Eight Hundred Grapes (20 page)

“This is a woman that eviscerated you. And now she wants you.”

He shook his head, frustrated. “I never said she eviscerated me,” he said.

I looked at him in disbelief, that word locked in my brain from the time he’d volunteered it. Even if he was choosing to forget, it had power
that she had disappeared on Ben. And that she wanted the opposite now. This was hard enough when I imagined that Michelle was still with Clay, like the magazines said she was, like Ben had let me believe she was.

“Look, let’s focus on what matters, okay? Michelle knows that the best thing we can do together is be good parents to Maddie. She knows that. She knows that I love you. She knows that I’m marrying you.”

“Why?”

“Why am I marrying you?” he said.

It didn’t feel like a great time to ask that question. But I wondered: If what I’d thought was connecting us—honesty, friendship, a deep understanding—was gone suddenly, then what was between us?

“Why are you looking at me like that?” Ben said.

“Why are we moving to London, Ben? Is it for the job? Or did you find the job so you’d have a reason to be near them?”

“I wanted that job long before I knew about Maddie. You can’t really be suggesting I’d be that duplicitous. You can’t suggest you don’t know how long I wanted that job.”

Ben wasn’t wrong. It was a low blow. He had wanted that job and I knew that. We had talked about it late at night, many times. This was his dream job—working for the London firm, designing homes all over Europe. We had talked about whether my career would allow the move. The firm’s new London office made it easy. My desire to live abroad, to live in one of the greatest cities in the world, made it preferable.

But when he reminded me of that now, it just felt like another thing he was trying to prove.

Ben moved closer to me. I moved away.

“It’s hard for me to turn my back on Maddie,” he said. “When she needs me.”

“Who’s asking you to?” I said.

“Well, being there for Maddie, that means not turning my back on Michelle, either.”

“Meaning what?”

He shrugged. “I’m still trying to figure that out.”

That stopped me, especially when Michelle’s version of his being there probably meant I wouldn’t be.

Ben shook his head. “Let’s relax for a second,” he said. “Let’s take a walk.”

I heard a knock and looked in the direction of the house. We both did.

My mother stood by the sink, waving at us through the window to come inside. Michelle and Maddie were visible behind her, Michelle kneeling down so she and Maddie were eye level with each other.

My mother waved again as though the reason we were stuck in place was that we hadn’t seen her. Her words ran through my head.
Be careful what you give up.

Still, I met his eyes, taking in his smell, his sweetness. “I think you should leave.”

“You can’t be serious,” he said.

He reached forward and held my face, trying to make me look at him. Except I couldn’t look at him and not see all the stories he had kept private about his life this last year. There were breakfasts with Maddie, secret cards and phone calls, a million stories that he hadn’t shared—including the story about how much Michelle still loved him.

Wasn’t the ultimate form of fidelity whom you told your stories to? Ben had stopped telling me his.

Ben leaned forward. “If the situations were reversed, I would look to understand as opposed to the opposite. You know that I would. What does that say about what you want from me?”

I had no answer for him. All I knew was that my heart had moved in my chest, right into a place where it felt heavy and stuck.

“We’re getting married in five days, Georgia. Five days. Don’t you still want that?”

Ben met my eyes, asking me to say yes.

I didn’t say anything.

Then he walked out of the beautiful and empty wedding tent.

Sebastopol, California. 1999

W
hen she reached for his arm, Dan followed her into the dining room, irritated and tired.

“I just need to talk to you for a minute,” Jen said.

It was the night of the harvest party and he didn’t have time for this conversation. In a couple of days, Dan would have endless time. He was closing down for the season. The grapes had come in early. He was already putting chamomile on the vines. He would take her, his lovely wife, down the coast. He would take her to Los Angeles, a night at the symphony. He was ready to give her what she needed, just not tonight. Except tonight was when she wanted his attention.

“I got an offer,” she said. “To go to New York for five months. And substitute.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about the symphony. It’s not in the city. It’s outside, but it’s a good symphony. And they need a cellist. I’d be working with Henry Morgan again. Do you remember Henry?”

Dan did remember Henry and he didn’t like him. Jen had dragged him to Portland when Henry was in town, a guest conductor at the prestigious symphony there. They had drinks afterward at their hotel, Henry and Jen talking about music into the early morning hours. Dan would have excused himself and gone up to sleep, but he felt like he couldn’t leave them alone together. He didn’t like the way that Henry looked at his wife. He didn’t like the way Jen seemed to enjoy it.

“He’s a fantastic conductor.”

He bit his tongue, staying quiet. This was a trope of Jen’s—Henry’s brilliance. A trope that presented itself every so often. Not regularly enough to cause alarm, but enough to cause irritation. Jen noting any new symphony he moved to, Jen sharing a photograph of his son with a gorgeous model. As if that proved Henry’s brilliance.

“You want to take it? We could let someone take over the vineyard for a year.”

“We’d be back before then. I’d go next week. And we’d be back before the grapes finished coming in. You’d only miss part of it.”

“The quiet winter.”

She nodded. “The quiet winter.”

Though of course nothing was quiet these days. It was an exciting time to be in Sebastopol. It was the boom. Everyone was coming to Sebastopol. Winemakers were buying land, making Pinot Noir, people moving up from San Francisco to open restaurants, to open music stores. Sebastopol was getting a hotel. It was the community he’d always wanted. He didn’t want to leave it.

“You don’t want me to take it,” she said.

“I didn’t say that,” he said. Then he used the only ammunition he could think of. “But it will disrupt things for the kids.”

“They’re not kids anymore. They’re in high school. It won’t be the worst thing for them to experience school in New York. Your daughter will love it. She’ll never want to come back.”

He relented. “They’ll be fine. What are we really talking about?”

She shook her head. “You won’t like living in New York. You didn’t even like living in Burgundy. It made you queasy living away from here.”

What made him queasy was Jen bringing up the south of France, Marie standing in front of him. What he’d almost thrown away just to touch her. He had walked out of the room, though. Didn’t that count for something?

“Jen,” he said. “Why don’t we talk about this tomorrow? We can sit down and see how we can work it out. Because if you want to do this, we need you to do this. That’s important.”

“I have to tell them tonight.”

“Okay. So you do want this?”

She shook her head. “It is flattering that they want me still.”

“Of course they do.”

“There is a version in which I go alone. And you come and visit. We could do that too.”

He wasn’t going to separate again, not after what had happened last time. He didn’t think he was strong enough. Marie, standing before him.

“I’d rather go with you.”

She smiled, but it wasn’t loving.

“What?”

“That’s not the same thing as you saying you want to come, Dan.”

“I said I’ll go. I’ll go. What do you want from me, Jen?”

“What do you want from me?” she said.

She waited. It was clear that she wanted everything. She wanted the devotion that she gave to him. She wanted him to stop standing there, pretending he didn’t know these things.

He watched as she walked away from him. He should have stopped her. He should have insisted that they go because he knew how much she wanted it, even if she wasn’t saying it. She wanted to go back to New York if for no other reason than to remember how much she didn’t need to be in New York anymore. Having a taste of that life again would show her she had picked the one that mattered more to her.

What was there to debate? There was one thing for him to say.
The details don’t matter, we’ll figure it out.

He was ready to say it, what she most needed to hear.

“Jen,” he said.

But when she didn’t hear him, he didn’t say her name louder. He said it softer, like that was the very same thing.

Home

I
didn’t want to go back into the house—not until Michelle was gone—so I headed toward the vineyard, toward the winery, calling Suzannah on the way.

“What’s going on?” she said.

“I ended it.”

“What?” She sounded shocked. “What do you mean, you ended it? You’re getting married in five days!”

“Maddie’s mother showed up here and she’s still in love with Ben.”

“So I take it that you didn’t listen to my turtle analogy?”

“How does that apply?”

“Someone opened the door for her!”

I moved deeper into the vines, wanting to feel something besides what I was feeling. “How could he not tell me she wanted to be with him again?”

“How can you let her win?”

“I didn’t know it was a contest.”

“Of course it is!”

I thought of Michelle, stunning and sure of herself. She wasn’t particularly fond of me, though she was great with Maddie. And I could see how, given the chance, she’d be great to Ben.

“Then I’m going to lose.”

“No you’re not. So she’s a little famous. A little gorgeous.”

“Can someone be a little gorgeous?”

“So she’s more than a little gorgeous,” she said. “She’s incredibly gorgeous. You’re not so bad either.”

I laughed.

“Seriously, you’re smart and successful and the most loving person I know. Not to mention gorgeous in your own right. Michelle Carter has nothing on you.”

“Says my best friend.”

“And the man you’re supposed to be with,” Suzannah said.

She was quiet.

“It’s not too late to work this out with him.”

“Why are you pushing me to forgive him?”

“Because you did the wrong thing.”

My heart dropped. “Why are you saying that?”

“Because I have to.” She paused, as if considering how to convince me of that. “Charles cheated on me in high school. Have I told you that? I’m sure I’ve told you that.”

She had told me a hundred times. It was the first story Suzannah had shared, my first day at work, or, after work, when she’d taken me for a welcome-to-law-firm-hell drink. Law firms like to make enemies out of their female lawyers, she said. Let’s be best friends instead. Then she proceeded to prove her friendship by telling me that her husband had been unfaithful. Only halfway through the story did it become clear that Charles had cheated on her in high school. That she remembered it like yesterday, walking in and seeing him with the head of the drama club and clocking him in the head.

“If I hadn’t forgiven him, I would have given up an entire life with him. Our family. All the good things. I was rewarded for forgiving him. That is what I’m trying to say. Forgive Ben. You will be rewarded.”

“There is a difference here. Charles was fifteen when he lied to you.”

She paused. “Details. The point is, you guys are supposed to be together. You have the kind of relationship that is hard to find and even harder to keep. Just like ours, me and Charles.”

I shook my head, feeling like the opposite was true. Otherwise, how had we ended up here?

She was quiet. “Why don’t you come home?”

I thought of Los Angeles and my empty house there. I thought of London, which felt impossibly far away. I looked around at the beautiful vineyard, which was about to belong to someone else.

Suddenly, I had no idea where that was.

The History of Wine

M
y father liked to say that to understand how to make wine, you had to understand the history of wine. And wine’s history was long and deep, moving from its quiet beginnings in the fifth century
BC
in Southern France to the rest of the world. A history that archeologists had constructed from the scrapings of 2,500-year-old pottery containers holding the world’s oldest wine, flavored with thyme, rosemary, basil—the Roman invasion, hundreds of years later, introducing wine across France.

It was a long time before winemaking touched down in America. Early vineyards failed in Ohio and Kentucky. California had only gotten into the game two hundred years ago, with Sonoma County housing the first commercial winery, Buena Vista Winery. John Patchett followed suit and planted the first commercial vineyard in Napa Valley. Prohibition had nearly knocked out those early efforts. The wine revolution brought it back in a broader, more organized manner, leading to the modern era of winemaking—the pioneers of the 1960s and ’70s putting California wine on the map, readying it for the blind tastings in Paris, California wines the winners, prying open the hold that French wine had on the world.

My father said the history mattered, mostly because it explained the first thing you had to understand about wine: Wine came from itself. Even wine that was supposedly indigenous to its land still utilized grape clones from Europe, mined everything that had come before to try to get somewhere better.

I found my father standing by the sorting table, a worker beside him, the two of them going through the grapes. They were picking out the whole clusters that he was going to use. When you used whole clusters, stems and all, it added something to the wine—a richness, but a tartness too. The tartness was something that my father strove for, so he wasn’t throwing much away. This wasn’t a harvest for throwing away.