Wild Abandon (11 page)

I smile a bashful smile that makes my stomach curve in. I want to tell him that it’s too much. I want to show him my ideas for the rest of it. I want to ask him what he plans to do with this place, so I know where to start.

Instead, I just say, “Thank you.”

The frown of his mouth is still there, but his head is slightly nodding. “These fumes are enough to get an elephant high. Looks like we’ll be working out on the veranda tonight.”

Not one to argue with the man, I take my last few strokes of the walls, knowing I’ll have to do an evaluation tomorrow when it dries to make sure I didn’t miss any spots.

After packing up the supplies and washing my hands, I walk out to the veranda where Big Ed is sitting on a stone bench. His argyle socks show as his pants are hiked up mid calf. A bottle of chardonnay along with a plate sit on the bench beside him. Behind him is the setting Napa sun.

I take a seat on the bench and look at Big Ed, who is gazing out at the roses, lost in thought. I clear my throat, and he snaps out of his memory.

He hands me a glass, so I take a sip and offer him my opinion. The wine tastes dry, making my mouth actually quench with thirst, something I learned is odd for a white wine. Placing the glass down on the stone, I look back at Ed and make an ugly face at the glass. I’ve learned it’s best to be completely honest with him because he’s usually testing me in some way.

Big Ed holds up the plate and offers me a piece of chocolate. I oblige and pop a sinfully delicious piece of, what I’m now tasting to be, white chocolate hinted with flavors of strawberry.

“Now, that’s good!” I say, nearly salivating.

“Try this.” Big Ed holds up a second glass.

I take it and swallow a drink. Then, I hold the glass up while I speak, “It’s not great, but it’s far more drinkable than the other one.”

Big Ed gives a hardy chuckle. “One bottle, two glasses, kid. They’re the same exact wine.”

I look down at the bottle and feel like an idiot for not realizing I was drinking the same wine from two different glasses.

“This bottle of crap is from Yellow Stockbridge Winery.”

“Why do you buy it if it’s so awful?”

Big Ed takes the bottle and holds it upside down over the edge of the veranda, letting the liquid pour into the soil. “I’ve got cases of it. Bill sends it down here. I think he tries to piss me off on purpose.”

“When are you going to start making wine again?”

“My harvesting days are over.” He huffs. “I’ll renew the lease on the lands in a few months.”

“Is that how you keep this place going? By leasing out the land?”

“Would you believe they’re worth one hundred fifty grand an acre? Thirty years ago, there was half the amount of wineries. Now, there’s no land to buy.”

“How did you end up here? I’ve heard you mention Old Man Russet. Who was he?”

Big Ed looks down and smiles. “Ah, he was a good man. Me and my Rosemary were newlyweds when we met him at a festival. That was thirty-five years ago. Rosemary and I were vagabonds, traveling around, picking up odd jobs where we could. We were young, in love, and thought the world was our playground. I blame the seventies.”

He chuckles and continues, “You know, I was madly in love with the woman because she’d stop at every single booth and talk. That was Rosemary. She talked to everyone. She had this way about her. It was like she genuinely cared about what everyone had to say. I’d have been jealous if she didn’t always reach out and grab my hand.” He looks down at his palms and stretches his stout fingers, worn and rough from years of work. “She’d make these little circles inside my palm. That was her way.

“We were just about to leave when she saw one last booth. I don’t know if you could even call it that. All the way in the back, in a secluded corner, where no one was walking, were a lone table and an old man. Everyone else had posters and all this other crap around it to entice people to come over. But not this one. This was just a folding table and a few bottles.

“The wine blew me away. I remember thinking,
This is the best thing I have ever tasted in my life
. Old Man Russet was happy someone came over to visit his booth, so he pulled up a chair for Rosemary and a crate for me, and we started to talk. He took one look at Rosie, and I knew he was in love. It was the hair.” He looks over at me with a slight twinkle in his nostalgic eyes.

“Well, by the time the festival gates closed, I had a new job, and Rosemary and I had a place to settle down. We’ve been here ever since.” His last words are said with a tinge of melancholy. “That man treated me like a son. Taught me everything he knew, and together, we made some great wine. He’s been gone for seventeen years now.”

“And Rosemary?”

“Ten years ago. Cancer.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

He clears his throat and adjusts his hat. “These were her roses. We tried for years to have a baby. Every time she lost one, she’d plant more roses in their honor. The color of them, the deep crimson, means mourning.”

“I like your Rosemary. She made something beautiful out of a tragedy. She must have been the type to never give up.”

Big Ed thinks on that for a moment. A revelation appears in his eyes. I must have triggered a thought.

He packs the thought away and continues, “She was out here every day. Said they were her love roses. Even when we realized how many vines we could plant here and the amount of money we could make off of them, we kept the roses. Planted more. Her love for them was greater than any dollar I could make.”

This man. This rough and grumbly man—who, on the outside, appears to be cranky and decrepit—is really far more fortunate than I ever gave him credit for.

I almost envy him. Not because he owns a winery—although abandoned. And not because he is sitting on millions of dollars of real estate. But because he has known a love more precious than any material belonging or sheer possession.

As if Rosemary were calling from heaven, the roses nearby appear to be opening wider, spreading their admiration for the man who tends to them.

“You kept them for her. Even after she died. That’s beautiful.”

“I gave up on them once. After Rosemary died.”

“How did they survive?”

“Love never dies.”

My chest surges with an intake of air. Overtaken with emotion, I look down at my fingers and knot them on my lap. “I’ve never known a love that strong. I’m afraid I’ll never find it, or worse, I’ll miss it.”

Big Ed taps his hand on my knee and takes a long deep breath, inhaling the scent of the burgundy petals blooming, even as the sun rolls down behind the hills. I look back at him.

His face is mostly in shadows now, but his voice bellows clear and with purpose, “Love is like wine. You can’t add sugar and mask the flavor, pretending it’s something it’s not. Love is like that. When you meet the right person, you’ll know. And you won’t be able to let it go.”

“Scarlet has a doctor’s appointment on Thursday at ten.”

“I hate the doctor.”

“You’ll be fine, Squirt. Oh, babe, there’s a bottle-and-cork show on Main next weekend.”

“That sounds fun. Crystal hasn’t been to one yet.”

“Really? Have you even been to a wine tasting yet?”

“Crystal?”

“Earth to the Video Vixen.”

“Is she okay? I think she’s fallen comatose. I read this book—”

“Scarlet, hush. Crystal, are you okay?”

“There’s a naked man on the porch.”

“A UFO was just spotted above Sonoma.”

“Kanye West was elected President.”

“Channing Tatum announced he’s gay.”

“Did you see—”

“Ow!” I shout at the feeling of something really hard hitting my side. I look to my left and see Scarlet’s fist up and ready to take another shot at me. “What the hell did you do that for?”

“I can’t listen to them spout nonsense, trying to get your attention.”

“What are you talking about?” I rub my tender and quite possibly bruised side. Seriously, she’s incredibly strong for an eight year old. I look up to see Naomi and Jeremy staring at me in bafflement. “What’s wrong with you guys?”

Naomi’s forehead creases. “You’ve been sitting there in a daydream for the last ten minutes. What’s up with you?”

I look down at my plate of untouched food and my glass filled to the brim. I try to think of what we were just talking about. I recall sitting down at the table and Naomi bringing the pasta. Then, Jeremy started talking about work, and I just started to daze.

I suppose I was daydreaming. No, not about a white knight or a handsome connoisseur. I was thinking about Big Ed. Here is a man who had nothing. Then, with the help of an elder stranger, he had a home for himself and his bride, and he was taught to run a business, one he knew nothing about. When Old Man Russet died, he left his entire estate to Ed.

The two men must have had an incredible relationship for him to give his entire inheritance away like that. To treat someone you’ve never known as your son and leave him everything you love.

Together, they had built up that winery, but then, one day, Ed closed up shop. I wonder if it was after Rosemary had died. That was ten years ago. He loved her so much. He couldn’t bear to carry on.

I can picture Ed in his hatred for the world, following his wife’s death, staring at those roses, waiting for them to die along with everything else that is good. And his frustration when, day after day, despite his neglect, they just kept blooming with their roots buried deep in the ground—clinging to life, never faltering, and, surely, never dying.

As the sun sets and rises, I know he just watched and waited. However, I can’t picture what he looked like the day he decided to just give in and tend to them.

I’ve seen him out there a few times with his small stool and cutting shears. Each time, he comes inside with a basket of roses, but never once has he placed them in a vase in the winery.

Perhaps he takes them into his home, which I learned is above the garage. Maybe, tomorrow, I’ll go out there and cut some flowers for the winery. I have a few plans for that space. I saw a photo in a
Pottery Barn
catalog that gave me some inspiration. It would require a trip to some vintage shops. I’ll have to ask Naomi if she’ll go with me. And then there’s the veranda. I want to go out there and—

“You’re doing it again,” Naomi states from across the table.

I rub the side of my face and then tap my temple, bringing myself back to reality. “Sorry. Lots on the noggin.”

“Care to share?”

“Um, yes…” I offer up in conversation, “Are there any good thrift stores in the area? There are a few things I want to pick up for the ranch.”

“
Yes
,” she drags the word out of her mouth. “There’s actually a cool flea market I can take you to.” Naomi looks to Jeremy, who is giving her the side eye, and then they both look back to me. “That’s not what’s bothering you though. Come on, spit it out.”

I pull in my bottom lip as I look around the table at the family staring at me like I’m about to utter something prolific.

There is one more thing on my mind.

I puff out my lips and start talking, “Do you think I’m standoffish?”

“
No
…”

“Absolutely.”

“Most definitely.”

The husband, wife, and child have spoken in unison.

From the uncomfortable look on Jeremy’s face, I can see he was lying. I look back at him and wait for him to amend his statement.

“Honest answer? Yes,” he says.

Naomi pushes her plate away from her and crosses her arms on the table. “Before we give you our insight, why don’t you tell us what brought on this marvel?”

“Well…” I think for a moment. “I won’t settle. You know that. I have a clear vision.” I hold my hand perpendicular to my face and make a straight line in the air, demonstrating how clear my vision of a certain man is.

They’re not rolling their eyes, but I know they want to. They’ve heard this before.

“That said, I worry that sometimes I might not be my authentic self when trying to attract said man.”

While I expect them to chime in with their,
No
, and,
Not you
, Naomi doesn’t miss a beat when she says, “Yeah, well, duh. Why do you think I wanted to set you up with that Dallas guy?”

I look back at her with a dumbfounded expression.

“How can you say that? I am nothing but honest with who I am. If the guy doesn’t jive with what I have going on, then I walk away. If anything, I am too honest!” My fork is in my hand like a baton, pointing at them with each syllable.

Jeremy holds his knife up and slaps away my fork. “Shall we duel?”

I squint my eyes at him and then drop my fork in defeat. These two wouldn’t take me seriously if I paid them. My head is down, facing my plate, when Jeremy puts his arm on my wrist.

“You want honest?” he asks.

I peer at him through my hair.

“I met you when I was twenty years old. Naomi made me go to New York to meet her best friend.”

Jeremy turns to Naomi. “Remember that trip, babe? We all met in Manhattan over Christmas break?” Naomi smiles at the memory, and he continues, “You and I were coming home from Cal State, and Crystal drove down from the University of Rochester.”