The Sauvignon Secret wcm-6

by Ellen Crosby

  The direct flight to San Francisco International arrived just before ten A.M. Pacific time. The Bay glittered like crushed dark diamonds as we began our final approach, and then the silvery blue city appeared from the thin haze of the marine layer, tip-tilted through the airplane window, a modern-day Atlantis emerging from the sea.

  Pépé had booked us at the Mark Hopkins, where he had often stayed after the war when the embassy sent him to the West Coast on business. The half-hour taxi ride zipped along a highway that hugged the Bay, passing an enormous white-lettered sign embedded in the side of a mountain that read SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO, THE INDUSTRIAL CITY. Pépé narrated our route as we drove by the stadium and reached the beginning of the Embarcadero where the driver turned up Market Street and cut over to California.

  American and California state flags snapped in the wind as we pulled into the hotel’s circular redbrick drive. A valet opened the cab door, letting in an unexpected sharp, cool breeze. Perhaps I imagined it carried the mingled exotic scents of nearby Chinatown spices and the salt tang of the Pacific, but whatever it was, the air smelled different here, nothing I recognized from home in Virginia.

  The hotel lobby was old-world opulent, alive and buzzing on a Sunday morning. I waited under a massive beaded crystal chandelier while Pépé sorted out our reservation for adjoining rooms with a Bay view, and then we took the elevator to the fourteenth floor. The first thing we did was open the curtains all the way and Pépé pointed out landmarks: the endless toy-sized bridge to Oakland, the TransAmerica pyramid, rows of piers jutting into the slate-colored water like an unfinished puzzle on the Embarcadero, and, peeking through holes in the marine layer, glimpses of Alcatraz, Treasure Island, and the round-shouldered mountains where Oakland and Berkeley lay on the other side of San Francisco Bay.

  I touched my grandfather’s arm. He looked pale and drawn in the cool morning light.

  “Would you like to lie down? We didn’t get much sleep last night.”

  For a moment I thought he was going to be annoyed with me for mothering him like Dominique did, but he nodded. “I might do that. What are your plans, chérie? Shall I order room service? You didn’t eat much breakfast on the plane.”

  “Neither did you,” I said. “I’m not really hungry, but you ought to eat something. Anyway, I promised Quinn I’d call him when we got here. I’m sure we’ll grab a bite to eat together.”

  “Quinn,” he said. “You have not spoken much about him. Is everything all right between the two of you?”

  “Of course it is. Why would you even ask?”

  “He has been gone awhile, hasn’t he?”

  “He’s coming back, Pépé. Don’t worry about it, okay? He’s just taking a break to sort out the sale of his mother’s house. I don’t know why everyone is making such a big deal about him being gone for a few months.”

  I shouldn’t have snapped at him, or sounded so defensive.

  “I apologize,” my grandfather said with stiff formality. “But it wasn’t ‘a big deal.’ Merely a question.”

  I laid my head on his shoulder. “I know and I’m sorry for being an idiot. I shouldn’t take my frustrations out on you.”

  “It’s all right.” He stroked my hair. “No apology necessary. But I guess you really ought to call him now, non?”

  I nodded, still feeling guilty, and went to get my phone, accidentally dialing Kit. I punched End Call before it rang, took a deep breath, and called Quinn’s number.

  Before I saw him later today, I needed to get my head screwed on right.

  Quinn’s phone went to voice mail. I left a message that I was in town and tried not to let my disappointment show. Pépé, who hadn’t gone to sleep after all and had ordered nothing more than a pot of coffee from room service, finally told me in the nicest possible way to quit wearing a path in the carpet and suggested maybe I ought to be the one to take a nap. Or pour myself a good strong drink from the minibar. I glanced at my watch. Eleven thirty here, two thirty in the afternoon at home. Was Quinn still helping out his friend at his vineyard? On a Sunday morning?

  My phone rang fifteen minutes later and I pounced on it.

  “Hey,” Quinn said, “what’d you do, take the red-eye?”

  “No.” My heart was pinging like a small hammer against my rib cage and I felt light-headed. “Nonstop that left Dulles at dawn.”

  “Huh. That was fast. Where are you staying?”

  “The Mark Hopkins.”

  He whistled. “Nice, veeerrrry nice.”

  “It is nice,” I said. “The view is to die for.”

  “Great. So what are your plans?”

  “Oh, nothing. Just … uh … getting settled.”

  “You up for a cup of coffee, maybe something to eat? Or you want to relax at your swanky hotel first?”

  “I’d love to get something to eat. And some coffee.”

  “All right, how about the Buena Vista? Best coffee in town. It’s dead easy for you to get there from the hotel.”

  “Sounds lovely. Is it a famous coffee shop?”

  He chuckled. “Oh, boy. This is gonna be fun. You’re not in Kansas anymore, sweetheart. You’ll find out when you get here.”

  “Real funny, Toto. Just give me directions and I’ll meet you, okay?”

  “The full San Francisco experience. Cable car. It’s the fastest way. Your stop is about a three-minute walk from the hotel. Walk down California to Powell and take the Powell and Hyde line to Beach Street. You get off at the last stop, Fisherman’s Wharf. Any farther and you’re in the water. The Buena Vista will be on your left, corner of Hyde and Beach. It’ll take you about twenty minutes tops, unless you have a long wait for a cable car.”

  I scribbled down his directions on a hotel phone pad as fast as he gave them. “What time?”

  “How about twelve thirty? Actually, better make it twelve forty-five. I’ll wait for you outside. Or you wait for me.”

  He hung up as Pépé walked over and stood in the doorway between our rooms. “Everything okay?”

  “I’m meeting Quinn at a coffee shop. A place called the Buena Vista.”

  Pépé’s eyes lit up. “Ah, the Buena Vista. I haven’t been there for years.”

  “You know it, too?”

  “Of course. It’s a San Francisco icon.”

  “What exactly is it?”

  He grinned and said, in the same teasing voice as Quinn, “You’ll find out when you get there.”

  I rolled my eyes. “I’m taking a shower.”

  Twenty minutes later I knocked on Pépé’s door and told him I was leaving. He was sitting at a large desk in front of the picture window, coffee growing cold, papers spread out around him and fanned out on the floor. Apparently he’d gotten a second wind. The papers looked like his talk for the Bohemian Grove. I went over and dropped a kiss on the top of his head.

  “I’ll be back later this afternoon. I’m not sure when. See you for dinner?”

  “If not dinner, at least for a martini at the Top of the Mark.”

  “I don’t drink martinis.”

  “You do at the Top of the Mark, ma chère. Everyone does.” He set down his pen. He still wrote all his speeches and correspondence with a Montblanc fountain pen that he’d used for years. My mother had given it to him. “I’ve phoned Robert Sanábria. He’s in town, so he and I might meet somewhere for lunch or a drink. I promise not to be back too late.”

  I grinned. It would be just like my octogenarian grandfather to be out on the town hours after I got back to the hotel, outlasting his much younger granddaughter and breezing into the room, ready for martinis at the Top of the Mark whatever the hour.

  “You’re such a party animal,” I said.

  He chuckled, looking pleased with himself. “You’re just saying that.”

  I got the last seat on an outdoor wooden bench facing the street when the dark-green-and-red cable car stopped on Powell Street ten minutes later. The conductor rang the bell, and I felt a giddy, manic thrill as we clim
bed Nob Hill then up and over Pacific Heights before plunging down the roller-coaster-steep street toward the water. There seemed to be no limit to the number of passengers the conductor was prepared to take on until, finally, the old-fashioned car was packed inside and out with people hanging on to the running board grab bars like barnacles on a ship. I glanced over my shoulder at the grip man inside the car, who flashed a practiced don’t-worry grin and pulled hard on the long cable handle. More people hopped on than jumped off, until finally the conductor tugged the bell and we continued our downward dive toward Fisherman’s Wharf.

  I got off at the corner of Hyde and Beach, as Quinn had instructed, and watched the two men manually rotate the wooden car on a large turntable—like a lazy Susan built into the street—so it could grind its way back up the hill. Above an olive drab brick building across the street a red neon sign read THE BUENA VISTA.

  Quinn wasn’t among the people milling in front of the restaurant, but I caught sight of him, the familiar way he ducked his head and balled his hands as he sprinted across Beach Street with the easy grace of an athlete. His curly salt-and-pepper hair, so long it was over his ears last time I saw him, was nearly as short as Bobby’s. He pulled off his sunglasses and scanned the crowd, grinning and waving when he caught sight of me. I waved back, smiled, and prayed he wouldn’t notice how nervous I was.

  Until this moment I hadn’t wanted to imagine our reunion, whether it would be stilted or awkward or, worst of all, excruciatingly polite and formal after our painful goodbye in my bedroom that April morning. But he pulled me to him in a swift, fierce embrace, and my arms automatically went around his neck gripping him tight. We stayed locked like that for a long time without speaking, clinging to each other in the middle of the sidewalk, as the crowd brushed past us.

  Finally he said in my ear, “I can’t believe you’re in San Francisco. It’s great to see you. You look terrific, Lucie.”

  He stepped back and I let go of his neck. He was dressed in a Hawaiian shirt—he owned a closetful of them, even collected them—and jeans. I knew every one of his shirts; this one—sage green with blue and tobacco-colored palm fronds and coconut shell buttons—was new.

  “Thanks. You look pretty terrific yourself. California agrees with you.”

  I regretted it the moment I said it, but it was true. He looked happy, content. The haunted, defeated look I remembered from back home last spring was gone. Here he’d made peace with himself, found a purpose, seemed fulfilled.

  Something new and self-conscious flashed in his eyes. I pretended to fiddle with my cane and wondered if, or when, he was going to tell me he wasn’t coming back to Atoka after all. This time it wasn’t about the vineyard and whether he would return as the winemaker. This time it was about us and where we were going from here. I felt like I was back on that dizzying downward cable car—this time with no brakes.

  He brushed my arm with the back of his hand, a familiar, remembered gesture. “How about a drink?”

  I managed to smile. “I thought you’d never ask.”

  He grinned back and suddenly we were on our old footing—the safe territory where we kidded each other a little but kept our guard up and our emotions locked down.

  “This isn’t exactly a little coffee shop,” I said. “Pépé knew about it, too. He said it’s a San Francisco icon.”

  Quinn took my elbow with one hand and reached for the door with the other.

  “Best Irish coffee outside of Dublin. And breakfast all day. You hungry, Virginia lady?”

  “Starved,” I said. “The last real meal I had was Dominique’s French onion soup at our July fourteenth party last night.”

  He faltered as he followed me into the restaurant. Then he recovered and said, “I love her French onion soup. Fireworks good?”

  “The best yet. Next year will be even better. You’ll see.”

  “Yeah, pretty soon we’ll be outrivaling the ones on the National Mall on the Fourth.”

  I was glad he said “we.”

  The Buena Vista was packed and noisy, an old-fashioned place of dark woodwork, mustard-colored walls, lazily spinning ceiling fans, and a long row of picture windows overlooking a leafy park with the Bay as a backdrop. People stood three deep at the bar, which ran the length of the restaurant, or sat jammed together around small tables lined up underneath the windows. The high tin ceiling amplified the laughter and chatter until it overflowed the room, absorbing Quinn and me into the easygoing crowd.

  “Come on,” he said in my ear. “You’ve got to see this.”

  A couple moved away from the bar and Quinn shouldered us into their places, ordering two Irish coffees from a white-jacketed bartender who nodded and lined up a row of glass mugs. I watched the blur of movement as he made our coffees and about a dozen others, assembly-line style, pouring and sloshing hot coffee and Tullamore Dew Irish whiskey from a few feet in the air with flair and the absolute abandon of one who didn’t have to mop up the counter or floor at the end of the day. With maestrolike finesse he finished by pouring a thick head of cream into the mugs off the back of a silver spoon. I waited for the cream to turn the drink caramel-colored but instead it remained a perfect two-inch layer that sat on top of the coffee.

  “How’d he do that?” I murmured to Quinn.

  “Magic.” He took our mugs and said, “The table behind you just opened up. Grab it while I pay for this, okay?”

  We sat across from each other at a scarred table as the jostling crowd closed in around us. A waiter came by and opened a small ventilation window above our heads with a long wooden pole.

  “Welcome to San Francisco,” Quinn said.

  The coffee was hot and strong, and the whiskey and cream went down like silk. He grinned, watching my face.

  “Pretty good, huh?”

  “Stop me after this one or you’ll have to carry me out.”

  “I’ve done that before.”

  “You helped me. You didn’t carry me.”

  He slurped his coffee. “That’s not how I remember it.”

  We should not have traveled this road. It was one of the nights we’d gone to bed together. He looked like he realized belatedly, too. I stared into my mug while he studied the bartender making another round of drinks.

  He picked up the two menus on the table and handed one to me. “How about something to eat? They make great eggs Benedict.”

  I set down my menu. “I can’t do this, Quinn.”

  “Do what?”

  “You know what. Act like we’re on a blind date that isn’t working out when the soup’s arrived and it’s a five-course meal.”

  He laughed, looking rueful.

  “I know.” He took one of my hands in his. “I left you with a lot on your plate when I took off and I’m sorry about that.”

  “It’s okay—”

  “Let me finish.”

  “Sorry.”

  “I still have some stuff I’ve got to work out here,” he said. “In California.”

  “Does that mean you’re not—?”

  He put a finger to his lips. “Listen, okay? I promised I wouldn’t let you down for harvest and I won’t.”

  I pulled my hand away and gripped my coffee mug. Harvest. That was all we’d ever talked about. Nothing else, just this year’s harvest.

  “What about after that?”

  “Lucie, don’t.”

  “You don’t know or you won’t say?”

  “Probably I don’t know, so I can’t say.”

  “I want you to come back.” My voice cracked and for once I didn’t mind that he knew I was pleading. “For good.”

  “I know,” he said. “I care too much about you to screw this up. I’ve never been any good at relationships, you know that. A failed marriage … a bunch of women after that … no one who lasted.”

  “Then take your time.” I locked my eyes on his. “Just don’t shut me out, please?”

  If I looked away, broke the spell, then maybe he’d say no. I’d clenched my t
eeth together so hard my jaw hurt. He nodded slowly and I relaxed.

  “I won’t,” he said. “But let’s take this one day at a time.”

  If I pushed, I’d lose him. “Okay. I can do that.”

  He touched his glass against mine. “I know you can.”

  We drank our Irish coffee without speaking, but at least the silence was no longer tense or even melancholy.

  “So,” I said, “are you going to show me San Francisco, California guy? How long before I start wearing flowers in my hair?”

  He grinned and glanced at his watch. “Any minute now. They just show up. Usually right here.” He reached over and tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. “And may I say that it is your uncommon good luck that I happen to be a fabulous tour guide? I know rings around those hop-on hop-off bus people.”

  “So humble,” I said. “I’ve missed that about you.”

  “Wait until I take you to Napa, sweetheart. I’ll show you places that’ll make you think you’re in the Garden of Eden.”

  I’d nearly forgotten the real reason I was here. Charles’s little mission cloaked in a wine-buying trip for Mick. Now I’d involved Quinn as well—asking him to face the daughter of the man he once worked for without telling him what was at stake.

  “I can’t wait,” I said. “I’m sure it will be wonderful.”

  He gave me a shrewd look. “What?” he said. “I’m not dissing Virginia, you know, so don’t give me that cross-eyed stare you do so well about Virginia being first in wine because of Jamestown and Thomas Jefferson and California being late to the game.”

  “There’s something I have to tell you,” I said.

  He sucked in his breath and watched me warily.

  “No.” I held up my hand. “It has nothing to do with us.”

  “Is this what was so ‘complicated’ yesterday?”

  I nodded. “It wasn’t Mick’s idea to buy wine from Brooke Hennessey. Charles Thiessman set it up. You remember Charles, don’t you?”

  “Does he really exist? I thought he was like Mosby’s ghost, only appearing on moonless nights to haunt other vineyard owners. He’s too good to mingle with the rest of the Virginia winemaking riffraff.”