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“Agreed,” Lara said, “after a few too many at the pub, you’re decidedly less French sounding.”
Gabriel scrubbed a hand over his face a few times while the three of us glared daggers at him. He would cave. No man could withstand this kind of focused female pressure alone.
“Fuck. Fuck.” He grabbed big handfuls of his own hair and pulled. “I guess it’s now or never. Here’s the thing. I’m not Gabriel from Provença, I’m Gabe from Anaheim.” His accent was gone. He sounded as born and raised in the USA as me or Bruce Springsteen.
Gasps of horror and astonishment filled the dancehall. We stared at him, our heads cocked and looks of utter confusion painted on our faces. The three of us were ready to hit him with a million questions when Gabe dropped one more bombshell.
“And I got blackballed from the wine business by Ernest Rossi.”
“That’s a lot to unpack.” Cameron held out her wineglass and Gabe rushed to refill it.
“Atley is going to be pissed you’re a fraud.” I crossed my arms over my chest in a damn fine impersonation of Atley at hismost unapproachable. My shocking lack of enthusiasm over the potential job with Rossi took a back seat to the revelations that Gabe kept dropping.
“I’m not a fraud. I graduated from Le Cordon Bleu in Paris with a degree in Oenology. But I am American.” He sighed like his citizenship was a sin.
“Dude, you need to explain.” Lara elbowed him hard.
“So, technically, I signed a bunch of paperwork that says I’m not allowed to tell all of you this, but fuck Rossi. I’m talking. I like all of you too much to keep my mouth shut.” He took a deep breath and chased it with some wine. “After I got my degree, I went to work at one of the Paso Robles properties in the Rossi portfolio. It was a huge production facility, nothing picturesque or sentimental. We were making buckets of cheap wine.”
“Wine that was a non-distinguishable consumer product like, say, glass cleaner?” I mumbled and got a nod of affirmation from Gabe. My stomach rolled over, and I worried the wine sloshing in my belly might make a reappearance. I took a handful of emotional support peanuts and began chowing down.
“Cheap wine is fine; I knew what job I took. But what wasn’t fine was how much of the cheap juice from God knows where was shipped in and out of our facility to go to higher-end E. Rossi properties. There they blended it into far more expensive wines, using it to stretch the harvest at the most iconic properties.”
“Adulteration?” Lara asked.
He nodded. “Not putting anything on the label to let a consumer know that the $100 bottle they’d bought was a blend of juice made from grapes grown as far away as Argentina, not in the rolling, fertile hills of Napa Valley.”
“You figured it out.” Cameron leaned forward, elbows on the bar, hanging on Gabe’s every word.
“And like an idiot, I said something to a higher-up at a corporate training. The guy lost his mind and rushed me in front of Ernest Rossi himself. They strong-armed me into signing a non-disclosure agreement and, two weeks later, they fired me. Every vineyard and winery from California to Washington wouldn’t touch me. I was radioactive waste from the E. Rossi factory. He used every connection he could to blackball me.”
“You were desperate when Atley hired you.” The softening in Cameron’s voice was an obvious sign of her sympathy.
“I had loans to pay. Changing careers in your thirties isn’t like picking a major in college at eighteen. No parents or scholarship helping foot the bill. Do you know how expensive the Cordon Bleu in Paris is to attend? When I learned about Blue Star needing a vintner, I reinvented myself. And created a list of references that were small vineyards with only French-speaking employees or French friends who were in on the scam. So, when Atley checked…” He shrugged like it was a done deal; it was a very French shrug.
“Well, shit.” Lara clapped him on the back, obviously impressed by the sheer size of his balls. Frankly, I was too.
“What about wanting to ride my coattails back to Napa?”
“At Rossi, I’m still a pariah. But, if you went to a smaller company, I might have a shot with your recommendation. Nothing against Elmer. In fact, I love it here…but in the wine business, Texas is a dead end.”
“Dead end? Didn’t you win an award at the Texas Wine Association competition last year?” I knew there’d been a big article in a wine magazine naming him a vintner to watch.
“And the two years before that.” He blushed a little.
“The wine you make is winning awards and you don’t have to share the credit. Sounds pretty sweet to me.” Lara bumped him with her hip.
“Forget his career. I want to know about the fake accent. How did you pull that off for years?” Cameron lifted one eyebrow, and we all waited for his answer.
“I speak French, you know?”
We were back to staring at him. I took Spanish in high school, but that did not qualify me to fake a Spanish accent.
“Ugh, alright, I had a job at Disneyland playing Gaston from Beauty and the Beast. You know, in the park and at the character breakfasts.”
We three ladies looked at each other and started laughing. It was impossible not to.
“I will never unsee it. You are now Gaston to me.” I pointed at Gabe between my giggles. He had the chestnut hair and broad shoulders… in tights ten or twenty years ago, he’d have passed for Gaston easily.
