Once Upon a Wine (5 page)

D
espite their bravado, all three women breathed sighs of relief as they piled into Ginger's car and sped away from the vineyard. After circling the town square for ten minutes, stalking beachgoers heading to their cars, Ginger finally found a parking spot.

“How long has this place been here, and why didn't it exist when we spent weeks at a time here?” Kat marveled as they entered the Whinery.

The barroom looked like a grown-up version of a princess-themed tea party. Pink, black, and silver were everywhere, accented with toile wallpaper and crystal chandeliers. Instead of mixed nuts or pretzels, the bar featured silver candy dishes filled with M&M's, Hershey's Kisses, and miniature peanut butter cups. The overall effect was unapologetically feminine, right down to the Annie Lennox song playing on the stereo.

Cammie parked herself on the stool nearest the bartender, a
curly-haired brunette in a snug black T-shirt. “Hi. Can I just lease this stool for the summer? Because I'm never leaving.”

The bartender smiled, but she looked tired. There were dark smudges under her eyes. “Leasing out stools for the season? That's not a bad idea, actually. I could make little engraved plaques for each one.”

“She's full of good ideas.” Ginger placed her hands on Cammie's shoulders. “She owned a restaurant, you know.”

“Oh yeah?” The bartender looked interested.

Cammie flushed and stared down at the glossy black bar top. “I'm just a waitress now.”

“She's being too modest. She dropped everything to fly out here and help me.” Ginger fluffed her hair. “I just bought the vineyard at the north end of town.”

The bartender looked confused. “Which town?”

“Right here.” Ginger tapped the bar. “Black Dog Bay.”

“There's a vineyard in Black Dog Bay?”

“That's exactly what I said.” Kat sat down next to Cammie.

The bartender's confusion turned to skepticism. “You're sure?”

“We're sure,” Cammie said. “Because we're currently living there.”

“Huh.” The bartender leaned back, nodding. “I feel like if there was a vineyard in town, I would have heard about it by now.”

“We think the previous owners were there only a few weeks a year,” Ginger said. “They lived in New York.”

The bartender nodded. “We have some pretty, um, eccentric summer residents, all right. So what varietals do you grow?”

Ginger looked at Cammie. “Um . . .”

“What's the terroir like?”

Cammie fidgeted in her seat. “Well . . .”

“Is the wine any good?”

“We're hoping you can tell us.” Ginger produced a metal thermos with great éclat. “You're the local wine expert.”

The bartender grinned. “Not to brag, but I do have an amazing palate.”

“So, maybe you can start stocking our wine?” Ginger all but poured the wine down the bartender's throat. “Local businesses supporting each other and all that.”

“The soft sell,” Kat murmured. “Look into it.”

“If you don't ask, you don't get,” Ginger countered. “Look into
that
.”

“I'm always happy to support local business owners.” The bartender extended her right hand. “I'm Jenna, by the way.”

The women all introduced themselves while Jenna located a wineglass. Cammie held her breath as Jenna took a small sip.

“Well?” Ginger couldn't contain herself. “How is it?”

Jenna spat the wine back into the glass. “It's . . .”

“Yes? Yes?”

“It's . . . interesting.”

Cammie dropped her head into her hands. “I knew it.”

Ginger sank onto the barstool next to Cammie's. “Well, I mean, we know it's not
good
, but it's not
awful
. Right?”

Jenna's gaze slid sideways.

“Let me taste that,” called a willowy blonde at the end of the bar. “My palate is cheap and easy.”

“Be my guest.” Jenna poured another glass and slid it across the bar in a practiced, Old West–saloon move.

“Thank you.” The blonde lifted her glass in a salute to Cammie, Ginger, and Kat. “Cheers.”

She sipped. Everyone else leaned forward, waiting.

Finally, Ginger could stand it no longer. “Well?
Well
?”

Unlike Jenna, the blonde managed to force the wine down with what appeared to be Herculean effort. She raised her gaze to the ceiling, searching for an apt comparison. “It kind of reminds me of this wine I had at a restaurant in France.”

“France!” Ginger nudged Cammie. “France is good, right?”

“After we finished dinner, the restaurant told us that they'd just served us the crappiest wine they'd ever come across to prove that ignorant Americans will drink anything.” The woman got up and left her glass, still full, on the bar.

“Summer, did you know there's a vineyard in town?” Jenna asked the newcomer.

The other woman shook her head. “No. And I know everything that goes on around here.” She offered a handshake to Ginger. “Hi, by the way. I'm Summer Benson.”

“Ginger Sheridan, proud vineyard owner. It's inland, over by Lewes.”

“Huh.” Summer looked back at the abandoned wineglass. “Well, I'm sure it's going to be great.”

“She's humoring us,” Kat informed Cammie and Ginger.

Ginger responded by clasping her hands together and begging Jenna. “But you'll put it on your menu, right? You'll give it a chance?”

Jenna ducked down and started rummaging through a supply cabinet. “Um . . .”

“We have a white wine, too.” Ginger looked prepared to kneel on the floor and grovel. “Maybe that one's better.”

Jenna ran a hand through her hair and managed to avoid replying to Ginger by focusing on a new arrival. “Hey!” She sounded almost accusatory to the man who walked through the bar's front door. “What are you doing here? Again?”

The tension in Jenna's tone made Cammie frown. She turned to Summer and muttered, “Ex-boyfriend?”

“Worse,” Summer whispered back. “Health inspector.”

“Good afternoon, ladies.” The health inspector, a dour middle-aged man with a cheap sport coat and an air of superiority, gave them a smile. “Taking time out of your busy day for a little girl talk
at”—he glanced at his watch—“three o'clock? Must be nice not to have to work.”

Summer opened her mouth and took a deep breath, but before she could launch into a tirade, Jenna said, “I assume you're here about the cooler?”

“I am.” The inspector gave a curt nod. “You've replaced it?”

“Well, no.” Jenna's smile was placating. “But I found a solution that should keep everybody happy.”

The man's expression darkened. “I expressly told you to replace it.”

“I know, but . . .” Jenna couldn't suppress a little eye roll. “Just come back and see, okay?”

The two of them adjourned to the bar's back room. Two minutes later, the health inspector strode back into the bar with a smirk on his lips. Jenna followed, sputtering and stammering.

“You're kidding!” she cried. “I paid five hundred dollars for that!”

“Then you wasted your money.” The inspector whipped out a little pad and pen. “Because you ignored my recommendations.”

“This is ridiculous!” Jenna threw her hands up. “This is just . . .”

The inspector arched a brow. “Just what?”

Jenna wrestled with her temper for a few moments, then went stone-faced. “Nothing. Have a good day. Sir.” Her tone said “go to hell,” but her words were sufficiently polite.

“You, too.” He brushed an imaginary speck off the sleeve of his jacket. “I trust that will be fixed before I come back.”

Jenna just waved, a choppy gesture of dismissal.

As soon as the inspector left the premises, Jenna whirled to Summer. “I can't do this anymore! This is unfair! This is harassment!”

“He does seem a little uptight,” Ginger said soothingly.

“Seriously. What's his problem?” Kat asked.

“He's a petty, petty man on a power trip—that's his problem.” Jenna glowered. “I just spent twenty-six hundred dollars on a cooler, and he refuses to let me keep it in the restaurant because it has a beer logo painted on the side.”

“So what? This is a bar,” Cammie pointed out.

“I know!” Jenna looked ready to started throwing glasses. “And it's in the back! The customers can't even see it! I bought it at a used-equipment sale, and since I'd already spent the twenty-six hundred dollars, I decided it'd be cheaper to repaint than replace it.”

Everyone nodded in sympathy.

“It cost five hundred dollars to get it repainted, and now that . . . that
evil man
is saying I still have to get rid of it.”

Summer looked outraged. “Can he do that?”

“He can do anything he wants. He's the health inspector.” Jenna turned to Cammie. “You were smart, getting out of the restaurant business. I swear to you, between the health inspector and the drunken debauchery and the constant threat of lawsuits—”

“There was only one lawsuit threat, and I took care of it,” Summer said.

“—I've had it with the hospitality industry.” Jenna brushed her palms against her crisp black apron. “I'm done. Hear me? Done.”

“Stop talking crazy,” Summer said. “The heartbreak tourists need you, and you know it.”

Cammie and Kat glanced at each other, bewildered. “Heartbreak tourists?”

“Yeah. Black Dog Bay is the ‘best place in America to bounce back from your breakup.'” Summer looked aggrieved that they hadn't heard this. “It's all over the media.”

“It's pretty recent.” Jenna pulled up some news stories on her phone. “But it was a big deal around here.”

“That explains the business names,” Kat mused. “The Jilted Café, the Rebound Salon, the Eat Your Heart Out bakery . . .”

Cammie peered at the store signs lining the streets. “What's the Naked Finger?”

“That's where you can sell your wedding rings after you divorce,” Jenna said.

“Everyone here knows what it's like to start over,” Summer said. “This is more than just another pretty beach town. We've got it all—magic dog included.”

Cammie smiled, certain she'd misheard. “Magic dog?”

“You'll see.”

Ginger appealed to Jenna. “So, about our wine . . . ?”

Jenna shook her head, regret evident in her brown eyes. “Sorry. Maybe next year.”

Kat, Cammie, and Ginger spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around town, introducing themselves to other business owners and telling themselves they were networking. Laying the groundwork for success. Building an empire.

Really, of course, they were delaying their return to the vineyard. Prolonging their blissful denial. But as the sun sank into the sparkling blue Atlantic, Ginger sighed and announced, “We'd better go back.”

They drove back to the Lost Dog Vineyards in silence, each woman thinking about her own plight. When they arrived at the long, uneven road that led to the main house, the grapevines looked even more fragile, the house even more ancient.

“Time for bed,” Ginger announced in the same tone she'd used when Cammie and Kat were seven.

They obliged, hauling suitcases up the stairs to the small bedrooms. The sleek, modern Danish headboard and nightstands in Cammie's room were jarring juxtapositions to the faded rose wallpaper and worn, whitewashed floorboards.

The previous owners had never really understood this place, that was certain. Cammie didn't know if she'd ever understand it,
either. She pulled on a threadbare, oversize T-shirt and rested atop the fluffy down comforter on the bed. Even with the windows open, the house was stifling. They were too far from the ocean to get a cool breeze.

She stared up at the ceiling and tried to fall asleep. Instead, she thought about Ian. Yes, the end had been awful. But the beginning had been so good.

She didn't want to think about the beginning. She didn't want to think about him at all. Yet somehow, impossibly, she could smell the strawberries he'd grown. The sweet, ripe scent drifted up from the kitchen.

Finally, an hour later, when the whole house had gone silent and still, she gave up on sleep and padded downstairs in her bare feet. If she had to face her past, she'd face it with a drink—courtesy of her mother's secret recipe.

C
ammie flipped on the kitchen light and breathed in the scent of the berries heaped in a bowl on the counter. The summer she'd met Ian, she'd stumbled across her mother's recipe for strawberry wine, which she'd filed away in her digital archives and forgotten about until now.

Her mother and Ginger used to drink this on summer evenings by the shore. Cammie and Kat had begged for a taste, imagining it tasted like Kool-Aid, but their mothers had never relented. “When you're grown up,” Cammie's mother had promised her.

Well, now she was grown up. And she wanted to share this tradition with her mother, if only in spirit. She found a large stainless-steel pot in a cabinet, filled it with water, and added several cups of sugar. While she waited for the water to boil, she washed the berries and hulled them with a paring knife.

By the time she'd finished with the berries, she had sweet pink
juice on her fingers and total recall of the summer she'd been so determined to forget.

•   •   •

She'd just turned twenty-two and she had big dreams for the future. On her birthday, she'd legally gained access to the inheritance her mother had left, which her father had carefully invested for the previous ten years. The first thing she'd done was buy a car (used, but she'd splurged on the leather interior and sunroof; she figured her mother would approve). As she sped down the beach town's back roads, cruising past a cornfield in her little red coupe, she turned the music up and rolled down the window. Finally, real life was about to begin. Nothing could stop her.

The car slowed.

Frowning, Cammie stepped on the gas. The car slowed down even more. She steered onto the gravel shoulder as the car rolled to a stop.

She turned off the ignition, took her hands off the wheel, and started cursing. As she dug through the glove compartment for the user manual, she heard the crunch of gravel. A rusty blue pickup truck had pulled up in front of her.

“I don't need any help!” she yelled as she heard footsteps approaching.

“Flat tire?” a male voice asked.

Cammie glanced up to find a very cute, very tan guy standing by the driver's-side window. “No, I think it's engine trouble.”

“Yeah? What makes you think that?”

She gave him a very quick, very insincere smile. “The fact that the engine stopped. One minute it was running; the next minute, nothing.”

“Did you hear a banging noise? Rattling?” He leaned down, rested his forearms on the roof of the car, and positioned his face
closer to hers. He had dark, kind eyes and a dusty blue baseball cap covering his brown hair.

She shrugged one shoulder. “I didn't hear anything because I had the music cranked up to eleven.”

He nodded. “Can I take a look?”

She shifted in her seat. “I don't need some guy to bail me out. I can handle this.”

“Let me help. I want you to owe me a favor.” He grinned, and she had to smile back. A real smile this time.

“I bet you say that to every girl stranded by the side of the road.” But she handed over her keys.

He opened her car door for her and offered his hand to help her out.

She placed her hand in his, and as she stood up to look him in the eye, she was acutely aware of the cobalt sky above them, the gritty gravel on the ground beneath them, and the endless rows of green corn stalks all around them. Life came into focus, sharp and clear and almost painfully vivid.

She pulled her hand away and let her hair fall over her face, trying to pretend that the moment hadn't happened, that he hadn't felt it, too.

He slid into the driver's seat of her car. After turning the key in the ignition, he immediately got out of the car. “I found the problem.”

She took a deep breath, determined to steady herself. “That fast? Damn, you're like the car whisperer.”

“You're out of gas.”

“What? No, I'm not.” She ducked down to peer at the dashboard.

He pointed out a glowing yellow symbol. “The little gas tank light's on.”

She waved this away. “Yeah, but when it comes on, I still have thirty-three miles.”

He looked at her. “How long has the light been on?”

She mentally calculated the distance between her aunt's cottage and the cornfield. “For about twenty miles? There's a gas station five miles thataway. I have an eight-mile cushion!”

He glanced at the dashboard vents. “Have you been running the A/C?”

“Um . . .”

“Because that's going to affect your mileage.” Before she could reply, he assured her, “This happens to everyone out here. It's harder to fill up when the nearest gas station is clear across town.”

“But I . . .” Cammie pressed one hand to her cheek, mortified. “I don't do stuff like this. I'm really smart, I swear. I just graduated magna cum laude.”

“They're not going to take away your diploma for this.” He settled back against the car, watching her. “I'm Ian McKinlay.”

“Cammie. Cammie Breyer.” She reached up and toyed with the silver pendant at her neck. “So, what are you doing out here in the cornfields, Ian?”

“Working. These are my family's fields.”

She regarded him with renewed interest. “You're a farmer?”

He laughed, his smile easy and white. “Yes.”

“Is that the right word?”

“Yeah. I'm a farmer.”

“I've never met an actual farmer before.” After growing up in the suburbs, the idea of farming seemed like something out of a fairy tale or a TV series. Not real life. Not something someone her age would do.

“It's your lucky day. Farmers are the best.” He strode over to the nearest green stalk. “Here, take some with you. Best sweet corn you'll ever have.”

“No, thanks.”

“Take it,” he insisted. “You'll thank me later.”

“I don't like corn,” Cammie confessed.

“What?” Ian looked almost offended. “Everybody likes sweet corn.”

“Everybody except me.”

“You'll like this. This is a whole different experience from the corn you've had before. Just try it.” He handed her the corn, and she accepted without further protest. “So, what do you do?”

“Right now, I'm waitressing, but I'm starting graduate school in the fall.”

Ian closed the car door and turned toward his truck. “Come on. I'll drive you into town, and you can get a few gallons at the gas station.”

Cammie fell into step beside him, and they were halfway to his truck before her magna-cum-laude common sense kicked in. “How do I know you're not a serial killer?”

“How do I know
you're
not?” he countered.

She smiled sweetly. “You don't.”

And that was the beginning. By the time they got to the gas station, it was like they'd known each other for years. By the time they drove back to the cornfield and refueled her car, she was wondering what it would be like to kiss him.

So she decided to find out. As he screwed the gas cap back into place, she got up on tiptoe and brushed her lips against his cheek. His skin was warm and he smelled wholesome, like sun and grass.

He turned to face her. “What was that for?”

“I owe you, remember?” She kissed him again, this time on the lips.

He slid his arms around her waist. They kissed and kissed under the bright summer sun, out in the middle of a dusty road surrounded by tall green fields.

“Let's go somewhere,” he said when they finally broke apart.

“Where?” Even as she asked this, she knew what he would answer:
My room. Under the boardwalk. Backseat of the truck.

“Let's count the rows.”

She glanced at him, confused, and he laughed. “Come on, I'll give you the full farmer experience.”

“Like a field trip?”

“Best field trip ever.” He took her hand again and led her to the far end of the rows of corn.

“When you walk the field, what you're really doing is counting the rows,” he explained. “Checking the spacing between plants, checking to see if everything's growing, checking to see if there's any damage from birds.”

He started walking slowly. Cammie matched his pace, trying to see what he saw: creation in progress, life all around them.

But all she saw was corn.

“Aren't there the same number of rows as there were yesterday and the day before?” she asked.

He squeezed her hand. “Yeah. Isn't it great? Everything else changes every day. But the number of rows stays the same.”

She had no idea what he was talking about, but she loved hearing him say it. After two hours of counting the rows, she was totally sunburned and halfway in love.

He called her the next morning. They got together the next day, and every day after that. They would meet in the cornfields in the late afternoon and walk the field, counting rows.

“Did you try the corn?” Ian asked when he leaned in to kiss her hello.

“Yes,” Cammie said.

“And?” he prompted.

“And you were right—it was better than any corn I've ever had before.” Also truthful.

Something in her voice made him laugh. “But?”

Cammie hung her head. “But I still don't like corn.”

She spent the summer in a constant state of distraction and desire.
While her aunt whiled away the days learning to knit and Kat accumulated an ever-growing collection of scabs and bruises, Cammie thought about Ian.

“What else do you do all day?” she once asked him as they paced the perimeter of the fields. “Besides count the rows?”

“Lots.” He kind of shrugged. “But most of it's done before noon.”

“Like what?” she pressed.

“You really want to know?”

“I really do.”

“Plants don't sleep,” he told her. “They grow all night, so you want to check on them first thing, before it gets hot. Bugs get up early. If you get out there early, too, you can head off some of the damage.”

She rested her hand on his back as they walked.

“The first thing I do when I get up is check the weather.” He grinned sheepishly. “That's a farmer thing—we're obsessed with the weather. We can't change it or control it, but we have to know about it. All the time.”

“So you'll know what's coming?”

“We're never sure what's coming. I took a course in meteorology in college, and what I learned is that no one really understands how all the different systems work together. The forecast is just a guess. But we all have our favorite weather websites.” He paused. “And we all buy the
Farmers' Alamanac
, every year.”

“The
Farmers' Almanac
?” Cammie was incredulous. “Is that thing accurate?”

“No.” Ian lowered his voice. “Except it
might be
. You never know.”

“You never know,” Cammie echoed.

“What about you?” he asked. “What were you studying while I was reading up on barometric pressure in college?”

“Hospitality management. That's what I'm going to grad school for. There's a great program in California. It's really hard to get
into; I was shocked when I got accepted.” She couldn't hide the excitement in her voice. “My plan is to open a restaurant.”

“Oh.” His voice was flat.

“What?” she prompted.

“Nothing.”

“What?” Cammie demanded.

He led her into the shade offered by a row of cornstalks. “Don't a lot of restaurants go out of business pretty early on?”

“Well, yeah.”

“Like ninety percent?”

Cammie flipped her hair back. “I don't know the exact percentage, but that's why I'm going to grad school. To learn how not to go out of business.”

“Okay.”

“What are you saying?”

He held up his hands. “I'm not saying anything.”

“You're saying my restaurant's going to go out of business,” she accused.

He started walking again. “Ninety percent is pretty bad odds.”

“Well, odds don't apply to me,” she informed his back. “I'm going to be very successful.
Very
successful.”

When Ian talked about his family's land, she could sense how much he loved it. The land, the growing cycle, the lifestyle. But no matter how much she wanted to, she couldn't feel the way he felt about it.

She tried to appreciate the smell of fresh fields when she turned the soil over in her hands. She tried to read the weather blogs he'd recommended. She tried to identify the moment that a plant “broke,” just as the new green sprout appeared. She just couldn't seem to find any passion for corn.

But she had plenty of passion for Ian. She couldn't get enough of
his time, his body, the sound of his voice. Their preferred activity was to park out in his family's farmland, under the stars, and make out.

“What's going to happen in September?” he asked her one sultry night in July as they stretched out, both topless, on a blanket in the bed of the truck.