“This fall, after harvest at the tail end of tourist season. They’ll start scouting locations right away.”
I sit back, mouth hanging open long enough for Teddy to jam the trays back in.
“It’s time to put on that clever thinking cap of yours, baby.” Teddy dabs at the drool on my chin affectionately with the paper towel clipped to my chest. “This is Bluebell Vineyards’ big opportunity to level up.”
He’s not wrong. Most people don’t know this, but running a small vineyard isn’t the most profitable venture. The pandemic hit our region’stourism hard, followed by two drenching, grape-killing rainy seasons back-to-back. Teddy’s loans, local music nights, family picnics, business 101 classes—I’ve had to pull every trick out of my hat to keep the lights on and the grapes growing. Some days it feels like a miracle we’re open at all, and the stress keeps a perpetual grip around my throat.
Bluebell Vineyards was my mom’s dream—she and my dad built it from the ground up. But Mom died when I was twelve, and I vowed to continue her legacy by pouring my love and energy into the business the way she and my father always had. Watching sales decline these last few years fills me with a panicked desperation that keeps me up at night. Dad’s been so down lately, too. Our money situation stresses him out, though I try to protect him from the worst of it.
But if Bluebell gets theEveryday Bon Vivantshowcase? Dad might even be able to retire one day. We’ve always assumed he’d be out there pruning to the very end, but this could change everything.
“Did Elisa mention any vineyards the mayor’s considering endorsing?”
Teddy grimaces, and I already know the answer.
“Into the Woods. Who else?” he says.
Our neighboring vineyard run by my best-friend-turned-enemy Rachel Woods.
Ofcourse.
It’s a shame, really. Rachel’s parents Molly and Ezra Woods are my dad’s closest friends, her older brother Chance is an all-around nice guy, and her big sister Charlaine? An absolutegoddessand star of all my teenage fantasies.
Rachel, however, is a stone-cold bitch.
Rachel, Charlaine, Chance, and I all grew up together, our houses on neighboring properties nestled between rows of young vines and tucked away in the lush, rolling woods of Gilmer County. I was at the Woods’s house every day for years, until things with Rachel went tohell in a handbasket. Now here we are, twelve years after high school graduation, all still working in the wine business. Charlaine went to California to study viticulture and never came back, while Rachel and Chance stayed on at their family’s vineyard. Thanks to Chance’s winemaking skills and Rachel’s insufferable knack for making money, Into the Woods is our biggest competition and the snobbiest vineyard in town. They spellclassic“classique” for no good reason and generally make me want to throw things.
“Rachel better stay out of my way. That showcase ismine.” The decree slurps out around the trays.
Teddy’s smile returns with fiendish glee. “I love it when you’re business evil, Zoe Brennan!”
My mind’s off to the races already. It’s the beginning of the spring season, and vineyard operations will grow busier until the first grapes appear. Then work transitions to pure chaos, which reigns through harvest. IfEveryday Bon Vivantis scouting soon, I’ve got to put together a plan for winning the showcasenow.
The bleaching timer goes off, and I yank the trays out and set them on the counter, ignoring Teddy’s disgusted demands that I rinse. My hand’s already turning the doorknob to leave when he calls out, “Wait, dammit! There’s one more thing!”
I sigh impatiently. I’ve got a date with Microsoft 365, two shots of espresso, and my entrepreneurial cunning. “Make it quick, Teddy.”
“Harlow Benoit is in town—Diego and I saw her when we were out for dinner.” Teddy levies his finger in my direction. With his dental specs still on, he looks like a very stern gem dealer. “Donottext her, Zoe! Remember your New Year’s resolution!”
Harlow.Her name alone brings a flush of heat to my neck. Harlow Benoit, wine buyer for the prestigious Bouche à Bouche restaurant group, rolls into Blue Ridge a few times a year to sample new wines and negotiatesupply deals. She’s a human tornado disguised as a five-foot-two pansexual party girl who always manages to destroy my calm and upend my carefully curated feelings. She’s fun, extraordinarily sexy, and pushes my limits until I let go, willingly, of all the things I’m trying to control at any given minute. I absolutely crave the release I feel in her arms.
The problem is she always leaves. She’s an employed vagabond, based in New York City for a few months a year, then on the road for the rest of it. I get two or three days of sexual bliss, then she’s gone, and I’m left desperately trying to remind myself that I don’twanta real relationship. Why bother wanting what I can’t have? The queer community in Blue Ridge is thriving thanks to all the gay transplants—it was even named the friendliest LGBTQ city in Georgia a few years ago—but the lesbians who move here are already coupled up, and the few whoaren’thooked up with me, then settled down with each other.
Which isfine. None of them were right for me, anyway. And Harlow isn’t, either. I know this, I do … but then she shows up, and the desire to be touched overwhelms me. I break all my resolutions for one more round of sex followed by the brief whiplash of loneliness being with her always kicks up. But not this time. Teddy’s sick of the emotional hangovers I have after she leaves, and I am, too. This past New Year’s after aparticularlyincredible Christmas rendezvous when she kissed a snowflake off my nose—ugh, it wassoromantic—I vowed I’d stop for good. It’s easier to be alone than to have these periodic moments of intimacy, showing me what life with another person could be like.
“Relax, Teddy. I won’t.” I smile, confident that the words are true this time. Who has time for amazing meaningless sex when the biggest business opportunity of all time just landed in your lap?
Even Harlow Benoit can’t compete with that.
After a quick pilgrimage to Office Depot to stock up on my favorite thinking supplies—a new binder, graph paper, and approximately two hundred colorful gel pens—I turn the vineyard’s old truck onto the long, winding road that curls its way through our forest. Like a sea of green parting, the forest dips back to reveal our rolling valley striped with vines. Into the Woods’s extensive property is first, streaming past my window in all its pastoral bounty, and I deny the urge to flip it off. I hate what Rachel’s done to her family’s vineyard since taking over operations.Hate. It was Rachel’s decision to renovate the old farmhouse into a “modern Tuscan” theme, even though a real, live Tuscan family operates the vineyard next door.Wemanage to restrain ourselves from curling ironwork and decorative plates with roosters on them. Why can’t she? Every time I see their Tuscan palazzo by way of T.J. Maxx, my Italian heritage cringes.
The worst part is that Into the Woods is thriving under Rachel’s tacky, unoriginal hands. They host five weddings for every one we do, their lush vineyards are triple the size of ours and put out some of the best grapes in the region, and their parking lot’s full every weekend. They have money to expand their land, hire more workers, and make more wine, giving themmore money. Meanwhile, Bluebell Vineyards can’t afford to grow, buy new equipment, hire new people,ormake more wine, and despite my best efforts, we can’t seem to budge out of the same profit/loss cycle every year. As our vintner, farmer, and primary fieldworker rolled into one, Dad willneverget to retire, unlike his best friends Molly and Ezra Woods. Chance, Rachel’s brother, took over for their father Ezra as lead vintner a few years ago, and from my palate’s perspective, the transition’s been seamless. Into the Woods consistently makes the same good (if boring) wines every year. Respectable reds and whites that respectable wine aficionados enjoy drinking. I particularly love their crisp Chardonnays, not that I’d ever admit it publicly. Who could ever take over for Dad?
Not me. I can wither a succulent just by looking at it.
That’s why we have to get the showcase. It’s the one thing that could break us out of our boxed-in position and let us finally grow. Then maybe we could breathe a little, take a goddamn day off here and there. Into the Woods doesn’t need the showcase like we do, yet that won’t stop Rachel’s manicured nails grabbing for it.
I just have to grab it first.
