The half-inch of scotch left in the bottle sitting on the coffee table in front of me made my choice next to impossible. If I was going to get through that night, a trip to the liquor store was in order. All the better. I was already feeling trapped in my new place and looked forward to the half mile or so walk to get more of the only thing that was going to help me forget, at least for a few hours.
I set out on my quest for alcohol and met few people on my way, all of them shying away from me by refusing to make eye contact and one even crossing the street to get away from me. For a moment, I couldn’t figure out why until I remembered I didn’t look like Tristan Stone with my scruffy hair and overgrown beard. Never before in my life had I experienced people avoiding me because of my appearance. The tiny village of Millbrook, New York must have been used to a better class of person. I used to be that class, but as the gardener Ethan, I definitely stuck out like a sore thumb among Manhattanites visiting their country homes. It was eye-opening, to say the least.
The greasy-haired liquor store clerk gave me a similar reception when I walked into his store, watching me intently as I passed him on my way to the scotch aisle. I stood staring at the various bottles, my mind preoccupied with how differently I was treated looking like I did now. A little longer hair and a bad beard and suddenly I was persona non grata.
I felt a tug on my sleeve and turned to see Nina standing there staring up at me. Immediately, I realized I wasn’t wearing my sunglasses. My hair hung in my eyes, so I squinted at her, hoping to hide my eye color.
She smiled and waved at me, obviously remembering that I couldn’t hear or speak. I smiled a closed mouth smile back, afraid if I acted too much like myself that she’d figure out my ruse. She made a motion with her hands that looked like she was trying to ask if I drank, and I nodded. Hoping to deflect her attention from me, I signed Are you here to buy alcohol? She had no idea what I was asking and shaking her head, said sweetly, “I’m sorry. I don’t know what you mean.”
I pointed at the bottles and then pointed at her as I repeated my question with my hands. My distraction seemed to work because she walked away, and for a moment I thought I was safe, but she returned a few seconds later with a bottle of hazelnut liqueur in one hand and a bottle of cheap vodka in the other. I recognized the liqueur bottle instantly as the same one the bartender at ETA had used that night when he made her the chocolate martini.
“I fell in love with this chocolate cake martini a while back and really wanted one tonight,” she explained as I smiled down at her and pretended not to understand what she meant, all the while loving the sound of her sweet voice again.
She sensed I didn’t understand and put the two bottles she was holding on the shelf next to her so she could take out a pen and paper. She scribbled a few words and held it up so I could read it.
Do you like scotch? My fiancé likes it too. I can’t drink it, though. Too hard. :(
God, she was sweet. How much I wanted to hold that beautiful face in my hands and tell her it was me standing in front of her instead of some guy who worked on her garden all day, seething with jealousy as he watched her be friendly to another man.
Thinking it might seem too obvious if Ethan liked scotch too, I shook my head and pointed at the American whiskey further down the aisle away from where I was standing. Then I took the pen from her hand and wrote I like whiskey instead, forgetting that I didn’t have gloves on. She could clearly see my hands and knew my handwriting from all my notes and letters.
Fearful I’d ruined Daryl’s plan, I dropped the pen onto the paper she held in her hand and stuffed my hands into my pockets. Thankfully, she was too busy reading what I’d written to notice that I was hiding my hands. She wrote something else and smiled up at me as I read her message.
It was nice seeing you here. Have a great night!
Before I could nod and hope she understood I wished her the same, I saw Varo come through the front door and march up behind her, his expression filled with protective concern.
“Nina, is everything okay?” he asked.
“I’m fine. I was just talking to Ethan. He’s the new gardener.”
Varo sized me up and quickly moved to guide Nina out of the store, but I was thrilled to see her fight him. A tiny flicker of joy crept into my heart as she pushed him away to be nice to someone she’d just met that day. She was still my Nina, the same old gentle soul she’d always been.
“Let’s go,” he insisted, again trying to direct her toward the register.
“Okay, let me say goodbye,” Nina answered in a tone I recognized immediately as her impatient voice.
Waving to me as she backed away, she smiled and nearly melted my heart. “See you.”
I nodded, remembering not to take my hands out of my pockets and to keep my eyes squinted, watching her walk away with the makings for her chocolate martini and Varo. Even after I couldn’t see her anymore, I stood there waiting to hear the jingle of bells on the door when she left, grabbing her note she’d placed on the shelf and a bottle of Lagavulin when the coast was clear and confusing the clerk when I paid with a couple fifties.
By the time I got back to what I was now calling home, I was sick of being judged by everyone I met and in need of a good stiff drink. Two glasses of scotch later, I sat back against my cheap couch and replayed my meeting with Nina at the liquor store, loving that of all the people I’d encountered that day, only she’d been truly kind to me.
As I nodded off to sleep, all I could hope for was that my time away from her wouldn’t last much longer. I didn’t want to be a stranger anymore.
Chapter Nine
Tristan
Over the next week, my contacts came in but I saw little of Nina. I tried to get a glimpse of her whenever I was close to the house, but she never seemed to be in any of the rooms I could see into. I saw Varo quite often, usually walking back to the carriage house or hanging out with West on the grounds near where he used to live. He paid little attention to me, which could have been attributed to either Daryl telling him about my real identity or his lack of interest in me since I was just a mute gardener.
I didn’t care which it was since a ball of hate for him inside me grew larger by the second. It was irrational and it didn’t matter. I hated him for being able to come and go in Nina’s life as he pleased while I stood there pretending to care about the shape of the fucking hedges on my property or how long the damn grass should be.
One sunny morning, eight days after our chance meeting at the liquor store, she came walking down the pathway to where I stood cleaning up weeds against the fence on the property line. I didn’t remember her ever coming out this way when we were together, but I was thrilled all the same. Any time I got to spend with her was better than any without her.