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An hour after sending Ruby away in her jelly bean of a car, I’ve gotten Fiona dressed, fed, and organized for school. Sort of.
“I hate this shirt. Why are you making me wear it?” She tugs at the poofy sleeves of a white shirt one of my sisters bought for her.
“Because there’s a law in the country that says you need to go to school wearing clothes.”
“Is that really a law?” She sticks her bottom lip out and stands with her legs wide and her hands on her hips. When did every female start channeling superheroes?
“No.”
“I like Ruby. She’s nice.” Fiona turns her wide eyes up to me and grins.
“Great.”
“Is she coming back here?” My daughter has a habit of hearing things she isn’t supposed to, so I’m not sure how much she caught of our conversation.
“Pick out a pair of shorts and put them on. I’ll be downstairs.”
I shouldn’t take out my morning’s frustration on my daughter, but I’m frustrated with everyone at the moment.
I’ve not only sort of agreed to hire a nanny, but I’ve agreed to hire a woman who will likely make my life crazier than it already is.
I shouldn’t worry. The chances of Dashiell hiring her are slim. I know how Dash works, and if he’s bringing in one woman to interview for the tasting room job, he’s probably bringing in twenty more. Ruby’s odds of getting the job are slim, especially once Dash sees her resume. She’s overqualified, and for all we know, she’s a mole sent by one of our competitors to discover what makes Buttercup Hill the industry stalwart.
A couple years ago, when he was newer at his job and more naïve, he hired a woman he’d been dating for just over a month. That was a bad enough decision right there. But when she turned out to work for Wood Street Vineyards, our biggest competitor, my father ripped him a new one and told him to find his priorities or get out.
He'll take one look at Ruby’s resume, and his radar will kick in. He’ll send her on her merry way, and I’ll never have to make good on my bullshit offer to “discuss an arrangement.”
Jesus. I can’t believe I said it like that. Makes it sound like I’m soliciting her to be my professional escort. Didn’t seem to bother her, so maybe I shouldn’t worry so much.
But like I said, it’s probably a moot point because Dash will see right through her. “Never hire someone who doesn’t want the job they’re being hired to do. It will only lead to suffering for both of you,” he told me one day when we were fantasizing about having different jobs at the winery.
My background is in psychology, which makes me far better suited for something other than numbers. I can read people. That is, when I’m not exhausted and grumpy. Dash, on the other hand, studied communications. Or rather, he did very little studying at all and nearly flunked out of college because he spent so much time skiing in Tahoe and so little time studying. Our father gave him an ultimatum—come work in the family business or get cut off and see how that feels.
Then he made Dashiell the employee-facing member of the team so he’d have a daily reminder of how many people would kill to work at our company.
He pulled the same shit with Archer, who’s the numbers guy in the family. He should have my job sweating over the bottom line and trying to balance columns that refuse to behave. But that would be too easy. Giving a person a job they’re good at? Not my father’s style. He wanted each of us to “stretch and grow.” Or, if you take a more cynical view, he wanted us to struggle and argue with each other and make sure no one could claim superiority in any way.
We took the cynical view.
With our sisters, Dad was different. No, he didn’t find them jobs suited to their skills—because the chauvinist in him didn’t believe they had any skills. So he gave them what he considered unimportant roles that they couldn’t screw up too badly. But because my sisters are badasses, it’s largely due to their talents that the company hasn’t fallen apart in my father’s absence.
If only his mind were sound enough to see the irony.
“I have some advice for you,” I tell Dashiell when he pokes his head in my office to ask if I want to grab lunch. “There’s a woman you’re interviewing later—don’t hire her.”
“Hiring advice from the man who hates dealing with people? Quick, let me get my laptop and fire off a rejection letter.” He raises an eyebrow behind his tortoiseshell glasses. His hazel eyes flash, and his cheeky grin pops a dimple in each cheek. With his bedhead and lazy smile, he can charm the pants off of most people. Just not me.
“Trust me on this. She’s not a match.”
Picking up a stapler from my desk, he opens it and closes it again with a snap. He does it once more and watched me wince at thesnap. Being the youngest male in our family can’t be easy, but Dash has learned every trick in the book on how to irritate us back when we were kids, and he’s still using the same playbook today.
“Who’s the woman, and when did you date her?”
“Her name’s Ruby, and the answer to the second isnever.” I get an uncomfortable twinge in my gut when I say it. I’ve never laid eyes on her before this morning, so it shouldn’t make me feel sad to say we’ve never dated. It shouldn’t make me feel any way.
“What’s the deal, then?”
“She showed up at the wrong time, and I met her earlier. Just think she’s not the one.” Again, that twinge in my gut.
