“I will,” I agreed. “But in the meantime, I’m really thankful for you guys.” I refused to cry. How cliché. But as I thought of my mother, who had moved away again, and wasn’t even within driving distance now...and my ex...and the fact that I was currently jobless...
No. I would not cry standing in front of a winery with the greatest group of friends ever.
“Life is too short to give him another thought,” I said, as if saying it out loud would erase everything that had happened in the last two months. “Carpe diem, right?”
“Carpe fucking diem,” she agreed. “Come on. A wine flight awaits.”
“Just what we need,” I told her, grateful for the millionth time for my friends. No drama or bullshit. One hundred percent support. I may not have done a bang-up job picking a boyfriend, but I did a much better job picking friends. “Let’s do it.”
Carpe fucking diem indeed.
CHAPTERTHREE
cosimo
“Cos, we’re slammed.”
God help her, I loved Thayle like a sister, but she was killing me today. After my mom left, I attempted to actually get some paperwork in order, but one fire after another had pulled me away. The fact that our wine club manager was not in her office meant that we were scraping the bottom of the barrel to get tastings finished for the day.
“It’s the weather,” I said. A perfect Saturday in June meant everyone and their brother and sister were out and about. While some wineries stuck to reservations only, my parents had been adamant about always accepting walk-ins. A good strategy if you actually had enough staff, which we didn’t, not after losing one tasting room associate to a summer program in college and another a week later to a lifeguarding job.
“You look even more miserable than usual,” Thayle said, her characteristic bluntness out in full force. She and my sister met in kindergarten and were as close as two people could be without actually being related, so I’d had a few dozen years to get used to her. Sometimes I wished the shy girl I had known in elementary and middle school hadn’t “blossomed,” as my sister called it, into, well, adult Thayle.
On the other hand, she was damn good at her job. And as loyal as could be.
“Well? You coming?”
I stood, knowing there was no other choice. “I get no respect around here.” If either of my brothers had said that, Thayle would have laughed. But coming from me, she wasn’t sure how to take it. “I’m kidding, Thayle.”
“Jesus, Cos. You’re gonna give me a heart attack. I never know with you. Come on. We need you for a group of six.”
Ah, shit. I wasn’t in the mood. “Girls?”
Thayle rolled her eyes. “Women.”
“Bachelorette party?”
“Not from the looks of it,” she said as we walked down the hall.
“Girls’ trip.”
“Bingo.”
“One to ten?”
She scrunched her nose. “Hard to say, they just came in. Maybe six.”
I could deal with that. Anything over ten, we didn’t serve. Anywhere between eight and ten, well, that was where it got tricky. It meant the guest was more than just a little tipsy but not enough for us to refuse service.
And today, I just wasn’t in the mood.
“Maybe try to smile a little too.”
“I always do,” I said as we walked into the tasting room.
The bigger of our two wineries, this one was more popular since it overlooked the lake. With its high ceilings supported by wood beams, the 1942 Wine Cellar, “42” or just “the Cellar” as it was known by regulars, had been renovated just two years ago, my brother Marco’s brainchild.
I looked around but didn’t see a group.