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But it’s not. It was never the way our business ran, and it doesn’t make sense now. We grow all the cabernet grapes we need, we care for the vines, we pick, we make wine. It’s been the same for decades—a profit machine led by the strength of our vines.
Beatrix nudges me and tips her head ever so slightly toward Dad. I see what she’s noticing. His gaze has left me and now hovers somewhere over my shoulder. He stares at a family portrait, the last one of him and my mom with all five kids before they got divorced. It seems to calm him when he’s struggling to remember things, even though they haven’t been married for over fifteen years.
I’m probably fifteen years old in the portrait, and all of us kids are smiling like we’re suffering in the matching suits and blue dresses our parents made us wear. We had no idea our parents’ separation was in the works or that our mom would end up moving back to Chicago and leaving us in the care of a rotating brigade of nannies.
When he focuses on me again, a bit of the fire in his eyes has dimmed. He points a long finger at me. “The hamster in there is running himself fucking ragged. You’re either going to burn out or make a mistake with numbers, and I don’t want to see the hell storm that follows either one of those.” He flicks his fingers in the direction of my skull.
“I’m good.”
“Not what I hear from your older brother.”
I feel my blood pressure ratchet up, and Beatrix takes a step closer, putting her hand on my shoulder. “Let it go.”
Our dad doesn’t always remember who said what. Mostly, we don’t badmouth each other, but meddling is in our blood, according to our mother, a midwestern, no-nonsense woman whose mother was a professional matchmaker.
As such, Grandma had strong feelings about our father and apparently warned our mother to stay as far away from him as possible. “He’ll be a cheater, that one.” That only encouraged the twenty-one-year-old rebel I only caught glimpses of on occasion. Most of the time, our mother was too weighed down by the responsibilities of heading a household, and eventually, when my dad proved our Grandma right, our mother left.
“Just handle it,” my dad says, lifting a sip of coffee to his mouth. He puts it down with too much force, and it spills into the saucer, unleashing a string of curses and ends in a coughing fit.
The nurse comes over and picks up his water glass. He ignores her until he’s finished coughing. Then he snarls, “I can pick up my own damn water glass.”
He chooses a different newspaper, the pink pages of the Financial Times. When he moves his coffee cup aside and starts to read, Beatrix and I take our cue to leave.
Dad never says goodbye. He hates wasted words.
ChapterFive
Ruby
Twenty minutes after Jackson disappears with barely a goodbye, I find myself still standing in front of the winery, unable to bring myself to leave.
If I really want the job Jackson tried to convince me I’d hate during our fake interview, I need to come back at six and talk to his brother. It kind of chaps my hide that he knows I drove here, and he won’t do anything to help me out, as in wake his damn brother up and make him interview me now.
I understand how business works, however, and I’m not such a prima donna that I expect people to drop everything for a woman who appears unable to tell time. But he could have at least tried.
On the far side of the farmhouse, I hear the rumble of car motors, which means people are arriving to work. I move slowly, wanting to take in the sights and sounds of the winery this morning as the place wakes up and purrs to life. It feels like an insider view that could possibly help me later in my real interview. The more feeling I have for the rhythm of the place, the better I’ll be at fitting in here.
I linger a bit longer, figuring eventually, Jackson or someone else will come out and tell me to move along. But no one does.
A few minutes later, I grow even more bold and walk a few paces down the drive to study the tall oaks I’ve been admiring from afar. The trunks are so large up close that it would take three of me with linked arms to encircle one of them. I stare at the leaves, perfect like paper cutouts, curling at the edges.
It’s already coming up on eighty degrees, but I don’t mind the dry heat. I can understand why grapevines dig into the sandy soil and grow here.
So now you’re a plant? You are losing it.
I follow the curve in the drive around the hedge of rosemary and notice the entry point in the maze of plants. Walking the curving gravel path, I inhale the flowering rosemary and lavender planted in planters at the center of the maze, where water in a tall urn fountain burbles at the top.
I should go. There’s a fine line between fangirling a potential place of business and creeping around like a lunatic. I probably already crossed that line when I debated hugging an oak, but we can’t all be perfect, can we?
Eyeing my little red car, I make a beeline. Before I can open the door, I hear crunching on the gravel behind me and a shy voice.
“Hi.”
Turning, I see a tow-headed girl in a knee-length hot pink tee standing barefoot on the drive.
“Hi,” I respond, glancing behind her and to the side to see who’s with her. Maybe a family drove up like me, intending to beat the traffic, and their daughter slept in the backseat. Now, she’s awake and ready for an adventure in the hedge maze.
But as far as I can tell, we’re the only two out here.
