by Donna Ball
She offered one of the lattes to Lori, who declined politely. She just couldn’t get used to the sugary flavor of American coffee after Italy. “More for me,” Lindsay said, setting one of the cups on the nightstand and carefully removing the lid from the other. “I can’t believe you all were out there picking grapes at night in the cold.” She sat on the arm of the big chair where Lori was sitting, and when Lori started to get up and offer her seat, Lindsay waved her down again. “I feel just awful that I wasn’t there to help.”
Lori cast a sideways grin at her. “I’ll be sure to tell Mom and Aunt Bridget how bad you feel.”
Lindsay sipped her latte, oblivious. “The only thing I don’t understand—well, one of the things, anyway—is how we’re going to get six hundred bottles of wine out of twenty-five gallons of juice.”
Dominic looked amused. “We’re not. We’re going to get two hundred half bottles of ice wine and sell them for five times as much.”
“Of course, we’ll have to hold it longer,” Lori added, “and there are extra bottling expenses. Kevin is running some projections for you,” she added to Dominic. “Also a cost analysis and P&L. They’ll be ready for you to look at when you get home.”
“Well now,” Dominic lifted an eyebrow, impressed. “She not only makes wine, she brings her own accountant.”
Lori said, “Actually, Kevin’s a …” She broke off and corrected herself easily. “Kevin’s a real workaholic. He was looking for something to do, and he’s pretty smart about things like that. We got the receipts filed and the bookkeeping up to date, too.”
Dominic said, “Maybe I should break some more ribs. That would give you time to get the office painted and cut back the vineyard.”
Lori said, “Don’t even joke about that.” And Lindsay said at the same time, “Not funny!”
Changing the subject, Lindsay said, “Did your mom tell you Noah called yesterday? Gosh, it was good to hear from him! What I could hear, that is,” she added with a small frown. “He said something about being in transit and the connection was just awful. He didn’t say where he was in transit to, or maybe he did and it got cut off. I told him everything was okay here and he said something about talking to me Saturday. That’s tomorrow—although, oh dear.” Her frown deepened. “I’m not sure if he meant Saturday his time or Saturday our time.” She abandoned the effort to figure it out with a smile. “Anyway, thank you for everything you did to get in touch with him.”
“It was Kevin’s idea to call the Red Cross,” Lori said.
“Well it sure lifted my spirits to hear his voice,” Lindsay said, “even parts of it.”
“That’s what the Red Cross is for,” Dominic said. “Although, of course, there was never any real emergency.”
Both women stared at him, and Dominic lifted a single finger in self-defense, smiling. “Even though I’m very grateful that everyone else thought differently. Not only did I get to spend my honeymoon in a luxury suite with round the clock attendants, but I got a nice long visit with all my children and I got the help in the winery I’ve been asking for. So all in all, it worked out pretty well, I’d say.”
They laughed, and Lori delivered the remaining messages from everyone at home, said her good-byes, and got up to leave. Lindsay walked her out.
“So that’s pretty cool,” Lori said, “that Dominic’s coming home on the day that was going to be your wedding day.”
“Is it?” Lindsay looked surprised. “I’m afraid I lost track of the time.”
“I guess the ‘for better or worse’ part came a little sooner than you thought it would.”
Lindsay smiled and gave a small shake of her head. “You probably won’t understand this, and I hope in a way you don’t, not for a long time anyway. But I was so proud of myself the night I finally let go of the wedding fantasy and just married the man, you know? It was as though the accident was a wake-up call, and now we had our second chance and it was nothing but happily ever after as far as I could see.” She paused, and even her steps slowed as she chose her words. “Twelve hours later he stopped breathing. He almost died on the operating table. Twice in one day I lost him, and twice I got him back. And now every minute I get to spend with him is the happiest minute of my life. Because when you love someone it all feels like the better part, even when it’s the worse.”
Lori’s brows drew together faintly, and she said, “Yeah.”
They reached the elevator, and Lindsay hugged Lori. “Thank you, honey, for coming home. Dominic was his old self today for the first time since the accident, and it was all because of you. And knowing that you’ll be here to help out with the winery takes such a load off his shoulders, and mine.”
Lori looked uncomfortable. “I’m glad to help,” she said. “But the thing is … well, I’m not sure how long I’ll be able to stay.”
“But your mother said things didn’t work out in Italy.” Lindsay looked at her closely, confused. “I thought you weren’t going back.”
Lori nodded. “It’s just that …” She didn’t know how to finish.
“Are you going back to school? But you won’t be able to enroll until winter quarter at the earliest, and …”
“Aunt Lindsay,” Lori blurted, “I’m in love with Kevin.”
Lindsay stared at her.
“My mom doesn’t know, neither does his, but he has to find a job and so do I and I just can’t promise anything right now because I don’t know what’s going to happen to us, or where we’ll end up.”
A dozen questions raced through the shock in Lindsay’s eyes, and at least another dozen emotions flickered across her face before she inquired cautiously, “Does Kevin love you back?”
Lori drew in a gulp of air, and nodded. Her response came out as barely above a whisper. “Desperately.”
Lindsay smiled, and took Lori’s face in her hands. “Then what in the world,” she demanded gently, “are you doing here with me?”
~*~
“It was really very sweet,” Lindsay said. She sat beside Dominic on the bed and opened the second latte. “And kind of sad. Poor Lori. She’s had such a troubled love life, and I remember how I was at that age, so certain that every man I met was The One, and getting my heart broken every damn time.” She licked a froth of melted whipped cream from the top of her coffee. “And then it turned out I had to wait thirty years, when I was totally out of the mood to get married, before I actually found The One.”
Dominic, who had been flipping through a trade journal his daughter Cassie had brought, removed his reading glasses and smiled. “Well, let’s hope our young Romeo and Juliet fair better, shall we?”
“I don’t know. It’s weird, thinking about them as a couple. I mean, they practically grew up together. And what if it doesn’t work out? Cici is going to flip. And Bridget … I can’t even imagine what she’s going to think.”
“Friends usually make the best lovers,” Dominic pointed out. “And I think you may underestimate the ladies, not to mention their children. After all, a man doesn’t fly across an ocean to be with the woman he loves only to break her heart on his mother’s doorstep.”
Lindsay smiled. “You know what else is weird? That I’m talking about this to you instead of Cici. But I kind of like it. In fact …” She swung her legs up onto the bed and propped a pillow behind her back, snuggling close to him. “I think I’m really starting to like this whole marriage thing.”
“I am delighted to hear it,” said Dominic. “Because I did hope we could give it more than a trial run.”
He kissed her, and when she settled back against the pillow again she was smiling. “Lori pointed out that tomorrow is the day we were supposed to get married originally. I hadn’t even thought about it.”
“Is it now? We should have a party.”
She knew he was teasing and she was about to make some flip remark when suddenly she sat up straight, staring at him. “Oh my God,” she said. “I think we already are.”
~*~
Ke
vin glanced up from the computer as Lori came into the winery office. “Hi, baby,” he said, a little absently. “Listen, I found about a half dozen invoices that hadn’t been mailed so I sent them out. It’s going to be a lot easier to collect revenue if you actually invoice for product. And I went ahead and filled out the quarterly tax forms, but they can wait ’til the deadline to write the check. Fortunately, with no income you don’t pay much in taxes. Honey, I don’t mean to criticize, but this is not a one-man operation. They’re going to have to hire somebody to run this office, even it’s only part time. Maybe if the ice wine works out there’ll be enough in the budget for it next year. You need to talk to Dominic about that. Oh, and I found a bunch of credit card payments in receivables for ticket sales, but I don’t know how to apply them. Do you know what that’s about?”
She came over to the desk, turned his chair around, and sat on his knee. He looked up at her, his concentrated expression slowly fading into pleasured welcome as he caressed her back. “This is different,” he said.
She kissed him. Inevitably, he kissed her back, gently at first, and then with rising passion. Finally, reluctantly, they broke apart. “Okay,” he murmured, letting his hand slide from her waist to her hips and back again. “This is a test, right?”
She said, “We can’t go on like this, Kevin.”
“I’m one hundred percent onboard with that, sweetheart.” He settled his hands on her waist and kissed her throat. “So why don’t you tell me what you have in mind? And keep an eye on the window. If one of our mothers walks in and finds you like this there’ll be more than one person in the hospital.”
Lori said, “It’s time to tell them the truth.”
He leaned back, studying her face. “All of it?”
She nodded. “I know that ever since we got here we’ve been telling ourselves we were protecting them by avoiding the subject, but you know we were really just protecting ourselves. Because if we told them about us, we’d have to tell them how we got to be us, and that would mean you telling about losing your job and me telling about Sergio and lying about the apprenticeship. “
He nodded. “I know.”
“They’re going to be mad. They might even cry. And … they might not like that we’re together. It will be hard for them to get used to. But sometimes you just have to stand up and do what you have to do, and be ready to pay the price if it goes wrong.” She thought about that for a moment and added, “Just like with the ice wine.”
He smiled. “I love you, do you know that?”
She smiled back. “Yeah. Actually, I do.”
He tightened his hands on her waist and pushed her gently to her feet. “Let’s go then. No time like the present.”
She said, “A kiss for luck?”
He slipped his arms around her and drew her into him, and suddenly her eyes flew wide, and she stepped back. “Did you say ticket sales?” she demanded.
~*~
“I can’t believe we forgot the burning of the vines party!” Bridget said, looking around the kitchen in a mixture of panic and despair. “We’ve been planning it for over a month!”
“We didn’t forget it,” Cici insisted, annoyed. “We just didn’t know it was tomorrow. Anyway, with everything that’s been going on around here this past week, we’re lucky to remember our names.” She pushed back her hair with both hands and winced with embarrassment. “No wonder Dominic’s daughter sounded so surprised when I called to invite them all to dinner tomorrow. They thought they were already invited!”
“Well, don’t look at me,” Ida Mae muttered, slamming the oven door on an herbed chicken she had just put in to roast. “It ain’t my job to keep up with your doin’s.” But she looked more than a little disgruntled to realize that she, like the rest of them, had been too busy preparing for the arrival of the invalid to remember something so important.
“You sold less than a hundred tickets,” Kevin pointed out. “And they were all on credit cards or through online payment services. If we refund the money today you’ll be clear of Internet fraud.”
Bridget’s eyes grew even bigger. “Fraud!”
“It’s not just the tickets,” Cici said. “It’s all the people who were going to pay at the door, and the drop-ins from town, and all our friends.”
“You could put a sign at the end of the driveway that says it’s canceled,” Lori suggested. “Don’t most people know about Dominic’s accident anyway?”
“Maybe an announcement on the radio,” Cici said worriedly.
“That takes twenty-four hours,” Bridget said. “Remember when Paul and Derrick were trying to find homes for all those dogs? And besides, not everyone listens to the radio.”
“Y’all got a freezer full of food,” Ida Mae pointed out grumpily. “Two freezers. What’re you expectin’ to do with that?”
“And,” suggested Lori hopefully, “you’ve got plenty of wine.”
“But we canceled the band,” Cici said.
“And the flowers. And we were going to have tents for the food and rent chairs to set up in a circle around the bonfire …”
“Well, it’s too late to rent tents or chairs,” Kevin said. “But if you just canceled the band this week they probably don’t have another gig.”
“I’ll call them,” Lori volunteered. “Where’s their card?”
“But,” Bridget said anxiously, “we were going to have garnet tablecloths and monogrammed rose napkins, and runners made of grapevines, and candles …”
“That was for the wedding,” Lori pointed out. “This is a tasting. You don’t have to have tablecloths. You just have to have glasses. And I saw boxes of them stacked up in the barn.”
Bridget looked mildly insulted at the thought of serving food without tablecloths, then said thoughtfully, “The layers for the wedding cake are already frozen. I suppose if I frosted them and displayed them separately it wouldn’t look so much like a wedding cake.”
Cici said, “We’d have to set up the parking lot and get someone to direct traffic …”
“I could do that,” Kevin said.
“And I can take the money and pour the wine,” Lori said. “We’ll set it up in The Tasting Table just like we did for the blessing of the vines. We’ll open both doors and the traffic will flow through directly into the gardens and the vineyard.”
Bridget closed her eyes and released a slow weary breath. “I just don’t know that I’m up for this,” she said. “Every muscle in my body still aches from picking grapes.”
“And I don’t know if I’ll ever get full range of motion back in my shoulder,” said Cici, wincing as she rubbed her right shoulder. “We’ve hardly slept at all this past week and you have no idea how much there is to do for something like this. The lawn is a mess and the chrysanthemums are all dead and the paths have to be swept and the windows washed …”
“And we still have finger sandwiches to make, and the cheese straws and the harvest soup …”
“I’ll help,” Lori said.
“So will I,” said Kevin.
“And so will I.”
They turned to see Lindsay standing at the door. Bridget and Cici exclaimed in surprise and Lindsay rushed to them, hugging them each hard. “I left you alone to deal with the grape crisis,” she said, “but there was no way I was going to let you do this by yourselves. Dominic’s children are with him now and they’re all going to help him pack up and bring him home in the morning. So I’m here for the duration. Now.” She stepped back, holding one of Bridget’s hands and one of Cici’s, looking pleased and determined. “Where do we start?”
Bridget looked at Cici. Cici looked at Bridget. They both looked at Lindsay, and their faces broke into reluctant smiles. “Well,” said Bridget, “maybe we can do this after all.”
~*~
They mowed the lawn and raked the leaves. Lindsay drove into town for fresh chrysanthemums to replace the dead ones and spruced up the ravaged flower beds with mulch and colorful decorative cabbage plants. They drag
ged out two big iron kettles from the barn and filled them with ivy and yellow daisies, and placed them on either side of the entrance to the winery. Paul and Derrick drove over with their cars loaded with the outdoor candelabra they had used at the engagement party, a box of leftover candles, and the surprise delivery of garnet-colored tablecloths and rose napkins, monogrammed with Lindsay’s and Dominic’s initials entwined like vines.
“They were ordered too late to return,” Paul explained. “We were going to save them for your first anniversary party, but this is so much better.”
Kevin cut grapevines and dug a fire pit. Lori moved the tables in The Tasting Table to form an L-shaped buffet, and Paul arranged coils of grapevines and candles in miniature terracotta pots down the center of each one while Derrick carried the big serving dishes down from the house and placed them just-so upon beds of colorful autumn leaves. Dominic’s two sons arrived on orders from their father, and pitched in hanging lights and flower baskets, washing windows and cutting vines for the bonfire.
They washed glasses and unpacked two cases of wine. Lori made a display at the pouring table describing the virtues of each bottle and clearly quoting the price per case. Kevin remembered the cash box and they pooled their resources for change. Bridget set out the frozen layers of the cake to thaw, and unpacked the decorations. Tomorrow each layer would be frosted and decorated with white chocolate roses and fondant grapes. Trays of frozen delicacies were set out to thaw in the cold pantry. A hundred fifty finger sandwiches were assembled, wrapped in damp paper towels, sealed in plastic bags and stored in the refrigerator. Everyone grated cheese for the cheese straws, which needed to sit overnight before being sliced and baked in the morning.
