Honey

One time early in my time in graduate school, Liz and I drove out to a vineyard. Liz was off from her corporate job up north and I had just started summer break. The vineyard was owned by a reckless millionaire. The southeast not being Italy, France, or Napa, good wine could only be extracted from the soil at great price and, conveniently, the proprietor of the vineyard, spending money he hadn't worked for, made amazing expensive wine that no matter how much it cost could never fully recoup his costs. After driving through the sloping road that led up to the vineyard, we turned onto a bumpy dirt road that eventually led to a building that looked like the brainchild of someone in love with glass and wood, its impracticality was beautiful. Double glass and brass doors opened up to a giant tasting table flanked by topiaries, cheeses, and a large glass globe on a pedestal stand full of melon pieces floating in water. We sat down with a tasting flight and a wedge of cheese that looked like melting porcelain. Dizzy from wine, I drank some of the melon water which tasted cloudy and sweet.

A string piece luxuriated in the background, oozed even out of the invisible speakers. I knew this place had been manufactured for moneyed pleasure. Built for those who needed to get away but didn't care if all their money made it back with them. Liz was silent. I walked, with a slight stagger now that I think of it, back to a veined marbled bar that looked like a giant piece of blue cheese. A woman with a slight accent, something commonwealth, asked me if I had tried the dessert wines yet. I hadn't. She offered me a glass of something chilled and thick like honey.

Boozy, though. It hit softly but firmly. When I crossed the vineyard, I sat down next to Liz who was looking distant with a slight grimace. I offered her a taste. She took it. She said "nice." I turned out toward the row of trees outside bound in by lush topiaries and bushes. I imagined I was turned to some liquid to be drunk up by the invisible roots of those trees.

We walked to the car not side by side and when we got into the hot car and waited for the roar of the A/C to take effect, I looked over. She was looking at her feet. "I'm sorry," I said, "it's just...I'm...all the way down here…and you" She cut me off. "I know," she said, "and I should be better." "I should be better, too."

Sometimes in the intense heat of southern summers, one sweats so much from around the eyes it can look as if you're crying. We both knew this would be our cover. We both knew it would be easier back in town.