Page 48 of Wild Abandon

I examine the way he’s holding his glass and recall how well he’s been explaining the wine to me today. “If you could do something else though, what would it be?”

He looks back at me, almost studying my face. “This. Running a winery.”

I’m not surprised. “You’re in the right place. Why aren’t you working in a winery? I just started working at one. I’m supposed to play the cello for wine tastings even though they don’t have wine tastings yet. They’re not producing wine at the moment either, but when it reopens, I know we’ll need the help. Or my friend Jeremy can get you into Gallo. He’s an—”

“I don’t want to work for someone else. I had my own place, but I lost it.” He takes my empty glass from me and places it on a table. “The bar works for me. The guy who owns it got married and moved down to San Diego. He handed me the keys last year along with the apartment upstairs, rent-free. All I have to do is run his business and send him a check once a month.”

“Sounds good, but it’s not your own. Have you thought of opening your own bar?”

“I don’t have the equity. Money is pretty tight. I don’t know if owning a bar is what I want to do.”

“You don’t think about the future?”

Nate gives me a solemn shake of his head. “Sometimes, planning for the future only leads to disappointment. It’s what we do with the present that matters. And, right now, I’m really enjoying today.”

I smile at the compliment and then catch sight of three hot air balloons as they appear off the mountain range. I silently give him a head nod, asking him if he’d be interested in going on one.

“I said I’d be a tourist, but a hot air balloon was not on the agenda.”

“Oh, come on! It looks like fun.” I’m acting braver than I am. While I’ve always wanted to go up in a hot air balloon, I’d never step foot in one. They look dangerous.

“You were clutching on to me on the gondola. There’s no way I’m taking you up in the air.”

I stick my tongue out at him. “Jeez, Nathaniel, you’re so drab.”

We make our way down the mountain on the aerial tram. We get off and walk back toward the parking lot. As we pass the black chalkboard, I sneak a glance and look for the spot where Nate was writing his Before I Die response. If I’m looking at the right place, then Nate wrote, Before I die I want to, have peace.

World peace? Inner peace? Did he mean get a piece?

“You hungry?” he asks, pulling my attention away from the board.

“Famished,” I answer awkwardly as we reach the car and climb in. I wonder if he’s annoyed at me for looking.

He doesn’t show it though. Instead, he turns the car on, looks at me, and smiles. “I have the perfect place.”

Back in the town of Yountville is a roadside burger joint that looks straight out of the 1950s. Gott’s Roadside isn’t the type of place you get a garden salad. This is a straight-up grease-filled, calorie-loading, cheese-sauce-dipping, eat-at-a-picnic-table-while-looking-at-the-passing-cars kind of place.

And I am so looking forward to it.

After the eight tasting glasses I’ve had this morning, I surmise I’ve drunk a pound of wine. I don’t feel more than a light buzz though. Between the long distances we’ve been driving and the copious amounts of water Nate has been feeding me, I feel relatively refreshed. Refreshed yet starving.

We get our food and take a seat at a table already occupied. We sit side by side on the end. I steal his fries, and he takes one of my onion rings.

This place makes us nostalgic even though neither of us grew up in the fifties nor did we have a place like this where we came from. We share high school stories—I, as a drama geek, who went to a high school for the performing arts, while he was a skateboarder and a loner. When you are into music and the arts, like I was, you are always surrounded by people of like interests. Nate, on the other hand, had few friends, and he said they weren’t worth keeping.

“How did you end up the world’s greatest baseball fan? I thought the skateboarder kids were too cool for sports.”

“I wasn’t goth. I was just a lonely kid. I always loved baseball. I think it’s because I didn’t have a dad. It’s something I would picture us doing together if he were around.”

“Do you know where he is now?”

He shakes his head. “I used to dream he would show up and say, Nathaniel, you’ve been lied to. I never left you. I was on a secret mission by the US Government, sent to find a cure for cancer. Now, I’m back to rescue you from your heinous mother.” Nate looks down at a fry in his hand, like it’s the memory he’s recalling.

I snatch the fry out of his hand and pop it into my mouth. This makes him look up at me with a confused expression that relaxes when he sees my smile.

“He was an idiot for leaving you. And you turned out pretty great, despite your mom being a vile woman. Did she really kick you out when you were eighteen?”

“Yep. She had an equally vile boyfriend who hated my guts. I traveled around for a while. Hitchhiked across the country. I guess we’re the same that way. You traveling across Europe, and me, the States. Difference is, you always had a place to go home to.”