And Then There Was Her

by Tagan Shepard

  “You designed this?”

  CS nodded, starting on the third bottle, red wine rather than white like the first two. “The restaurant, too, but this room is more important.”

  Looking around with a more critical eye, Madison could see all the signs that proved CS favored this room over ambrosia. Something almost reverent in the slope of the ceiling or the selection of the furnishings. She may not have noticed it without the admission, but now that she knew, it was glaringly obvious. She wondered if Kacey had noticed. The thought had come unbidden and turned her stomach sour.

  CS had started pouring samples into the paired glasses in front of each. She stopped, setting the bottle down on the bar with a loud thunk and shooting a quick glance at Madison. If she hadn’t known better, she’d think CS’s cheeks showed a flush of pink. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have mentioned…”

  “It’s okay.”

  She sighed, spinning the bottle on the countertop and speaking to the label in front of her. “Are you…”

  “I’m fine. Really.” She was, wasn’t she? She hadn’t felt like this thinking about Kacey in days. Not since she’d been back to her wheel. She didn’t want to feel like this about her ever again.

  “Okay then, you’ve delayed long enough. Are you ready?”

  Madison smiled at the challenge, sweeping her eyes across the display in front of her. CS must still give tastings despite her many responsibilities. Madison was impressed with the fluidity of her movements.

  “Ready as I’ll ever be, just…” It was Madison’s turn to blush and she hid it far less effectively than CS. “I’m not really a connoisseur or anything.”

  “That’s okay,” CS said. She had the ease of a practiced artist as she slid one of the glasses in front of Madison and picked up its twin by the bottom of the stem. “I am.”

  The first wine was a chardonnay. Madison had never been a fan, finding it too heavy, thick on her tongue like cream, and buttery in an unpleasant way. This was nothing like that.

  “This is really good.”

  The surprise must’ve shown in her voice. CS sipped from her glass, but kept an appraising eye on Madison. “You don’t usually like chardonnay, do you?”

  “Not really.”

  When she explained the heaviness and butter, CS nodded knowingly. “It isn’t the grapes you don’t like. It’s oak. Specifically American oak.”

  “Are you questioning my patriotism?”

  CS laughed at her rather lame joke a little faster this time, allowing Madison a chance to relax as she explained, “California chardonnays are aged in barrels made of American oak. I use milder French oak barrels. It helps me avoid the heavy-mouth feel of the California bottles.”

  The explanation made sense, but CS’s elegant commentary soon went over Madison’s head. That was the moment that CS moved on.

  Madison discovered she was quite good at reading her audience. Knowing just how far to take an explanation and how to correct her tasting technique without appearing condescending. When she demonstrated how to swirl the wine and the proper way to smell it, Madison followed along excitedly. She was also pleased to see that CS didn’t hold with the odd way of tasting a wine that Madison had seen from a painter she’d met in grad school, who would take a mouthful of wine and make a show of slurping air through his lips, making the most unpleasant gargling noises.

  “That’s all he was doing too. Making a show.” CS tipped her glass back, swallowing the rest of her chardonnay and moving their glasses to the back counter. “It’s true that you can taste the wine better that way, but a good wine can be tasted by, you know, drinking it. Plus you don’t look like a jackass.”

  Madison’s nose was deep in her second glass, so she snorted her laughter, trying hard to avoid spilling the wine. “He did look like a jackass.”

  “Wine isn’t meant to be studied like that in the glass. Sure, you can taste it better on the first sip by sloshing it around in your mouth, but what about the second sip? What about the second glass? Wine is an experience. The flavor comes as much from the experience as from the bottle.”

  “What do you mean?”

  CS held out the second glass, looking into the translucent contents. Only the slightest yellow glowed in the late sun through the window. “Take our pinot gris for instance. It’s light, refreshing in a way that you can’t really get from chardonnay. This one is earthy with an herbal bouquet. Can you smell that?”

  “I’m not sure, what does it smell like?”

  CS reached over slowly, grabbing a vase of lavender from the center of the bar. She smacked her hand on the thigh of her jeans, picking up a smear of vineyard dirt on her palm before snatching the stalk of lavender and crushing it in her hand. She turned back to Madison and offered her open palm full of bruised greenery, reddish-brown dirt and tiny, pulverized flowers.

  After a moment’s hesitation, Madison bent her nose to CS’s hand, closing her eyes as the warmth of her skin and the mingled fragrances washed over her. The moment she closed her eyes, images poured in. Her first walk through the vineyard with the mist trailing into the distance. Running into her grandmother’s room and pulling open a dresser drawer, sun-dried cotton skirts and little purple sachets that smelled like home and warmth. Unconsciously, Madison reached out and wrapped a hand around CS’s, holding it close to keep the memories there.

  A quiet cough from across the bar brought Madison back. She opened her eyes and saw CS’s palm, strong and dusty, and her own, thinner, more delicate fingers cupping it. She released CS and straightened, looking down at her glass to avoid her eye.

  “Now smell the wine again,” CS said in silky whisper.

  Madison swallowed hard and smelled again. She caught the scent now. The fruit of the wine was there, but underneath it was her grandmother’s farm in Iowa where she grew rows and rows of corn, knitted endless afghans and counted her rosary while watching The Price is Right. She could almost hear the clicking of the big wheel and her grandmother’s nails against the well-worn beads.

  She looked up to see CS watching her and blushed. “Sorry. Got lost in thought.”

  “Don’t apologize, that’s exactly what I mean about wine. It’s an experience.”

  Madison sipped the wine, and she could taste lavender and the Iowa sunset. “Incredible.”

  “If you hadn’t thought of that memory, would the wine have tasted different?”

  Madison scowled, pushing the memory away as she tasted again. Her grandmother was gone, but so was the life of the wine. It was tasty, but it wasn’t the same wine she’d tasted a moment ago. Flowery and fresh, but fluttering about the surface rather than plunging deep into her soul like it had before.

  “Definitely.” CS dumped the flowers into a trashcan and wiped her hand on a towel.

  “It’s delicious. What was this again?” Madison asked.

  “Pinot gris.” CS drained her glass and set it aside. “We don’t make a lot of it. The grape is similar to pinot noir, which is what we’re famous for, but it isn’t a big seller.”

  “That’s too bad. I like it.”

  “California still dictates what Americans drink, and they make chardonnay.”

  CS reached next for the bottle, a pinot noir. The previous wines, small pours as they were, was already starting to make Madison’s head spin.

  While CS cut the foil from this bottle, Madison slowly sipped her pinot gris, wanting it to last. CS’s shoulders were relaxed now and Madison saw again the passionate artist who’d come to life during their winery tour.

  “So how did a nice girl like you get into a dirty business like winemaking?”

  She hadn’t meant to say the words out loud really, but Madison was slumping low in her stool now, her mind and body relaxed to a degree they hadn’t been in ages. She was enjoying herself and she wanted to know more about her companion. Still, she wondered if the question sounded as flirtatious to CS as it did in her own ears. A growing part of her hoped it did.

  CS dug the corkscre
w into the bottle, a slow smile spreading across her face. She looked up at Madison as she worked the cork.

  “Raiding the liquor cabinet when I was a stupid kid. My parents were away at the opera or something. I was a moody teenager and I decided I wanted to get drunk while they were out.”

  “I remember a night or two like that.”

  “Every kid does, right? I came from money and I was a little spoiled. Anyway, the only thing I could find was my dad’s wine stash, so I picked a bottle and sat down with a juice glass.”

  “That’s why you’re so good at opening bottles. You started young.”

  “I wasn’t so good at it then. Cut my finger wide open on the corkscrew, didn’t take the foil off first. I barely got the cork out.”

  “So your first time drunk was a bottle of wine and you were hooked for life?”

  “It’s a better story than that.” She set the bottle aside, leaning both palms on the bar, forcing out the muscles of shoulders and chest and looking like a looming colossus. “The bottle I picked…I didn’t know any better, you see. I just grabbed the first thing I saw. Turns out it was a Chateau Lafitte Rothschild. My dad grounded me for a month when he found me.”

  There was an expectancy to those words that Madison could feel but not understand. “Why? Is that a good wine?”

  CS chuckled, shaking her head. “Sorry, I forgot you’re new to the wine world. I told my ex that story and she nearly fainted.”

  Something buzzed pleasantly in Madison’s wine-soaked brain, making her grin wickedly. “So it’s a very good wine.”

  “It was probably worth about four thousand dollars.”

  Madison choked on the last of her pinot. “Four…thousand?”

  “It’s a Bordeaux. One of the top five vineyards in the world known as first growths.”

  “Who would pay four thousand dollars for a bottle of wine?”

  “I have six bottles in my cellar.” When Madison shook her head, CS just shrugged. “It’s the goal. What I want to make. I’m just trying to perfect one bottle of wine before I die.”

  Madison thought of the liquid light captured on her eyelash. “I can understand that.”

  CS leaned forward, resting her elbows on the bar, a genuine smile on her face. “I didn’t even get drunk that night.”

  “Don’t tell me four-thousand-dollar wine is nonalcoholic.”

  “Definitely not. I barely drank any of it. The minute I popped the cork on that bottle, the smell of it filled the room. I’m not exaggerating—it filled the room. At first I thought it was suffocating, but then I could smell so much.”

  “What did it smell like?”

  CS closed her eyes, the smile arching her lips. Madison squeezed her hands tightly together to keep herself from reaching out and tracing the line. The power of that urge shocked her and she shook her head to try and drag herself out of the feeling.

  “It was musty, that was the first part. Some people call it a barnyard smell, but that isn’t quite right. It smelled like an historic house. Hundred-year-old wood in the walls and boxwoods in the front yard. And the fruit was intense. Red cherry. The sort that soaks in rum or handmade preserves. Old fruit. Prunes and maybe some apricot. It’s hard to put it all into words. When a smell overwhelms you like that.”

  Madison understood the feeling from her summertime journey to the clearing. “So you just sat there and smelled it?”

  “I sipped a glass while I smelled it. I wanted to remember everything, but it started to fade. That’s when my dad came home.”

  “I’m guessing he went through the roof.”

  “Mom did more than anything. He looked mad, but he didn’t yell.”

  “Don’t tell me he hit you.”

  “Nope. He got a glass from the cabinet and sat down at the table with me. We drank the bottle together, talking about how it tasted.”

  “No way.”

  “Yep. I told him I wanted to make a wine like that one day.” She pushed herself off the counter and grabbed the bottle. “That’s a story for another day. We have one more to taste.”

  Madison giggled, sliding the empty glass on the counter toward her. She was definitely buzzed now, teetering close to drunk. “This one looks nice. I love the color.”

  CS popped the cork, set the corkscrew down and poured an ounce or so into Madison’s glass. Long before she finished pouring, the smell of the wine filtered through the air. It was close to the wine they had tasted from the barrel all those weeks ago, but not nearly close enough. CS opened her mouth to describe the wine, but Madison held up her hand for silence before CS could utter a syllable. It wasn’t polite, but the humming in Madison’s head begged for silence while it analyzed the wine.

  Lifting the glass to her nose, Madison closed her eyes. The first thing she detected was the lavender, its floral notes and pungency. Mixed with the earthiness and the dark berry scents, the mint was nearly lost. She had an inkling it was there if she searched for it, but the experience of just smelling this wine was too pleasant to force. She felt like she was in a museum, looking at an old master painting and studying it minutely. She wished she’d had the explanation of how to smell wine before she tasted CS’s blend so she could have appreciated it like this.

  Madison’s face burned with the stretch of her smile, and she opened her eyes laughing. While her eyes were closed, the rest of the world seemed to have slipped away, and all she could see now was the vibrant blue shine of CS’s eyes. There was a contentment Madison had not seen before, the appreciation of an artist sharing their passion.

  Madison allowed herself, for a tiny moment, to get lost in those eyes. To stare back into them with the same naked honesty they reflected. To see the woman behind them and let herself be seen in return. She felt like she was falling into those eyes, tumbling toward something beautiful and strange but something intensely dangerous. She knew she should blink. Should sit back. Should do something to break the spell, but she didn’t want to. Not yet. Not when she’d just discovered this quiet woman had a loud soul.

  The door banged open behind her, startling Madison. She turned to see a group surging through the tasting room door—an older man with a wide smile and wavy salt-and-pepper hair flowing to his shoulders. She turned back to CS, only to find her gone, busying herself behind the bar with glasses and bottles.

  “What’s this?” the man with the salt-and-pepper hair said in a booming, musical voice. “You’ve started without us!”

  Chapter Thirty

  The man was Andrew Drack, but everyone just called him Drack except Boots, who called him Joker.

  “And who might you be, my dear?”

  “Madison Jones.”

  She held out her hand to shake, but with a deft little move, he turned her wrist and kissed it with soft lips. “A pleasure.”

  “Don’t let Drack scare you off,” CS said, coming around the bar with seven or eight wineglasses in one hand and a pair of the bottles they’d just opened in the other. “He’s a nice guy when you get to know him.”

  “Nonsense.” He stepped closer, smiling down at Madison, a feat he managed by standing on his tiptoes and trying to glower. “I’m a complete asshole when you get to know me.”

  “I can tell,” Madison said with a smile.

  He threw his head back and laughed at the ceiling. “Oh, I like this one. Can we keep her?”

  CS came back over, her hands free, and explained to Madison, “Monday nights a group of the local winemakers get together here.”

  “We’re essentially a gaggle of old women, drinking wine and gossiping about everything.” Drack wrapped his arm around CS’s shoulders. “Except this one. She usually broods in a corner, watching us all and thinking about her barrels.”

  CS didn’t argue, her face stonily impassive again.

  “Usually she relaxes if we can get enough wine into her, isn’t that right CS?”

  “No.”

  “Well,” Madison said, climbing off her stool and backing toward the door. “I�
�ll get out of your way. Thank you for the tasting, CS. I’ll…”

  “You’ll sit back down and join us,” Drack said, hooking his arm around her elbow so quickly she didn’t have a chance to dodge. “Or better yet, sit at the table next to me so I can regale you with my charm and wit.”

  “Oh no, I don’t want to intrude.”

  “Stay.”

  The simple command brought Madison’s attention back to CS. By the time she looked, the woman’s face was impassive again, but after so many chances to see the personality hidden beneath her hard exterior, Madison could no longer see her as surly. Now she just saw a woman who didn’t say anything unless she had something worthwhile to say.

  She replied without considering. “Okay.”

  “You see what we do here,” Drack explained, leading Madison to a large table on the patio with every seat occupied and a dozen bottles standing in the center. “Is talk about our wineries and our processes. You’ll find that part boring, but you’ll indulge us because, while we talk, we try each other’s wines.”

  He introduced her to everyone at the table, telling her their name and the name of their winery. There were nine or ten of them there, and Madison knew by the first introduction that she wouldn’t remember any of their names. Their faces swam past, forgettable and tan. She vaguely noticed one woman, a skinny brunette who was obviously gay and obviously checking her out, and a married couple in their fifties who held hands as though they were providing each other oxygen.

  Drack deposited her in the seat next to his and told her she was not allowed to move unless it was to fetch them both more wine. He was precisely the same jubilant, bubbly man who walked through the door with a flourish even as his neck went from tan to pink to red as he drank deeply from glass after glass.

  The group chatted like the old friends they obviously were, with three or four conversations going on at once and laughter a constant accompaniment. Drack had been right about Madison being bored by the winery talk, but there was ample distraction in the wine. They passed around one bottle after another, pouring themselves a tasting portion before passing it to the next person. No explanation and no formal tasting routine required, just friends sharing wine.