Sour Peach Wine

Taylor Schaefer

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We went to Fredericksburg in the off-season, when the peach trees were bare and it was a brisk, uncharacteristic sixty-five degrees. My older coworker was baffled at our choice of weekend getaway. “No point in goin’ to Fredericksburg if there ain’t any peaches,” She said. But I needed to get out of the city, get somewhere quiet. And clean. I had a thin, greasy film over my skin that had been accumulating over the past six months. No matter how many times I scrubbed myself under scalding hot showers, I felt it clinging to me underneath my clothes. I felt it in my breath when I spoke. I didn’t know what the fuck I was saying to people anymore. At happy hours, at work lunches, at birthday parties of distant acquaintances. Every outing trapped me under another layer of grime. And after this week, I felt as unclean as I’d ever been. 

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“You’re so dramatic,” Lena said, braking way too hard on the highway. She wasn’t paying attention to the cars slowing in front of her. Instead of responding or commenting on her driving, I cranked up the volume on the music. It was a collaborative playlist we shared titled hopeless bitches, filled with songs that made us feel sorry for ourselves. 

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“Like, I get it,” she said. “Life is relentless. But ours could be worse. Probably. And look! Bucc-ee’s is only a few exits away. Should we go?” She had a tendency to do that. Group our lives together, as if they were one. But, like most friendships that start in college and center almost entirely on alcohol and men, we would never truly know each other. 

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The flat, dry lands of central Texas stretched out ahead of us for the next hour, until we arrived at our destination. The Lavender Hills Bed & Breakfast was a decently-sized farmhouse-style building, homey and charming. One review on Yelp had read: “My girlfriends and I had a wonderful time at Lavender Hills! We’ve known each other for three decades now, and we meet up once a year in Fredericksburg to tour wineries, gossip, and eat peach pie. This is our favorite b&b. It’s our happy place.”

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I had booked the room solely on the power of that review. I needed a happy place. Maybe I could find it in the Peach Capital of Texas.

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When I’d mentioned my impromptu trip off-handedly to Lena, she invited herself along. It’s been a while since we had a trip with just us, she said, and who doesn’t love peaches and small-town charm? But I’d seen the desperation behind her eyes when she offered to drive. She needed to get out too.

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The elderly woman at the desk showed us to our room and gave us pamphlets on things to do around town. “Y’all come in from Austin?” She asked, glancing at my tattoos and Lena’s shag haircut. 

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We nodded, almost apologetically, and she nodded too, and left us to get back to her post. 

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“Okay, where are we going first?” Lena sat on her bed, legs swinging. She’d already hung up her outfit for tomorrow in the closet. I bent down to grab my extra pair of jeans, and dropped them back into the duffel bag immediately. A grimy residue lay on my fingers. Could she see it? I rubbed my hands frantically. It went unnoticed by Lena, who was flipping through a tourist pamphlet.  

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“Peach trees?” I suggested.

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“Ooookay, sad dead peach trees it is.” She shook her head but led me back out to the car anyway.

 

 

The first orchard was only a five-minute drive away. The acres of land lay behind a gift shop that sold peanut brittle, fudge, tourist t-shirts, and peach wine. A sign claimed this wine was “Fresh from the fields!”, but as we approached the fields in question, we knew that couldn’t be true. Barren gray trees, devoid of any life, dotted the land in countless rows. 

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Lena grabbed my hand and led me through one of the rows. We ran our fingers along the bark and silently took in the vast field for several minutes. And then, she finally said, “Are we gonna talk about it?”

 

“No,” I said quickly. “I didn’t come here to talk about it.”

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“Oh, well, I did.” She grabbed a sturdy branch and allowed herself to hang from it just a tiny bit, scuffed Reeboks hovering a half inch above the ground.

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I blew out a steady breath, rubbing my arms as a chilly wind swept through the trees. Normally, leaves would rustle, their peaches threatening to drop. Instead, the field was blissfully silent. 

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“I’m doing better now,” I said. 

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“Uh huh.” She looked at me carefully, trying to read my expression. But I was a master at being unreadable. I’d always prided myself on staying calm and even in most situations. Most. 

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“I just needed to get out of the city,” I said.

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“Well, we’re here.” She gestured around us. Then, after a beat, “We do have to go back tomorrow, though.”

I felt a migraine coming on. Just at the thought of the noise, the heat, the tremors in my hands as I fumbled through my wallet to pay for a $10 gin and tonic. At the thought of laughing at coworkers’ jokes, of parking in busy garages, of horns blasting and music blaring and twenty-something dudes shouting—always shouting for no reason. 

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At the thought of bathroom stalls. 

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“Talk to me,” Lena said sternly. “Don’t disappear in there.”

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“I couldn’t tell you,” I said, rubbing my temples. “I’m sorry I couldn’t explain, not while I was still in Austin.”

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“Okay, sure,” She said. “But you can tell me now.”

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I couldn’t yet. Not shivering in a field, having just arrived in my potential Happy Place. I marched back to the entrance of the field and into the gift shop, where I bought a bottle of peach wine and some fudge. Lena stepped up to the cash register after me and, at my look of confusion, placed her own bottle of wine on the counter. 

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She was, of course, talking about the voicemail. It was slurred into her inbox at 2:44 am Monday morning from a dirty bathroom stall, and it was forty seconds long. 

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We grabbed pizza from the Domino’s in town, lamenting that we weren’t supporting a local business with our dinner choice, but ultimately choosing convenience over quaintness. We thought about taking it back to the B&B, but Lena wanted to smoke, and I didn’t want the old woman to think less of us. So we grabbed jackets from the back of Lena’s car and posted up at a tiny park. It sat behind a row of antique stores, providing us cover from the public so we could drink our (very mediocre and slightly sour) peach wine, smoke, and eat our pizza.

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I sipped the wine very carefully, one gulp at a time followed by several bites of food. I did not smoke. 

We ate in silence, mostly out of hunger. The drive had been long, the food options limited to chicken spots and burger drive-thrus, and Lena was a vegetarian. I ripped bites off of my slices with fervor, hoping that keeping my mouth busy would stop my teeth from chattering. When we’d cleared half the pizza, Lena burped and folded her hands. She was waiting, patiently. I swallowed my mouthful and looked at her.

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“I don’t remember what I said,” I said.

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“You didn’t really say much,” she said. “It’s pretty incoherent.”

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“I don’t remember how bad it is,” I admitted. I had almost no memory of that night. Almost.

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“I mean, I can play it,” She said, pulling out her phone.

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I wanted to say no. I didn’t want to relive it. But at the same time, I needed to know how much she already knew. 

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When I didn’t respond, she shrugged, took a breath, and pressed play on the voicemail.

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A voice was sobbing, wailing. A truly disturbing, guttural sound that came from somewhere I may never locate again. It was me. Gasping, a sob echoing in between each breath.

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“I ssssidn’t mean to,” I said, barely enunciating. “I’m sorry, ohh fuck, I didn’t mean to… It wassn’t my fault!” Then the sound of gagging, moans at the horrific realization of what was coming up through my stomach, and then violent retching. 

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Lena didn’t take her eyes off me as we listened. I looked at the slats of the picnic table, my whole body trembling. When it ended, she calmly put the phone back into her pocket.

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“I’ve been sitting on that for days,” she said, her voice even, but wary. “It really, really freaked me out. Can you imagine getting that message from your best friend, and then she won’t even tell you what happened?”

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I shook my head, back and forth, and crammed another slice of pizza in my mouth before I could say it all at once. 

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Lena watched me eat, her eyes wide. I took a solid swig of wine.

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“Not here,” I said. 

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“What the fuck,” she said, throwing up her arms. 

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We went back to the B&B. We nodded hello to the old woman on the first floor, who was crocheting, reruns of Little House on the Prairie playing softly on an ancient TV beside her. 

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Upstairs in our room, I grabbed spare pillowcases from the shelves and stuffed them in the gap under the door. I heard Lena snicker—she thought I was fucking with her.  She lay reclined on her bed, shoes off. 

I took a seat on my bed, just a few feet from hers. As I opened my mouth to speak, I felt that dirty haze begin to seep out of it—this didn’t belong here. Not in the happy place. 

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“I went out that night,” I said. “We were on sixth street. I was with Tina and Will and Carmen—”

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“—I’ve told you to stop partying with them, they fucking suck,” Lena interrupted. When I gave her a sharp look, she shut her mouth.

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“There was a guy,” I continued, “who had been making eye contact with me for a while. He was cute, and I was hoping he’d make a move, and when he came over to me and offered to buy me a drink, I told the others they could go home. I was good. I wanted to leave with this guy. He gave me the drink he’d ordered.”

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Lena had her face in her hands already. She was getting ahead of me. 

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“We went up to the roof, there weren’t as many people up there. We started to kiss and it was getting more intense, I was really into it, I was ready to go home with him. But then I started to feel fucked up, like really fucked up, and I’d only had a couple of drinks. It didn’t add up. I was like swaying on my feet, starting to slur, all of it. I knew he had to have drugged me.” I stood up and paced in front of my double bed while Lena watched me, rapt. 

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“He led me to the bathrooms on the roof. I didn’t even know they were there—they’re kind of tucked into the corner, away from the bar. We kept kissing, but I could barely stand up, and then he started to act like he was taking care of me—hey, hey, you okay? Did you have too much to drink?”

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I felt myself swaying where I stood, like I was back on the roof, in the women’s bathroom, across from the sinks. I remembered locking eyes with myself in the mirror. A brief moment of clarity. A realization. This man was no better than the man who’d broken my heart, and no better than the man who’d followed me four blocks to a bus stop last month, saying things like “I think you’d like me, baby. I’ll make you feel good.” No better than the man who’d taken Lena upstairs at a frat party, which is yet another thing we never talk about. 

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“I stopped kissing the guy and I confronted him—‘You did something. You gave me something.’ He was shaking his head, trying to touch me, trying to comfort me. I screamed at him. Outside the bathroom, the roof sounded quiet. I think they were closing down the bar. Or, it was past closing.”

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I felt my hands shake as I reached up, grabbing an imaginary body. “He leaned closer, pretending to be concerned, putting his hand on my back. So I reached up and I grabbed his head and I—”

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I smashed his head into the wall of the bathroom stall next to us. He wasn’t very big or strong—I always did like them scrawny—so he couldn’t push me off. The blood was quicker than I imagined. In the movies, it takes several hits for them to start bleeding from the face or head. But it only took me two smashes before red was everywhere, smeared on the stall, on my hands, matting his hair. I kept smashing, and crying, and he slumped to the ground and I didn’t know where to go. And, ironically, I really had to pee. I went into the stall, avoiding touching any blood, and peed, and cried. And then I glanced in my purse and I saw it—the bottle of antibiotics. I was on my last day, and the pain from my ear infection was long gone, so I didn’t even remember I was taking them. In between blinks of tears I saw the warning in the corner of the label—do not mix with alcohol. 

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I called Lena. She didn’t answer, so I left a voicemail. My wails echoed off the walls of the bathroom, and I swore I could hear sirens already tearing through the city.

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Lena stared at me in the dark of our room. The sun had completely set while I was talking, and we hadn’t stopped to turn on any lamps—there was just the sheen of our pale skin and the glow of our eyes. 

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I could tell she didn’t know what to say. She was processing. She was trying to decide if she supported me in what I’d done. I could see the gears turning, even in the dark—did she believe me? Would she stand by me? No matter what happened next?

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Her silence told me she wasn’t sure. 

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“You don’t have to say anything,” I said. “Thank you for coming with me on this trip.”

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She nodded, dumbstruck. 

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“Do you want to just go to sleep?” I offered. I didn’t know how to relieve the tension in the room. 

“Maybe,” she said. “I already feel like I’m dreaming.”

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We laid down in the dark, under the covers and flat on our backs, parallel lines. I reached out a hand. Slowly, she grasped it and gave it a squeeze. Then she pulled her hand back and shut her eyes. 

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I waited for hours until I knew she was entirely asleep. She had always slept deeply, unable to resist letting out a rumbling snore every few breaths. But now, she was completely silent, her face peaceful underneath the pressure of my pillow. I went back to my bed, tears flowing steadily out of my eyes. 

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I checked out the next morning, dropping the room key off with the old lady. My friend is outside starting the car, I said. The old lady offered me some muffins for the road and I took them, thanking her for her hospitality.  Before I reached the front door, she asked, “Going back to the city, then?”

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“Um,” I forced a thin smile. “Actually, I don’t know if I am.”

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“Good decision,” she said, “always too loud down there.”