Something in the Wine (5 page)

The waiter brought the bottle of wine and presented it to Drew, who gave a pleased smile. After he opened the bottle and poured a small taste, she swirled it around in her glass, then sniffed and took a sip. Finally, she looked up and nodded.

The waiter filled her glass and walked away.

Drew clinked her glass to Annie’s. “To your brother.” After a pause, she added, “A first-rate jack-ass.”

Annie had just taken a sip and now nearly spewed wine all over the table. She coughed until she suspected her face was redder than the Merlot.

“I’m sorry,” Drew said. She looked as if she wanted to get up and pat Annie’s back.

“No, you’re right.” Annie took a more cautious sip of wine, soothing her burning throat. “Jake can be a real jerk.” Sometimes, she wondered how she had survived her childhood—or how he had. After all the silly little pranks he pulled on her, she had wanted to kill him more than once.

“Oh, yeah. I nearly throttled him during freshman year.”

“You went to college together?” Annie asked. Drew didn’t seem like Jake’s usual kind of friend.

Drew nodded.

“What did he do?” Annie asked.

“He sent me little love notes,” Drew said.

“But he wasn’t ...?”

“In love with me?” Drew laughed and held her open palms out to her sides, indicating her sturdy frame. “No. I’m not his type. He’s not exactly mine either.” She winked. “I had a major crush on Ruth Calverson, not knowing that she in turn had a crush on Jake and was sending him love letters. So when he pinned those notes to the door of my dorm room, I thought Ruth was smitten with me too, and I finally found the courage to show up at her dormitory with a bunch of roses and ask her out.”

Annie winced.

“Yeah.” Drew nodded. “Needless to say that didn’t turn out so well. Who knew a bunch of roses could hurt so much when someone hits you in the face with them?” She made a pathetically sad face.

The sound of her own laughter surprised Annie. She took a sip of wine. “After a prank like that, you’d think you would stay far away from Jake. Why are you still friends with him and even stayed in touch after college?”

Drew swished the wine in her glass around. “Despite all his faults and his weird sense of humor, Jake isn’t a bad guy. When I told him I’m gay, he was cool with it. Up until then, my lesbianism has been a disappointment to everyone I came out to—my parents, boys who wanted to date me ...”

“And Ruth Calverson,” Annie said with a smile.

Drew returned the grin and nodded. “And Ruth Calverson. But to Jake, it was never a big deal. Once, a homophobic asshole made a derogatory comment about me in a business lecture. The day after that, the guy found his beloved convertible filled with gravel.”

“Jake did that?”

Drew nodded. “No one ever made stupid comments about me again.”

Wow.
For the first time in her life, Annie was proud of her brother.

“So,” Drew said after a while, “what pranks did he play on you? He told me some stories, but I admit that after a while, I stopped listening.”

Annie pressed her napkin to her lips. She wasn’t eager to recount the embarrassing stories, but Drew had shared the Ruth Calverson story, so Annie felt obliged to answer. Over the years, Jake had played so many pranks on her that she hardly knew which story to tell Drew. Annie adjusted her cutlery while incidences flashed through her mind like photos in a slideshow. Finally, she settled on one of the less humiliating pranks. “Once, he made me believe that the cat had eaten my bunny.”

“And you believed that?” Drew asked. “Cats don’t eat bunnies.”

“How was I supposed to know? I was five years old.” Warmth penetrated the sleeve of Annie’s silk shirt. When she looked down, she discovered Drew’s hand on her arm, giving her a comforting squeeze. Annie froze. In her everyday life, few people came close enough to touch her, and knowing Drew was a lesbian made Annie even more aware of her touch.

Drew followed her gaze and pulled away her hand. “Sorry. I’m a touchy-feely person.” She cleared her throat. “What else did he do?”

Annie rubbed her fingers over her forearm, where Drew’s hand had rested. She hesitated again.

“Come on,” Drew said. “Don’t be embarrassed. It’s not like I haven’t been duped by Jake a few dozen times too.”

Annie sighed. Her mind leafed through the impressive collection of Jake’s pranks and chose one at random. “On my first day at my job, he switched the contents of my shampoo for hair dye.” Annie scrunched up her nose. “I ended up going to work with pink hair.”

Drew nearly spewed wine across the table. She laughed and dabbed her mouth with the napkin. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to laugh at you. That must have been embarrassing, but the mental image of you showing up at work with pink hair ...”

“Pretty funny, yeah.” Annie didn’t smile. “But not if you had to endure Jake’s pranks for thirty years.”

Drew leaned forward. “Didn’t your parents ever interfere when Jake pulled a prank on you?”

“Sometimes,” Annie said. She pressed the tip of her index finger against her fork until the metal dug into her skin. “But usually, they were too busy with their art.”

“Oh, that’s right. I have one of your mother’s paintings in my living room. Her use of colors is amazing. What does your father do?”

The questions about her and her family kept throwing Annie off stride, but she couldn’t find a good reason for not answering without coming across as impolite. “He’s a conductor.”

“Not a train conductor, I take it?”

Annie laughed as she imagined her father’s reaction to being mistaken for a train conductor. “No. He’s with the Fresno Philharmonic Orchestra.”

“And you?” Drew asked. “What do you do for a living?”

There it was: the question that always came up sooner or later. People often seemed disappointed by her answer, maybe because they expected the daughter of a musician and an artist to have a creative job too or at least to do something fun and unusual for a living, as Jake did.

The waiter brought their food, allowing Annie to stall for a moment.

When Drew looked at her expectantly instead of focusing on her pasta, Annie said, “I’m a CPA.”

Drew didn’t smirk or yawn. A shrimp still hovered on her fork, forgotten for the moment. “Which firm?”

Annie dug a mushroom out of her lasagna. “It’s a small firm, so you probably haven’t heard of it.”

“Try me.” Drew continued to look at her.

“I’m a senior associate at Cargill & Jones.” Annie chewed the mushroom, expecting Drew to redirect the conversation to a topic she found more interesting.

“Actually, I have heard of them. One of your colleagues manages my business accounts. Your firm does good work. So do you like your job?”

None of her dates had ever asked her that question. If they had, Annie wasn’t sure she would have answered honestly. While being an accountant was her passion, it just wasn’t interesting to other people. But she didn’t feel the need to impress Drew, so she nodded.

“Even during tax season?” Drew asked with a teasing smile.

“Yeah, the hours can get crazy in the spring, but I still like it.”

“I know what you mean. My work hours are crazy in the fall, but I wouldn’t want to do anything else.”

Amazing. She really seems to understand.
Annie’s tense muscles relaxed. “What do you do for a living?” she asked, glad to talk about something other than herself. “You have your own company?”

“I own a winery.” Drew stroked her thumb over the label on their bottle of Merlot. “Actually, this is one of mine.”

“Really?” Annie took another sip, enjoying the fruity taste. “It’s very good.”

Drew reached across the table and nudged Annie’s shoulder. “Don’t sound so surprised.”

When Annie blushed, Drew chuckled. She seemed to delight in making Annie blush, but unlike Jake’s boisterous ribbing, Drew’s teasing was gentle.

“I’m not surprised,” Annie said. “I’ve just never met anyone who owns a winery and makes such excellent wine.”

“And I’ve never had dinner with an excellent accountant.”

Annie pierced her with a skeptical glance. “You can’t know whether I’m any good.”

Slowly, Drew laid down her fork, dabbed her mouth with her napkin, and regarded Annie with her deep brown eyes. “You don’t seem like a woman who would do anything halfway.” When Annie stared at her, not knowing what to do with the compliment, Drew added, “Besides, you said you’re a senior associate. If you weren’t good at your job, I don’t think you would have that position.”

Annie shrugged.

Drew laughed. “I can see that you’re the modest one in the family.” She shook her head. “I still can’t believe you’re related to Jake. You couldn’t be more different if you tried. Has it always been that way?”

“Yes.” Annie busied herself cutting the rest of her lasagna into little squares while she thought about how much to tell Drew. Normally, she didn’t tell strangers that much about her life, but she realized that she had already told Drew more than usual. Maybe it was just this strange situation that had caught her off guard. Or maybe it was that after tonight, she would probably never see Drew again, so whatever Drew knew or didn’t know about her didn’t matter. “Jake ... Well, you know how he is. He’s not a bad person, but he thinks having fun and playing pranks on people is all there is to life.”

“Yeah,” Drew said. “I bet he’s having a drink right now, celebrating that he set up his straight sister on a blind date with a lesbian.”

I bet that’s exactly what he’s doing.
Annie didn’t look forward to having him call her as soon as she got home. He would gloat about another successful prank until she hung up on him. She clenched her hand around her napkin until her fingers started to hurt. “Just once, I’d really like to get back at him.”

Drew swallowed the last of her pasta.

Blinking, Annie glanced at her own half-full plate. Usually, she was the first to finish her meal because her dinner companions prattled on and on while she contributed just enough to keep the conversation going.

A slow smile spread over Drew’s tan face. “We could, you know?”

“Could what?”

“Get back at Jake.”

Annie leaned forward.
God, if we could really do that ...
Normally, Annie considered herself above petty things like revenge, but Jake had tormented her with his pranks for too long. “How?”

“Jake is expecting you to be angry at him for setting you up with a woman, right?”

“Yeah.”
He thinks his uptight sister will react like Ruth Calverson and hit Drew with the nearest object.
Annie took another sip of wine to get rid of the bitter taste Jake’s judgment left behind in her mouth.

“But what if we both enjoyed having dinner with each other?” Drew asked.

I am enjoying it,
Annie found to her surprise.
But how is that getting back at Jake?
“I don’t understand.”

Drew leaned forward. “What if the blind date were such a success that we started dating?”

Annie nearly choked on a bite of lasagna. “But ... but I’m straight!” She ducked her head when she realized how loudly she had spoken.

A grin dimpled Drew’s cheeks. “Well, nobody’s perfect.” She patted Annie’s forearm. “Relax. I’m just kidding. But just think about it. Jake would have a heart attack if he thought he was to blame for his little sister turning gay.”

Annie couldn’t help grinning as she imagined Jake with his mouth gaping open. “Definitely.” After a moment, her smile dimmed. “So we would just pretend, right?”

“Right. I already have a toaster oven.”

“Toaster oven?”
What does tricking Jake have to do with kitchen appliances?

Drew chuckled. “It’s a lesbian recruitment joke. If you convert a certain quota of straight women, lesbian headquarters awards you a toaster oven.”

“Oh. And you already earned one?”

“No.” Drew lifted her hand to her mouth and, behind the cover of her palm, whispered, “I bought it. Don’t tell anyone, please. I have a reputation to uphold.”

Annie laughed and relaxed. After finishing the last of her lasagna, she leaned back and regarded Drew across the table.
It’s crazy. But if it works ...
Just the thought of Jake being on the receiving end of a prank made her grin. It was time that someone gave him a taste of his own medicine. “And you really think it could work? That we can make Jake believe that I ... that we ...?”

“Why wouldn’t it work?”

“I can’t even make a relationship with a man work, so I’m not sure I can pull off convincing Jake that I’m in love with you.” Annie crossed her arms over her chest, feeling as if she had said too much.

Drew shrugged. “That could actually work in our favor. You could tell Jake that your relationships with men failed because of your latent lesbian tendencies.” She waggled her eyebrows.

Someone cleared his throat next to them. “Did you ladies enjoy your dinner?”