Page 48 of A Vine Mess
Ella took a sip of hers, swirled it around in her mouth briefly before turning and spitting in the ground beside the porch, dumping the whole mug out after it.
“I vote we go somewhere with real coffee,” she announced. “And stop at the store for some too.”
I tipped my head back and laughed. “Deal.”
“How are your sisters?” I asked once we were seated at a hole-in-the-wall diner that had been listed on the KOA’s website for local eateries. I practically moaned in appreciation when the waitress set a pot of coffee between us, a similar sound breaking free from Ella when she swallowed her first sip.
I stilled and, realizing what she’d done, Ella whispered, “Sorry” with a sheepish grin.
“But to answer your question,” she continued, “my sisters are good. Dying to know what we’ve been up to.”
“Did you tell them…everything?”
Ella grimaced but nodded, hitching up a shoulder in a half-shrug. “They’re my sisters.”
“You guys are really close,” I said, stating the obvious, my voice surprisingly steady given the realization that my boss now knew what a jackass I’d been to her younger sister so far on this trip.
Ella grinned. “Yeah we are.”
“Must be nice.”
The waitress reappeared then, quickly taking our orders before once again leaving us to continue our conversation.
“You and Sam aren’t close?” Ella asked.
“No.” I swallowed hard, unsure of how much I wanted to reveal.
My childhood hadn’t been idyllic like hers. Ella and I…we were a study in contrasts. The different ways rich families raised their children. What it was like to be nurtured versus being treated as nothing more than another employee to manage. “We—my dad had a habit of pitting us against each other growing up. Made it hard to be friends when he always felt like my enemy.”
In the end, Sammy got everything he wanted anyway. The title, the money, the status. Everything that, as the first born son, rightfully had been mine first.
But I’d spit on that tradition.
Then pissed on it and set it on fire.
Leaving for college and finally getting a taste of life out fromunder my father’s thumb made me realize how little I wanted that life. And I never would’ve gotten out had it not been for Gramps. He was the paternal figure I’d always longed for, he and Gran giving me the love I’d so desperately craved but lacked in my own home. And Mom too. She did what she could under the circumstances, and I loved her for it. They’d all tried with Sammy, but he was our father’s son through and through.
Simply to placate my dad, I’d originally gone to school for architectural engineering and business. I had always been a great student, and while the work stimulated me to an extent, I felt the much larger, creative side of my brain dying a little bit more every day.
When I’d gone home for Christmas break my sophomore year, my grandfather sensed something wasn’t right with me and offered to help.
Up to that point, Dad had been paying for college, only doing so on the condition that I majored in what he wanted.
By supplying me with an early loan from my trust, which I wouldn’t have been able to access until I was twenty-five otherwise, Gramps made it possible for me to quietly switch from architectural to bio-engineering and drop business altogether. Thanks to my summers working at a winery, I’d become fascinated with the process of wine production, and loved the idea of making a career out of it. I got a job locally at a bar to supplement my spending money, and that fostered my love of mixology. When I moved to Michigan and into the Traverse City area, I completed a certification, making me sort of an authority on the subject.
“What does your family do?” Ella asked. “I don’t think you’ve ever told me.”
I hadn’t, and for good reason.
“They’re in construction,” I said, though that was putting it mildly.
What she didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her.
“I can’t imagine that,” she said quietly. “Not being close with my family.”
“I’m still close with my mom,” I told her, my heart warming at the thought of seeing her at the end of this trip. It had been too goddamn long. “And my grandpa.”
“Tell me about him.”
