The Other Boy

Maddy looked down into his sparkling, deep brown eyes from her perch in the truck, and awkwardly bent down, gathering the skirt of her dress between her knees. She grasped the edge of the tailgate with one hand and closed her fingers around David’s with the other. She leaped down clumsily, almost falling. Quickly, he grabbed her around the waist. For a split second, his 43

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arms encircled her, hugging her against his broad chest. Maddy felt the warmth of his skin through his T-shirt and caught a whiff of fresh, piney soap and a vague scent like cedar chips. A tiny sigh escaped her. Flustered, she struggled upright. He quickly dropped his arms.

“Okay?” he asked, blushing a little.

“Yeah, fine,” Maddy mumbled. She concentrated on brushing dust off her dress so she wouldn’t have to look at him. Her knees felt a little wobbly, but she didn’t know why. It wasn’t like it was a big deal that he helped her down. She’d just tripped a little. This whole place had her off balance.

“Come on, you two!” Bob waved from the stoop of a small red wooden building perched on the stream bank. Dry yellow grasses lay in luxuriant swathes against the stone foundation, and the front entrance was draped in a profusion of wisteria. Maddy’s dad pushed the oak door open, revealing an empty room beyond. Maddy and David stepped inside.

The space was square, with bare plaster walls and a plank floor. There was no ceiling, only the underside of the roof and rafters soaring twenty feet overhead. Swallows swooped in and out of an open window set high into the wall. Sunlight filtered through the wavy old glass of the windows and painted shadow patterns on the floor. A faint film of dust covered everything.

“The last owners used this for storage,” Bob explained. 44

The Other Boy

“But it was originally a barn for goats, back when this was a farm as well as a vineyard. You can see how solidly it’s built.”

“Yeah, it really is,” David said approvingly, knocking on the wall. Maddy gazed longingly out the window, wishing that she could see San Francisco from here. She whipped her head around and saw that both Dad and David were staring at her.

“Mmmhmm!” she managed, pretending to admire the cobwebby walls. “So, what’s the plan, Dad?” Might as well get it over with.

“Well! Glad you asked!” Her father gri

“Ah . . . great, Bob,” he offered.

Maddy’s father barreled ahead. “We want you two to take complete charge of this project, pla

Maddy couldn’t help herself. “So, this is where the vineyard visitors come to get trashed, right?” She widened her eyes i

“Very fu

“The tasting room is where the visitors taste our wines—

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explore their nuances, discuss their various qualities. They can go into town if they want to drink themselves silly. This is supposed to be a refined, relaxing room where people can focus on tasting good wine, enjoying conversation, and . . .” He strode over to the opposite side of the shed, where huge sliding doors stretched the entire length of one wall. Puffing a little, he pushed one back. Sunlight immediately flooded the room as he pushed open the other door. “Feasting on the view!” he finished triumphantly.

Maddy gazed out on the stu

All she could do was stare at him in dismay. What had happened to her summer? Ta

Sleeping late? What was she doing here, in a former goat barn in the middle of the country?

Her father, however, seemed oblivious to the intense pain he was causing his only child. “Well, Fred and I are going to lay irrigation hose in the far quadrant today. I’ve got some cleaning supplies—buckets, rags, and a couple of mops. There’s water outside.” He pointed out the window, where Maddy could see an old-fashioned metal spigot standing in the middle of a bare patch of ground. “Take some time to look around. And then get started.”

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The Other Boy

Maddy stared pleadingly at her father, but he didn’t seem to notice. She was stuck. Her dad waved over his shoulder as he left.

David turned and walked over to a pile of cleaning stuff in the corner. His footsteps mixed with the noise of the stream burbling outside in the quiet of the shed. Maddy sighed as she sat down on an upturned bucket. She bent over and inspected the pedicure she’d gotten the day before the party. Chipped. And her bucket chair was filthy. She jumped up and twisted around. Great. She tried, fruitlessly, to brush off the giant dust mark on her skirt with her hands. She looked up and saw David staring at her. “What?” she snapped.

His eyes widened in surprise. “So . . . ,” he started,

“what’s the story with you?”

Maddy rolled her eyes. “What story?”

He sat down on another bucket and laced his fingers together. She heard his spine crack as he stretched his arms over his head. “What’s your deal, Madeline Sinclaire? I mean, why are you here?”

She walked away and looked out the window. “I have no idea, but I plan on leaving as soon as I possibly can.”

She didn’t plan on telling this guy the story of her party disaster. Why bother?

There was a pause. “Well, why don’t you leave now?

What’s stopping you? It’s pretty obvious that you’re not happy here.”

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Maddy snorted audibly. “You’ve got that right. And leaving isn’t an option. I wouldn’t be here if my parents weren’t forcing me to stay.” She turned around and studied him. “So, this is a pretty exciting summer for you, huh?” she asked defensively. “Playing in the dirt for two months?”

He shrugged. “Actually, I had an awesome summer job lined up, but my dad asked me to come up and help him instead. I don’t mind—the food’s better up here.”

“Oh, yeah? What job was that, herding sheep?” She knew she was being incredibly bitchy, but David was starting to irritate her as much as the one stupid, tiny bathroom. He obviously loved it here, which was just about the weirdest thing ever. What normal seventeenyear-old actually liked being stuck on a farm all summer?

“I was going to clear trails at Sequoia National Park with my buddy,” he explained. “We worked there last year too. It was awesome.”

“Oh.” Maddy had nothing to say to that. She sat down again and took out her BlackBerry to see if anyone had called to say they missed her.

David shrugged his shoulders and strolled back to the corner with the supplies. He rummaged around for a second and cleared his throat.

“What?” Maddy looked up from her BlackBerry. No messages. Not a single e-mail.

“Well, nothing, really. It’s just that your dad forgot to 48

The Other Boy

give us any soap or bleach or anything. It’s just buckets and rags and mops.”

“Oh, okay.” Maddy was happy to hear it. Maybe they could just skip cleaning.

David tilted his head to the side as he spoke. “So . . . we should get some,” he said slowly, as if speaking to a child.

Damn it. Thanks a lot, Napa Boy. She sighed through her nose. “Um, maybe there’s some at the house?”

David considered this. “I have a better idea,” he said, grabbing a broom and knocking some dust off one of the windows. “Why don’t you go down to the grocery store on 17? Mitchell’s. They’ll have everything we need.” He continued sweeping the window, watching her. She leaped from her perch on the bucket and stuck her BlackBerry in her pocket. Saved from cleaning hell!