Christmas in Wine Country

by Addison Westlake

  Striking a pose just as Madonna commanded in the next song, Lila wondered if she should suggest they just stay in tonight; sometimes the pre-party was more fun than the actual going out. Remembering her new silver strappy sandals she’d just impulsively picked up at the local boutique, she decided against it. She was ready for a night out on the town.

  * * *

  Music spilled out of Ted’s door as Annie opened it. The light was warm and the place was packed. Annie, Zoe and Lila filtered through the crowd. Thumbs hooked around the belt loops of her skirt, Lila stood on her tiptoes to try to get the bartender’s attention. Unfortunately, her cute silver sandals were flats and it seemed most everyone in front of her towered over her 5’5” frame.

  “All right,” Annie said, materializing by her side and easily catching the guy’s attention. At 5’9” with a voice that could pierce through a crowded soccer game, Annie got noticed. After ordering, Annie turned to Lila and said, “We have an assignment for tonight.”

  “We do?” Lila answered, wondering what kind of scheme Annie had planned.

  “We do,” Annie confirmed, hand on her hip. “Planning Operation Green Light.”

  With a laugh, Lila remembered. “Right!”

  After several sessions, typing furiously on a laptop out on Annie’s porch swing or spreading out papers on her kitchen table sketching floorplans, they’d decided they had their act mostly together. Together enough, at least, to pitch the idea to Marion. She was the lynchpin in their bookstore café plans; the one they needed on their team to take this plan from fun idea to reality.

  The problem was that Marion was no risk-taker. Hiring Lila on the spot was apparently the most spontaneous thing she’d ever done. She’d been wearing the same tweed and wool clothes for the past twenty years, living in the same cottage with the same partner for just as long, and running that bookstore for the past fifteen. This was not a woman who liked change. She had porridge for breakfast—which Lila took to mean the British version of oatmeal, though she wasn’t exactly sure—and alternated turkey or ham with cheese on wheat with an apple for lunch every day. She even ate at the same time, 12:00, in the same spot in the staff room, using the same mug for her Chamomile tea.

  During an economic downturn in the midst of a prolonged era heralding the demise of many an independently-owned bookstore, Lila and Annie did not expect that convincing Marion to invest her hard-won profits into an expansion would be easy. True, with the nearest Barnes and Noble 40 miles away and plenty of tourists, the store was firmly in the black, but that didn’t mean Marion would be up for trying something risky and new. Then again, she had gone for Lila’s storytime idea and was now thrilled to find her store the talk of the town, at least among the toddler set and their moms.

  “If we’re going to get Marion fired up, we’ve got to come up with a brilliant pitch,” Annie said as they sifted their way to a table.

  “I know,” Lila agreed, thinking how funny it was that she’d fled so far from her job in advertising to now find herself working hard to come up with a brilliant marketing plan. “I was talking about it with Gram,” she added as they sat down. “She said we need to put ourselves in Marion’s shoes, think about what makes her happy, and sell her on that.”

  Annie looked impressed. “Nice, Gram, coming up with the good advice. And not afraid to suggest that we manipulate.”

  “I don’t think she’d call it that.” Lila defended her straight-shooting Gram. “I think she just means we need to loosen her up and get her excited about it, like you and I are.” Gram had given Lila a good pep talk, too, about how she had five years of experience in marketing and could certainly put that to use. Her Gram clearly had a glorified version of her years in advertising. Too busy getting people coffee, correcting grammar in copy and then, of course, ordering Mexican flag sheet cakes, Lila hadn’t really gained any experience developing a pitch.

  “OK. Happy Marion.” Annie brought her fingers to her temples, giving them a rub and channeling Marion’s energy.

  “We’re in her shoes,” Lila said, closing her eyes. “Or clogs, I should say.” Black, Dansko, she wears them every day.

  “I’m happy about… wool sweaters,” Annie said.

  “Really neatly organized books,” Lila continued.

  “Porridge,” Annie said and they looked at each other for a moment, considering.

  “I don’t think we need to add anything to the menu,” Lila said. “We’re already all over the map as it is with the bagels and the soup and the chocolates and coffee.” Nodding in agreement, they both went back to work concentrating. Not feeling inspiration, Lila declared “Bathroom break!”

  Rising to head over to the restrooms, Lila noticed Jake standing with a couple of guys by the dartboards. For the most part, they looked like the other guys in the room with t-shirts and jeans except for one of them who was apparently auditioning for a Polo ad. His sunglasses hanging around his neck, readily available should he encounter an intense nighttime glare in the bar, she could tell even from a distance that his Nantucket red shorts sported jaunty, golden embroidered pineapples. They matched his jaunty, golden, embroidered pineapple belt. Realizing he was only being prudent, wearing sunglasses with a polo shirt as blindingly starched white as his, Lila shook her head in amusement. He looked just like the tourists she used to serve ice cream cones to back as a teenager on Cape Cod. Bright, lobster red from the sun, tags still practically hanging from their brand new Weekend Wear, they tried so hard to look casual.

  Washing up, she looked at herself in the mirror and had a strange moment of contentment. Usually one to take the opportunity at a mirror to deeply and critically examine flaws, from the light freckles on her nose (now emerging more prominently due to her outdoor runs) to the unruly curls in her hair. But, at this moment in time, Lila looked in the mirror and actually—gasp—liked what she saw. True, the sun was bringing out her spots but she also had a healthy glow and looked undeniably happy. Pulling her bra strap under her tank top’s spaghetti strap—an undeniably futile action, yet one she felt compelled to make—she gave herself a quick smile.

  And suddenly it hit her: Marion’s smile, how she smiled when she talked about her partner, Joyce. She was so proud of her and her pottery, the ceramic bowls and mugs she fired up and glazed and displayed at the local gallery. They could sell them at the café, maybe even see if she could make a hardier set for serving the coffee and food.

  Rushing back to the table with her news she saw that Pete was now on the scene, standing with one hand resting on the back of Annie’s chair. Lila did a quick check to see if Tom was with him and happily saw no sign. She’d seen him at Ted’s a couple of times since their failed set-up. Though sometimes he kept his distance, as the night wore on his libido tended to win out and she was likely to find him looming nearby, sometimes at a tilt, repeating that tempting offer to go see his truck.

  “Mugs!” Lila announced as she sat down next to Annie. “Joyce’s mugs. And bowls and plates and all that! That’s our hook.”

  “For Operation Green Light?” Annie asked, sitting up straighter.

  “You two speak a different language,” Pete observed, taking a swig of beer.

  “You know how excited and proud Marion is about Joyce’s pottery,” Lila continued. “Which is really good—I have a couple of her coffee mugs I drink out of all the time.”

  “We can sell them at the café!” Annie exclaimed. “I love it.”

  “And Marion will too.”

  “It’s just the kind of thing to give our café the hometown touch.” Annie rubbed her hands together. “That plus the storytime hook—”

  “A free cup for caregivers bringing their toddlers,” Lila completed the thought.

  “OK, we’re ready,” Annie declared.

  “I’ll see if she can meet with us next week,” Lila agreed.

  “You guys were ready last month,” Pete commented. Party to many late-night planning sessions, he was convinced they were over-thinking it
and just needed to take the plunge.

  “What happened to your poker night, exactly?” Annie retorted, looking up at her big, scruffy husband. “Wasn’t that the plan for tonight? I’m out with the girls, you’re out with the boys?”

  “I didn’t want to miss out on a night with my wife,” he responded with a big smile.

  “Kevin didn’t show, did he?” Annie asked.

  “Did not show,” Pete agreed, nodding and taking another sip.

  “Dude.” Tom arrived on the scene, elbowed Pete and nodded toward the pool table. “Ten bucks I got you beat.”

  “You’re on,” Pete agreed and they departed for the pool table.

  “They need to bet on things...” Annie shook her head, watching her husband as he walked away. “We might as well go watch him kick Tom’s ass.”

  She and Annie found a good spot leaning against the window sill next to the pool table. Jake and his posse were still over there as well by the dart boards, though the man of the blindingly white shirt had left. Too bad for Ted’s lighting bill, Lila mused; they could have dimmed the overhead lights and gone off the glow of his Polo.

  Inclining her head closer to Annie, Lila murmured, “Did you see the guy who was over here earlier? With the pineapple shorts?”

  “Loved it.” Annie nodded, adding, “Matching belt, too.”

  “Do you know him?”

  “Oliver Endicott,” Annie replied. Looking at Lila she challenged, “Say that three times fast.” Lila made it halfway through the second time before messing up and breaking out laughing. “Easier to just say ‘Lord of the Manor’,” Annie continued. “He’s Jake’s brother. The one who kept making Pete rebuild things Napa style.”

  “Right,” Lila nodded, stealing a quick look at Jake whose tattered baseball cap was pulled down low. She didn’t see much family resemblance, but remembering Jake’s dinner jacket country club look at the holiday party, she guessed she could see. Tonight he was slumming it.

  As Pete searched for and found what he called his “lucky cue”, Lila could sense Jake looking over. She’d noticed him glancing her way a few times that evening.

  “The Cat Lady,” he drawled, slowly approaching her.

  “Bachelor number seven,” she retorted, making one of his friends snort with laughter.

  “Where are your furry ears?” he continued, scanning her head. Giving Lila a quick look with a raised eyebrow, Annie hopped off the sill and joined Pete.

  “Where are your six-pack abs?” Lila asked back, gesturing at his faded, loose-fitting t-shirt.

  “Sorry to disappoint,” Jake replied.

  “Suddenly shy?” Lila asked, finding it highly unlikely. Anyone who was cool with a full-page publicity spread in a popular magazine was unlikely to struggle much with shyness.

  “Nope,” Jake said, shaking his head. “They’re not mine.”

  “They’re not yours?” Was he talking about implants? She’d heard about boobs and lips and even butt implants, but abs?

  “In the photo,” Jake explained. “It’s a picture of my brother, Oliver. He’s the one who gets up at 6am every day to work out with a personal trainer.”

  “That wasn’t you?” Lila asked, eyes widening at the mistake.

  “Nope.” Jake patted his stomach. “I don’t exactly have an inner tube, but I’m not ripped and ready for the cover of Men’s Health, either.” Lila laughed, thinking that he looked plenty fit but not wanting to say so lest she be mistaken for flirting. “Poor Ollie,” Jake continued, shaking his head. “He finally gets his big shirtless magazine debut and they get his name wrong.”

  “That’s rough,” Lila agreed. Just from the brief glance she’d gotten of Oliver she could tell he was ready for his close-up.

  “Don’t feel too bad for him,” Jake added. “It gives him another good reason to hate me.”

  “Ah,” Lila nodded. More family drama. She could see it: Earning It with the Endicotts, the new reality TV show following a dysfunctional tycoon’s family and their jockeying for power. Maybe Oliver had had amnesia and his wife was carrying Jake’s baby? Deciding to let that one lie, she continued, “So, how does it feel to be the Bay Area’s top bachelor?”

  “Number seven,” Jake corrected.

  “Right. Seventh in line to the throne.”

  “Yeah, if the first one gets taken out, the second will step in.” Jake shook his head. “It would take some kind of catastrophe for me to ever come into power.”

  Lila smiled and wondered why she was suddenly finding it so easy to talk to Jake. Deciding it must be the beer, she took another sip and thought she might as well tease him some more. “So, I want to know how it all happened. Did they come to your house with a rose? Get down on a knee and ask you, ‘Will you be our bachelor?’”

  “They might have,” Jake said. “I don’t know. It was my dad who said yes.”

  “Your dad?”

  “Yup.” Jake took a long swig of his beer, finishing off the bottle. “Thought it would be good publicity.”

  “But you must have agreed to it. I mean, they couldn’t have done that all without your OK.”

  “No, I’m not saying that,” Jake admitted, adjusting the brim of his baseball cap.

  “So you did give it the green light?”

  “Well, I wasn’t thrilled about it but, yes—”

  “But it’s nice to have daddy to blame,” Lila pressed.

  “Whoa, Cat Lady.” Jake took a step back, hands up in surrender. Tapping his bottle, he said, “I’m going to need another one. Especially if I’m going to hang out with you and your razor-sharp wit.” Gesturing at her beer, he asked, “You good?”

  “Yeah.”

  With a nod, Jake headed toward the packed bar. Lila leaned back against the window sill, bit her lip and felt dismissed. Raking her hands through her hair and piling it up on top of her head, she gave a big exhale.

  “You look happy, Clark,” Annie observed, rejoining her by the window.

  Lila gave a grunt in response. Annie studied her with a quizzical smile. “What’s he doing here anyway?” Lila asked, letting her curls tumble down. “Why’s he slumming it in the locals’ bar?”

  “Not to stick up for the guy, but he’s more of a local than you are,” Annie pointed out.

  “You know what I mean,” Lila dismissed her observation with a wave of her hand. Watching Jake chat with some guy as he waited over at the bar, she wondered where Vanessa was. She and Jake probably had a monthly agreement. She could do a girls’ night out at a hot, trendy spot in the city wearing gold lame and drinking $11 Cosmos. In exchange, she’d let him off the leash for a few hours to throw darts and mix it up at Ted’s with the local Riff Raff. Deliberately turning her attention to the pool game underway, Lila noted that Tom was winning handily with only two balls left on the table to Pete’s five.

  “He’s got this one,” Annie declared confidently to Lila, prompting Pete to look over and give her a wink. She hopped over to give him a quick kiss on the cheek for luck.

  Jake returned to his guy friends with his fresh beer. But after not too long, he was back. “Let me ask you this,” he asked as he approached Lila. “How long do you think it’ll be before there’s another video of you up on YouTube?”

  “Excuse me?” Taken aback, Lila wondered if she’d heard him correctly.

  “You know, as the Cat Lady,” Jake continued. “It would be a nice follow up to the one from the holiday party.” Rubbing the bridge of her nose, Lila wished she could think of something snappy and light to show how completely comfortable she was with all aspects of herself, past and present. “Someone’s bound to bring their Flip one morning to storytime,” Jake went on, in lieu of that elusive retort. “They could get a good close-up of you doing a hairball with your cat puppet.”

  “That goes over big with the boys,” Lila responded, wishing her voice didn’t have a defensive edge to it.

  “It goes over big with Emma, too,” Jake agreed. With a laugh he added, “I wish you could hav
e seen her mom’s face the other day. Emma asked her to make her teddy bear spit out a hairball.”

  “Really?” Lila smiled in spite of herself.

  “Emma.” Jake shook his head and laughed again. “My favorite niece.” Looking back up at Lila with a charming grin—he should patent that, Lila thought, guard firmly up against such moments—he confided, “Actually, Emma’s my only niece. But don’t tell her that.”

  “You certainly know how to sweet talk the ladies,” Lila replied. “Speaking of, where’s Vanessa tonight?”

  Smile erased, Jake took another swig from his beer and mumbled, “Beats me.”

  “Hard to keep track when you have so many ladies?”

  “Yeah, that’s it,” Jake answered, not amused.

  “It’s hard being a player.” Lila nodded, sympathetically.

  “You know,” he said, looking straight in her eyes, “You have crazy written all over you.”

  “What?” Lila took a step back, feeling as if she’d been slapped. Flushed and mortified, she lashed back, “Well, you have Daddy’s Little Rich Boy written all over you.”

  Jake exhaled sharply and drew back himself, his eyes suddenly narrow and dark. Lila knew her cheeks must be scarlet and her hands were shaking.

  An explosion of cheers over at the pool table turned Lila’s attention toward Pete and Annie hugging. He had, apparently, pulled it out of the bag.

  “I told you he had it in him,” Annie exclaimed, rushing over to Lila, grabbing her belt loop and pulling her along into a few victory jumps. Meeting Pete’s raised hand for a high five, Lila glanced back and saw Jake had rejoined his friends by the dart board.

  Back over at their table, Lila tried to put the whole exchange out of her head. No longer in the mood to hang out, however, she wished she had her car with her so she could make an exit. Annie had offered to drive, and, at the time, it had seemed like a great idea. She didn’t want to let Jake ruin the night, but what did he mean she had crazy written all over her? What kind of thing was that to say to someone?