Page 14 of Forget Me Not
“Claire,” he repeats, rolling my name around on his tongue like he’s trying to taste it, savor the sound for a little bit longer. “Nice to meet you, Claire. I’m Liam.”
He thrusts his right arm through the window and I grab his hand and give it a shake. It’s rough, calluses peppering his palm like malignant growths. His fingernails are dirty, but the rest of him is clean, and I get the sense that’s just a part of him. Soil pushed into the cracks of his skin, the land leaving a permanent mark.
“I’d be happy to show you around,” he continues. “Since our friend Elijah appears to be a no-show.”
I glance at the clock. It’s not even nine.
“He was supposed to be here at seven,” Liam says, reading my mind. “We get an early start around here. Best to beat the heat.”
“I really don’t want to impose—” I say, gesturing again to the road behind me.
“Not at all,” he says. “Park over there and I’ll walk you around.”
I follow his finger as he points to the side of the house and I nod, smile, rolling up my window before pulling into the makeshift spot. I’m grateful for the invitation, it’s a kind gesture, but it still feels like I’m intruding, charging into someone else’s home before nine o’clock in the morning. Nevertheless, I am in the South. A part of the country where manners matter, almost ad nauseam. Turning him down at this point would feel even ruder than showing up in the first place, so I kill the engine, looking down at the picture on my passenger seat before folding it twice and stuffing it into my pocket.
Then I get out of the car, meeting Liam in front of the clothesline.
“Welcome to Galloway,” he says as I approach, grinning with his arms spread open wide. “Founded in 1984, we grow and sell all kinds of produce, but we specialize in the grapes. Have you ever had one of these?”
He walks me over to the nearest trellis and I look down, noticingthe clusters hanging heavy from the vines. They’re muscadines, large and plum purple to the point of appearing a bloody black, and I watch as he picks one at random, squeezing it gently between his fingers.
“A few times,” I say, nodding. Watching as he sticks it into his mouth, gnawing aggressively before spitting out the seed. Then he gestures to the vine, motioning for me to take one, too, so I follow his lead and pluck my own. A little red orb that looks like a speckled marble, a swollen eye.
“They’re about ready to be picked,” Liam says. “Hence the need for our friend, Elijah.”
I push the berry into my mouth, the skin tough between my teeth. It bursts with a saccharine gush that coats my throat and I close my eyes, my body immediately transported back to that summer. To the way Natalie used to come home with a giant bag of scuppernongs we’d eat on the dock, popping grapes like candy before sucking on the seeds and spitting them out. Counting ripples in water like rings in a tree.
Somehow, I had forgotten all about that.
“They’re usually not ready until August,” Liam continues, his voice forcing me back to the present. “But we’ve had an exceptionally hot spring. Some are ready now; the rest will be in a few weeks.”
“How many workers do you have?”
He gestures to himself, a dirty finger digging into his chest.
“I’m the main caretaker,” he says. “I tend to the place year-round, everything that requires real knowledge of the vine. We bring on one more seasonal worker in the summer to help with the harvest.”
“That’s it?” I ask, looking back at the vineyard. The place is easily a dozen acres, the rows extending so far into the distance it’s hard to see the end of them.
“That’s it,” he repeats. “Harvesting is a job, for sure, but it’s fairly monotonous. Doesn’t require a lot of skill, to be honest. Just two working hands.”
I open my mouth, suddenly compelled to tell him about Natalie and her time here, ask what happened to the high school kids they used to hire for cheap. After so many years of stuffing her memory deep down in my chest, of never uttering a word of her existence, I can feel the temptation to talk about her gurgling up my throat like bile, urgent and sharp… but then I close it again, thinking twice. Remembering how that went during the years I still lived here, seven long years before I graduated and ran away to the city. Thanks to the trial and sensational headlines, the nameNatalie Campbelltended to produce an uncomfortable reaction: awkward silences, a swell of apologies. Good conversation suddenly stilted because I knew, from that moment on, that every time the person I was talking to looked at me, they weren’t actually seeing me at all. Not really, anyway. Not anymore. They were seeing her. They were thinking of her and her final moments, wondering how it all played out. Curious about what kind of girl would foster a relationship with a man ten years her senior; what she could have done to deserve what she got.
“It’s a pretty sweet gig,” Liam continues, and I direct my attention back toward him as I realize he probably wouldn’t know, anyway. I doubt he even worked here back then. “We used to hire a handful of seasonals, give ’em each a couple hours a week, but now, with only one, we can put them up in the guesthouse. Have them work longer days.”
He points over to the cottage in the corner, the one that looks like a miniature replica of the main house behind us. It’s only one story, and I can tell it’s quite small, but still, it’s gorgeous, like a boutique dollhouse. Perfectly square and entirely white; a smallporch in the front, facing the water, and a single glider angled to the view.
“I ran the numbers a while back,” he continues. “It turned out to be cheaper, believe it or not. Got the job done a lot faster, too.”
“Your workers staythere?” I ask, impressed with the digs.
“Free food and housing.” Liam nods. “Plus, five hundred bucks a week.”
“How long does harvesting take?”
“About a month, give or take.”
“Two thousand dollars to spend a month on a vineyard,” I say, doing the math in my head. “That is a sweet gig.”
