The Sauvignon Secret wcm-6

by Ellen Crosby

  I dumped the wilted roses from the vase at my mother’s grave and replaced them with the wildflowers. Then I sat, my back against her sun-warmed headstone, and called Quinn.

  He answered on the third ring, breathing hard like I’d caught him in the middle of doing something involving intense physical labor.

  “Lucie? Hey, what’s going on? Haven’t heard from you in a while. Everything okay?”

  I leaned farther into the stone until I could feel the chiseled grooves of the words of my mother’s epitaph: I will go before you and light the way so that you may follow.

  Quinn’s familiar baritone was so matter-of-fact, so normal, that for a moment it seemed like he’d never left, and I was just calling to find out where he was. At that moment, I missed him—and all the times we’d spent together in our up-and-down relationship—unbearably.

  “Everything’s fine,” I said. “How’s it going with you?”

  “Good.”

  I should have known it would take a crowbar to pry anything out of him. Or some form of torture banned by the Geneva Conventions.

  “What are you doing?” I asked. His breathing had slowed but it still sounded as though he’d been running or lifting heavy objects.

  “Talking to you.”

  “Okay, wise guy, maybe I’ll just hang up—”

  “Hey, please don’t!” He didn’t seem to realize that I was kidding. “I’m sorry. It’s good to hear you. I’m glad you called … I’ve been thinking about you.”

  Something caught in my throat. “I’ve been thinking about you, too. When are you coming home?”

  He took a long time to answer, too long. Maybe I shouldn’t have said “home.” He was, after all, from California, born and raised. Maybe he was home.

  “Soon … I promise. I’ve still got a few things to wrap up.”

  “Thelma and the Romeos are spreading the word that you’re staying out there for good,” I said.

  His laugh sounded self-conscious. “Good old Thelma. I even miss her, too. Tell her that Ouija board of hers isn’t always dead-bang right. And say hi to the Romeos for me.”

  I wanted to say I wished he’d deliver those messages himself in person, but I couldn’t do it. “Sure, next time I see them. I guess if it’s soon, you must have finally sold your mother’s house?”

  “Maybe. Cross your fingers.”

  “Quinn, even my eyes are crossed. Will you be here for harvest like you promised?”

  “I won’t let you down. You have my word.”

  He had said the right thing, but something was still missing. My heart, which had been pounding in my chest, slowed to a dull thud.

  “Well,” I said, “I’ve got some news. I’m coming to California with my grandfather. We’re flying in to San Francisco.”

  A swallow flitted past me, landing on a nearby headstone. The cicadas seemed to amp up their volume, drowning out the silence on the other end of the phone.

  Finally I asked, “Are you still there?”

  “Yeah. I’m here.”

  “I can tell that news went over big. Look, it’s just a quick trip and I’ll probably be pretty busy. I’m sure you are, too—”

  “Hold on,” he said. “You caught me off guard, that’s all. I’ve been working flat out all week. I owed an old friend a favor. We wrapped up bottling last night and I just finished racking over some Chardonnay. My head’s someplace else.”

  “Oh.” The racking over at least explained the huffing and puffing.

  “So what’s the deal? Pleasure trip? Sightseeing? When do you get here?”

  “Tomorrow. It’s business, not pleasure. Pépé will be in some town called Monte Rio in Sonoma to give a talk at the Bohemian Grove.”

  He whistled. “The Bohemian Grove? Are you serious? Luc must be going to that big summer shindig in the woods they have every July. Every mover and shaker in the country flies in for that. It’s huge.”

  “So I’ve heard.”

  “What are you going to do? That place is men-only.”

  “Going to Napa—Calistoga—to check out some wine Mick Dunne is considering buying. He wants something to sell this fall before his own wine is ready … and he wants me to make the blend for him.”

  “Good for you.”

  “I can’t do it without you. Please say you’ll help me?”

  He sidestepped that. “Where are you staying in Napa?”

  “With a friend of Pépé’s. Robert Sanábria.”

  “Sanábria? Jesus, Lucie, you’re full of surprises. You know who Sanábria is, don’t you? California Winemaker of the Year a couple of years ago. One of the heavyweights in Napa. I didn’t know your grandfather knew him.”

  “You’re avoiding the question.”

  “What question?”

  “Will you or won’t you help me blend this wine? You’re so much better at this than I am.”

  “You must really want my help if you’re buttering me up.”

  “You make it sound like I’m asking you to hang the moon someplace new,” I said. “Mick pays well, you know that.”

  “Whose wine?”

  “Cab from a vineyard called Rose Hill. It’s in Calistoga on the Silverado Trail.”

  “I’ve heard of it,” he said. “Winemaker is some guy named Fargo, I think.”

  “There’s a new owner. It’s probably a coincidence, but her name is Brooke Hennessey. I don’t suppose she’s related—”

  He cut me off. “Jesus, Lucie! You left that until the end on purpose, didn’t you? She’s his daughter. Man, of all the gin joints in the world, Ilsa. Why’d you have to pick that one?”

  “Please don’t be angry. I didn’t pick it.” He’d blown up like a volcano as soon as I mentioned Brooke. “There’s a lot more to the story that you don’t know. I can’t go into it now; it’s too complicated.”

  “When is anything you do not complicated?”

  I let that one pass. At least he hadn’t turned me down. But he still sounded mad. I plunged ahead.

  “So you’re not in touch with Brooke Hennessey?”

  “Last time I saw her she was sixteen. I heard she went off to Davis to study enology and viticulture like her old man. I never thought she’d stick it out, but she did.”

  “Will you please come with me to this meeting? Please?”

  His laughter was harsh. “You make it sound like it’s no big deal.”

  I waited and bit my tongue.

  When he answered, it was grudging. “I suppose I knew sooner or later I’d run into her. Just didn’t figure on it being now.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “I’m really grateful. You have no idea.”

  “Oh, you’ll pay for this, don’t you worry.”

  “Send the bill to Mick,” I said. “Why don’t I call you when I get to town? Are you staying in San Jose at your mother’s place?”

  “I’m kind of moving around. Right now I’m in Sausalito. Keeping an eye on a friend’s houseboat.”

  When he was being evasive like that there was always more to the story. Until now, I’d thought of Quinn as someone who belonged to the land, with his innate understanding of the rhythm and pace of the growing season, his intuitive knack for knowing exactly when to harvest the grapes and when it was wiser to wait. It never occurred to me that he might be equally comfortable on the water, that maybe he was an adept sailor who knew firsthand about navigating the pretty bays around San Francisco or had grown up surfing California’s golden beaches like the sun-kissed boys and girls in the endless summers of old Beach Boys songs.

  I knew almost nothing about his past, what his life had been like growing up. But that’s how he’d kept it in Virginia and it seemed he hadn’t changed now that he was back in California.

  “A houseboat. How romantic.”

  “You would say something like that.” At least his voice had lost its edge. “Look, it’s really easy to get from Sausalito to the city. Where are you staying?”

  “Oh, gosh, I have no idea. It was four A.M.
when we were having the discussion about the trip and I forgot to ask. Probably somewhere downtown, knowing Pépé.”

  “The Embarcadero? Union Square?”

  “I’m embarrassed to tell you this, but I really don’t know San Francisco. The last time I was there was probably twenty years ago. All I remember was that it was big and hilly.”

  “It still is. When do you have to go up to Napa?”

  “Sometime between tomorrow and Wednesday, when we fly home.”

  “So you’ll have time to do some sightseeing,” he said. “I could show you around, if you want.”

  “Would you? I’d like that.”

  “Yeah, I’ll show you the real city. The good, the bad, and the ugly. We’ll skip the tourist traps.”

  “How poetic. I thought you’d say you want me to leave my heart in San Francisco.”

  “There are worse places to leave it,” he said. “Call me when you get in.”

  He hung up.

  He was right. There were worse places to leave my heart. Like where it was right now. Missing him.

  Our Bastille Day party passed in a blur of voices and laughter and music. At the end of the evening we set off our best fireworks ever from a barge in the middle of the small pond by the Ruins, watching them fizz red, white, and blue as they lit up the silhouette of the mountains and cascaded over the dense rows of vines. For the first time in the past few days I felt absurdly happy, even giddy, partly because of all the compliments we got from our guests and partly because I’d kicked back and drunk enough wine to make me tipsy.

  Frankie had transformed the courtyard between the villa and the winery into the kind of Parisian brasserie Hemingway and Fitzgerald would have frequented—white linen tablecloths, flickering candlelight, bud vases with a single rose—a midsummery night tableau of heads bent together across bistro tables in earnest conversation or flirty romance. Swags of Japanese lanterns hung across the courtyard, and tiny white lights woven through the arcade beams and around the columns gave the scene a dreamy, fluid timelessness. Over the last few weeks Frankie had taken my mother’s French records—the well-known chanteurs like Aznavour, Brel, Bécaud, Brassens, Piaf, and the classic rock and rollers like Patricia Kaas, Johnny Hallyday, Sylvie Vartan, Jean-Jacques Goldman, and dozens of others—and turned them into CD sound tracks. We played those during dinner until one of our favorite deejays showed up and started playing the kind of swingy dance music that emptied the tables and had people spilling into the arcades when the makeshift dance floor overflowed.

  I caught sight of Pépé, genial and happy, sitting at a table the Romeos had staked out a few steps from the bar. Later I knew they’d disappear to smoke the Cuban cigars he’d brought from Paris. Eli came with Hope, who looked like a dark-haired angel in a white sundress with an enormous V-neck collar. I watched him catch her in his arms and swoop her up, whirling her around until they both were dizzy with laughter, her sweet face flushed and glowing, chubby arms clenched tight around my brother’s neck.

  Once or twice I noticed Eli staring at Jasmine Nouri, who had helped Dominique set up and serve the bistro menu for the evening. He seemed mesmerized by the way she threw back her head to laugh at something one of the waiters whispered in her ear, the candlelight strafing her dark, glossy hair and silhouetting her profile like a noble relief on a coin. A couple of waitresses joined her behind the serving table and the group of them linked arms, singing and dancing with Aretha, the Beatles, Smokey. Jasmine moved with the sensual grace of a natural dancer, and by now the waiter who had shared the joke had begun hovering around her like a moth around a flame. I saw something hungry in Eli’s eyes as he stared at the pair of them, then Hope tugged his arm and they disappeared into the crowd.

  Much later Kit Eastman showed up alone. She was still dressed in her work clothes, so I knew she’d probably spent another Saturday editing reporters’ stories for the Sunday paper and buried under paperwork. In the swirling chiaroscuro of candlelight and shadow, she looked haggard and run-down.

  She leaned in for our usual air kiss. “Hey, hon. Sorry I’m late.”

  “Where’s Bobby?” I cupped my hand to her ear so she could hear above the bouncy doo-wop harmony of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons.

  “Blue Ridge,” she yelled back. “Terrorism seminar. He says he’s sorry he can’t be here tonight, but duty calls.”

  We moved away from the music and the lights and stood in the shadow of the archway that led to the villa and the parking lot beyond.

  “What kind of terrorism?” I asked.

  Though Washington was fifty miles away, we were still considered to be the outer fringe of the D.C. Metro area, which was permanently on a state of high alert. The plane that crashed into the Pentagon on 9/11 had left from Dulles Airport on the eastern border of Loudoun County. Ever since that day, the sheriff’s department seemed to be participating in a regular routine of training exercises and readiness drills.

  “The bad kind,” she said.

  “Now I know why you’re the Trib’s Loudoun bureau chief,” I said. “What’s your saying? ‘If it’s news, it’s news to us’?”

  She grinned. “It’s called agroterrorism. People doing bad things to crops or the water supply or livestock. Really remote far-out stuff. Don’t worry, they didn’t get an alert or anything like that. They just need to know about it.”

  I didn’t smile back. “Agro terrorism?”

  “Well, you know. Loudoun’s still an agricultural county, in spite of all the high-tech businesses out on Route 28. They’re just preparing for whatever, unlikely as it is.”

  Whatever. The topic of Pépé’s discussion at the Bohemian Grove in a few days. All of a sudden someone was talking about agroterrorism every time I turned around.

  “Sure,” I said as a small shudder ran down my spine.

  “Looks like a good party.” She scanned the crowd.

  “It is. You missed dinner, but Dominique made so much food we’ll have leftovers until Labor Day. You hungry? There’s French onion soup.”

  “Oh, God. I’ve died and gone to heaven. I’m starved. I didn’t leave the office all day. Ate the leftover stuff in the kitchenette. I think the sell-by date passed on a can of microwave chili.” She patted her stomach and looked uneasy. “Can you get botulism from that?”

  “I don’t know. You feel all right?” I flagged down a waitress and asked her to bring Kit a bowl of soup and fix a dinner plate.

  “I’m beat. More layoffs. The buyout days are over. Do more with less. You know the newspaper biz these days,” she said. “What’s left of it.”

  “Is your job in jeopardy?”

  She shrugged and looked defeated. “Everyone’s job is in jeopardy.”

  The waitress showed up with Kit’s soup and two glasses of white wine.

  “Mud in your eye,” Kit said and we clinked glasses. “Bobby told me you found Paul Noble the other day. That must have been grim.”

  “It was. I don’t suppose he shared any information about the autopsy results. If the medical examiner confirmed yet whether it was suicide or not.”

  “I sleep with the guy and it still doesn’t cut any ice. You know Bobby. Sometimes I think I’m the last to find out anything. He makes me work my ass off for it, too.”

  “I guess that’s a no.”

  “You guess right.” She picked up her spoon. “What are you doing tomorrow?”

  “Flying to California with my grandfather.”

  “You’re going, too? Wow, when did that happen? You taking him sightseeing?”

  “It just happened and it’s business for both of us. Pépé’s giving a talk and Mick asked me to check out some wine he might buy from a vineyard in Napa. We’ll be back Wednesday.”

  “Bobby told me about Luc’s talk. Why is Mick buying California wine?”

  “Someone put him on to a good deal.”

  She nodded and I was glad, suddenly, that Bobby hadn’t come along tonight because the reason I was traveling out West was i
ndirectly linked to Paul Noble’s death—at least in Charles Thiessman’s mind. I didn’t want to lie to Kit and I sure as hell couldn’t lie to Bobby, especially if there turned out to be some truth to what Charles had said.

  I sipped my wine and changed the subject to wedding talk, which Kit easily and willingly fell into. The deejay changed generations, switching from Stevie Wonder to Sinatra crooning “Fly Me to the Moon.” I leaned back against the stone arch, letting the music and candlelight and animated voices and laughter wash over me.

  Tomorrow I’d be in California, on the other side of the country, ostensibly to do an errand for Charles Thiessman and to accompany Pépé. But deep down I knew the real reason I was going was Quinn.

  Eli and I once threw dice to see whether we’d keep the vineyard or sell it after Leland died, and I won. Seeing Quinn felt like another all-or-nothing gamble. Did he miss me the way I missed him, and would he come back to Virginia or stay in California for good?

  I tilted my head and finished off my wine. By tomorrow at this time I’d probably know one way or the other.

  I fought off the feeling of foreboding that our meeting wasn’t going to go well and went back to discussing flowers and table linens with Kit as though I didn’t have a care in the world.

  Chapter 10

  I bolted upright in bed when my alarm went off at three thirty A.M., disoriented until memory kicked in. Our flight left at seven; I’d booked a town car for just after four o’clock. Across the hall, I heard my grandfather stirring. Maybe he’d never even gone to sleep. Forty-five minutes later a sleek black car waited outside the house, dashboard lights and GPS glowing eerily as the driver got out to put our bags in the trunk. Pépé and I dozed as the car sped off in the inky darkness, waking as the swooped gull-like wings of the main terminal at Dulles came into view against a rosy sky.