A Delicate Finish

by Jeanette Baker

  Julianne had indulged him. It wasn’t all that unusual. Jake was her only son. But that didn’t mean Francesca had to put up with him, not anymore. She buried her head in her arms. The irony was there had been a time when she wanted nothing more in the world than to put up with Jake Harris forever.

  She’d known him for a long time. Everyone knew each other in the small-town atmosphere of the Santa Ynez Valley in those early days when central valley grapes were just becoming reputable. But it wasn’t until the spring of her second year at UC Davis that she really saw him for the first time. She was climbing the slope of a greenbelt on her way to class when she looked up, suddenly self-conscious. He stood there, motionless, backpack slung over his shoulder, a smile on his face, shiny gilt-colored hair falling over his forehead. Walking back down to meet her, he held out his hand to pull her up beside him.

  Why Jake Harris, a boy she’d skinny-dipped in the creek with until she was eleven years old, should suddenly tie up her tongue, she couldn’t imagine. But that was the way it started. They were perfectly matched, everyone said. Even his Viking good looks were a complement to her olive skin, dark hair and eyes. For the entire two years before and after they married, she couldn’t remember an unpleasant word or even a misunderstanding between them. Life was blissful. When Nick came along, it seemed to Francesca that no one had ever been more blessed. At night, curled up with Jake against her back, she smiled in her sleep. Each year was better than the one before. When had it all changed?

  The answer came on the wake of the question. When her father died. She understood the yoke of responsibility for the first time. Keeping up the vineyard and the winery required eighteen-hour days. She woke before five and was out in the field before the sun rose over the hills, and she fell into bed at night well after midnight, spent and numb. Jake disagreed with her on nearly everything. After a while, she couldn’t bear the arguing and she stopped telling him her plans. He didn’t understand her need to keep DeAngelo Vineyards the way her father had kept it and his father before him. She wanted her grapes grown in organic fields. She wanted her son to grow up without the taint of poison searing his lungs.

  Jake didn’t agree. He talked with other vintners and took classes and dusted off his chemistry books. He toured pesticide companies and asked questions. Convinced that the vineyard could produce a greater yield safely, he tried to wear her down with statistics and spreadsheets and flowcharts. More and more her temper flared, forcing a chasm between them. Angry words were hurled back and forth, words that could never be taken back. Icy silences followed the shouting. They shared a bed awkwardly, lying stiffly in mummy-like poses until exhaustion claimed them. Jake usually fell asleep first, and when Francesca heard his breathing deepen, she relaxed and fell asleep on her stomach, careful to keep her hands tucked beneath her thighs, careful not to roll over and touch him. She couldn’t remember the last time they’d made love. Not that it mattered. She was too exhausted to remember what desire felt like.

  Francesca burrowed her head in the quilt. Looking back, it was quite clear to her now, when she closely examined the events that led up to Jake’s departure. She had simply been too tired and too consumed with the vineyard to see what should have been obvious. But what could she have done differently, even if she’d known?

  Frank DeAngelo had been a legend in the Santa Ynez Valley. Even though Francesca was his daughter, no one had believed a woman could fill his shoes. She’d worked her tail off to prove them wrong. DeAngelo Vineyards was as productive as it had been when her father signed the checks. And the winery was hers. She and Jake had started it together. When he left for Napa, he’d left it to her. It was productive now, but it hadn’t been easy.

  If only Jake had waited. If only she’d allowed him an equal partnership, a tiny voice in her head chimed in. Why hadn’t she? The question loomed in her mind without an answer. Francesca had never been one to delegate easily. Even in school she’d preferred individual projects over group ones. If you want something done right, do it yourself, her father would say, and Francesca agreed.

  In the end, her preference had cost her a husband. Jake was proud, too proud to be squeezed out of the important decisions, too proud to have his ideas tossed aside, too proud to be supported by his wife’s family vineyard.

  Francesca pulled the edge of the comforter over her body and turned around twice until she was rolled up like a sausage. If only she could sleep in tomorrow. If only someone else would manage the sugar testing and the harvesting. If only Mitchell Gillette would announce GGI was taking their conglomerate elsewhere, never to return. If only she was Frank DeAngelo’s daughter again with someone else to share her worries.

  If only she could start all over again with Jake. This time she would get it right. This time he would realize leaving wasn’t the answer. None of those if onlys were likely to happen anytime soon. The most she could hope for was to keep her vineyard solvent. Maybe, if she kept her fingers crossed, and if she ever had a spare moment, she might fall in love again.

  She stared at the light. If she reached far enough across the bed, she could just about turn it off. Her arms were aching and weary from pruning the shoots. Moving, even inches, was the last thing she wanted to do. To hell with the light. It could stay on all night for all she cared.

  Slowly, Francesca’s eyelids fell. She would rest a while, no more than ten minutes. Ten minutes wouldn’t hurt. In less than a minute she was asleep. She slept through the twelve chimes of the grandfather clock signaling midnight, nor did she wake when Julianne, seeing a crack of light beneath her bedroom door, opened it and turned her lamp off. Not until the rooster crowed at six the following morning did she wake cramped, bleary-eyed and thoroughly unprepared for the day ahead.

  Eight

  Francesca poured coffee into her travel mug, decided against milk and sugar, twisted down the top and headed for the door.

  “Whoa.” Julianne’s voice stopped her in midstride. “Where are you going?”

  “Where do you think? It’s time to test the grapes for sugar content.”

  “Already?”

  “Time flies when you’re having fun.”

  Julianne ignored her sarcasm. “How about some breakfast, Francie? You’ll be dead on your feet with nothing in your stomach but that huge cup of coffee. The caffeine alone will make you too shaky to function.”

  “I need caffeine. I didn’t sleep well last night.”

  “Why not wait for Nick,” Julianne urged. “He’ll be up soon and it’s good for him to see you eat breakfast. That way he’ll eat some, too. He’s so thin I wonder how his legs support him.”

  Francesca shrugged into her jacket and zipped it to her chin. Then she grabbed her notepad with one hand and her coffee and cell phone with the other and wrestled with the doorknob. “If I wait for Nick I’ll never get out of here, and there aren’t enough hours as it is. Jake can eat with him.” She added under her breath, “That way he’ll be good for something other than to annoy me.” She spoke up again. “I’ll call you if I can’t make it back for dinner.”

  Julianne hesitated.

  Francesca, sensitive to her mother-in-law’s expressive face, frowned. “What is it?”

  Julianne’s words burst out quickly on a breath of air. “The three of you will be on your own tonight. I won’t be home for dinner.”

  “Why not?”

  “I’m going out.”

  Francesca’s face lit up and she leaned against the door. “You’re wicked, Julianne. How dare you drop that bit of information when you know I can’t stay.”

  Am I tempting you?”

  “Even more than your waffles, but I really am in a bind. Tell me the highlights.”

  “They’re muffins not waffles. What do you want to know?”

  Francesca’s eyes crinkled. “Who is he, of course?”

  “How do you know I’m going out with a man?”

  “C’mon, Julianne. Come clean. Who is he?”

  You won’t like it, Franc
ie.”

  “I will. I promise, no matter who he is.”

  Julianne drew a deep breath. “Mitch Gillette.”

  “Wow!” Francesca’s mouth formed a perfect circle. “You are truly amazing, a secret weapon in disguise.”

  Julianne’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Meaning what?”

  “You’ve met the man twice and he’s already caught.”

  “He isn’t caught at all,” Julianne protested. “And it’s three times. I’ve met him three times. He’s called twice since he had dinner here, but it isn’t like that.”

  “Of course not.”

  “You’re teasing me.”

  “Would I do that?” ,

  “Yes, you would. You’re terrible. I can’t explain it, Francie, but it isn’t a date. After all, he just lost his wife. He and the children are down here now.”

  “All right. I’ll bite. Where is he taking you?”

  “To see his house. He’s cooking.” She turned off the stove and pulled out a tray of muffins. “Can you believe it? Someone’s actually cooking for me.”

  Francesca’s smile disappeared and she looked thoughtful. “We don’t ever give you a break, do we? You run your catering business and do all our cooking and cleaning, too.”

  “I love doing it. It’s my contribution.”

  “Everyone gets a break, Julianne. Everyone, except you. I’m ashamed of myself. I never even considered it.”

  “Don’t consider it. I’m getting my break tonight.”

  Impulsively, Francesca reached out and hugged her mother-in-law without losing any of her belongings. “Be careful, Julianne,” she warned. “He seems nice enough but we don’t know very much about him.”

  Julianne nodded. She’d said enough, but her cheeks were very pink. “Please, Francie. Eat a muffin.”

  Relenting, Francesca accepted Julianne’s offering and hurried out the door.

  * * *

  Francesca set the brake on the rise of the slope and climbed out of the Jeep. She had wasted precious time in the kitchen. Already light poured over the hills, bringing color to the land, to tree and shrub, olive and spruce, eucalyptus and oak, pear cactus and lavender. Mountains, their peaks swaddled in backlit clouds, dark in the distance and light in front, teamed with life from recent rains. Below the rise, vines, spaced five feet apart, grew in traditional rows surrounded by lavender and Mexican sage. Swarms of ladybugs billowed like red parachutes above the blooming Grenache and Mourvedre clusters. To the north, toward Los Olivos, Syrah and Cinsault grew beside each other, their delicate leaves twisting together in Medusa-like tangles and, just above them, planted in formation to catch ocean breezes from the west and the fog banks blanketing the mountains parallel to the sea, were her pride and joy, her Pinot Noir vines complete with reflectors to scare the birds. This was the first year DeAngelo Vineyards would produce really top-notch Pinot Noir. God willing, there would be a next year.

  She grabbed a bucket from the passenger seat and walked six rows into the vineyard. Then she walked six plants in, lifted the bird net and picked the sixth cluster from an immature Chardonnay vine, repeating the pattern until she’d worked her way down to the end of the row. Then she would begin on the next row until she’d collected fifteen pounds of fruit.

  Gently she cupped a pale green cluster and snapped it from its stem. The grapes had to have a perfect balance of sugars and acids. If she waited too long, they would be too sweet and lacking in acid, resulting in a flabby, amorphous wine. Fruit had to be tested weekly, sometimes daily. After the fruit was photographed, it was destemmed, crushed and allowed to soak in its skins for thirty minutes or so. This allowed phenolics from the skins to soak up the juice before a hydrometer measured sugar and a pH meter checked acidity.

  The grapes were still young, but the color and shape were perfect. They would ripen quickly. If the sugar-and-acid combination turned out to be right, Francesca predicted that the harvest would begin soon, maybe as soon as three weeks. A third of the vines still needed hoeing, but the cover crop was coming along well, bell beans, Oriental radish and California poppies to attract insects, crimson clover and purple vetch for nitrogen, annual rye and barley for erosion control. Not an herbicide or seed sterilant in the bunch. Francesca was proud of her policies. She had occasional doubts, but harvesting a pesticide-free crop wasn’t one of them, despite Jake’s arguments to the contrary.

  At DeAngelo Vineyards, producing wine had never been about volume or profit. It was always about good wine. Frank DeAngelo had insisted on pruning back three-fourths of all dormant vines, retaining only the strongest sun vines. By reducing the yield from six tons per acre to three, he’d produced superior grapes with intense varietal characteristics. Francesca, desperate to prove herself her father’s daughter, refused to consider anything less. Wine Spectator, the magazine that could make or break a vineyard, had been highly complimentary about her methods. People wanted wines made from organic grapes. A thought occurred to her. Maybe Julianne was right. Maybe the only way to beat GGI was to offer something they couldn’t, something DeAngelo Winery already produced, a pesticide-free product. Immediately she felt better. The future looked less ominous.

  She moved on to the Pinot Noir vines. The clusters were tiny, velvety and lustrous, dark purple against a background of gray fog. These specialty grapes needed to ripen on the vine a bit longer than Chardonnay clusters. Brix, sugar and acidity levels were only the beginning. The test of a perfect Pinot Noir harvest depended upon an educated palate, a rich, ripe, delicious fruit with dark seeds. Francesca, according to plan, tested her sixth cluster from the sixth vine from the sixth row, moving steadily until she’d finished. She shivered with excitement. They were close to perfect. She was sure of it. Still, another opinion wouldn’t hurt. She needed Jake. He had a sixth sense about grapes. Normally, pride would have prevented her from asking him for anything, but this was too important. For this, her precious Pinot Noir yield, she could bend.

  At a loss, Julianne stood in front of her closet. What did a woman invited to a man’s home, for a dinner that was not a date, wear? She pushed aside her three dressy dresses. They seemed pretentious. She did not want to appear as if the evening and the invitation were more than they were.

  It was late August and Mitch had said something about a barbecue, but shorts weren’t appropriate either. Julianne did not want to look as if she’d gone to any trouble. Perhaps a summer shift? That was it. She pulled out a white eyelet dress with straps that crisscrossed her back and bared her shoulders. White was good against her skin. It was simple and comfortable and, most important of all, not too much. White sandals and a short cardigan sweater completed her outfit. She wouldn’t even bother to change her purse, a bone-colored sack that shrank and expanded depending on its contents.

  She took more time with her makeup than usual, but when a woman reached the age of fifty, it took longer to reach the proper effect. There, she was finished. Maybe she would be lucky enough to avoid everyone if she tiptoed down the stairs.

  “Hi, Gran.” Nick sat on the landing playing his GameBoy.

  Her heart sank. “Hello, sweetheart.”

  He looked her up and down. “Where are you going?”

  “Over to a friend’s house for dinner.”

  “What friend?”

  Julianne bit her lip. Ordinarily she delighted in Nick’s precociousness. “The man you met the other night—Mr. Gillette.”

  “Sarah’s dad,” Nick said matter-of-factly.

  “That’s right.”

  “Who’s making our dinner?”

  “Your mother.”

  Nick raised his eyebrows. “Can I come with you?”

  For a minute Julianne was tempted. Then she laughed. “Shame on you, Nick. She’s not that bad.”

  Jake’s voice came from behind her. “I’ll cook.”

  “We can get pizza,” Nick suggested.

  “Have some faith, kiddo. I’m my mother’s son. Our dinner will be spectacular.”

 
; “I think I’d rather have Mom cook.”

  “Your mother’s worked hard all day. I’ll do the cooking.”

  Nick recognized the voice of authority and returned to his GameBoy.

  Jake opened the door for his mother. “I’ll walk you to the car.” He waited until they were outside. “So, what’s this all about?”

  For an instant she considered playing dumb, widening her eyes and asking what it was he referred to. But prevaricating would serve no purpose. Jake was persistent and she had always stressed honesty. “I’m going to Mitch Gillette’s house for dinner.”

  “I heard,” Jake said flatly. “What I want to know is why.”

  She frowned. “Why? What do you mean by that?”

  “Just what I said. Why?”

  “All right, Jake. I’ll tell you why. Because he invited me. Because I enjoy his company. Because, sometimes, occasionally, I’d like someone else to do the cooking.” She felt the anger rise in her chest. It felt good and right. “Because,” she continued, “your mother is not dead yet, nor am I old enough to throw in the towel and resign myself to a single existence for the rest of my life. Because, Jake, Mitch Gillette is the first attractive man to ask me out in ten years.” She pulled the keys from her purse. “Is there anything else you’d like to know?”

  “I didn’t realize you felt so strongly.”

  “Why should you?” she snapped. “You aren’t around very much.”

  His lips were thin and tight. “That was a low blow.”

  “That was the truth.”

  Jake leaned against a pillar, his hands balled in his pockets. “What do you want me to do, Mom? I want to come back but Francie won’t have me.”