“You were looking for me, Taylor?” Margot asked.
“Right—the pizza guy says he has to start a little later than scheduled, but I know that you had a whole plan.”
“Okay. I’ll go talk to him.” Margot turned to Luke and Avery. “Taylor, can you make sure these two get some wine?”
“Absolutely,” Taylor said.
Margot made her way across the lawn to the pizza guy.
“Hi,” she said. “I’m Margot Noble—you were looking for me?”
He nodded.
“I’m going to need thirty extra minutes to get the oven hot enough—sorry for the delay.”
He didn’t sound particularly apologetic, but what could she do?
She took a few deep breaths. This was fine. This would be fine. She’d known this wouldn’t go exactly according to her plan; she’d built in some wiggle room for everything. This was no big deal.
“Okay, thanks for letting me know,” she said. “Let the staff here know if you need anything, or if you have any questions for me, they’ll find me.” She smiled at him. “Can I bring you a glass of wine?”
He nodded to her.
“Sure.”
She walked off to get his wine, trying to tamp down her irritation. She went back to the barn and sent Marisol over to the pizza guy to give him a glass of wine. She didn’t want to tempt fate by talking to him again.
By now, more people had started trickling in—they came down the path from the parking lot looking excited, which was exactly how Margot wanted them to look. The signs pointed them to the barn, to check in with Taylor and her guest list to get a wineglass. People could also pay—and join the wine club—at the door.
She joined Taylor at the checkin table.
“Hi, I’m Margot Noble, welcome to Noble Family Vineyards,” she said to the most recent group who came up to the table. “Would you like some wine?”
“I’d love some!” the woman at the front of the group said.
Margot stepped over to the bar and grabbed the open bottle of rosé.
“Why don’t I start all of you off with a glass of rosé? It goes great with all of the food we’re serving, and then you can ease into our other wines. Here’s a list of everything we’re pouring today, all the snacks that will be available, and also all of our wine that’s for sale. Please let me or any of the staff know if you have any questions.”
“Perfect, thank you!” the guest said. She turned to her friends. “See? I told you this was a good idea.”
Margot grinned at the group and poured tastes of rosé for all of them. When they moved on, she greeted the next group.
“Hi, I’m Margot Noble, welcome to Noble Family Vineyards.”
The next hour flew by. She poured rosé until Marisol came to relieve her, then she did a circuit of the party and tried to say hi to anyone she recognized from the tasting room or from around the valley, and introduce herself to anyone whom she didn’t recognize. She snapped pictures and uploaded them to Instagram, with the caption she’d drafted the night before. The food all smelled good, even though there were no burgers and the pizza wasn’t ready. There was nothing she could do about that—she couldn’t dwell on it now. She hadn’t tried any of the food yet; she was too busy talking to have food in her hands, and was too paranoid about getting anything on her dress to eat while standing. She’d brought along an emergency second outfit （another not-as-good-but-still-fine red dress） just in case, but still.
Every few minutes, she looked around for Luke. He was all over the party—chatting with Elliot, who was actually smiling at him; running errands for Taylor; bringing tacos to Marisol; replacing ice in the coolers at the rosé and white wine stations; and eating pizza with Avery. Every time she looked for him, he caught her eye and grinned at her, and she smiled back. That smile of his, the way he always found a way to see her from a distance, cut the tension in her shoulders by at least a quarter.
Wait! Luke was eating pizza! That meant the pizza guy had finally started serving—he’d said it would be thirty minutes late, it had been more like forty-five minutes late, but who was counting?
She was, obviously.
Huh, why was there suddenly no activity over at the tacos? She walked over to check in.
“Margot, I was just coming to find you. We ran out of tortillas—I must have forgotten to pack the rest of them. My sister just left to pick up more.”
She smiled at Luciana, who looked so apologetic.