Page 4 of Wassailing We Will Go
So, you have cider-making experience? I ask, trying to keep my voice even. Are you…looking for a job, by any chance?
He looks at me, very confused now. I wasn’t really looking, to be honest. I just came out here to visit some friends. Really, my only plans were to sleep on their couch and eat all their food. Why do you ask?
I’m the general manager of Sparks Cidery, I say.
He breaks out into a smile again. Really? I know that place. Drove by it just today. It looks beautiful.
Really. And our cider maker just broke his ankle, and we desperately need someone to help him as we’re still smack dab in the middle of the post-harvest. He’s not quite ready to retire yet, but the man is seventy-two. He has a hard time accepting help, but I think he’d really like you, I finish. I sound desperate, but he doesn’t seem put off, at least not yet, so I keep going. If you can just help him for a month or two while you’re here, until his ankle is healed, that would be good. If you’d at least like to meet him.
He looks surprised at the offer, and I realize that I have had too much wine on too empty a stomach, and I am coming on way too strong. Just when he opens his mouth to respond (likely to apologize politely but tell me to kick rocks), I quickly interrupt before I get the chance to be further humiliated.
You know what, never mind. Crazy idea. It was nice meeting you, I say and stand up to leave. Immediately, I feel the blood drain from my face. Everything around me goes out of focus and then starts spinning. I reach the ledge, and I am distantly aware that I’m about to pass out.
Then, though I am obviously no longer aware of it, I do just that.
The first moment of consciousness after passing out is a uniquely unsettling experience in any situation. But as I blink my eyes open and see a slightly blurry, very concerned blond man with twinkly little lights surrounding his head like a halo, I am more confused than ever. I briefly consider that I have died, and my version of heaven is populated by tanned surfer angels. When I sit up, I find myself lying on a lounge chair with a robe draped over me, and while some memories start coming back, my brain feels like it’s been replaced with pudding.
Are you alright? asks the surfer angel. He has only a towel wrapped around his waist despite the cold, and I watch as a particularly large snowflake lands and then melts on his very toned chest. I stare for a moment, completely out of it. Finally, my brain catches up to me, and I forcefully remind myself that coming back from unconsciousness is not reason enough to creep people out.
I’m fine, I say and go to stand up. This proves to be an immediately bad decision, and I sit back down again. The man—Harrison, I now remember—rushes forward.
Maybe sit down for a few more minutes? They’re getting you some juice, he says. Sure enough, Hannah from the front desk appears with some orange juice, a bottle of water, and, randomly, a selection of butter tarts, the sight of which immediately makes my stomach turn.
The kitchen is closed, she says apologetically. This is what I could find in a hurry.
Thank you, but this is—I’m just dehydrated. I’ll be fine, I say as I take the bottle of water. Sorry about this, I say to both of them.
It happens a lot, she says. Let me know if you need anything else or if I can call you a taxi? We’re closing soon.
Do you need a ride home? asks Harrison. He shrugs a fluffy white robe on but doesn’t bother tying it up. He looks like he’s about to enter a boxing ring. I catch myself staring again.
I— I desperately want to say no, thank you, but the honest answer is that because I had walked from my home to the spa, knowing that I was going to have a drink or two, getting a ride is probably the right choice. Even though I live only a kilometre or so down the road, walking home probably isn’t the best idea, given that I could pass out again and potentially spend the night face down in a cornfield. I would appreciate that, actually, I sigh. I look over at the tray of butter tarts next to me and nudge them his way. I can compensate you in Canadian pastries?
He smiles and grabs one. Deal. As he chews, his face shuffles through several emotions, starting with confusion and ending in bliss. Well, that’s amazing. He goes to grab another, and I hand him the entire plate.
They’re all yours. I strongly advise eating no more than five of them at one time. He raises an eyebrow at this but doesn’t inquire further.
The water and juice continue their job, and I soon feel well enough to go and get changed. Harrison is waiting in the front entrance, wearing the kind of winter jacket usually reserved for scientists on Antarctic expeditions.
That cold, eh? I ask. It’s chilly, sure, but it’s still above zero.
I was trying to seem cool in a crisis earlier, but I’ve got to tell you, I was and remain freezing. I can’t feel my hands, he says, shuffling from foot to foot. I really thought I would handle the cold better than this after being abroad these past few years.
I laugh. You had me fooled, I say. We walk out into the parking lot, where the only remaining vehicles still there are a lime-green sedan and a purple PT Cruiser. Neither option seems to suit Harrison, but I’m not judging a free ride home. He nods toward the PT Cruiser.
I borrowed a car for the next few weeks from my friend’s elderly aunt and couldn’t be picky, he says quickly. She doesn’t drive anymore, and it was just sitting in her driveway, so…
Unimaginable that anyone would ever let a beauty like this out of their sight, I say as I enter the vehicle. I pat the armrest, which has a tiger-printed cover over it. Riding in a 2008-model PT Cruiser has always been a secret dream of mine.
He laughs as he starts the car. The radio is set to the country music station, and every heater is set to max. Evidently, this man has the body temperature regulation skills of an iguana.
We need to get you some thermal underwear if you’re going to hack it here for the next few weeks, I say.
I was sitting in the sauna the entire time I was at the spa, he confesses as he backs out of the parking space. His arm is behind my seat, and I am suddenly unnervingly aware of my proximity to the bicep I had been admiring earlier. Thinking back to how tipsy I was at the time, I was probably super obvious about it, too, and I blush a little with embarrassment at the thought. Harrison thankfully doesn’t notice. After about thirty minutes, I finally walked out and went to the hot tub, where we met. It was the only time I’ve been truly warm in the last three days since I arrived. So, where to?
We are idling, stopped at the spa exit facing the road, and it dawns on me that I need to actually tell him where I live. Sorry, turn right, I say, and he signals the turn to no one and does just that.
Despite the surge in tourism, the County remains largely farmland, and the nights get a kind of deep dark that people from cities aren’t used to. Harrison doesn’t seem fazed by it, though, turning on the brights and cruising right along. The snow has mercifully stopped, and the roads are fine, which seems lucky as I have reason to doubt my driver’s winter-driving skills.
