“Not bad,” Margo muttered.
Michael didn’t respond.
“Shall we wait five minutes to be just in the nick of time?” he asked.
Margo didn’t answer. She got out of the car, straightened her narrow skirt, and went to the house without waiting for her husband. The air in this part of Florida was sweeter and quieter, a dove was cooing overhead.
“Grandfather has his shit right,” Michael said behind her.
“What?” Margo thought she didn’t hear right.
“They won’t have to twist my arm to make me live here,” Michael said.
Margo’s lips pressed so she wouldn’t say what she wanted to say, but what could disrupt her plans. He could think that he had a chance to become a part of the will or whatever else he was expecting to get.
The door swung open before Margo could press the bell button.
“Here you are!” Mason came out onto the porch. “He was indeed dressed in pressed trousers and a thin-striped shirt, no bow tie. In the daylight he looked about seventy years old. “How glad I am to see you guys! Come on in!”
“It’s good to see you again and thank you,” Margo said, embracing the old man, maybe a little more intimately than she should have under the circumstances. He let her into the house and shook hands with Michael.
“You look good, lad!” Mason said.
“I wanted to change, but Margo said I didn’t have to.”
“No! What are you talking about! You came to visit Mason and not to have supper in some palace. You both look great. Especially Margaret.”
Margo smiled politely. Only teachers at school and her grandmother called her Margaret.
“Go to the living room. I already prepared drinks for us. In fact, everything is ready. I’m so nervous.”
“Stop it! I’m sure everything is amazing. We are not a royal family, as I said.”
Margo followed Mason through the foyer laid out in black and white tiles, with artificial flowers in huge vases along the walls, which she immediately mentally put out of the house and sent to the trash. These couldn’t be in her house. The living room was twice the size of Margo’s living room and was furnished with antiques, or most likely, as Margo thought, old furniture. Despite the fact that the furniture was not modern, as Margo would prefer, she noted that each piece was a work of art. From two heavy, wooden coffee tables, to armchairs with carved armrests and paintings, from a crystal chandelier to a grand piano.
“Not bad, Mason, not bad,” Michael praised and immediately sat down on the sofa. The sofa was covered with silk as far as Margo could see. She had never seen furniture like this or a carpet so plush as what was now under her feet.
“I traveled a lot when I was younger,” Mason said. “Especially in Europe and Asia. I brought a lot of collectibles, objects of art, even this table. I bought it in China for ... It doesn’t matter.”
There was a tray with three glasses on the table that were filled with a pink drink.
“Let’s start with this, a sweet one, before we begin our supper. We should always have a glass of good wine in our hands. It will make any conversation warmer.”
Mason held out the first glass to Margo and she gripped it by the thin stem. She learned a long time ago that with white wines you need to hold a glass by its stem.
“Sauternes, Château Nairac, Barsac, France, nineteen ninety-eight.” Mason handed a glass to Michael, who immediately grabbed it. Margo noticed how Mason’s eyes twitched. Michael didn’t have her culture or any culture at all and just disgraced her. Mason didn’t pause for a second, he lifted his glass, lightly shook it, so that the wine covered the sides of the glass and fell down, sniffed the drink closing his eyes. Margo and Michael followed his example. The expression on Michael’s face indicated that wine from a deli for seven dollars wasn’t worse than this one. “The end of the nineties wasn’t particularly fruitful,” Mason continued dreamily. When he opened the door for them this evening, he was as enthusiastic as a seven-year-old boy who received a new bicycle for his birthday. Now he was a refined expert, someone people looked at with respect and open mouth. “Despite these circumstances, the wines were excellent. The quality of the crop plays a huge role. Grapes in Sauternes have a special quality, that’s why sweet wines from that region are popular and costly, you probably know this. The fog rising from the Ciron River makes the air moist and forms a special fungus or gray mold on the grapes, which is called noble rot. This mold sucks up the water from the grapes until the berries become dry and wrinkled. This is what you need. Inside there is a concentrated, sweet juice. Wine is processed by a special technology and rolled into oak barrels. Sauternes can be drunk young, but nothing compares to this wine after twenty years of aging.”
Mason closed his eyes again, took a sip, and only then he looked at his guests. “Great,” he said. His eyes seemed not to see anyone during the story, as if the story took the teller to the distant coast of France. Now the fog had lifted and his guests had returned. “Marvelous.”
Margo took a sip and agreed the wine was good. She really wanted to share Mason’s enthusiasm and promised herself to become more sophisticated and educated in wines. For now, for her, it was just sweet, white wine. A little more delicious than others, but nothing more.
“It’s divine,” she said.
“Yes, yummy.” Michael drank almost half of the glass and smacked his lips. He shared a glass of wine with Margo on occasion, but preferred beer or whiskey. Margo was sure that this wine was yummy to him.
“We will drink this wine pared with blue cheese and some fruit. I’ll serve vintage Cabernet Bordeaux with red meat. I kept it for a special occasion like this one.”
“I can’t wait,” Margo said.
“Let’s stay here for now and then we’ll go to the dining room.”
Margo sat in a chair, looking at cheese on a wooden board, crispy bread, and fruit.
“Did you prepare all of this?” she asked.
“I could lie, but I will not. I cooked the steak myself, that’s true, but my housekeeper helped me with everything else. In fact, she’s setting the table in the dining room right now and it should be ready in fifteen minutes. She’s remarkable. She does everything I ask and leaves without a word. Maybe she just doesn’t speak English well. Anyway, I couldn’t have done everything myself, at my age. I usually just fix a cheese sandwich for myself when I’m alone and have a glass of wine. It’s my traditional dinner.”
“Your house is stunning,” Margo said, leaning back in the chair and watching Michael, who had already slipped two pieces of cheese into his mouth, followed by bread. She wanted to slap him on his head, but all she could do was turn away from him and smile. If she continued to look at him, her mood would be ruined.
“Thank you very much! You probably wonder how a doctor can afford to live like this. I have to admit, even though I don’t like praising myself, I was a good doctor.”
“What kind of doctor?” Michael said looking at the remains of the food.
“Cardiologist.”
“You have to be very smart for that!” Michael snickered, picking up another piece of cheese. Margo did the best she could in the situation to ignore him.
“I guess you do. That’s how I know wine is good for your heart!” Mason snickered. “I had a lot of patients. They still send me holiday cards, occasionally. Less now, much less.” Mason sighed regretfully, but then smiled again. “I also invested a lot. It was fun to me. I’ve lived in this house for most of my life. I moved from Boston to Washington, D.C. when I was twenty. I went to university there and got married when I was twenty-five. Marge was wonderful.”
The old man shook his head, turned the glass of wine in his hand, gazing at the gleaming reflections on its surface.
“Marge?” Michael asked. “You said your wife’s name was Phoebe.”
The old man looked at Margo’s husband with sadness.
“Marge was my first wife. We were married for two years. Then I lived with Ph
oebe for the rest of her life. I met her when I moved to Florida at thirty-two.”
“I’m sorry, he’s just curious,” Margo said. She planned to scold Michael for his babbling, later. Couldn’t he just eat and be silent? He embarrassed her. He was clumsy at everything, including conversation. She didn’t like him, but her plans and intentions stopped her from noticing or reacting to a lot of stuff. “When did you become interested in wine?” she asked. She was afraid she would fall asleep if he started to talk about his work.
“It’s been forever!” The old man laughed. “I was a rascal and loved to drink. When I was ... I think twenty-two ... I went to school, but I also wanted to make my own money and did all kinds of odd jobs. This particular time I helped serving tables at a reception. Oh, it’s fun to remember. So, it was me and my pal who stayed late. We found a bottle of wine and drank it as soon as we finished our part of the work: moving tables and chairs, carrying out garbage. We thought no one would notice because wine was running in rivers at that party, but as it turned out, we made a big mistake. It turned out this bottle of wine cost three hundred dollars, huge money at that time. The owner forgot it by accident in the kitchen and when he remembered—it was too late. As you probably guessed, we didn’t admit that we drank it when he found the empty bottle. But how mad he was! I remember like it was yesterday. ‘Someone drank my Bordeaux! Someone drank my Bordeaux! It had aged for twenty-five years!’ He almost cried. And for me, it was just wine, nothing special. I swore to learn and understand wine and also earn enough money to buy it.”
“You’ve achieved both.” Margo took another sip. The wine was really special or she made herself think that.
“I achieved everything in life except for children. You know, when you live so long, people around you start dying and you are left alone. It doesn’t matter how well you know wine, you have no one to share it with.”
Margo didn’t want to follow this story to where the old man was directing them. She was worried that he would start crying or something. She didn’t know how to prevent people from feeling like shit.
“I’m sure you have a hobby,” she said. “Besides wine.”
“I have an amazing hobby! I’ll tell you about it a little later and even show you.”
“That would be great,” Margo said enthusiastically, trying to imagine what it could be and how much she needed to get ready to express her interest. She saw a piano. That could be it.
“Yes, it’s very interesting!” Michael said. He was trying hard to free a room for himself in Mason’s will.
“I am so glad to see you here!” Mason waved his hand and, it seemed, with this gesture he brushed away a tear. “Let’s go to the table. It should be ready by now. You are probably hungry. We’ll talk there.”
Margo thought that although Michael had eaten almost everything that was served for snacks, he certainly didn’t eat enough.
“Sure, let’s do it!” he said, confirming his wife’s thoughts.
The three of them moved to the dining room and Margo looked around, making potential changes in her head. All this antique and probably expensive furniture would go to an auction and modern things would take their place. White leather chairs, glass tables, original decor. She wouldn’t have these weird sculptures, dried mummies of animals and birds, and not these paintings of landscapes—probably of French villages.
“Sit down, please.” Mason said.
Margo and Michael immediately followed the order. Margo crouched on the edge of the chair, smoothing her skirt, and Michael literally slumped on his seat, grunting. He was looking worse in Margo’s eyes with every minute. He was an uneducated bonehead without any manners and Mason looked more and more refined, calm and balanced.
The smell in the room was fascinating, the table was tastefully decorated, and the food looked appetizing. Besides two salads, there were steaks just as promised, cheeses, bread, two bottles of wine, and wine in some sort of pitcher.
“I have to apologize to you,” Mason said before sitting down. “My housekeeper left, so we have to serve ourselves.”
“That’s fine,” Michael said.
“I’ll help you,” Margo said.
“No, no!” Mason objected. “Don’t even think about it. Okay guys, listen. So, we have steaks. Also my housekeeper made these two salads. This one is Greek and this one with shrimp. Seafood doesn’t really pair well with steaks in my opinion, but I didn’t want to argue with her.”
“I love shrimp!” Michael exclaimed.
“I’m sure you do.” Margo smiled. She couldn’t hold back the comment even though she tried.
“Delightful,” Mason said. “Let’s start with wine, as always.”
He picked up the pitcher and looked at it with love.
“I didn’t decant my wines properly today. I’m really bad at it actually. Impatience and forgetfulness.” Mason seemed ashamed, but Margo had no idea what he was talking about and only smiled. He filled the glasses from the pitcher.
“Petrus, two thousand five,” Mason continued. “This is one of the most expensive wines in the world.”
“Petrus. Of course,” Margo said knowingly, when in fact she hadn’t heard of it.
“Why is it so expensive?” Michael asked. It seemed that he went to the brain time machine and became a naïve child again. Margo pleaded for him to shut up, but he didn’t hear her mental scream.
“The clay in the Petrus vineyard is what makes this wine so unique. In fact, this type of clay doesn’t exist in any other wine producing region in the world!” Mason said.
“Wow!” Michael said, staring at the table.
“The average production of Petrus is two thousand five hundred cases per year,” Mason continued, raising his glass, “so counterfeiting is common. You have to purchase from a reliable source.”
“Not total wine?” Michael laughed and Mason joined him.
“That’s very interesting, Mason,” Margo said as she watched Michael and hoped he wouldn’t drag a piece of meat onto his plate before their host offered it.
“Ninety-five percent of this wine consists of grapes of the Merlot variety, but now they produce one hundred percent Merlot. That’s what I heard.”
“Merlot is a grape? I thought it was a wine variety,” Michael grinned.
Margo smiled because she couldn’t do anything else. She could roll her eyes, but that would spoil her image. Michael acted like a fool in front of an educated person and she couldn’t do anything about it.
“Everything looks delish,” Michael said. Margo looked at him in horror. Was he always like that? Did she think so much about what she could potentially get from him that she didn’t notice anything that was not directly connected to her goal?
“I want to propose a toast to you!” Mason said. “I usually don’t do toasts, but you are special guests. Thank you so much for coming. I want to make you happy today.”
Margo and Michael raised their glasses and Michael drank half of it at once. He outdid himself.
“This is indescribable,” Margo said after taking a sip. The wine was too dry for her taste, but she would never admit it.
“I’m glad you appreciate it.” Mason sat at the table and put the glass in front of him. “I want you to enjoy this evening with all my heart.”
“Thank you,” Margo said. “We are having a wonderful time.”
“Yes, yes, yes,” Michael said impatiently and fidgeted in his chair. Judging by the expression on his face, he hadn’t eaten in a month, Margo thought.
“You are special guests and we live only once. We have to live every day like it’s our last. Let’s enjoy tonight like tomorrow doesn’t exist.”
“Yolo!” Michael screamed.
“I agree,” Margo said, ignoring him, but she was thinking about replacing the painting on the wall across from her as soon as she moved into the house. She had a whole lifetime ahead and she sure would enjoy it.
“Good. Things are not always happy, but today I am elated and I hope you’l
l feel the same. Let’s get down to food.” Mason said.
“I agree,” Michael said and immediately pulled a piece of meat onto his plate, topping it with shrimp salad. Margo wanted to kill him.
CHAPTER 20
Mason was telling a story about his trip to France, when Margo received a message on her phone. She pulled the phone out of her purse and looked at the screen, trying not to interrupt the story and to produce as few movements as possible. The number didn’t look familiar. She opened the message and read it, holding the phone under the table and trying not to attract Mason’s attention, but he was so carried away by the story that he didn’t notice anything.
Margaret, we can’t get through to you. This is Daisy’s mother. We can’t find her. When was the last time you saw her?
Margo remembered that she had a few missed calls from this number, but she didn’t answer unknown numbers and didn’t listen to messages. It was always spam. She decided to respond later and hid the phone back in her purse. This wasn’t something important, so she wouldn’t rush with the answer.
“France, for me, is an endless vineyard, the smell of lavender, a wooden table in front of an old chateau covered with a white tablecloth. Cheese, wine, and fresh, crunchy bread. I live with these memories.”
“I wish I could experience it,” Margo said. “I’ve never been to Europe.”
“You are still so young!” Mason answered. Margo looked into his eyes and he, at last, held his gaze on her. “Very young,” he said as if embarrassed a little. Margo smiled again. Even if her husband noticed some flirting, that was his problem.
“I love big cities!” Michael said. “The bigger, the better.”
“You mean cities like New York?” Mason said.
“Yes, New York is a great city. Chicago, Boston! So much of everything!”
The garden of dead thoughts Page 12
