Page 43 of Every Step She Takes

We follow Inez up the path toward the house as she continues.

“Several of the vineyards offer overnight stays where guests can learn more about the wine-making process, especially during the wine harvest in September or October. They’re also supportive of local businesses like Beatrix Tours, offering us free overnight stays for our rest days. ”

“Bullshit,” Mal erupts.

“Dude, what’s your deal?” Ari glares at Mal. “You’re kind of being an ass right now.”

“ Oh ,” Vera says, snapping her fingers together in triumphant understanding. “Oh, of course! That is where I know you from!”

“Do we get to drink free wine?” Rebecca wants to know.

The overlapping conversations come to a halt as an older woman comes down the path toward us.

“Buen Camino!” she greets with a warm smile.

Her silver hair is styled in an elegant bob, and she’s wearing a white linen pantsuit, tempting fate with the dusty fields all around us.

“Welcome, pilgrims! Welcome to Quinta Costa! I’m Luzia Ferreira, and I’m the manager of the Vigo vineyard you see before you.

I will be taking care of you during your time with us. ”

Mal pulls down the brim of her trucker hat and positions herself behind me as the woman offers Inez twin air-kisses.

A flock of porters appear to take our packs inside, and Stefano comically hands off all four of his before Luzia guides the group through a manicured garden up to the house.

It’s a Spanish-style villa with a wraparound veranda, wide porticos, an expansive courtyard with a tiled fountain, terra-cotta and adobe everywhere.

We’re ushered into an expansive foyer, and I’m overwhelmed by architectural details.

The floor is Italian marble, the chandelier looks like Tiffany glass, and each piece of furniture, from the ornate mahogany end tables to the art deco statues, are perfectly curated, working harmoniously in the space.

Nan would’ve absolutely lost her mind to see this place.

“Through this archway here is the dining room where your communal meals will be served during your stay. Come.”

Luzia urges us along with a soft wave, and we find a dining room the size of a football field, where trays of tapas are spread out. A server offers us complimentary glasses of white wine from stainless steel chilling buckets, and everyone tucks in enthusiastically.

Except Mal, who is still hiding behind me.

“What are you doing?” I turn around to face her, but she bobs and weaves, trying to stay firmly concealed behind me.

But all her darting only results in her backpack—which she stubbornly refused to surrender—bumping into an antique bar cart.

A crystal decanter rattles, then firmly falls onto the marble floor, shattering.

The antique dealer in me knows the decanter was worth at least two thousand dollars, and now it’s destroyed.

I gasp, and Mal curses, and then the room goes painfully silent.

Luzia cuts off in the middle of a speech about the grapes used for the Vinho Verde, and her gaze homes in on the two of us, where we miserably hover over the mess we made.

Her tone is clipped. “What happ—” She starts, before cutting off abruptly. “Maelys?”

Mal adjusts her trucker hat over her face. “I will replace that,” she says in an American accent. And truly, what the fuck is going on with her?

“Maelys,” Luzia says again, moving closer to us. The group quietly parts to let her through, and then she’s standing directly in front of Mal, and she doesn’t look furious at all. “Maelys Calista Goncalves Costa?”

In a huff, Mal pulls the trucker hat off her head. “Ola, Luzia,” she grumbles.

And then prim and elegant Luzia collapses into a puddle of tears in the middle of this dining room. “Maelys! Menina!” Luzia kisses Mal’s cheeks at least a dozen times before pulling her into a full body hug.

Vera hoots. “I knew it!”

“It has been far too long, my sweet girl! Let me look at you.” Luzia holds Mal by her shoulders and studies her at an arm’s length. “ Gira filha . You look so much like him. Oh, how I’ve missed you!”

Luzia pulls Mal into another massive hug while my brain scrambles to understand why this woman referred to Mal as her sweet girl .

“I will pay for the decanter,” Mal repeats as she pats Luzia on the back.

“I don’t care about that hideous decanter.” Luzia smiles through her tears. “My girl, I am so very happy to see you.”

Ari speaks for everyone, like she always does, when she asks, “What. The. Fuck?”

But the fuck of it all is starting to come together in my mind.

Mal said her grandfather started a successful Portuguese company; the father she hates so much took it over; and Mal, who hasn’t been to Portugal in years, wanted nothing to do with it.

All trip, we’ve been sharing bottles of Quinta Costa wine, and Mal has ordered cheap beer instead.

All trip, she’s been vague and elusive about her past, her family, her reasons for being here, and now this strange woman is greeting her like a long-lost daughter.

Because she is. Mal is a Costa. And these marble floors and expensive chandeliers and the shattered pieces of crystal all belong to her.

Mal

We’re staying at one of my father’s vineyards.

One of my vineyards.

Fucking Inez.

Luzia’s arms tighten around me, and even though it’s only a hug, I feel like she’s squeezing my ribs into my lungs, pushing my lungs into my heart, rearranging all my internal organs. I can hardly breathe.

I don’t know where to look.

Not at Luzia, who is holding me like I’m the physical manifestation of all her hopes and dreams for the company.

Not at Vera, who recognized me all along and finally put it together when she saw me here; and not at Ari, whose expression reflects everyone else’s confusion.

I can’t look at the jagged pieces of my father’s favorite Baccarat whiskey decanter, and I definitely can’t look at Sadie.

Sadie, who is staring at me like she doesn’t even recognize who I am.

I want to tell her everything and nothing at the same time. I want to go back to last night, when she writhed under my touch in bed, and I didn’t have to think about wine or inheritances or dead dads.

“You finally came home,” Luzia whispers into my ear, and I close my eyes. I want to blot out her face, and Sadie’s face, and every aspect of this house, every memory contained within these walls.

The memories and the walls both feel like they’re closing in around me.

Those summer trips with my father, coming to this house, walking those rows of grapes while he tested my knowledge of ripeness, acidity, flavor palates.

Ten years old, and my father making me taste-test casks until I could accurately identify the correct floral or berry notes, spitting into the spittoon until it was entirely full with red wine; my father leaving me with his staff, with Luzia, while he disappeared for days at a time with whichever European heiress or minor celebrity had his attention at the moment.

But I have good memories of this place too: raiding the kitchen pantry for Bueno bars with him in our matching monogrammed robes; playing chess on the balcony of his private rooms; my father’s laugh, his big arms, and the way he would lift me up to show me the property.

“This will all be yours, Maelys,” he would say, and he would sound so damn proud of me.

And now it is all mine.

“This… this is your vineyard?” Sadie asks, and her voice brings me back, grounds me in the present. I unravel from Luzia’s hug and look at Sadie’s confused face.

“It’s complicated,” I manage.

“Valentim Costa was your dad?” Vera asks, but the words are slurred by the panicked buzzing in my ears.

“Uh, yes. Sort of.”

“How is someone sort of your dad?” Ro demands.

“Valentim Costa?” Stefano echoes. “Wasn’t he quite handsome?”

“I don’t know,” I grumble. “I didn’t spend a lot of time considering my father’s attractiveness.”

“He was very handsome,” Vera clarifies.

Ari swivels back to me. “This man, your father… he’s famous ?”

My mouth can’t wrap itself around an answer. “Oh yeah,” Vera says. “The Costas are, like, the wealthiest family in Portugal.”

“The Silvas are the wealthiest family in Portugal, actually,” Luzia corrects, and I can feel everyone’s eyes on me. I can tell they’re looking at me differently. I’m no longer Mal to them; I’ll never be Mal again. I’m Maelys Calista Goncalves Costa.

My shirt is choking me, and it’s impossibly hot and stuffy in this formal dining room, and I feel like the decanter, like I’m breaking into a million pieces.

“Perhaps we could get everyone off to their rooms,” Inez suggests, and I can breathe a little better as everyone looks away, moves away.

Luzia and Inez pass out brass keys to the rest of the tour group, with directions on how to find their rooms on the third floor. One of the keys goes to Sadie, and then Luzia turns to me. “I’ll have Felipe set up your old room,” she says. She hugs me one more time. “Welcome home, menina.”

Nothing about this place feels like home.

“How could you do this to me?”

My shouts echo off the high ceilings and too-big room, the way my father’s shouts always used to. Even that comparison doesn’t quell my anger.

“Funnily enough, this isn’t actually about you,” Inez shouts back. “This was the plan before you signed up to join the tour at the last minute. I just didn’t know how to tell you!”

“Why was this part of the tour at all? Why do your tours involve staying here?”

She clasps her hands together beneath her chin. “Luzia reached out to me a few years back, asking about a partnership with Beatrix to bring more American tourists through Quinta Costa. They were in the midst of a distribution deal in North America, and—”

“And you sold out? You agreed to work with the man who rejected me for being gay?”

She shakes her head. “No, I agreed to work with a company that wanted to support a trans-owned business.”