I sigh, fully aggrieved now. “I was doing tots, Rachel.Tots.”
She looks at me over the rim of her sunglasses. “You weren’t spying on me with the mayor, were you?”
“What for? So I could steal your secrets for kissing ass?”
Rachel barks out a laugh. “Youwishyou had as much access to her ass as I do.”
I tilt my head, eyebrows raised, until a furious blush envelops Rachel’s high cheekbones.
“You know what I mean!” She straightens up, grabbing for her keys in her purse. “Well, you can quit stalking Flor because she’s endorsing Into the Woods for the showcase. It’s a done deal.”
“I don’t need her endorsement to win the showcase,” I say with more confidence than I feel.
“Maybe not, but you do need decent wine and a vintner who can actually make it, and on that front, you’re screwed.” Rachel smiles sweetly, steps up into her vehicle, and throws her SUV in reverse, claiming the last word.
She’s always been like this. Stubborn, demanding, and viciously competitive. The only difference is she used to be on my side. We spent ourchildhoods running back and forth between our families’ vineyards, playing hide-and-seek among the vines, tasting unfinished wines from the taps, and pretending to barf all over each other. Rachel always had a hard time with other kids; they got one taste of her bullish ways and avoided her thereafter, never bothering to get to her soft, ferociously loving heart within. But she was there for me when my mom died, when my dad could barely string a sentence together without collapsing in grief. Her happy home becamemyhappy home, where I could escape the sadness that hung over my motherless house like a shroud. I was as shy as she was confrontational, but even still, we were so alike back then. Awkward, ambitious, and full of yearning—me for the family I’d lost, and her to be different, to be liked. To be just like Charlaine.
We were Charlaine’s number one fans. We went to all her soccer games, painted her number on our cheeks, and cheered like little maniacs. Whatever music she listened to, we listened to. If she liked a show, we made that show our entire personalities. She was simply the coolest, and most of Gilmer County agreed. Rachel wanted to be just like her, going so far as to quit our quiz bowl team to play soccer instead. While Rachel was never as fast or naturally coordinated, she tried just as hard, huffing her way onto the junior varsity team in high school in ninth grade.
It was the August before our sophomore year when everything went to hell. Rachel was trying out for the varsity soccer team that she wasn’t ready for, but Charlaine was varsity captain, and Rachel wasconvincedshe’d put her on the team. I came out to support her, wearing Rachel’s JV number on one cheek and Charlaine’s on the other, and watched with mounting unease from the front row as Rachel scrapped, kicked shins, intercepted balls, and mercilessly drove them all the way to the goal. She didn’t pass the ball once, but she passed plenty of elbows, accepting whistles and reprimands from the coach like Girl Scout badges until finally, they called her off the field.
Rachel jogged off, red-faced and exuberant, stopping on the sidelines where Charlaine and the coach stood talking, and me sitting just behind the fence.
“How’d I do, Captain?” she’d asked Charlaine, her face this terrible mix of excitement and hope.
It was the coach that answered. “You’re excused, Rachel.” He blew his whistle then, initiating another drill.
“Charlaine?” Rachel said, frowning as tryouts continued for everyone else.
“You heard him, Rachel, you’re done.” Charlaine rubbed her forehead. “Go on home.”
“What do you mean, I’m done?”
“Imeanyou showed your ass out there, hogging the ball like that. You gave Sadie a bloody nose! What were you thinking? That you’re Megan Rapinoe?” Charlaine had turned then, shaking her head with disgust, and Rachel just … imploded. All the excitement and pride on her face, all the love and adoration for Charlaine, all the hope of ascending to her big sister’s status contracted inward, then disappeared as Rachel collapsed in on herself in a fit of furious tears. She stormed off the field. I rushed to follow, picking up the towel she threw, her water bottle. I held her while she bawled all that night, vowing revenge on Charlaine, on the coach, on poor Sadie and her bloody nose. When the varsity picks were announced the next day, omitting her name of course, Rachel quit the JV squad on the spot.
She was destroyed. Overnight, everything Charlaine did became criminal, and I was suddenly the sole member of our Charlaine fan club. All my positive regard had to go into hiding, which wasn’t easy because somewhere along the way, my feelings toward Charlaine had grown … complicated. While Rachel wanted to be her, I craved beingnearher, always wondering where she was when I came over. Would she walk by in hersports bra and emerald-green Umbros? Would she climb onto the stool next to mine at the kitchen counter, grabbing a banana while I suddenly lost the ability to breathe?
Then one Saturday, Rachel and I were in the middle of watching the BBC version ofPride and Prejudicewhen I volunteered to get more snacks. It was late, so I tiptoed through the dark downstairs not to wake anybody. But when I flipped on the kitchen lights, there, sitting on the counter with her shirt off, was Ava Sanchez, goalkeeper for the varsity team. Her legs were splayed wide, bookending Charlaine between them, whose mouth was wrapped around one of Ava’s nipples.
“Oh,shit!” Ava thrust Charlaine’s face away when the lights came on. Charlaine whirled around to face me where I stood with my hand still hovering over the light switch, open-mouthed, eyes wide. Charlaine’s hair was mussed and free, her lips swollen. She looked beautiful and wild and hungry, and it stabbed me, seeing her like that.
With someoneelse.
After that, it was like a bomb detonated within me. But instead of blowing my adoration apart, my explosion was more volcanic—hot, intense feelings surged out of me from deep within, burning down everything I knew, leaving unfamiliar landscapes in their wake. Creating new land.
And Rachel noticed.
She started watching me around Charlaine. Her eyes bored into me whenever Charlaine loped into the kitchen, wearing a tight tank top and cutoff shorts. If we bummed a ride to school from Charlaine and Chance, I’d sit stock-still in the back and stare out the window for fear of giving anything away and pissing Rachel off more. I was trapped between this intense crush and what it meant for who I was becoming and my best friend, and I couldn’t talk about it to anyone. Mom was gone, Dad was emotionally out to sea, and I knew, undoubtedly, that if Rachel found out how I felt about Charlaine, she’d never talk to me again.
A few months later, she found the mortifying crush box dedicated to Charlaine under my bed. Just like that, our friendship was over.
It hurt so much. To be so close to someone, then lose them like that. But it made me angry, too. Because when I developed a crush on her big sister, Rachel took all that history—all those laughs and spend-the-nights and days exploring our woods—and threw them away.
And for what? Nothing evenhappened. I could barely speak around Charlaine, she made me so nervous. She left for college on the other side of the country without ever knowing how her little sister’s sad, half-orphaned friend next door felt about her. Or that those feelings eventually drove Rachel and me apart, once they became too big for me to smother.
I heave a sigh, then climb into my own truck. Rachel’s words dig into me for the rest of the afternoon, chasing every idea I jot down withit’s a done dealandyou’re screwed. I scratch out everything until my pen nearly rips the paper. What did Rachel mean by implying Laine can’t make our wine? She might hate her guts still, but Laine’s worked at some of the best vineyards in the country. Rising to the top of Le Jardin as a young queer woman couldn’t have been easy, but she did it.
Of course she did. She’s Charlaine Woods, young Zoe’s voice says in my head.She’s a star.
