Thanksgiving

Her bus pulls into an empty downtown where he meets her in an old maroon Toyota pick-up. He’s wearing a dark wool zip-up and he leans over the seat to push the door open and asks if she wants The Official Tour.

They zig zag along the coast, they roll down the windows and breathe in salt air and distant fireplaces and talk about the city. Radio low, he points out where the seals are, the boardwalk, the way to get to the university, the houses that are now some of the most expensive in the state. They talk about what he’s going to cook this evening, how he spent his morning prepping it, how he's brought wine from the vineyard that he mixed himself. There are families outside on their decks in the cold afternoon sun, drinking wine and martinis and beer and catching up, and she thinks how singular California winters are.

They go to his parents’ empty house to make dinner. It is lived-in and full of newspapers and small mementos on the kitchen windowsill over the sink. Along the counter there are rows of spice jars and half-drunk, re-corked bottles of wine; there are plants, and books haphazardly stacked and leaned on surfaces and in shelves; there’s an old grand piano with too many framed family photographs, and comfortable couches and soft carpet through the halls. There’s a mounted television, a fireplace, a sound system behind glass; there are shoes by the door, coupons on the fridge, and art on the walls and so much light filtering in through every window.

Chill air creeps in and he opens nice champagne while she takes off her shoes, padding over in socks to the counter for a toast. The rest of the afternoon stretches out lazily as they finish that and open more, and he preps food while she plays his father’s piano, stumbling a little over wrong notes because of nerves but not minding because of wine. He brings her things to taste and she puts on music and helps him stir things on the stove. They don’t talk much; it’s a warm tipsy dream and it occurs to her that nothing is wrong.

They eat dinner outside under little lights strung across garage and rooftop in a glowing canopy. Steak with chimichurri and onions and ceviche and dinner rolls, more wine. Perched on the edge of big wooden chairs around a fire pit they talk about quote unquote prestige television, and music, and families, and other things that she barely registers. Eventually they have dessert. They kiss, they laugh clumsily, they hold hands, drunk and content and without pretense. Maybe this is what it’s like to be an adult, she thinks, to have adult relationships where it’s not instantly perfect but it’s pretty fucking good, and no one pretends and people just like each other.

He says you’re supposed to leave tomorrow right and she says yes but should I stay and he says I think you should stay.

In the morning she changes her ticket and they drive over the hill to the vineyard where they drink reserve whites out of giant barrels with the owner and open the first Riesling ever made there. She takes photos of the rolling hills and the cat that guards the front. They go to the cellar to sample reds just started, reds in progress, reds almost ready. They sit on barrels in the cold preserved air under the tasting room and talk about their careers and how they can’t wait to find what they really want, drunk on newness and confessions. She thinks, this is what life should be, this is what it’s like to be growing up.

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They see each other every weekend until Christmas: she meets his parents and his sister, she plays piano for them and they shout at the television together at Jeopardy and drink wine; he brings his own blend to her middle school best friend’s boyfriend’s company’s Christmas party; he meets her sister and her sister’s husband and her colleagues for lunch where she works, and he comes to trivia night at the pub.

At Christmas they say goodbye and she goes home south and he stays, but she and her two friends drive to see him on New Year’s Eve. They drink expensive alcohol and chain smoke on his balcony and laugh so hard over glass after glass that they lose track of time and they have to run across the street to the nearest dive with three minutes left until the ball drops so they can say they spent it somewhere, with people, out in the world. They toast complimentary champagne in plastic flutes that fall apart as they cheers and spill on each other, skin sticky with champagne and sweat, and sparkling black paper top hats and cigarette smoke and four people who have everything.

On the car ride home the next day after saying goodbye, the three of them without him now, warm and hungover and happy packed inside the Fiat, she tells them that she’s leaving. Quitting her job and moving to southern California. She’s put in notice at her place, and she’s telling her work tomorrow. No, there’s no plan. No, she hasn’t told him.

They’re driving past Santa Cruz, Mountain View, Wing Stop, no one knows quite where they are and no one responds right away. Here’s to now, Isaac Brock sings over the radio.