The Vineyards of Champagne

by Juliet Blackwell

  “I’m an intern at your winery, from Sonoma State,” she said, refilling their water glasses. “Anything else I can get for you? Your server will be by in a moment to take your food order.”

  “Wait. You’re an intern in my office?” Dash sounded surprised.

  “Dash.” Hugh shook his head and let out an exasperated sigh.

  Rosalyn nodded, outwardly pleasant but impatient to end this awkward conversation. Table four needed water, and the toddler at table six had tossed several utensils on the floor. This was the bane of anyone in food service: pretending you had all the time in the world as customers hemmed and hawed over the menu or asked you to describe the food and how it was prepared, all while you were acutely aware that others were waiting for your attention.

  “For how long?”

  “About a month now. If there’s nothing else . . . ? Excuse me.” She rushed off.

  As she worked that evening, she kept an eye on the table. The men enjoyed their meal and ordered a second bottle of wine. They were in high spirits, laughing and engaging nearby tables in a raucous discussion. How she yearned to sit at one of these tables, to rest her sore feet, to enjoy delicious food, to relax and be able to order whatever she wanted, to indulge in as many bottles of wine as she wished.

  Someday, she thought as she carried a loaded tray of cocktails to a table of rowdy business executives. Though clearly not today.

  An hour later she was leaving the women’s restroom after a quick break when she encountered Dash in the narrow hallway.

  “Do you have a moment?” he asked politely.

  “I’m sorry. I have to get back to work.”

  “I’m guessing from your reaction earlier that you’ve been working hard in my office, and I’m a jackass for not realizing that.”

  She blushed and looked away.

  “I apologize. I’m what I like to call . . . a sort of hands-off manager.”

  “There’s really no need to apologize,” she said.

  “That’s very kind of you. But tell me—why are you working here if you already work for me?”

  Rosalyn’s mouth fell open. Was he serious? “Because you don’t pay your interns—that’s why.”

  He looked surprised. “Ah.”

  “I’m not complaining,” she added quickly, afraid of offending him. She needed a good evaluation so her faculty adviser would sign off on the internship for academic credit. “We do it for the hands-on experience. I didn’t expect to be paid.”

  “Still . . .”

  Rosalyn was eager to end this conversation—her break was over, and her manager would not be pleased to find her chatting in the hallway with a customer.

  “That’s a lot, isn’t it?” Dash continued. “Working at my company during the day and serving drinks here at night. When do you find time to go to class, do homework, and get some sleep?”

  “I make it work,” she said. “And speaking of work, I really need to get back to it. Excuse me, Mr. Acosta.”

  “Call me Dash, please. Oh, excuse me—I’m in your way, aren’t I? I apologize,” he said with a smile, stepping aside. “No one should ever stand in your way.”

  “Thanks.” She hurried back to the bar.

  After Dash and Hugh left, Caitlyn, one of the other servers working that night, called Rosalyn over to give her a share of the tips. The restaurant’s custom was for the food servers to split their tips with the bartender, busser, and cocktail waitress.

  “This is for you,” Caitlyn said, handing Rosalyn some cash. “Table three left me a huge tip—and specified that this”—she added another bill—“was for the ‘hardworking cocktail waitress.’”

  Rosalyn stared at the bill. “A hundred dollars?”

  Caitlyn raised an eyebrow. “Not bad for a round of cocktails.”

  “Oh, I gave them more than a round of cocktails,” said Rosalyn.

  “No way! I thought I saw you hanging out with one of them by the restrooms!” She lowered her voice. “What else? Do tell!”

  “I kept their water glasses full, too.”

  Caitlyn looked disappointed, then laughed. “C’mon, Super Server,” she said. “There’s a lot still to do before we can blow this joint.”

  Rosalyn studied the crisp hundred-dollar bill, and smiled.

  The next day, Dash caught Rosalyn asleep at her desk.

  She hadn’t gotten home until after two in the morning, at which point she drank a strong cup of coffee, then spent three hours finishing her class project. Around dawn she tried to get a little sleep—which didn’t work, thanks to all the caffeine—before rushing off at ten o’clock for her first class of the day. By three her classes were over, and she headed to the winery for her internship. Business was slow, she was alone in the warm office, and . . . she nodded off, right there at her desk.

  Slowly, Rosalyn came to consciousness, realizing with dread that someone was watching her.

  “Oh, sweet Jesus . . . ,” she whispered under her breath.

  “It’s Dash, actually. Looks like we should fit a cot in here for nap time.”

  “I’m so, so, so sorry,” she said, surreptitiously wiping a little drool from the corner of her mouth and reaching for something, anything, to say that would make the situation better. “I was up late last night . . . and I’m . . . I’m just so sorry. I don’t have an excuse.”

  “Sure you do,” he said, his voice kind. “You’re exhausted.”

  “That’s no excuse.”

  “Sounds like a good one to me.” He shrugged. “Anyway, I was just looking for the sales numbers for the two thousand fifteen Zinfandel.”

  “Oh, they’re right here,” she said, pulling the file from a stack on her desk and handing it to him.

  Dash half turned as if to leave, then paused. “If it’s not too personal, may I ask: What kept you up so late last night? The restaurant?”

  “That was part of it. But when I got home, I had to finish a label design for one of my classes.”

  “What kind of label design?”

  “For you, actually.” She blushed. “I mean, for your Zinfandel. I chose to redesign it for a class project.”

  He raised one eyebrow. “What’s wrong with my Zinfandel label?”

  “Everything,” Rosalyn blurted out.

  He looked surprised.

  “Oh, I can’t believe I said that out loud. I’m still half asleep. I’m so sorry.”

  “You do a lot of apologizing around me. How about we stop that?”

  “Of course. Sorry.”

  He smiled, and little crinkles appeared at the corners of his eyes. He carried himself so easily, she noted, was so at home in his skin, as if he were the king of the world. She supposed he was, at least the king of his small domain here in Napa.

  “What I meant to say,” Rosalyn continued, “is that I thought it should be more eye-catching, to differentiate it from all the other bottles on the store shelves. According to the sales figures in that file, your wines sell best in the upscale wine shops whose clients are less concerned with price, and where the shop owners are probably recommending your wines. And that’s great, of course, but in the larger outlets your bottles need a distinctive label to catch people’s attention. Your average buyer judges a bottle based, at least in part, on its label.”

  He tilted his head. “And you have a better label design?”

  She blushed again. “I do. I mean, it’s just an idea. It’s silly, really. I’m a marketing-and-design major, so I’m supposed to think about these things.”

  “May I see it?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. . . . It’s just a rough idea. . . .”

  “Are you going to deny me a peek at my own Zinfandel label, Rosalyn?”

  “I . . . Of course not.” As she pulled it up on the office computer, he came around to her side of the desk, put one hand
flat on the desk blotter and the other on the back of her chair, and leaned in to study the screen.

  She caught a whiff of soap and something masculine, a subtle blend of sandalwood and moss she would later learn was the signature scent of a cologne imported from Paris.

  “You did this?” he asked, staring at her label.

  She nodded, trying to ignore his closeness, and the fact that her heart was pounding. For the redesigned label, Rosalyn had blatantly ripped off a Mucha painting of a woman and depicted her with a basket of grapes, in the Art Nouveau style. It was derivative, but she liked the result: romantic and evocative, a nod to the past while still contemporary.

  “This is good,” he said. “Really good.”

  “It’s just—”

  “I like it. No need to be modest, Rosalyn. I really should be paying you.”

  “Speaking of which, thank you for that huge tip last night. I don’t know what to say—it was completely unnecessary.”

  He shrugged. “What’s money good for, if not to give it away?”

  I wouldn’t know, Rosalyn thought.

  “You keep at it, Rosie girl. Get some sleep, and maybe I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  Two nights later, Dash returned to the restaurant, this time by himself. He hung out at the bar, telling stories and making the bartender and the patrons laugh. Rosalyn could feel his eyes on her as she hustled here and there, taking orders and fetching drinks. They exchanged nods a few times, and she grew warm under his gaze. At one point he waved her over to order a half dozen Tomales Bay oysters and a tasting plate of local artisanal cheese. She made sure the oysters were freshly shucked and properly chilled and the cheeses were at room temperature, and brought them to him with a small basket of fresh sourdough bread.

  “This looks wonderful, Rosalyn. Thank you.”

  “My pleasure,” she said with a nod, returning to work. For the next half hour, two large tables of families celebrating birthdays kept her busy, and by the time she glanced over at the bar, Dash was leaving. She chided herself for feeling disappointed when he slipped out of the restaurant without saying good-bye.

  The bartender Phil waved her over.

  “Those must have been some oysters, Rosalyn,” he said with a wink, handing her two crisp hundred-dollar bills. “He specified that these are for you.”

  “He what? This is for me?” she asked. “There must be some mistake.”

  Phil shrugged. “You ask me, somebody’s got an admirer.”

  She ran out to the parking lot and spied him opening the door of his late-model Lexus. “Wait, Mr. Acosta—”

  He stopped, and turned toward her. “It’s Dash. Please.”

  “Dash, then.” She held the money out to him. “Look, I appreciate the thought. I really do. But I did nothing to deserve this kind of money.”

  “I’m a big tipper.”

  “Not this big. Not usually, I’ll bet. Is it because of what I said yesterday, about the unpaid internship? Because I’m serious. I knew it was unpaid when I accepted the position. I’m doing it for the experience.”

  “It’s not about that.”

  “Then . . . why?”

  “I want to make you happy.”

  She paused. “Why would you want to do that?”

  He stepped toward her, his dark eyes studying her hair, her eyes, her mouth. For a moment she thought he was about to lean down and kiss her, and her heart started to race, her breath coming quickly.

  Then he flashed a jaunty grin, ducked his head, and said, “Shouldn’t we all want to make each other happy?”

  “I . . .” She was at a loss for what to say, but handed him the money. “Seriously, I wouldn’t feel right about keeping this. I wasn’t raised that way.”

  “You weren’t raised to earn money? What are you, a trust fund baby in disguise?”

  She laughed. “Not exactly, no. But two hundred dollars for serving two appetizers is a bit much.”

  He let out a loud sigh, looked at her a moment, and said, “Split the difference?”

  She hesitated, then nodded and handed him one of the bills.

  “You drive a hard bargain, Rosie.”

  She felt his eyes on her as she returned to the restaurant.

  The next few times she was in the winery office, Dash came by, greeted her with his easy smile, and went about his business. Rosalyn found herself dwelling on thoughts of him. The way he dressed in jeans and a sport coat, like a cross between a farmer and a businessman. The way his dark hair curled at the collar, a bit longer than she usually found attractive, but in his case she made an exception. She wondered where he lived, how old he was, if he had a wife or a girlfriend. One day he gave her and the other two office interns a book on wine. Hers was dedicated: Hope this makes you happy.

  When she mentioned she loved to paint, he asked what her favorite pigment was. The next morning, she found on her desk a tube of natural ultramarine, a precious—and expensive—blue pigment, decorated with a cheesy bow. She liked the bow almost more than the paint.

  “Ultramarine blue was the most precious color to the Renaissance painters,” she said, admiring the tube. “It’s made of ground lapis lazuli stone.”

  “I didn’t know that.”

  “And it’s a darn sight more appetizing than ‘mummy brown,’ which was actually made of pulverized mummies.”

  “Now you’re pulling my leg.”

  “I’m not! It’s true.”

  “You are a veritable font of information, Rosie. Where do you learn all this stuff?”

  She shrugged, hesitating to make up a story. The truth was that when she was ten years old, her father left, and Rosalyn had escaped the harsh summer heat of Fresno—and her mother’s devastation—by hiding out in the public library. She loved painting, so a kind librarian showed her the section on fine art, including one thick tome that listed dozens of pigments, along with their histories and qualities. Ever since, it had become a kind of game; in her mind she would run through the exotic-sounding pigments like a mantra.

  Dash smiled. “How did Shakespeare put it? ‘Young in years, in judgment old’?”

  “I think it goes ‘young in limbs,’ but I’ll take it,” she said, returning his smile.

  He started to drop by the office more frequently. Was it her imagination, or did he pay a little more attention to her than to the other interns? Some days Dash would bring a sandwich and offer to share, lingering as though he didn’t have a business to run, and they would chat about art and painting and wine. Rosalyn told him how her mother had advised her that she would never be able to make a living with her art, so she should either acquire a professional skill—like marketing—or marry rich.

  He threw back his head and laughed at that one.

  She started to think about Dash all the time. She obsessed over his distinctive scent, his slapdash handwriting. She yearned for the slightest hint of him. Alone in bed at night, she wondered what it would be like to kiss him, to touch him. It was a ludicrous infatuation, she knew, but she couldn’t help herself.

  She began a project to redesign all of his labels, one after another. Rosalyn told herself—and Dash—that she could use them as class projects, but the truth was that spending time with his products made her feel closer to him.

  One Saturday morning, she was doing her weekly wash at the Laundromat in town when she spied Dash going into a restaurant across the street, accompanied by a beautiful woman. Frozen, Rosalyn watched as he held the door for his companion, who smiled as she looked up at him. They disappeared inside, the door closing behind them. Shutting Rosalyn out.

  She felt as if she had been punched in the gut, so visceral was her reaction.

  “Don’t be ridiculous, Rosalyn,” she scolded herself. “He’s your boss—that’s all. You’re suffering from a schoolgirl crush. He’s not yours, and never will be.”

>   But she couldn’t stop thinking about him. Her classmates at the university—bright, healthy young men full of optimism and promise for the future—now seemed callow in comparison. A few discreet questions to the office manager revealed that Dash was from Phoenix, had been married but was divorced four years ago, had no children, and was thirty-four years old—twelve years older than Rosalyn.

  She tried directing her energies into her studies, where they belonged. Besides, Rosalyn reminded herself repeatedly, at the end of the semester her internship would be over and she would likely never see him again. Unless he came by the restaurant. But still . . .

  It didn’t help.

  One Thursday Dash and his friend Hugh were again at the restaurant, at her table. She tried to act casual as she greeted them and took their cocktail orders.

  “If I leave you three hundred this time, will you follow me out into the parking lot again?” Dash asked.

  She laughed. “No, and you certainly don’t need to buy me, Dash.”

  “Did you hear that?” He put his hands over his chest and exclaimed to Hugh: “She called me Dash! That’s progress.”

  “Will you please just ask the woman out already?” said Hugh, smiling at her. “Though I can’t imagine why she’d agree. She’s worth twice as much as you, easily.”

  Rosalyn’s pounding heart seemed to still as she and Dash stared at each other. As if she were in a movie, everyone else in the restaurant—the diners, the waitstaff, the barflies—seemed to fade away.

  After a long moment, Dash said: “Rosie girl, you have gotten under my skin. If you say yes, I honestly think I could offer you a lifetime of laughter.”

  * * *

  Sometimes, when the pain was especially intense, Rosalyn tried to remind herself of the annoying things Dash had said and done.

  Like the way he had commandeered their only bathroom each morning so that Rosalyn had to jump out of bed before him if she wanted privacy to quickly pee and brush her teeth. Or the way he insisted on watching the Tour de France, all three weeks of it, every damned stage, all the while lecturing her on the peloton and what the different colored jerseys represented. He teased her for liking the polka-dotted jersey best, and for wondering aloud why scantily clad models stood onstage with the athletes as they received their awards.