hands along his ribs, wanting to count them too.

“Listen.” He holds my shoulders, and I look up hesitantly. “I’m not going to tell you I love you, so don’t panic, OK? But before I take you to the airport, I need to tell you that I don’t not love you either.” He pauses and rests his palm against my cheek. “I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about precisely how I want to say this: Between us, we have this needless and nonpossessive thing. This thing people are always trying and failing to achieve . . . I guess that’s what I’m trying to explain. You owe me nothing; I want you to owe me nothing. But, fuck, you’re the biggest thing that’s happened to me in a long time. And I’m so glad that you happened.”

Tears well in my eyes once more. I love you. To me, the phrase had often sounded pleading: Still me? But Henri’s version of the thing feels rinsed of need.

I step toward him and wrap my arms around his waist, and he curls himself over me, holding me with such steadiness, I feel like we’re a landmass.

I know—have long known—that he’ll keep on happening to me even after he is gone. Or rather, after I am.

“I don’t not love you too.” I let my tears fall and press my face, damp, into his chest. “And I . . . I don’t know.” He holds me one degree tighter, and he rests his lips above my ear. “So what now?” I ask him, my voice muffled by his T-shirt.

“I don’t know.”

“D’accord; je sais pas.” I don’t know either.

“You know . . . a month or two in Paris would do wonders for your French.”

I swat at his arm.

“I’m serious.”

“No you’re not.” I’m afraid to look at his face. I hold him as if someone might come pry us apart—as if I’m not the person responsible for extricating myself.

“As a heart attack. That’s an Americanism, no?”

I laugh and flip this over and over. Emma’s words thrum gently in my ears. “What if . . .” I start. “What if I were to stay one more day—help you pick some paint colors, eat dinner on the floor, christen the space. Change my ticket. Not a big deal, right?” I can’t believe myself.

“Really?” Boyish enthusiasm lights up his face as he takes a step back to read mine.

“Really.” I wait for this to feel like a terrible idea. Like some juvenile flight of fancy. But it doesn’t.

“OK, one more day, then what?”

“That’s as far as I’ve made it.”

“OK, OK, OK. I’ll take it. Sold. Do it, change it—fast, before you change your mind. But just so you know, if you’ll stay for one more day, I’ve got a feeling I can convince you to stay another after that.”

“Audacious of you.”

“Audacious? Ça veut dire quoi? ‘Rude’?”

“‘Bold.’ ‘Cocky.’”

“Not cocky, just hopeful.”

I kiss him. Funny thing, hope.

“So, what color?” I ask against his lips.

He furrows his brow.

“The paint.”

“Don’t know yet. I thought you might have opinions.”

“I do.”

As I look up my flight reservation on my phone, I can feel the buzz that comes with changing a plane ticket—a small thing in the scheme of life. But wildly large too. Cosmic, even. Happening not to me but of my own propulsion.

“So, will you? Will you stay another day?” He blinks expectantly, his mouth agape, fixated on my hands as I navigate the airline app. Like he still can’t believe our luck. “Yes or no?”

I click a button, and the universe rearranges itself accordingly.

“Yes.”

One syllable, moving back to front across the palate, lithe as cursive.

Stay in France a little longer with Alice and Henri: Read the book’s epilogue to find out what’s next for these two, explore wine pairings, wear Alice’s harvest-party dress, and get your hands on an original poster inspired by the love story. Just scan below or visit 831stories.com/grapejuice.

More novellas like this one await at 831stories.com, where we celebrate romantic fiction in all its forms. Choose your next romance reads and spend time in their universes—featuring bonus content, products, events, fan fiction, and more.

About the Author

Eliza Dumais is a writer and editor based in Brooklyn, New York, with a focus on wine, food, travel, and sex (hedonism, essentially). You can find her work in Vogue, Food & Wine, Cosmopolitan, and VICE, and she is the coeditor of the independent wine magazine SWURL. Grape Juice is her debut novella.

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831 Stories Book Credits

So many people were involved in bringing this book to life. Many of their names are included here, but there would be no HEA without the passionate work of booksellers and librarians and the enthusiasm of readers. And as we all know, romance readers are the best readers.

831 Stories

Erica Cerulo, Marie Joh, Catherine Krenzer, Claire Mazur, Elaine Orihuela, Angela Vang

Authors Equity

Andrea Bachofen, Rose Edwards, Carly Gorga, Sarah Christensen Fu, Deb Lewis, Madeline McIntosh, Nina von Moltke, Kathleen Schmidt, Diana Simmons, Erin Vandeveer, Don Weisberg, Craig Young

C47 Design

Phil Chang, Haneu Kang, Jamin Lee, Naomi Otsu, Sunny Park

Editing

Sanjana Basker, Jennifer Prokop

Marketing, Events, and Publicity

Emma Benshoff, Tara Larsen, Ashleigh Magee, Kaitlin Phillips, Riley Vaske, Kristin White

Production

Sam Martin, Scribe Inc.

Keep reading for a taste of Hardly Strangers by A.C. Robinson from 831 Stories

I

Under different circumstances, maybe I’d be excited. Maybe I would be giving myself over to youthful optimism, listening to music, having a drink, and savoring the ritual of getting ready. Unfortunately, as it stands, I’ve surrendered to nerves and worry, staring at my own reflection in total silence like I’m preparing to deliver a dramatic Shakespearean monologue.

At this point, I hardly even see my face in the wooden vanity mirror—just bits and pieces. A pair of lips, almond-shaped eyes, a smattering of freckles against a warm background of brown skin—like an abstract painting. Shifting in my seat, I turn my attention to the jumbled assortment of pens, pots, and brushes strewn across the table. I’ll obviously choose my go-to cat eye, a style that’s evolved from the thick, clawlike blob my best friend Lexi once demonstrated on her own eyelids in our middle school bathroom to become the understated look I wear now. But still, presenting myself with the illusion of choice gives me something to do. A sense of control.

I pretend to consider my options as I twiddle absently with my necklace—a sterling silver hand with crossed fingers. The side of my thumb slides over the grooves and lines of the metal palm, following along to the twined fingertips as I let it fall against my chest, the reminder of its presence providing a small sense of comfort. It was a gift from my mother, one of many good luck charms and protective talismans she’s given me over the years—my name, Shera, being another.

Shera—my mother’s spelling-be-damned creative take on “Scheherazade,” the narrator of Arabian Nights, who saves herself from execution at the hands of an embittered sultan by telling him elaborate, captivating folktales every night. She always said my name would weave some spell around me—that my words would carry me to safety, and as I told my stories, they would set me free.

True to my namesake, I am a storyteller—a writer, though a nonpracticing one at present. I haven’t felt the spark of inspiration in ages, but I suppose I still find creative ways to tell “stories.” This evening, for example, I’m using my gift to imagine every possible worst-case scenario for hours on end, envisioning each scene with vivid clarity like a screenplay, complete with dialogue and stage directions.

I guess I don’t always know how to distinguish anxiety from intuition. These days, every turn of my stomach and throbbing heartbeat feels like a warning that my world is about to come crashing down, and—

No, tonight is different, I remind myself. Tonight, the uneasy feeling has a clear point of origin, an obvious explanation: in less than an hour, I’m finally going on a very-nearly-assured-but-not-quite-certain date with Michael.

I guess I have Lexi to thank for that too, for setting it all in motion when she urged—or rather, forced—me to accompany her to that folk music show four months ago . . .

It was October. My ability to stay home and wallow for days on end had reached Olympic-level dedication, so when Lexi called to invite me to what she described as a “Topanga Canyon thing” in the backyard of an antique shop, my practiced response of “Sorry, not tonight” was already in the chamber.

“Okay, I’m declaring martial law on this one,” Lexi proclaimed over the phone. “I’m picking you up, and we’re going—it’s time to leave the cocoon.”

After being unceremoniously hung up on, I stood frozen for a few minutes, debating whether or not defying my iron-willed childhood friend was even possible. In the end, I decided it was easier to accept my fate.

Topanga had been our longtime playground—a place we frequented as teens for its wild beauty and wilder parties. Now in our midtwenties, we rarely found ourselves trudging through overgrown fields in the pitch darkness to find hippie keggers, but the canyon still had an irresistible enchantment about it. That night was no different—chirping crickets intermingled with soft chatter as vintage-clad locals sprawled out over well-trod Persian rugs and slung themselves over battered velvet furniture. It had all been arranged in the middle of the yard beneath a rough-hewn wooden gazebo, resembling a makeshift outdoor living room. At the head, a man in a Canadian tuxedo perched on a rickety barstool playing Tim Buckley songs on an acoustic guitar, his eyes shut tight due to either overwhelming nervousness or overwhelming emotion. Listening intently and sipping Two Buck Chuck from a paper cup as I sat huddled beside Lexi, I began to enjoy myself for the first time in what felt like eons.

A rugged, handsome stranger caught my eye almost immediately, standing a full head taller than most as he leaned cooly against one of the support posts, pushing his long, faintly unkempt California-brown hair behind his ear. I watched as he took a swig from a glass beer bottle, his lips enveloping its mouth, and felt a slight flutter in my stomach as his piercing gaze turned to me.

Meeting each other was a measured dance. Rising from my seat, I intentionally created a small disturbance, pushing gently through the throng of guests as I made my way to a seat on the store’s craftsman porch steps just behind the crowd and lit an American Spirit. I hoped he would join me—I didn’t really smoke, but I’d learned to use cigarettes as props for the purpose of getting both in and out of social situations. Though the stranger stole a casual glance back, observing my display with what looked like a small, knowing smile, he still made me wait a good ten minutes and two cigarettes before making his way over.

“Mind if I get one of those?”

I turned as he announced his presence, propping one of his sturdy made-in-America Frye boots up on the step beside me and settling into another casual lean against the railing. He looked good leaning, though it crossed my mind that he seemed a little posed.

“Sure.” I handed him a cigarette with a flicker of satisfaction, studying his face as I did so. Midthirties, world worn, sunbaked skin. Probably an occasional surfer, but more of a cowboy than a beach bum.

“I’m Michael, by the way.”

“Shera.”

“Sher-uh,” he repeated. “That’s an interesting name—never heard it before. What does it mean?”

I considered just how much of a history lesson Michael really wanted, but before I could answer, he leaned forward, squinting slightly as he stared intently into my face.

“Wait—what color are your eyes?”

“Hazel. Or green sometimes—but mostly hazel.”

I fumbled for the words slightly, my heartbeat quickening under the heat of his gaze as I realized it was the first contact I’d had with someone I found attractive in a long while. Suddenly the “cigarette break” move felt too daring—like I practically asked him to fuck me right then and there with my subtle beckoning. Now that he had come, I didn’t quite know what to do with him.

“That’s wild,” Michael said, running a hand over his stubbly chin. “So where are you from—originally?”

It was a question I’d become somewhat accustomed to from an early age. Growing up in a still pre–racially conscious Los Angeles with olive-brown skin, dark 4A hair perpetually worn in braids, and light eyes—the collaborative product of my Black mother and fair-skinned Louisiana Creole father—meant that it was most often posed by middle-aged, surgically taut Caucasian women in its more jarring form: “What are you?” I wasn’t bothered by curiosity, just the framing that made me feel divorced from humanity in some small way.

I told Michael I grew up around Venice Beach, in an apartment off Ocean Park, but from his continued curious expression, I could tell that wasn’t the answer he was looking for. Regardless, I asked him the same, and he said he was a transplant from Seattle, having only recently settled after finding the perfect yurt/guesthouse to live in.

“Well, since you’re new to LA, I’d like to offer my services as an official tour guide,” I said, daring myself to flirt more openly. “I live in Silver Lake, which is basically on the other side of the world, but maybe I can show you around my neighborhood sometime.”

Michael smiled, but before he had a chance to respond, Lexi bounded up beside us, her sandy-blonde hair frizzy in the night air as she buried her nose in the fluffy collar of her vintage Penny Lane coat.

“I gotta get out of here, Sher. Too cold.”

I felt my heart sink, disappointment flooding through me at the thought of what could have progressed with a little more time, but I only nodded, rising and turning to Michael.

“Well—guess I’m off.”

“It was nice to meet you, Sher-uh.” He exaggerated the pronunciation again—a callback I suppose I was meant to find endearing but was slightly irked by instead.

Without warning, Michael stepped forward and pulled me into a warm embrace, my nose pressed against his chest. His large hands moved over my back, one resting in the curve of my spine and the other crawling upward, holding me steady between the shoulder blades. His size, his warmth, his body, I couldn’t remember the last time I’d—

“I’ll see ya around,” he said, breaking away suddenly and halting my train of thought. It took me a moment to collect myself—I hardly remembered walking to the car.

On the drive home, I asked Lexi about Michael, and she informed me that though she hadn’t personally met him before that evening, she’d heard about him.

“He’s a filmmaker, or wannabe at least. He hasn’t been here long, but everyone’s calling him the ‘Babe of the Canyon.’” She passed a hand in an arc through the air as she announced his title like she was painting the words in lights. “You know, it’s kinda like a small town up there—he’s fresh meat, and the ladies want a piece.”

“Fuck.”

“Sher, c’mon. I can feel you caving in,” she said, astutely predicting the trajectory of my runaway thoughts. “Sometimes, that’s just how it goes when someone’s hot—there’s a little healthy competition. You know, it’s like you automatically assume someone else will be chosen over you . . .” She trailed off as a dark, murky silence filled the car.

“I know.” I placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder. “I’m working on it.”

Lexi was integral to my survival that terrible year. She was a good friend, and I didn’t want her to fear stepping on one of my trip wires . . .

My own eyes in the mirror bring me back to the present moment—to my studio apartment and the slight February chill creeping in despite the valiant efforts of my ancient wall heater. That and the sound of footsteps approaching along the corridor outside, stopping just before my apartment. No knock or hello. In typical Lexi fashion, the door swings open, and she steps inside.

“Oh my god—Sher. Did you kill someone? It smells overwhelmingly of bleach in here.”

She pulls off her bright-orange peacoat and throws it on a waiting armchair before walking past me to my designated “bedroom corner.” After unzipping her too-tight, sky-high-waisted vintage Wranglers, she falls back onto the bed with a tired huff.

“Okay, so tell me what he said again exactly.”

“I don’t . . . even . . . remember . . .” I reply, my words punctuated by concentrated strokes as I draw on the signature eyeliner. I turn to look at Lexi.

“Whatever it was, it was just kind of . . . vague.”

The initial doubt crept in sometime around noon as I sat on the couch with my too-strong cup of espresso, obsessively going over the night before—when I entered the kitchen of a house party in Echo Park to find Michael rooting around in the fridge . . .

We said hello and made small talk for a while, comparing and contrasting our mental Rolodexes of mutual friends in attendance and revealing how we knew them. I watched his face as I spoke—his eyes flickering down to my mouth and back to meet my own, again and again. In four months of run-ins around town, he always remained interminably seductive, never missing an opportunity to grab my hand to examine some piece of jewelry or wink at me from across the room—but nothing had evolved beyond that.

Maybe it was the two glasses of earthy, pungent orange wine I had over the evening, or maybe I felt emboldened by the fact that he was on my side of town for a change, but suddenly, I found myself taking action.

“What are you doing tomorrow night?” I blurted.

Michael considered for a moment, squinting up as if his social calendar was written on the ceiling. “Not sure—why?”

“Do you want to grab a drink at Bar Sperl in Silver Lake around nine?”

Michael’s affirmative, albeit slightly ambiguous, response had become warped and blurry in my anxious recollection. Something in the ballpark of “I’ll probably be in the area—yeah. Maybe I’ll swing by.”

I replayed the scene in my head all afternoon, trying to draw clear confirmation from the simple interaction like water from a stone. What began as a banal reassessment spiraled into all-out mental warfare as I played and replayed cinematic visions of myself sitting at the bar alone, glancing eagerly toward the door with every new entry before realizing I was entirely mistaken.

I spent the rest of the day attempting to quell my nerves as I always did: with meditative housework. What began with some basic tidying devolved into a frenzied obsession as I tried to bleach my dingy bathtub back to its former glory until the fumes made my head spin . . .

“God, that’s so fucking typical.” Lexi rolls onto her side to face me. “Men are so commitment-phobic, they can’t even commit to plans on a Saturday night.”

I chuckle despite the acid reflux that’s been burning like bubbling magma in my chest for hours. Lexi raises her eyebrows slightly, assuming the look she always does when she’s about to bully me into a sense of confidence.

“Don’t worry. Warren and I will be there the whole time as backup. We’ll have some drinks, some laughs, and if Canyon Babe doesn’t show up, it’ll be his loss. His. Fucking. Loss!” She pounds her fist against the duvet to emphasize each of these last words.

The plan Lexi concocted a few hours prior: She and our friend Warren would accompany me to Bar Sperl like any other night. If Michael showed up, they would make themselves scarce, and I’d enjoy my date. If he didn’t, they would each buy me a shot, and we would go to some celebutante’s party in the Hollywood Hills.

“Bottom line, regardless of what happens, I feel like this is an important step,” Lexi continues. “You’re announcing to the universe that you’re ready for something new . . .” She slows, measuring her next words carefully. “That your heart is still open.”

“Thanks, Lex.” I smile tightly. I’m lucky to have her near-constant cheerleading, but today, it feels like tonguing a canker sore. Returning to the same wounded point again and again, unable to move in the right direction without some reminder of the wrong from whence I came.

I decide I’m content with my makeup, ending with a swipe of my favorite drugstore lipstick—a rosy-brown color that Lexi first shoplifted for me when we were fifteen. At long last, I stand.

“Do I look okay?”

She eyes my outfit. I chose a form-fitting, slightly sheer black turtleneck that’s long enough to cover my midriff but short enough to leave a ribbon of flesh visible above my loose black slacks. Hints of silver break up the darkness, gleaming from the buckle of a thick leather belt, the assortment of large sterling rings Lexi found for me over the years, and, of course, my lucky hand necklace. I finish it off with my prized possession—an elegant wool Prada blazer I thrifted by chance years ago in the Valley. Lexi hates that I almost exclusively wear black—as the owner of an online vintage shop, she’s pushed the crème de la crème of stunning, colorful clothing on me for years to absolutely no avail. Still, I see a flicker of pride in her eyes every time I wear the rings she hand-selected.

“Ah, a change of pace! If I’m not mistaken, you’ve gone for more of an onyx black here instead of your typical pitch black, yes?”

I glare at Lexi until she concedes. “Fine.” She rolls her eyes as her face spreads into a small smile. “You look gorg—great jewelry.”

She struggles momentarily to rise from the bed, constricted by the tightness of her jeans, but after some effort, she stands, zipping them with a sharp intake of breath as she turns to face me.

“Okay, so, remember . . .” She points a finger, her eyes locked intently on mine. “No matter what happens, tonight is a new beginning.” I give a shallow nod, but her index is joined by her raised thumb to form a finger gun as she barks, “Say it! I want to hear it.”

My face cracks into a smile as I repeat, “Tonight is a new beginning.”

“Good.” Lexi’s furrowed brow softens as she lowers her weapon with a broad grin. “Alright. Let’s do this.”

I watch my friend, a flicker of something foreign igniting within me. A feeling I rarely allow myself to have for fear that if it flies me to the highest heights, it can just as easily send me plummeting back to earth. It’s hope—the thing with feathers. For just a moment, I feel cleansed of the past year—an empty page, ready to be blackened with the ink of a different story. Assured by a knowledge from somewhere deep within that tonight will indeed be the start of something new.

Table of Contents

- Cover
- Title Page
- Copyright Page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Chapter I
- Chapter II
- Chapter III
- Chapter IV
- Chapter V
- Chapter VI
- Chapter VII
- Chapter VIII
- Chapter IX
- Chapter X
- Chapter XI
- Chapter XII
- Chapter XIII
- Chapter XIV
- Chapter XV
- Chapter XVI
- Chapter XVII
- Chapter XVIII
- Chapter XIX
- About the Author
- Also from 831 Stories
- 831 Stories Book Credits
- Except from Hardly Strangers