Eight Hundred Grapes (6 page)

For my twenty-first birthday, I’d come home from college so the five of us could have lunch at the fanciest restaurant—up the road in Yountville. The French Laundry:
named after the actual French laundry that had occupied the countryside house before the restaurant did. This restaurant, among the best in the world, served you nine courses and the best wine you’d ever tasted. We weren’t just celebrating my birthday, that day. The French Laundry had recently added my father’s wine to their extensive wine list. Block 14. Estate Pinot Noir. 1992. My father’s favorite Pinot. It was still grown exclusively on those initial ten acres, and we were giddy seeing it on the menu, knowing people from all over the world would be drinking it. For two hundred and fifty dollars a bottle. My father ordered two bottles in the hopes it would help it stay on the menu.

As I passed The French Laundry, I shifted back to that special afternoon. Bobby had announced that he was going to ask Margaret to marry him. Finn had screamed that no matter how beautiful she was, he was crazy to get married when he was barely able to legally rent a car. Bobby then announced that Margaret was pregnant. The two bottles of wine hadn’t helped anything.

Ben and I planned to take my family to the restaurant as a thank-you to my parents for hosting our wedding at their home. Was that one more thing that wasn’t happening? First the thank-you meal, then the wedding?

I took a left off of Washington Street onto the side street housing Murray Grant Wines, parking in one of only two spaces available out front next to an old Honda.

I looked at the contract I’d swiped from the winemaker’s cottage to make certain I was at the correct address. It didn’t feel like I was. That was the thing about wine country in Northern California. It was a small world, but with two distinct factions. There was rural and peaceful Sonoma County in one corner, commercial Napa Valley in the other. Some would argue that the divide was diminishing—Sonoma County was industrializing their wine, the same way Napa Valley had, decades earlier. For now, the divide still existed, small Sonoma producers still the David to the Goliath of corporate conglomerates like Murray Grant.

But, surprisingly, the offices of Murray Grant Wines
were hardly an evil, intimidating complex. This place looked as though it belonged in Sebastopol: the hidden second story at the back of a small courtyard, with vines lining the staircase, and red, yellow, and orange plants in every window. Bright green shutters. It looked less like a corporate office and more like an artist’s apartment.

I knocked on the screen door, to which I got a distant reply of, “It’s open.”

I walked into the waiting area, which had no chairs, no sofa, just an empty receptionist desk, and a very nice painting of a pear behind it. For some reason, I kept staring at it. The pear. Its bright green hue pulled me in, slightly magical.

“It’s mesmerizing, right?”

I turned to see a man in the doorway of the office, looking at the pear with his head tilted to one side. He was wearing jeans and one of those zipper cashmere sweaters with a tie sticking out from beneath it. He was good-looking, in a way, but nowhere near as good-looking as he thought he was, standing there in that brazen East Coast way that reminded me of some guys I’d met at law school. The Masters of the Universe guys. This guy carried their vibe. Brandishing a half smile.

“I haven’t been able to figure out what it is about the painting, exactly. And I’ve tried,” he said. “At first I thought it was because my mother painted it, but everyone seems to focus on it. So it must be something. There must be something there.”

He turned from the painting and we made eye contact for the first time.

“It’s you,” he said.

“Excuse me?”

“The bride. From the bar.”

That threw me. I looked at him, confused.

“I almost didn’t recognize you because your hair was up in that bun.” He paused. “Falling out of that bun . . .”

I reached up and touched my hair, which now cascaded over my shoulders, moving from its Los Angeles straight toward Sonoma curly. “What are you saying, exactly?”

He cocked his head. “It looks much better like this.”

He motioned toward the top of his head—his own thick hair—as if he were waiting for me to return the compliment. Instead, I pulled on my T-shirt, wishing I had worn something more lawyerly. He didn’t seem to notice, though. He was still stuck on my wedding dress.

“I was there when you came in last night at the small table by the fireplace . . .”

He made a triangle sign with his hand, trying to demonstrate. He pointed to the index finger to show where I was, and the opposite thumb to indicate himself.

“You know what? Reverse that. I was there with my girlfriend. She was talking about chia. She loves chia. She puts it on everything. Salad. Oatmeal. Pasta. Apparently it’s good for you. Did you know that?”

I nodded, slimy chia a staple at trendy Los Angeles restaurants. Still, this was not the way I wanted this conversation to start. This guy, somehow, in control.

“Anyway, I didn’t want to try the chia, so I was looking around the bar, and then you appeared. And now you’re here. That’s so weird. Don’t you think that’s so weird?”

“No,” I said.

Though, honestly, I thought it was. Who was this person? What was he doing in my brothers’ bar fifty minutes away from here? And why did it seem odd that he remembered me? After all, I was dressed slightly more formally than everyone else.

“Why did you walk out on your wedding?” he said.

I looked at him, completely taken aback. “I didn’t walk out on my wedding.”

“I did that once,” he said. “Or, actually, I guess I had that done to me. If we are being precise about it.”

I put my hands up, trying to halt this conversation. “I didn’t walk out on my wedding, okay?”

He held up his hands in surrender. “Okay . . .” he said. “I get it. You didn’t walk out on your wedding.”

“Thank you.”

“So why exactly were you in your wedding dress then?” he said, confused.

“I walked out on my final dress fitting. That’s not the same thing.”

He nodded, like he was contemplating that. “I guess that’s different.”

“It is.”

“Right. For one thing, you aren’t humiliating anyone on what is supposed to be the happiest day of his life. For another, you can get the deposits back. On most things.”

“On all things,” I said.

He paused. Then he tilted his head. “Well . . . probably not on that dress.”

“Look, I’m actually just looking for Jacob McCarthy,” I said.

He looked around the empty office, empty except for him. “Apparently I’m Jacob McCarthy.”

I hated the way he said his full name, so proud of himself. I wished that Jacob McCarthy had an idea that I was a serious lawyer as opposed to someone he met in her wedding dress, not on her wedding day.

“What can I help you with?” he said.

“I want to talk to you about The Last Straw Vineyard.”

He motioned toward his office. “Then come in,” he said.

He stepped out of the way, so I could walk inside. I did so reluctantly, clutching the contract closer to my chest. The actual office—
his
actual office—was nice. It was designed with soft white couches and an enormous antique desk, and another painting—this one of a giant red tomato—behind his desk.

“Also my mother’s,” he said, pointing at the painting. “She has a thing for fruit.”

“That’s so nice for her.”

He smiled, ignoring my tone, sitting on the edge of his desk. “What’s your interest in The Last Straw? Besides the obvious?”

“What do you mean?”

He shrugged. “It’s great wine.”

I folded my arms across my chest, not letting that throw me. “It’s my family’s vineyard,” I said. “And I’m concerned about the sale. We all are, quite frankly. Some of us just aren’t aware of it yet.”

“Georgia. Of course. The family resemblance, right around the mouth.”

He motioned around his own mouth.

“You’re definitely your father’s daughter. It’s nice to meet you. You have a great family. I love your family.”

“You don’t know them.”

“I disagree.”

Then he reached over for a glass jar on his desk, full of long pieces of licorice, and held the jar out to me.

“Are you serious?” I said.

“Why wouldn’t I be serious? Licorice is the best candy there is, and, as an added bonus, it has been used since ancient times for a variety of medicinal purposes. Including the relieving of stress
.
”

“Still going to pass,” I said.

He took a piece out of the jar, then took a huge bite. “Your choice,” he said. “Though not the right one.”

“I’m not interested in this,” I said. “Whatever you’re trying to do here.”

He smiled. “And what am I trying to do here?”

“I don’t know. Charm me.”

“Why would I want to do that?”

“Because you know this contract is rife with error and it’s not too late for me to nullify it.”

“You sound like a lawyer.”

“I am. And I negotiate sales much larger than this on a daily basis.”

“Well, you probably have one up on me, then . . .”

He pointed to his degrees on the wall, mounted in fancy frames. Proof that he was a jerk, those degrees in such fancy frames. Cornell University College of Agriculture, Cornell Law School.

“I went to law school, but I never practiced,” he said.

“How about viticulture? Did you practice that?”

He smiled. “I can assure you, your father is getting a great deal.”

“That’s beside the point.”

“What is the point?”

I was honest, as hard as it was to say it out loud to a stranger. “My father’s going to regret it.”

He looked at me. “You think so?” he said.

And, suddenly, it looked like he cared. His eyes went soft, and the smirk disappeared.

I nodded, meeting his eyes and trying to impart my true feelings about how much my father was going to regret this. “I do.”

He nodded, like he’d heard that.

“Hmm. I don’t,” he said.

Then he started rummaging through papers on his desk, my hope of him being a reasonable and kind person deflating.

I pointed at him. “Escrow hasn’t closed yet. You don’t take possession until after the new year.”

“I believe that was so someone could get married on the property,” he said. “Isn’t that next weekend?”

“Don’t insult me.”

“I’m not insulting you. I’m just letting you know that all the contingencies have been met. Your dad requested that we not transfer ownership until after your wedding. Until they’re able to close up the house.”

“I intend to contest this sale, Mr. McCarthy.”

He shot me a look.

“No one’s called me Mr. McCarthy. Like ever.” He paused. “I don’t like it.”

Which was when my phone buzzed. Suzannah appeared on the screen with a text message.

Ben called me and told me what was going on!!

Where are you? Call me already, so I can tell you what to do. After I yell at you for sticking me with this case. (Still at work and furious btw.)

Jacob was staring at the phone. “Who is Ben? The jilted groom?”

I put my phone away. “I’m just here to talk about the sale,” I said.

He laughed. “Then there’s nothing to talk about,” he said. “That isn’t your business.”

“My father’s well-being is my business.”

He nodded. “So you should know that the contract has been signed and notarized. His business is now . . . my business.”

Then he smiled—a smug, assured-of-itself smile, his going-out-on-a-limb-for-no-one smile. Which was when I decided it. How much I couldn’t stand him.

“Good of you to come by. Though I think we should probably end this conversation,” he said.

“I couldn’t agree more,” I said as I headed out the door.

A Guy Named Mark and a Guy Named Jesse

W
hen I got back to the house, the sun was setting over the vineyard. The magic hour, as my father would call it. So much of what my father did at the vineyard, he did after the sun was down. The magic hour, the time before he went to work, involved respecting where the vineyard had gotten to in the daylight. After dark, when the grapes were on the vines, he’d help pick. If they were off, he’d help care for the soil, or care for the wine.

My father also thought it was the magic hour for another reason. The sky turned an odd shade of yellow, which he swore it never had before he started working the land. He said it was reflected that way because of the land—how lush and vibrant the land had become.

I was too exhausted to get into it with anyone. But Finn was sitting at the kitchen counter, wearing his backward baseball cap and running shorts, looking like the little-boy version of himself, back from pitching practice. He was eating an enormous piece of my mother’s famous lasagna, straight from the baking pan.

This was the big joke of the lasagna. We all loved it. Never once did it actually make it to the kitchen table for dinner. No matter how pissed we were at each other—all of us would sit at the counter and eat it as soon as my mother took it from the oven to cool. Burning our tongues on it.

She made the lasagna with olives and tomatoes from the vineyard, spinach, five cheeses, and something else she wouldn’t ever confess to.
Finn swore he’d walked in once and seen her adding chocolate chips to the bottom layer of noodles. We had spent years, cumulatively, searching for a sign of them.

Finn looked up as I walked into the kitchen. “I was bribed,” he said.

“I can see that.”

He took a large bite as I climbed on the stool across from him and put the contract down on my lap. It was a reminder—as if I needed one—that if I didn’t figure out what to do, this could be the last time I’d be sitting in this house with Finn, eating our mother’s lasagna, staring out at a vineyard that we would soon have to say our family used to own.

Finn puffed his cheeks out and tried to cool the lasagna already in his mouth. Then he shoveled more inside. “Mom didn’t want to be alone with you,” he said. “She called in reinforcements.”

“So she told you about her and Dad?”