by Marc Hess
This was the sturdy little building that the earlier Hilsses had lived in when first working this land. Mari’s father had used it for storage mostly. When Willow was little, Mari had cleaned out the Sunday house, filled it with old furniture and knickknacks from around the farm, and rented it out as a bed-and-breakfast for visitors who came for the fairs and festivals that made this old German community so attractive. It turned out to be something of a living for the little family, and it was a lot easier than farming. Mari leased out the pastures to an old friend of her father who still ran some sheep out there. That kept the fields from becoming overgrown and added a rural feel to the bed-and-breakfast experience, but it didn’t bring in much money.
The two of them also kept up with the family’s little orchard of freestone peach trees that Ted Hilss and his dad had put in when Mari was just a toddler. The orchard was a lot of work that brought them a little pocket money in the summer, and they put up some of the sweet canned peaches, which Willow was now plucking from a jar, letting the sticky syrup ooze down her fingers.
“Is Dean here?” Willow asked just before she sucked the juice from a peach slice.
“No, he just dropped me.”
“Then where’s the truck?”
“I left it at Buc’s.”
“That’s my truck, Mama. Dad gave it to me.”
“Yes, honey. But I’m the only one that’s been putting gas in it. And who’s making the insurance payments?”
Willow gave her mother a fake parental scowl. “So when you getting your Jeep fixed?”
“I am always getting that damn Jeep fixed.” Mari got up and kissed her daughter on the forehead. “I’m going to bed.”
“Where are the keys?” Willow shouted after her.
“Under the seat.”
“Great.”
“Don’t go worrying about that,” Mari called from down the hall. “There are more cops watching Buc’s than there are watching the president of the United States.”
The only room in their house that had decent air-conditioning was the master bedroom. Mari was already in bed when Willow cracked the door. “Hey, Mom. Can I sleep in here tonight?”
“Sure thing, sweetie. I always have a place for you.”
Willow lay down on the bed next to her mother. “Yeah. If Dean was here, would you throw him out for me?” she teased.
Mari tossed back the bedsheet to make room. “I already done that.”
A Night in Old Fredericksburg
First time out as a couple, and it occurred to Thea that they were well beyond the age when it might be called “dating.” She had come back to Fredericksburg to start a business after a full decade in Austin, with furrowed brow and a demonic focus on the success of her venture—like she had something to prove. She was caught off guard when, after a tedious meeting about advertising credits for her upscale lingerie store in the Historic District of this rock-rimmed old Lutheran town, Brady Casbier had asked her out. A gawky dolt of a guy she had avoided in high school, he gave her a business card that read:
Temporary Assistant Managing Editor
Fredericksburg Standard Radio-Post
After granting her every discount and concession she requested, he had just leaned across his desk and asked her to join him for a glass of wine that evening. She’d surprised herself by accepting.
She cast a glance now over the patio at the wine bar on the corner of San Antonio and Lincoln streets, anxious to find out who might be snooping on them. Approaching the entrance, they must have come off as an odd pair: him gangly and towering, and her pulling at her evening dress to mitigate her plumpness. One thing she missed about her former city life was the anonymity of the dating scene. Although she had come home on a different mission, she felt that she might be ready to put herself out there again and considered this a trial run. Besides, it was well past the era when a lady needed to be “involved with” someone in order to share a glass a wine with him, or even to take him to bed. We’re grownups, she assured herself. This could even be a business dinner.
Standing beside her, Brady seemed quite pleased with himself, dressed up in a fresh-out-of-the-box shirt that still had the factory creases, and rambling on with his winsome tale of his almost-teenage daughter at home with pizza and some rented videos to keep peace with her younger brother.
“Telephone number’s clipped to the refrigerator.” He seemed to revel in the trivial rites of fatherhood. “Just in case.”
Unfamiliar with the rituals of parenting, Thea nodded and smiled politely.
“Not that anything would happen,” he said.
“What could happen? This is Fredericksburg.” She shrugged, still with a pushed smile.
“Gives her a sense of security. And confidence.”
“Of course.”
“Now Miguel, he has no sense of fear at all.”
He wasn’t going to stop talking about his kids, she realized. Everyone seemed to admire Brady’s status as a single, never-been-married father of two adopted kids, as though it spoke to some core virtue within him. Thea found it just plain weird.
They hadn’t even seen a waiter, and already she felt stuck.
They took a seat at one of the wrought-iron tables along the sidewalk but still under the arbors, and sent a waiter for some wine and a plate of fruit and cheese.
Desperate to change the conversation, Thea jumped to the one thing they had in common. “Did I get you in trouble with the ad credit?”
“No. I got it approved. It’s all okay.” He cocked his head and smiled in a peculiar way. “Or I wouldn’t have asked you out.”
She wasn’t sure how to take that response. “I know you worked hard on it,” she said. “I just need to get it right next week. With all the visitors in town for the county fair, it’s an important time for sales.”
“Don’t I know it. We hear that from everyone.” Brady’s pat response was not reassuring. “So, damen unterwasche. We will never get the spelling right.” He leaned in toward her with exaggerated seriousness. “It just doesn’t want to be there.”
Thea took offense at his remark, but she chose to ride on the playful side of the conversation. The sign on her door was designed to evoke a certain curiosity:
intimates
DAMEN UNTERWASCHE
“Carel suggested it,” Thea responded in a neutral tone. “He was so helpful in getting me into that location. He was so involved. Almost took over the whole project. It was like I owed him something for his efforts.”
“Carel Geische? Very persuasive, but not always right, you know.”
“He said adding the damen unterwasche under the name made the shop look so much more German.”
Brady laughed. “But Carel overlooked the fact that the old German damen of Fredericksburg buy their unterwasche in packs of six down at the Walmart.”
“But”—Thea raised a finger to emphasize her master stroke—“the tourists don’t know that.”
The cocky expression fell from Brady’s face, and he nodded slowly. “And the tourists are your market. I see the wisdom in that.” His eyes lingered on hers.
He was sincere. Thea appreciated Brady’s yielding response and suddenly felt a lot less stuck. “Also, I needed to tone down the sexy side and focus on the fine lingerie aspect instead.”
“Oh, Thea. There is nothing that kills ‘sexy’ like damen unterwasche.”
They shared a laugh as the evening drew itself up along the sun-bleached limestone walls across the narrow street and those ancient buildings took on a softer, yellow hue. Sparkling, burgundy-style glasses were set on the table before them, and an enticing stream of pale, almost copper-pink wine flowed over the rims and pooled in the broad bowls—rich and distinctively floral.
“There are many Texas varietals that I will not pour, but this …” Wearing his white apron, crisp as a nun’s habit, over shorts and a T-shirt, Ross—the faux sommelier and primary personality of this wine bar—leaned forward to decant with a rehearsed finesse. “T
his is a first-class pinot grigio, vinted not far from here.”
The wine bar on Lincoln Street was not a place where familiar customers chose their own wine. Ross served what he selected for his friends. His eyes shifted off for a moment, like a play actor’s, pretending to let them know he was about to share a deep secret. “An early grape for this part of Texas, difficult to finish correctly, but if a vintner can get past that early sweetness and ferment to dryness you get”—with a flair—“this.” He broke off the pour with a quick twist of his wrist and stood erect as if the enigmatic ceremony was over. “And a decidedly robust alcohol content as well.”
Thea kept an eye on Brady as he picked up his glass, holding it up to the light and sniffing at it, assuming the guise of an aficionado. Thea reached slowly for hers, taking it by the stem and pausing with the glass just before her lips.
“You can’t appreciate the body of grigio without a good nose.” Ross was holding a glass that he had poured for himself, raising it out before him like a toastmaster might, and swirling the wine around the inside of the bowl. “You have to get your nose deeply into it. Don’t be shy.” Following his example, each of them sniffed at their glasses like curious beagles. Ross sipped deeply. “Crisp. Refreshing. Like the Oregon pinots. But still rich, don’t you think?”
“Ross?” Brady interrupted his performance. “Am I paying for that wine you’re drinking?”
Ross held to his script. “Yes. I like it—somewhat floral, and notice that it weeps just a bit. The body is in the nose.”
The body is in the nose? Thea nearly spewed out her wine in a burst of laughter at the mental image. Her cheeks flushed red and her eyes teared up as she struggled, embarrassed, to hold her rude laughter in. She quickly put a napkin to her face, relieved to see that Brady, too, was trying to hold back his laugh.
Ross continued to study his glass for a moment, then launched into the next monologue in his repertoire. “And you, my friend—our journalistic champion.” His hand was on Brady’s shoulder. “You, who put it so well in that extraordinary piece of muckraking you wrote. How refreshing that your paper, the bastion of reactionary Fredericksburg, would dig its head out of the sand and have the balls to tell people what is really going on around here.” Balancing the wine bottle and the burgundy glass in his hand, Ross reeled in a pirouette to bring his face so close to Thea that it startled her. “Did you read this man’s article? ‘Tuscany in Texas’?”
Thea nodded rapidly, though she hadn’t read it.
“I quoted Ross in the article.” Brady directed his words toward her, explaining Ross’s exuberance. “Twice.”
“And I’m nominating you for a Pulitzer, my friend.” Ross bowed and took his show to another table.
“So your article was well received. What exactly was it about?” When Brady’s face twisted up like a wrung washcloth, Thea admitted she’d just wanted to get Ross out of her face.
Brady nodded, took a drink, and leaned back in his chair before starting in. “Well, it’s not so much about the success of the small vineyards scattered throughout the county. Rather, it’s more of—”
Thea leaned in and laid a light touch of her hand on his forearm. “Hey, look. Here they are.” She tilted her head toward two new arrivals sashaying across the flagstone and yapping like cousins, which they were. “I mentioned that I might be here this evening.” Actually, Thea had invited Jeanie and Gerdie in the event that her date with Brady went awry.
The cousins ducked into the shade of the arbor, a couple of single-again mothers matching each other in their denim shorts, tank tops, and layered jewelry ringing their necks and wrists, each of them lugging a jumbo-sized cloth purse. Imogene Geische and Gertrude Ritzi were their given names, before expunging the obtuse German branding that they had inherited. Although she’d been born one of those Fredericksburg kids herself, Thea was given a short, inflexible name and thus was spared the work of modernizing it. In her uncomfortably tight skirt, she felt a bit overdressed and under-jeweled.
Mischievous and attractive, Jeanie walked right up to Brady and swatted him with a folded newspaper like she would punish a dog. “So what’s with this ‘Tuscany in Texas’ stuff, Brady Casbier? I thought you grew up here, like the rest of us. Now what are you saying here? We’re French?”
“Italy,” Brady responded as Jeanie settled herself into the chair between him and Thea.
Gerdie crossed behind Thea to get to the empty chair on the far side. As she squeezed past, she leaned into Thea to touch cheeks with a whispered greeting and a smile.
“Tuscany is in Italy, not France.” Brady turned toward Thea and shrugged. “This is what most of the feedback has been.”
From behind her burgundy glass, Thea threw him a smile that was meant to convey: You are on your own here, mister.
Gerdie heaved her large purse on the table and chimed in. “So now, Tuscany is here in Texas. Is that what you’re saying?”
“Yes,” Brady conceded, “that’s it.”
“You mean they’re moving here?” Jeanie asked. “From Italy?”
“No!” Brady was using his hands to explain. “It’s about wine. The story is about wine!” He looked from one of the cousins to the other. “Did you actually read the article?”
Both Gerdie and Jeanie shook their heads in unison, and the entire table fell into the doldrums.
Jeanie seemed to feel the need to apologize. “Didn’t mean to be so nitpicky, Brady.”
“You weren’t being nitpicky, Jeanie,” Gerdie said soothingly.
“This, on the other hand, is exceptionally nitpicky.” Ross had magically reappeared with two new glasses. He took a position between Gerdie and Thea, pausing until he had the table’s undivided attention. “This is a newly released pinot grigio from a small vineyard I discovered out in Menard County. Cool and crisp. Perfect for a warm Texas evening.”
Gerdie lifted the corner of his apron, peeking to see what lay underneath. “I like your skirt, Ross. Cool and crisp. Perfect for a warm Texas evening.”
The table erupted in laughter, Ross included, and a cork came out of another bottle. Thea knew that the last laugh was his. That grigio he was pushing was quite expensive and going on Brady’s tab.
Wine was the day’s release for all of them—not just at Thea and Brady’s table, but for all the local couples and the bevy of tourists who drifted up under the arbor, looking for a shady place to sit. The volume of the background chatter rose steadily until Thea could no longer hear the melodies of the local bluesman, who was perched with his Les Paul guitar on a kitchen stool at the far side of the patio. The white noise insulated Thea from the prattle at her own table, cheap gossip that jumped from topic to topic—the strange antics of other people’s children, who had been messing around with whom—like pressing the buttons on an old car radio.
The table where they sat was close enough to the street that, on occasion, their gab would be drowned out by the bone-rattling clamor of a diesel truck growling down Lincoln Street. One in particular shouldered its way, back and forth, into a parking spot that was suitable for a compact car. Headlights cut, truck doors slammed, and two new figures stepped into the patio light: Mari Hilss and Dean Calderon.
With a grin the size of the moon crossing his face, Brady rose from his seat and signaled to his old schoolmates with a flick of his wrist. Jeanie buried her head in the crook of her elbow and melted into her chair, muttering, “What on earth did I do to deserve this?”
With no predispositions of her own, Thea drew down a deep mouthful of pinot grigio to brace herself for another clash of small-town histories.
Dean and Mari, bubbly and stumbling, wormed their way across the crowded patio. Gerdie rose with a cheerful embrace for Mari, while Jeanie crossed her arms and turned away, positioning herself to obstruct Brady from greeting his old pals. Brady worked his gangly frame past Jeanie and took Mari in his arms—a demonstrative hug they held for too long. Thea, seated on the far side of the table, got by with a wave and a smil
e.
Dean cut a striking figure in his night-on-the-town T-shirt, which did a good job of showing off his muscular, working-man biceps but finished with the disappointment of a potbelly that hung out enough to hide his belt buckle. He called across the table to his ex-wife. “You didn’t tell me you were getting in this early.”
While the other girls were eyeing his physique, Jeanie pretended to ignore him.
He pressed on. “You got Caitlin with you?”
“I wouldn’t bring Caitlin to a bar, Dean. She’s with family.”
“I could have taken her if you’d let me know you were getting in so early. I wasn’t expecting you ’til this weekend.”
“She’s better off where she’s at.”
“Better off with your brother?” Fingers of jet-black hair crossed his brow as he cocked his head. “You seen how good he did at raising his own daughter. What do you think he’s gonna be doin’ with Caitlin?”
Gerdie chimed in to diffuse the tension. “Carel was going to show her how to make margaritas. A skill that will serve you both well into your senior years.” If anyone found that funny, they didn’t laugh.
Mari took Dean’s elbow. “Let’s you and me go inside for a spell. They got the air-conditioning on,” she said, leading him away. Over her shoulder, she left them with a smile and a wave of fluttering fingertips.
Gerdie turned to goad her cousin, who was puckered up and fuming. “That’s why I had my kids in San Antonio. You don’t run into this.” She fluttered her own fingers in the air, mocking Mari’s departing wave. “My ex stays down there.”
