Sweet, Sweet Wine

by Jaime Clevenger

  The line went silent. Riley stared at the phone until the screen darkened. She set her cell phone on the nightstand alongside her old cordless one and closed her eyes. Lisa’s face came to mind first. She concentrated on Ana and a moment later pictured her instead. Then a moment later, it was Blair she saw. Blair sitting on their old back porch in Sacramento with a beer in one hand and a cigarette in the other.

  That cigarette was the last one she’d smoked while they were together. She’d lit it up after their first real fight. The fight was about organic produce. Riley had always bought the cheap conventional stuff and Blair wanted them to buy only organic. Riley’s defense argument rested on one thing. “But you smoke, so why does it even matter?” So Blair had given it up and they’d bought organic after that. Riley still couldn’t articulate what cigarettes had to do with the value of organic produce, but Blair had accepted it as the cost of compromise.

  * * *

  Riley waited outside the Sacramento airport wearing a long sleeve shirt and jeans. Her coat, gloves and hat were all packed away. The pilot had said that the expected high for the day was seventy, and it felt every bit that warm. She had forgotten to ask Ana what type of car she drove and so she had to watch every car that slowed down near her spot. Finally a black BMW pulled up to the curb and Ana hopped out of the car and waved. Riley gingerly placed her suitcase in the trunk when Ana popped it open and then sank into the leather seat. She glanced over at Ana, who was wearing gold hoop earrings and a matching necklace that flashed in the light streaming through the sunroof. She grinned. Lisa was probably right, after all. Ana was in an altogether different league than anyone she’d dated before, and if things like this mattered, it was unlikely they would last.

  “Why are you smiling like that?”

  “It’s just good to see you,” Riley said.

  “You are a terrible liar. But I like that about you. If I can tell when you are lying, I’ll have the upper hand if we ever play poker.”

  “You play poker?”

  “And I’m good at it.” She zipped between two cars going the speed limit, then stepped on the gas and sped until the road merged onto the freeway. Clearly, she had driven this route many times before. The wind picked up, and Ana closed the sunroof. She eyed Riley. “It’s a long drive. You might as well tell me now why you were grinning. I’ll have gotten it out of you by the time we reach my place, one way or the other.”

  “I was thinking about something Lisa said about you.”

  “That’s a good way to start off our long weekend,” Ana said with sarcasm. “Okay, let’s hear it. What does your ex have to say about me?”

  Riley stared out the window, wondering why she had even started down this path. Fields of tilled earth crisscrossed with narrow waterways slipped past her view. “She doesn’t think…” Riley hesitated, then started again, “She thinks you’re playing around and will drop me when someone more in your league comes along. I was grinning because of course you drive a shiny BMW. My Honda is ten years old, and I bought it used. I keep it in really good condition, but, you know, I drive a sensible sedan.” Riley grinned. “Not a luxury driving machine.”

  Ana’s jaw was set, and Riley realized from her expression that she’d hit a nerve. “My ex bought me this car.” She cut around a truck and then pressed her foot harder on the gas pedal. “His family owns the winery, and they have their hand in a bunch of other business ventures as well. Money isn’t the same to them as it is to you or me.”

  “It’s easy to get used to being around people who like to spend money, isn’t it?”

  Ana’s glare was enough to make Riley want to swallow her words.

  “You don’t know me well enough, Riley,” she started. “Not enough to say things like that. If this conversation hadn’t started from something your girlfriend said, I’d be giving you a bigger piece of my mind right now.”

  “Ex.”

  “Ex-girlfriend,” Ana agreed. “Though clearly she is still someone you listen to, unfortunately.”

  “She knows I don’t want her dropping by my place anymore.”

  “Easy to blame that one on me, wasn’t it?”

  Riley pulled at the seat belt, the shoulder strap of which was cutting too close to her neck. Riley thought of all the ways she could have explained her issues with luxury lifestyles, but she knew her tone would sound judgmental, and it was too late anyhow. The last thing she wanted to do was to bring up the subject of money. “Can we get out somewhere? I want to start over.”

  “This is Woodland.”

  “And?”

  “There’s nothing in Woodland.” Ana shook her head and pulled off at the next exit. She pulled into a McDonald’s parking lot and turned off the car. Riley got out and went around to her side of the car. She leaned against the door, staring through the window until Ana finally lowered the glass. “So you drive a BMW.”

  “Yep. What else have you got lined up against me?”

  “I guess you have fancy purses with designer labels. I wouldn’t have noticed. And I have no idea where you’d go to buy a purse like that”—she pointed to the purse in question—“because I’ve never even heard of that brand. You wear expensive clothes that don’t hide the fact that you are sexy as hell. Meanwhile, I’m worrying about whether you’ve noticed that my jaw’s hanging open when I look at you. Only takes one look from you and I’m stopped in my tracks.” Riley paused. “It’s not hard at all to see why I’d want to be with you. Thing is, I’m not sure why you want to be with me. I know I’m going about this all wrong, but I need to know if you’re only playing a game.”

  “My purse came from a designer in Italy. I went to Florence last summer with Tom, about a month before I met you. The trip was terrible. We were both in bad moods, and then we got food poisoning. But I love the purse.” Ana’s hands still gripped the steering wheel. “What would you do if I said yes? Maybe I am just playing a game.”

  “I’d say let’s have a good New Year’s then.” Riley waited for two teenage boys to walk past. They stared at her, then at Ana’s car before heading into McDonald’s. “And then I’d get back on the plane on Sunday after having a sex-filled long weekend and I’d miss the crap out of you. But I’d go back to Denver and my boring life knowing some things aren’t meant to last.”

  “And if I said no?” Ana looked at Riley. “What if I want this fling to finally turn into something real?”

  “I don’t know if I’d believe you.”

  “Of course you wouldn’t. And I thought I had issues,” Ana said, shaking her head. “Thank you for being honest anyway. Get in the car.”

  “Not yet.”

  Ana sighed. “What else?”

  “What’s your answer? Are you playing at this?”

  “No. My answer is no. And fuck you for even asking.”

  Riley wanted to believe Ana. But nothing about their relationship felt real and Lisa’s words haunted her. She closed her eyes and tried to think of a way to start back at the beginning. “It’s good to see you.”

  “Now I don’t know if I believe you.”

  “I know it’s only been a week since the whole thing at the airport, but you’ve been in my head every moment. I keep trying to get you out and I can’t.”

  “Sorry.”

  “No, you’re not. I can tell. You’re hoping I’m hooked.” Riley leaned through the window and pressed her lips to Ana’s. Ana smiled, then grabbed the front of Riley’s shirt and pulled her closer. They kissed again, Ana’s lips parting to allow her to press her tongue against Riley’s.

  Ana pulled away finally. “Why are you such a pain in the ass?”

  Riley shrugged. “Baggage, I guess. What else?”

  “Well, that kiss was how I was hoping we would start out,” she said. “Okay, get in. I’m going through the drive-through for fries and a Coke.”

  The drive to Napa took a little over an hour. Ana’s condo was one in a long row, all salmon-colored with tile roofs and stucco exteriors. Her block faced th
e highway, but the patio backyards all butted up to a hill lined with grapevines. The sun was setting when they pulled into the garage. It was immaculate and clear evidence that she didn’t much spend time at home.

  Ana led the way from the garage down a narrow hallway past a tiny laundry room and into the kitchen. She dropped her keys in a basket on the counter and then filled two glasses with water. She handed one to Riley and then continued through a small dining area, past the family room with one oversized sofa with a matching, excessively large footrest and a flat-screen television that took up most of one wall and up the staircase to the bedrooms.

  “Tom still has some of his stuff in the spare room,” she said, motioning to the first door they passed, “but I stopped giving him a hard time about it. Like you, I decided I didn’t really care about stuff. Nearly everything in this house was bought on his credit card, anyway, so it’s all basically his.”

  “Including the TV downstairs?”

  “Yeah, he loves that screen. In fact, that’s his excuse when he comes over unexpectedly. There’s always a game playing.” Ana entered the master bedroom, and she pointed to a sitting area. “You can leave your suitcase there. I remember that you don’t mind living out of a suitcase, but there’s room in the closet if you want to hang anything up.”

  Riley dropped her suitcase in the corner. “Is it likely he’ll show up unexpectedly over the next few days?”

  Ana shook her head. “He knows you’re here.”

  “How’d that conversation go?”

  Ana shrugged. “Better than I expected, actually.”

  “Let me guess. He didn’t mind that you were seeing someone else because I’m not a guy.”

  Ana tilted her head. “Yeah, something like that. Then he said something completely inappropriate and I made him apologize. He actually looked genuinely sorry. Tom isn’t a bad guy, really. I wouldn’t have been with him for that long if he was.”

  “What ended things?” Riley asked. “I mean, I know it wasn’t us getting together. If you wanted to, you could have lied about all of that.”

  “Do you really want to talk about Tom?”

  “No, not really.” Riley sighed. She settled her hands on Ana’s hips. “How about you tell me he was a dick and you knew you could do better. Then we met.”

  Ana laughed. “Because you wouldn’t believe me. And you’d give me some line that made it seem as if you had believed me, but I’d know better.” She paused. “We kept fighting. About anything and about everything. Most of the time, neither of us wanted to be having the fight, but then we couldn’t seem to agree on the terms of a truce. I knew we just didn’t love each other enough. He knew it too.” Ana didn’t speak for a long moment, then she leaned forward and kissed Riley. “Good enough?”

  Riley nodded. In some ways, it was better than her ending with Lisa. If Lisa hadn’t wanted to keep Jen in her life, they might have reconciled. But all that was in the past. She didn’t want to go back to her life with Lisa, even if things didn’t work with Ana. The past week in Seattle had made that all the more clear. Even if Ana hadn’t asked, she wanted Lisa out of her life. “So…what are we doing for New Year’s Eve?”

  “I thought you’d never ask. There’s something I’ve wanted to go to for ages. I think you’ll like it. I found out about it three or four years ago, but it wasn’t an option for me then.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “I had the wrong type of date before.”

  “Is this a fancy sort of thing, or am I okay in jeans?”

  “No jeans. But I took care of that.” Ana opened her closet door and pulled out something on a hanger covered in plastic. “I may have rifled through your closet to find your size. And you don’t have anything like this, but I think you’ll look good in it. It’s on loan from the black-tie shop downtown. I know the owner.” Ana handed the hanger to Riley and sorted through her closet until she found something else. She held up a red silk dress with a low neckline and an even lower drop in the back. “I’m wearing this.”

  “Okay, really fancy. What is this thing we’re going to?” Riley said, pulling the plastic off the hanger. She felt the fabric underneath. It was a tailored black suit with a thin black necktie and white dress shirt. High quality.

  “A members-only ball.”

  “A ball?” She grinned. “Seriously?”

  Ana nodded.

  Riley had never been to a ball and had no desire to go now. The look of excitement on Ana’s face, however, was enough to convince her to go along with it. “How’d you find out about this members-only thing?”

  “In the wine business, you get to know everyone. I met the woman who organizes the New Year’s gala a few years back. She knows Tom, but then, everyone in this town knows him. Anyway, it’s women only, so I never could go. They rent out a ballroom in one of the wineries. The venue switches from year to year.”

  Riley hung the suit back in the closet and reached for Ana. Ana’s kiss filled her lips. She had Ana’s blouse off a moment later. Ana pulled her toward the bed, moving the comforter and sheets back as she sank onto the mattress. Riley took off her shirt and jeans while Ana watched. Riley moved on top of her, finding Ana’s waiting lips once more.

  Ana nudged Riley awake at eight o’clock. “Wake up. I already showered. It’s your turn.”

  Riley rubbed her eyes and climbed out of bed. Ana was already in the red dress. “You look amazing,” Riley said, her hand tracing the drop at the back of the dress. The fabric only just covered Ana’s lower back, leaving the rest exposed. “Maybe we should stay here. I don’t know how long I’m going to want you to keep that on.”

  “I’ve been wanting to have a date for this for years.” Ana shook her head. “And I want to see you in that suit. Go shower.”

  The suit fit perfectly. Riley stood in front of Ana’s mirror and looked at herself. Ana came up from behind her and adjusted the tie. She rarely had a reason to get dressed up and had never been to anything formal enough to need a suit. Compared to her usual attire of either scrubs or jeans, it was a strange costume, but she had to admit, it felt good.

  “Not bad for a rental,” Ana said, kissing her neck. “It looks like it was made for you, in fact. I’ll have to thank Susie with a case of wine. She was doubtful she had anything that would fit a woman’s build, but I figured with your broad shoulders you could pull it off.” She stepped in front of Riley. With her heels on, she was suddenly at eye level. “You have no idea what you are in for tonight.”

  Riley went over to her backpack and fished out a small black box. She handed it to Ana. “You left this at my place.”

  Ana opened it up and then glanced at Riley. “You replaced the missing diamond.” She took the gold chain out and held it up to the light. The ruby pendant slid down the chain, spiraling and catching the light as it spun. Ana held it up to her neck and then touched the spot where the new diamond had been set. Five diamonds circled the ruby now that the missing one had been replaced. She handed the ends of the chain to Riley to fasten. “Thank you,” she said, turning to face Riley. “You didn’t have to get the diamond replaced.”

  “It didn’t look right with the empty space.”

  Ana glanced in the mirror and then touched the pendant. “I didn’t even realize I’d left it. Clearly I was distracted.”

  “My mom was really excited when I told her I wanted to go to a jewelry shop. She has this idea that one day I’m going to start liking shiny things. The fact that I am seeing someone who likes this sort of thing might be close enough.”

  Riley didn’t want to offer any more details to Ana and hoped she wouldn’t ask. The fact that her mother knew the jeweler by name and had his number on speed dial on her home phone was not something she was ready to tell Ana yet. Too many questions would follow.

  “You told your mom about me?”

  “As it turned out, my parents were really disappointed I was going to miss their New Year’s Eve party. They needed to hear a good excuse.”

&nb
sp; * * *

  Ana drove to the winery hosting this year’s event, which looked more like a castle than a winery. The front was made from blocks of stone, and turrets cropped up on all four corners. Torches lit the circular drive in front of massive wood doors. It was set far from the main road up a long narrow drive and a huge iron gate blocked access. A guard stood at the gate. He checked Ana’s name on the list before pressing the code to open the gate. They parked in the nearly full lot and followed the path to the front entrance. A guard opened the front door and without asking pointed to the spiral staircase at the far end of the foyer. They passed a marble fountain and walls with full-length gilded mirrors before climbing the stairs. Ana led the way down a corridor dotted with naked Grecian statues in various seductive poses. She knocked on the door at the top of a narrow flight of stairs leading down to what seemed to be a back entrance.

  A woman in a suit answered the knock. She glanced briefly at Riley and then smiled as she recognized Ana. The ballroom opened up behind her. A live band was playing and the dance floor was filled. There were a number of women in drag, and aside from the formality of it all, Riley felt at once strangely comfortable. Riley caught Ana’s hand and brought it to her lips.

  Ana pointed out socialites that she recognized as they moved from the entrance to the bar. Riley couldn’t keep track of their names nor the descriptions Ana gave of their fortunes. Some were locals in the wine business, but most seemed to be up from San Francisco or thereabouts with fortunes in everything from oil to IT. Riley wondered how Ana could possibly have met so many of them.

  “Ana, good to see you here.” A gray-haired woman in a long black dress stopped them in front of the bar. She extended her hand to Riley. “I don’t believe we’ve met.”

  Riley shook her hand as Ana made the introduction. Riley noticed that Ana hadn’t mentioned the woman’s last name. She’d only said “Madam Bea.” Bea had a square diamond that was distractingly large on one of her fingers.