by Donna Ball
Cici looked around the room in satisfaction, leaning on the snow shovel she had used to scoop up the demolition debris from the floor. “It’s a little more work than I thought,” she admitted, “but it’ll be worth it when it’s done.” She looked at Bridget a little anxiously. “It will be done on time, right? Because it won’t be much of a wedding gift if all we have is a big empty room with dusty floors and stripped-down walls.”
“Oh, sure,” Bridget said. “All we have to do is paint and bring in some furniture.”
“All I had to do was take down a wall,” Cici reminded her, “and that took two weeks.”
“But we also got the wallpaper down and all the stuff moved out. The floors are mostly covered already so we don’t have to worry about drop cloths. I’ll start taping off the trim tonight, and once that’s done everything else goes pretty fast.”
“Well, I guess we’ve done this enough times by now to be experts. Will you have time to make curtains?”
Bridget turned a mildly challenging look on her. “Will you have time to build bookshelves?”
Cici considered that for a moment, then gave a resigned, lopsided grin. “Deal,” she said. “But I don’t know how you’re going to be able to do all this, plus bake a wedding cake, plus make all the food for the reception—I mean, vine-burning party—if I’m going to be too busy building shelves to help.”
“You’ll have those shelves done in no time,” Bridget assured her. “You’ll have plenty of time to help.”
“That’s a relief,” Cici murmured with a small roll of her eyes.
Bridget ignored her sarcasm and looked around the room, her expression a little wistful. “Did you ever think when we bought this place that one day we’d be making room for a man to move in?”
“We made room for Noah,” Cici reminded her.
“That’s different. He was a child.”
Cici nodded. “I know what you mean. It is a little strange. This has always been a woman’s place. Our place. And now …” Her smile held a trace of nostalgia. “Well, everything is different, isn’t it?”
Bridget nodded. “And it’s about to get a lot more different. You know, I really can sympathize with Lindsay letting herself get so crazy about the wedding. It’s a lot easier to focus on the things you can control, like musicians and photographers, than things you can’t, like how your life will never be the same once a man moves into your bedroom.”
Cici nodded, sighing. “Isn’t that the truth?” Then, “Fortunately, she has friends to make sure he has a bedroom to move in to. Come on, let’s get the rest of this dust swept up and I’ll help you tape the trim.”
~*~
They were late gathering on the porch. Dominic had joined them for supper, then returned to his office to finish up paperwork, as he often did. The lights still burned in the barn. Bridget had wanted to finish prepping the walls and taping off the trim, and Cici had gathered a bushel basket of apples which seemed to have fallen to the ground overnight. She threatened to send them all home with Dominic for his horses, but knew that the thriftiness within all of them would have them peeling, blanching, canning, freezing, and drying apples for most of the day tomorrow. Still, she secretly looked forward to the day when Dominic’s horses would move in and save them all the bother.
The dove gray sky brought with it a pale, chill breath that tasted of snowy winters and wind-stiffened days yet unborn. A lone star twinkled in the distance, and faintly, on the hillside, there was dull patch of washed-out color, courtesy of early turning leaves.
Bridget pulled her cardigan around her shoulders. “Fall will be here before you know it.”
Lindsay smothered a groan. “You don’t have to tell me. Twenty-five days left.”
They didn’t have to ask what she meant. The only calendar that mattered to anyone on Ladybug Farm these days was the calendar that counted the days to the wedding.
“What if it snows?” Lindsay worried out loud now. “Remember we had three inches on Halloween last year. I should have thought of that. How could I not think of that?”
By now her friends had come to accept the uselessness of trying to convince Lindsay of the absurdity of her catastrophizing. Instead, Cici sipped her wine and observed, “I can’t think of anything more romantic than an outdoor wedding in the snow.”
And Bridget added, “I have a gorgeous fur-trimmed white cape you could wear, with a hood.”
Lindsay said excitedly, “I love that cape!” Then she settled back and took a sip of her own wine. “I hope it snows.”
The kitten, who was currently called Rumplestilskin, strolled nonchalantly across the porch. All three women watched him warily, protecting their glasses. But he surprised them by leaping lightly into Bridget’s lap and curling up contentedly on her knee. Bridget looked smug.
“We need to start gathering up those walnuts before the squirrels do,” Cici observed, rocking easily in her chair now that she knew where the cat was. “And Ida Mae says if we don’t cut back the blackberry bushes they’re going to take over the raspberries. She’s probably right.”
“Noah always does that,” Lindsay said. And then she corrected herself firmly, “Did that.”
Bridget sighed. “I don’t want to alarm anyone, but we may be getting too old for this.”
“Bite your tongue,” said Cici. She cast a glance over her shoulder and added in a lower tone, “Especially around Ida Mae. I have this ongoing nightmare that if she ever does realize how old she is, that will be the end of her.”
“I don’t have time for blackberry bushes. I only have twenty-five days before the wedding.”
“And I have four hundred sixty miniature fondant grape leaves to make next week,” Bridget sighed.
“We’ll help,” Lindsay and Cici volunteered quickly.
She smiled. “Thanks. But you’re going to be busy making the miniature grapes.”
Lindsay let out a sigh and sank down in her chair, resting her head against the back and cradling her wine glass against her chest. “You know what we’re too old for, don’t you? Weddings.”
The other two raised an objection but she insisted, “I’m serious. There’s a reason people get married in their twenties.”
Cici, after a moment, gave a reluctant nod of agreement. “Their parents are still alive to take charge of everything.”
“And if you think about it,” Lindsay went on, “this really was Lori’s party. Everything from the dress to the vineyard theme to the colors to the decorations, I completely stole from her.”
“That’s not true,” Bridget objected. “Lori’s colors were cabernet and rose. Yours are—”
“Garnet and rose,” replied Lindsay placidly. “I defy you to tell the difference.”
The other two considered that for a moment. “Well,” said Bridget at last. “That may be true, but you have better bridesmaids.”
The three of them lifted their glasses to one another in a salute.
“Besides,” Cici said, taking a sip of her chardonnay, “if you think about it, none of those choices were really Lori’s. We kind of pushed her into all of them. So it really was our wedding from the beginning.”
“Well, maybe,” Lindsay agreed. “But I still think the world would be a happier place if there was a rule that everyone over forty had to be married at the courthouse in front of a justice of the peace and two witnesses.”
Bridget and Cici exchanged a look. “Well, this is a change,” observed Bridget. “It was your idea to have a formal wedding. You wanted everything to be perfect, remember?”
Lindsay lifted one shoulder in a small shrug. “It’s entirely possible,” she admitted, “that perfect is overrated.” She looked at Bridget. “How many miniature grapes do we have to make?”
“Six hundred thirty,” replied Bridget, and both Cici and Lindsay stifled a groan.
“You know,” said Cici, glancing at the empty chair next to Lindsay, “this is going to sound strange, and no offense to you guys—but I really miss D
ominic when he’s not here. He always has something interesting to say.”
“Well, I am offended,” objected Lindsay, though she did not look it.
“I know what she means,” Bridget insisted. She stroked the sleeping kitten absently. “It’s nice to have something to talk about besides weddings and menopause and sagging breasts.”
Lindsay raised her eyebrows high. “I hardly ever talk about my sagging breasts.”
“Then you’re the only one,” said Cici.
They rocked and sipped their wine while the shadows deepened along the porch. “The days are getting shorter,” observed Cici.
Lindsay glanced at the chardonnay left in her glass. “We should switch to merlot soon.”
“Chardonnay in the summer, merlot in the autumn, cabernet in the winter,” agreed Bridget.
The lights went out in the barn, and they all smiled, each to herself, as they watched Dominic cross the yard. “Good evening, my ladies,” he said, mounting the steps. He dropped a kiss on Lindsay’s head. “The days are getting shorter. Always bad news to a farmer.”
“We were just saying that,” Cici said.
“Although I’m not sure about the bad news part,” said Bridget. “Even farmers need to rest some time.”
He smiled and picked up the bottle of wine. “What are we drinking tonight?” He examined the label in the light from the open window, and poured himself a glass. “It will be merlot season soon. Chardonnay in the summer, merlot in the autumn, cabernet in the winter.”
He lifted his glass to them, and took his chair. Another Ladybug Farm evening had begun
~*~
Chapter Five
Friends and Lovers
Lori wanted to change for dinner, even though it meant having Kevin wait in the filthy lobby of her building. She would have invited him up, but with two people in the room there wouldn’t have been room enough to change her mind, much less her clothes. When she came down, he was brushing suspiciously at his own clothes and glaring at the desk clerk. “Jesus, Lori, I think this place has fleas.”
“I think so too,” she agreed gamely. “Funny though, I’ve never seen any dogs in here.”
He glanced around in undisguised distaste. “This was the best you could do? Don’t you have a credit card?”
“It’s my dad’s. And if he starts seeing things like rent and groceries on it, he’ll be over here in a heartbeat.”
Kevin noticed her dress, a cute little boat-striped jersey with a cut-out over the chest that hugged her figure like a glove, and the red patent shoes that set it off. He lifted an eyebrow. “Well, I’m glad to see poverty hasn’t affected your fashion sense. What is that, Prada?”
She grinned and did a little twirl, copper curls bouncing in the dusty light. “Now this is the kind of thing my dad expects to see on his credit card. I didn’t want to disappoint him.”
Kevin drew a breath for an exasperated reprimand, caught himself, and settled for, “You look nice.”
The smile she returned told him he’d made the right choice. “Thanks. And if it makes you feel any better, I got it in a consignment shop. The shoes are new, though.” She stretched out her foot to show him.
The desk clerk leaned forward to better appreciate the view, leering at her. Kevin locked down his gaze and said something sharp in Italian. The other man straightened up when Kevin put a protective hand on Lori’s back. “Let’s get out of here before we catch a disease.”
“He’s a perv. Just ignore him.” Lori glanced up at Kevin, a corner of her lips turned up with a speculative smile. “What did you say to him, anyway?
“I told him to keep his eyes to himself and his hands off my sister.”
“Oh yeah? It sounded like you said something else.”
“How would you know?”
“It sounded like you said ‘lover.’ My lover.”
“That much Italian you know. I should have figured.”
She laughed as they stepped out into the filtered golden sunlight of an early Italian evening. The streets were not so crowded now, the pace was a little slower. Voices called from open windows and laughter spilled out of open doors. The air was scented with garlic and yeasty bread, overlying base notes of rich dark earth and damp stone and ripe, sun-baked fruit that was the very essence of the Italian hill country. Kevin leaned back his head and took a deep breath.
“Well, I guess this is worth it, even if you have to live in a place like that,” he said. “Just look at that sky. It’s like a Renaissance painting. If I were you I wouldn’t want to leave either.”
Lori said, “Yeah, I felt like that when I first got here, too. But after a while, it’s just a place.” She glanced at him suspiciously. “What is this, some kind of reverse psychology? Aren’t you supposed to be talking me into going home?”
He laughed softly. “Honey, I’m the last person in the world to be telling you what to do. I promised to look you up and deliver some presents, that’s all. Maybe I’ll take a few selfies of us in front of some ruins and send them back to your mom, but then I’m done.”
Lori said expectantly, “Presents?”
“Your mom sent you some stuff. Bath salts, I think.”
“Jasmine?” she said hopefully.
“I don’t know. I didn’t open it.”
“Well, you ate my cookies.”
He said, “Don’t pout.”
“Did you bring them?”
“What?”
“My presents.”
“Do you mean now? Tonight?” He shook his head. “They’re back at the hotel.”
“Can we go get them?”
He gave her an incredulous look. “No. I’m hungry. You really are a brat, aren’t you?”
She looked annoyed for a moment, and then she sighed. “No,” she said, “just homesick.”
Kevin dropped a hand on her shoulder, giving it a brief, sympathetic squeeze. And then, because she didn’t seem to mind, he left it there throughout the walk to dinner.
They were seated on a walled terrace next to yet another fountain, this one set into a hanging garden of riotous red and purple blooms. A warm breeze tossed the candlelight around while the sky slowly faded into that gentle lavender color that seems to last all night in the hill country. Lori grew animated as Kevin brought her up to date on the news from Ladybug Farm, and she asked a dozen questions in between enthusiastic bites of mushroom ravioli and stewed calamari, occasionally answering them herself and waving her wine glass for emphasis. Had he tasted the first crush? What did he think? Of course it was young yet, but had he noticed that whisper of elderberry in the top notes? That was going to mature into a complex flavor layer that, when blended with the syrah they were growing now, would be worth putting up for an award, or at least that was what Dominic said. And speaking of syrah, had they started harvesting yet? Because the plan was to harvest at least half a ton this year from the old vines, which wasn’t a lot but it was enough to tell whether or not it was worth bottling on its own, or whether it would be better to wait until the new vines starting bearing next year. And speaking of that, what did he think of the label? Because a label could make or break a wine when they started distributing, especially if they expected to get into the better retailers.
By the time the main course was served, she was educating him on the politics of the wine industry in the US—California, according to her, practically ran its own wine mafia—which was nothing compared to Italy or, even worse, France. For his part, Kevin was pleasantly surprised by how much fun she could be when she talked about something other than herself, and by what an interesting young woman she had become. He ordered another bottle of wine. He sat back and sipped it while she finished a story. He said, “You know, kiddo, I think you were wrong.”
“About what?” She mopped up a bit of sauce with a crust of bread and popped it into her mouth.
“About not being good at anything. Dominic said you were a hell of a winemaker.”
A slow delight spread over her face
like a blush. “He said that?”
“He did. And he seemed really anxious for you to get home.” He shrugged. “Of course, I didn’t get a chance to spend a lot of time with him, but I couldn’t help noticing there doesn’t seem to be any real plan in place for sales. You don’t have to major in business—which I believe you did—to know you can’t succeed in business without sales.”
She frowned a little and picked up her glass. “Dominic has a sales plan. It just can’t be a priority right now. After all, he’s only one person.”
“He mentioned that.”
“Ha.” She finished off her wine and set it down with a flourish. “So I was right. You were sent here on a secret mission to talk me into going home.”
“Nope.” He refilled her glass. “I don’t care what you do. I was just pointing out that you’re not as dumb as you like to pretend, and I don’t feel sorry for you anymore.”
She glared at him. “I never asked you to feel sorry for me.”
“Good. Because I don’t.”
They stared each other down for a long moment. Lori was the first to blink. She shrugged uncomfortably and took a sip of her wine. “I’ll go home,” she said. “Just as soon as I figure out what to tell everyone.”
“I take it the truth is not an option.”
She gave him a sour look. “I meant something that doesn’t make me look like a total loser.”
“I see your problem.” But he said it with the kind of smile that made her resist the urge to toss the contents of her glass at him.
The waiter came over to clear their plates and said something to Kevin, whose response in easy Italian seemed to please him. When he was gone, Lori said, “How did you learn to speak Italian, anyway?”
He looked at her for a moment as though he was debating whether to answer, and then he lifted his own glass. “I spent some time here right after I landed my first big client. There was a girl, and I thought I had a lot to say to her. But she didn’t speak English.”
