The Forever Year

by Lou Aronica

  “It’s anybody’s guess, but this was an encouraging first day.”

  “That’s great. So what’s on the agenda for tonight?”

  “Well, first I think I’m going to take a bath with these sandalwood bath beads while listening to a CD of dulcimer music.” I took one more sniff from the potpourri and put it back on the nightstand. “Then I think I’m going to drive over to a little place about fifteen minutes from here to eat dinner in a garden.”

  “It’s so nice that you don’t feel you need to pretend to be working your fingers to the bone for me.”

  I laughed. “That sounded pretty ‘lap of luxury,’ didn’t it? I guarantee you that I’ll be thinking about the Collective’s platforming plan the entire time I’m soaking.”

  “I’d rather that you were thinking about my being in the bathtub with you.”

  “Mmm. Much better idea.” I wished I could kiss the naked skin on her neck.

  “I’ve got a few more homework assignments to read. Then I promised your father that I’d watch Myrna Loy with him. He made me watch a Three Stooges movie with him last night. What was that about?”

  “Ooh, Dad’s dirty little secret. Yeah, the educated and erudite Mickey Sienna is a slapstick junkie. I’m surprised he let you in on it.”

  “I thought he was going to throw his back out, he was laughing so hard.”

  “Jeez, The Three Stooges and Myrna Loy. They’re setting aside a special place in heaven for you as we speak. Hey, he hasn’t told you any more of the story of Gina, has he?”

  “Does he even know I know about it?”

  I thought about whether I’d mentioned that I told Marina, and realized that I hadn’t. “No, I suppose not.”

  “I don’t think he likes me that much, yet. Maybe tomorrow.”

  ~~~~~~~~

  The interviews the next day were productive and gave me a significant amount of background on the Collective and the plan for introducing its wine to the public. During dinner that night, I began to get a sense of what was really happening with this group of vintners and where the core of the story was.

  As we ate artisan pizzas and bulgogi (a combination unavailable in New Jersey) and drank the restaurant’s last remaining bottles of a pinot noir created by one of the Collective’s members at his now-defunct boutique winery, the conversation ranged widely. The impact of the economy on the wine industry. The impact of the economy on real estate prices. The need for one of the members of the Collective to buy a new house now that his third child had been born. The need to learn how to throw a curveball now that another’s child had turned ten. The need for a particular San Francisco Giant to learn how to throw a curveball because batters weren’t supposed to hit pitches as far as they had been hitting them off of him.

  But it was a side comment about “lingering effects on the palette” that allowed me to truly see the Collective at work. Suddenly, they were “talking wine” and the passions, philosophies, and music of their collaboration emerged. These were not business people. These were not creators of a product. These were people who could look at an armoire and imagine how its design could somehow influence the construction of a great Cabernet. The conversation veered toward a sampling at the vineyard three days before of a wine in progress. Perhaps a few more grapes with thicker skin. Perhaps one more day on the vine. Perhaps five more days in the barrel. A degree here. A quarter of a percentage point of humidity there. Any and all of this could be the difference between a wine someone like me would admire, and one that would be heralded for the ages.

  Hayward didn’t lead this conversation, but he was a lusty participant. It didn’t matter that his main vineyard was fifty times bigger than the vineyards of the rest of the Collective combined. It didn’t matter that he counted actresses and rock royalty among his close personal friends. It didn’t matter that there wouldn’t have been a writer from Food and Living at the table if Hayward hadn’t been there as well. He was “talking wine” and he was doing it with utter conviction and joy. For all any of us knew, something great could come of this exchange. Or nothing of any use at all. In either case, I was sure there would be another conversation like this every time these seven people sat in a room together.

  I left the dinner with a level of inspiration I hadn’t felt in years. It was as though I had been privileged enough to gain a seat at the Algonquin Round Table. In fact, it would be that image that would serve as the spine of my story. The quest for art in the making of wine. Though I knew I wasn’t prepared to start the actual article, I went back to my room that night and wrote for nearly three hours. Much of this was personal impression. A lot of it was far more emotional than my writing tended to be, and in all likelihood much more so than the editors at Food and Living would find comfortable. But I was driven by the need to write, the need to express my own creativity, to seek a vision of my own. I hadn’t felt this good about writing in a very long time, and for the first time in recent memory, I regretted that I was too tired to continue when I finally turned off the laptop and climbed into bed.

  My major interview with Hayward was the next afternoon. We sat in his office, which looked shockingly like the one they had put me in, with the exception of hundreds of pieces of “work debris,” as he described it. I wanted to thank him for what I’d witnessed the night before, but I thought doing so might compromise me. Still, I found myself laughing easily at his little jokes and allowing him to direct the interview far more than I normally would. We covered a lot of the essentials: the origins of the Collective, the timeline for release, production expectations, that sort of thing. I let Hayward talk about what was going on at Hayward Vineyards in his absence and to promote the talents of the new master winemaker there. I allowed Hayward to express his excitement for this new venture and to talk about its lofty aims. It was a good story, and one I was much more willing to believe than I had been a few days earlier.

  “But how does this make any sense?” I said after we’d been talking for more than an hour.

  “What do you mean?”

  I made a small gesture with my hands. “How does it make sense for you to do this at this point in your career? Hayward is on the verge of becoming a major brand name in the field, you yourself are the closest thing to a pop star the industry has ever produced, you’ve gotten merchandising offers from everything from frozen food companies to t-shirt manufacturers. This is not when most people would decide to turn their main business over to their second-in-command so they could start an entirely new company out of their own pocket, subsidizing a bunch of guys who were about to go out of business, to pursue an ambition that will be examined with the most powerful microscopes the media can get their hands on.”

  Hayward laughed and sat back in his chair. “Gee, I hadn’t thought of it that way. I’d better close this place down now before I get into big trouble.”

  I was a little embarrassed and concerned that he thought I was presuming to tell him how to run his life. “Sorry, that was probably going over the line.”

  He held up a hand to let me know that he’d taken no offense. “I thought it was your job to go over the line. Trust me, I completely understand that this isn’t exactly a safe move and maybe not even a smart one. If Hayward were a public company, the stockholders would have ridden me out on a rail. Fortunately, it’s not a public company. Equally fortunately, I can pretty much handle any financial hit that comes from this.”

  “And the psychic hits?”

  “You mean if I go out there and say ‘I’m creating the greatest wine in the world’ and everyone gags on the stuff?”

  “Something like that.”

  “I’m pretty sure I can handle being a laughing stock. When I get to know you a little better I’ll tell you about starring in my high school’s performance of ‘Jesus Christ Superstar.’

  “But there’s something important for you to understand – especially since you’re the first guy writing about this place: I’m not saying that we’re creating the greatest wine in
the world. That would be ludicrous. Even for me. The idea here is to try to find out how good the wine can be when you have lots of resources available but no business considerations. There are some amazing people on this Collective. Eric Schumpf is one of the most artful guys in the industry, but he couldn’t put all of the care into his wine that he wanted to and still make a profit. Leanna Prine was well on her way to establishing a national reputation for SunCrest when a flood just about wiped her out. There’s a different story with every one of these people, but what brings them together is that they live and breathe wine, they are dedicated students of the craft, they’re all remarkably talented, and they’re all lousy business people.”

  “Except you.”

  He laughed again. “Yeah, except me. Though as you yourself pointed out, perhaps I’m not as smart about business as some have suggested I am.

  “There’s no way to say this without sounding like I’m spinning, but at some point you have to close your eyes and just decide that you’re going to do the thing that’s most important to you out of love. Everybody on the Collective knows the risks. We all know that the media is going to be paying an absurd amount of attention to what we do here once we go public. We all know that this vineyard could shut down for any number of reasons.

  “But we also know that we would all rather be doing this than anything else in the world. That’s worth taking a chance on.”

  I let his last words hang in the air for a moment before saying, “You’re right; that could easily sound like you’re spinning.”

  Hayward shook his head. “And you’ve gotta write it the way you see it.”

  I made eye contact with him and held it for a moment. “When I get to know you better, I’ll tell you about what I did after dinner last night. I think I get it.”

  ~~~~~~~~

  I flurried some more that night. It would be pretentious of me to call it writing. In fact, it would be accurate to call it pretentious. I wrote in a blind heat for twenty headlong minutes, then stopped to pace the room, sniff something aromatherapeutic, and then change direction. Too consciously literary. Too affected. Too florid. I would stop, scold myself for my pretensions, and then move on to another approach. I always saved the other approaches, though. Something told me that I wanted a record of this article, even the discarded portions of it.

  For the first time in years, I imagined people reading the finished version of an article I was writing. I saw them turning to the first page and settling in with it. I saw three faces: Grant Hayward’s, Marina’s, and my father’s.

  It was nearly 10:00 before I finally stopped to go to get something to eat. It was clear to me that I hadn’t written much that would remain in the actual published article, but I felt as though I’d accomplished something anyway. I found a place to pick up a sandwich and drove while I ate. I didn’t have a destination in mind, but I was intent on moving. I harmonized (very well, I might add) with the radio, even switching to a classic rock station to guarantee that I would know the songs and could therefore sing along with them.

  As I continued to drive, it eventually registered that I was headed toward San Francisco. I gave some thought to driving into the city, maybe finding some live music. But as I approached the Golden Gate Bridge, I changed my mind. It was getting late, I had a lot more work to do on the story tomorrow, and I wasn’t really in the mood for a city.

  I pulled off to the side of the road just before I got to the bridge. It was a magnificent structure, its design the result of true dedication. I turned the radio down, but not off, and sat on the hood of my rental car for several minutes, admiring the view. I was staring at achievement, what could be done if you cared deeply enough to make it happen. I thought not only about the designers of this bridge, but the designer of the very first bridge and the level of risk and ignoring the odds that that must have required. It was stimulating.

  Eventually I got in the car and headed back toward the inn. A short while later, I even changed the radio back to the progressive station I’d locked into a few days earlier.

  The moment came along with me.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Having spent a good deal of time around children, Marina knew more than a little about letting people win at games. Eight-year-olds were just on the cusp of being able to compete with adults, and they were very aware if you weren’t trying hard. As a result, she had gotten pretty good at appearing to be giving a game her full concentration while also managing to commit a critical blunder or lose focus at just the right time. Because of this, she was relatively certain that Mickey didn’t know she was letting him win at checkers.

  At the same time, by the end of the second game, she was also sure that going easy on Mickey wasn’t particularly necessary. He’d beaten her without much trouble in the first game, and just then had completely surprised her with a triple jump that effectively ended the match.

  After that move, Mickey looked at her proudly. “I haven’t played checkers in years. I guess it’s like riding a bicycle.”

  Marina grew a little fonder of the elder Sienna with every night they spent together. He was clever and his smile was almost exactly the same as Jesse’s, but other than that, the two men were completely unalike. Mickey obviously wanted to please her, and she found his attentions charming. He flattered her cooking (though he’d promised to take her out to dinner the following night), her wardrobe, her approach to her profession, even her choice of music. He did it in a way that was slightly flirtatious, but also unmistakably paternal. Marina wondered if Jesse would be this way when he reached Mickey’s age.

  And then, entirely unbidden, the thought came to mind that she almost certainly wouldn’t be around to find out.

  “One more game?” Mickey said, his voice boyish.

  “Sure,” Marina said, reminding herself to try to win this time.

  During this extended stay, Marina had felt closer to and more distant from Jesse than ever before. There were details about him that she hadn’t picked up during her previous nights in this house. The way he arranged his pantry by category. The fact that a Little League baseball trophy had as prominent a place on his mantel as a college journalism award. The photograph of his mother that hung on the wall of the guest room where Marina slept, and the group shot of his brother and two sisters that sat on the dresser in that same room. All of these things added definition to her image of the man she’d spent the last six months with. But at the same time, they indicated how far she had to go before she could feel truly incorporated into his life. Why hadn’t she met any of his siblings? Why didn’t she know the story behind that baseball trophy?

  Marina reminded herself that there were probably several things in her own house that would lead Jesse to similar questions if he studied them. He knew the code to her house alarm, but she never told him what the code represented. Her cousin Ally had managed to slip in and out of town a couple of months ago without gaining an introduction. It wasn’t necessary for them to share on this level given the relationship they had. It just seemed that lately it was getting harder to convince herself that she really felt this way.

  In the past couple of months, Marina had been thinking more and more of Jesse as a fixture in her life. God knew it wasn’t the way it had been with Larry. She would never be that unguarded again. But she’d stopped wondering what she was going to do when she wasn’t with Jesse anymore. This didn’t mean much by itself, but living with your boyfriend’s elderly father for a week so he could do an assignment implied certain things.

  Was Jesse thinking the same way at all? He was easily the most sensitive and stimulating person she’d ever been with, and if anything he seemed more sensitive and more stimulating as the days went by. The fact that they’d stopped talking about the “inevitabilities” might actually suggest something about the way he was thinking. But then she would look at a photograph of his family and be reminded once again that he hadn’t come close to fully inviting her in.

  Even though her mind was wand
ering, she managed to offer Mickey considerably greater resistance during their third checkers match. In the end, she even prevailed, which seemed to give Mickey great pleasure and led Marina to wonder if perhaps he had let her win this time. The thought made her laugh.

  “I’m going to get myself just one more scoop of that ice cream,” Mickey said, standing, after the match was over. “Can I get you anything?”

  “Do you eat three helpings of dessert every night?”

  Mickey waved a hand. “Nah, but we’re on vacation here.”

  Marina chuckled as the phone rang.

  Mickey looked at the clock. “Probably Loverboy if you want to pick it up.”

  Marina moved toward the phone and answered it.

  “How are things going over there?” Jesse said.

  “You didn’t mention that your father was a checkers shark.”

  “Yeah, I don’t know how I could have forgotten that. Is he behaving himself?”

  Marina glanced over at Mickey, who was adding a second scoop of ice cream to his bowl.

  “He might be a few pounds heavier the next time you see him, but yes, we’re having a great time. How’s the story going?”

  “I’m not sure it could be going any better.” Marina could practically hear Jesse beaming on the other end of the line. “I guess there’s a chance that I’ll get home and realize that I was deluding myself out here, but this feels really good. I can’t wait for you to read it.”

  Marina was surprised. He’d never said that to her before. She always had to ask to read his work. “I’d love to read it. Anytime you’re ready to show it to me.”

  “I think you’ll be impressed. God, I hope so. I hope I’m not kidding myself. I even think I’m kinda making friends with Hayward. He spent fifteen minutes talking to me about his first marriage today.”

  “Pretty different from what you were expecting, isn’t it?”

  “There’s an understatement. I can’t believe I’ve got to go back to writing stories about spackle and ingrown toenails after this.”