I take a deep breath, then exhale slowly and place my hand over his and squeeze. “Thank you, Teddy. For being here. For knowing me.”
“It’s an honor and a privilege, and sometimes, a goddamn circus, and I’ve loved every minute of it. Just don’t mess this up, all right?” Teddyleans back in his seat and closes his eyes. “I like that bossy butch know-it-all wine snob.”
Me too, Teddy. Me too.
The longer the flight goes on, the more restless I am to see Laine. Now that Teddy’s convinced me of the path forward, I’m dying to tell her everything, to apologize for how I acted and presentBluebell Vineyardsandmeandforeverto her and beg her to stay. Laine hasn’t texted much over the days I’ve been away. I keep telling myself it’s because she’s beyond busy orchestrating the secondary fermentations for the reds, finishing up the blending and bottling of our whites, and holding down the fort at large as we prepare for the showcase, which is now a mere eight days away. But I can’t help feeling intensely vulnerable about breaking down in front of her the way I did. I haven’t had a panic attack in decades, but my protective skin slipped off that night, exposing the raw animal of hurt I’ve kept leashed and hidden away.
If she ran from me now, after seeing all that? I wouldn’t even blame her.
I’ve reached out to Tristan and Hannah, too, both of whom have been quick to reassure me everything’s fine, but not much else. It’s strange, honestly. Like they’re all conspiring to create a real separation between me and the vineyard.
I mean, howdarethey? Also, well played, because I finally get just how much I’ve let Bluebell rule my life and the consequences of my conscious submission to its never-ending work.
And all this time, Mom wanted tosellit.
As soon as we touch down in Atlanta, I turn off airplane mode but frown when I see that Laine hasn’t texted me back. It’s seven p.m., which is normally when she takes a dinner break, but when I call her the phone rings and rings. A small spurt of fear erupts in my chest that continues to grow as we deplane, get all four of Teddy’s bags and file a missing claim for mine because somehow, my single suitcase has been lost, and find our car in the economy lot. She doesn’t answer any of my calls or texts.
Is she okay? Did she fall into a vat? Suffocate from the toxic carbon dioxide pumping out of our fermenting reds?
Or … did she leave?
Did she assume Dad would be with me and leave as soon as she could, saving herself from having to break it off to my face? Teddy doesn’t even bother trying to call off my emotional firefighters or whatever for the last hour’s drive, letting me place call after call to everyone in my phone, looking for answers and finding none.
I can’t get ahold of anybody. What thehellis going on?
By the time Teddy pulls into our parking lot, it’s almost ten, and my chest feels too small for the heart pumping erratically within it. The car is still running when I throw open my door and run up to the winery, where the lights are all on, the exhaust system thrumming loudly.
“Laine, are you in here?” I call as soon as I open the door.
I’m not sure what I expected, but it wasn’t a half dozen people dressed in hazmat suits surrounding Laine, who’s loping back and forth like an agitated wolf. Her hands hang by her sides, fingers splayed wide yet clenched in place like claws. She’s the only one wearing normal clothes, though they’re wrinkled and dirty, like she hasn’t changed in days. She spins on her heels when she hears my voice, her eyes red and ruined.
“Zoe, baby,” she says, her usual deep, smooth voice scraped raw. “I’ve fucked up so bad.”
“Brettanomyces,” Jamal confirms from behind the clear plastic face panel of his hood. “The numbers are completely out of control.” He drops the sample vials in a baggie, the pity radiating off him in waves. “I’m so sorry, y’all.”
“Brettanomyces,” I repeat dumbly, still trying to process the information thrown at me in the last five minutes. “But Dad always tests forit—that’s part of our precautions to keep it out of the wine.” I turn back to Laine. “Did you follow the standard hygiene protocols?”
Laine nods vehemently. “To the letter! Only—”
“Onlywhat?” My voice comes out sharper than I mean it to, but reality feels like an avalanche right now, breaking away in huge, head-crushing chunks, coming down on me all at once. The panic I’ve felt all evening finally has something to feast upon, tainting me the same way Brettanomyces has our entire line of wines for next season. I don’t know much about the fermentation process, but I know about Brett—every wine person does. It’s an opportunistic, nasty yeast that, once it infiltrates your vineyard, is incredibly difficult and expensive to get rid of. Brett takes a good wine and reduces its fruit, flattens its acids, and robs it of its texture and mouthfeel. But worst of all is what Brett does to thesmell, thetaste.
Vomit.
Band-Aids.
Manure.
These are just a few of the descriptors a Bretty wine garners. It’s responsible for ruining entire vintages, entire seasons, and if you’re poor enough, entire vineyards.
“Well, I didn’t doallthe sulfur treatments—like we discussed, remember? A more natural approach?” Tears stream down Laine’s cheeks, but I don’t think she realizes it. Her voice thickens, and she squeezes her eyes shut. “If I had, it would’ve stopped it.Fucking stupid, Laine.Stupid.” She smashes her open palm against her face. The vitriol in her voice razors my heart, and I grab her hand, holding it in mine, as if that could protect her from her own self-loathing.
“You don’t know that for sure. Sulfur treatments don’t kill Brett—they just weaken it. This infestation grew so quickly, whatever the source was might’ve been too strong even for the sulfur to combat.” Jamal putsa suited hand on Laine’s shoulder to comfort her, but I can’t help feeling like Laine and I are in a plague ward for two.
“And it’s in all of our base wines for next year?” I try to swallow, but my mouth has gone bone dry. Which is ironic, because ifanyof our wines were made dry, they wouldn’t be so susceptible to a Brett infestation. It’s the residual sugars in our sweet wines that Brett loves so much.
Jamal nods. “It’s been in every tote I tested. It wasn’t in any of Laine’s new red blends, though, or any of the reds and whites ready to sell this season.”
The sigh that leaves my body trembles on its way out. Somehow, one season’s worth of wine will have to cover the expenses of running Bluebell fortwoyears, until the next batch of base wines are ready to blend and bottle, and that’s assuming we’re able to get the Brett infestation under control by then. I’ve always known it’d take only one calamity to bring our small vineyard to its knees, and now it’s happened. How can I convince Laine to stay now? This isn’t the Bluebell Vineyards I was planning on asking her to trade her dreams for, but she’s so racked with guilt, she’d probably spend the rest of her life in a dungeon if I asked her to. The last of Dad’s bottled wines are safe, but everything Laine’s produced, save the new red blends, weirdly, is chock-full of Brett’s farm-ass polyphenols.
