Diane smiles knowingly at Alex as Tim ducks behind the bar and emerges with two glasses and a recorked bottle. He shakes his head when Alex reaches for his wallet.
“You’re a sweetheart, Timmy,” Diane says. “I’ll bring the glasses back this time, I swear.”
A rocky path runs up a low hill covered in vines, and Diane steals glances at Alex as they walk side by side. Flat chest, flat stomach, slim hips, no ass to speak of, intricately muscled calves and forearms. The backs of his large, strong hands face forward when he walks in a way that strikes Diane as faintly apelike. His grass-stained khaki shorts and worn gray tee shirt make her wonder what occupation allows him to dress for yard work two weekdays in a row.
In a clearing on the hilltop, a bench offers an unobstructed view of Hopewell Valley—a carpet of farmland, meandering developments, and woods. The distant rattle of a decelerating truck mixes with the hum of insects circulating in the plants. Diane uncorks the bottle with her teeth and fills their glasses.
“Cheers,” she says.
Their eyes meet as their glasses touch. Alex swirls and smells the Riesling, swishes some around his mouth. His nerves are humming. This was not part of the plan.
“Wow,” he says. “Not bad. Glad we didn’t bet on that.”
“I won’t gloat.”
“You can gloat.”
“Not my style. You said you love wine. What do you drink when you’re picking?”
Does he admit an obsession with cult French producers to a woman who shops at Trenton thrift stores and just introduced him to a drinkable New Jersey Riesling? Yes, Alex thinks. Don’t hide unless you have to.
“I’m a big Burgundy fan,” he says.
“My favorite region outside of Champagne. I have this fantasy where I move there and apprentice with some chain-smoking, leathery old-timer.”
“I worked a harvest at Domaine Leflaive a while back.”
“You’re kidding. When was this?”
“Three, four years ago.”
“What was that like?”
“I’d hang on to your fantasy. I washed a lot of bins and pulled a lot of weeds. It’s not like you’re tweaking blends with the winemaker.”
“What were you doing in Burgundy?”
“I had some work in Europe. Went to the winery to decompress.”
“Most people would just drink.”
“I’ve tried that,” Alex says. “It works until it doesn’t.”
Diane raises her glass to this. They’re talking fast and drinking faster. The wine is going straight to his head, tilting his thoughts and tightening his skin. The light seems brighter than it did when they arrived, as if someone just turned up a dimmer on the sun.
“I went to this Szechuan place in Trenton for lunch,” she says. “There’s good Chinese food in central Jersey, in case you didn’t know that either.”
“I’ve read that,” Alex says. “Is that your pre-day-drinking ritual?”
“I don’t do a lot of day drinking. But then I don’t pick up a lot of men at weird drug parties. You’re a great influence so far.”
“We can hit a yoga class after this. Catch a service at the Baptist church.”
“Are you religious?”
“No.”
“Married?”
Alex shakes his head. “I was, once. You?”
“Never married. One kid, though.”
“Same here.”
“Interesting. And where is he or she?”
“In Bogotá with her mother.”
“How long were you together?”
“Two years. We were dating and along came Paola. Best thing that’s happened to me by a mile, but not something we planned. Me and her mom decided to give it a go after we found out, which we both knew was a bad idea.”
“I love the name Paola. How often do you see her?”
“Every few months. She visits, I go there. We go somewhere together every year.”
“I make my son go somewhere with me every summer. Is that a single-parent thing? Mandatory parent-child family vacations?”
“I’ll ask my single-parent support group. Your son lives here?”
“In Princeton, but not with me. Graduated from Rutgers, works for a wealth management firm in town. Very bright, extremely ambitious. No idea where he gets it. His dad was entrepreneurial, in a way. But never in the picture.” She pauses with her glass halfway to her mouth, laughs softly, shakes her head. “Did we just discuss our failed relationships and unplanned children?”
“I try to save the small talk for the second date.”
“Okay, but I feel like I’m asking all the questions. What do you want to know?”
He wants to know everything about her, but 20 Questions is a dangerous game for him. Alex searches for something he can answer easily and honestly if she turns it back on him.
“Are you from New Jersey?”
“Born and raised. Long Beach Island, mostly. Cape May, Spring Lake, Summit. I’ve lived all over. You?”
“Born in Miami,” Alex says, omitting his childhood in Atlantic City in case it leads to a search for mutual acquaintances. “I’ve been in New York for about ten years.”
“Why the house in Bucks County?”
“My mom’s in a home not far from there. I bought the place for her, but she took a turn before she could move in.”
“Sorry to hear that. Should we try to solve the mystery?”
“What mystery?”
“Where we’ve seen each other. I don’t think it was the Y. Or the farm.”
He’s more eager than she is to solve the mystery, but less eager to dig into his past, and so he lies to Diane for the first time and says, “I like the mystery, to be honest. It’ll come to us.”
“Okay,” she says.
They sit there in the sunshine, taking in the view. Alex waits for the silence to become a burden, but the feeling never comes. Her phone buzzes with a text.
“Jesus,” she says. “I almost forgot: I have to be in Princeton in an hour for a dinner party. I told the host I’d show up early and help out.”
“Let’s do this again sometime. We could even make a plan.”
“Or you could come to dinner with me. Only if you want to. Be honest. You can say no.”
He should say no, but her request for candor disarms him, and he does not want this to end.
“That sounds great,” he says. “You sure it’s okay?”
“I’m sure,” she says, placing a call, “but let’s ask anyway. You’ll like these people. They’re just boring enough to be—Hey, Lindsay? It’s me. Listen, can I bring someone tonight? Someone I met recently. Yes, very. At a thing at someone’s house. Alex. What does he—Hang on a second.” Diane lowers the phone. “What do you do for a living?”
“Events,” Alex says, staring at her in disbelief. “Event production, mostly.”
“That would not have been my first guess. Linds, did you catch that? Yeah, he’s right here. Any—What?” She laughs. “That’s good, I hadn’t thought of that. Alex, are you a serial killer?”
“Only on weekends.”