And at long last, Rosalyn had cleaned out the medicine cabinet and, in a dramatic but cleansing gesture, burned the aqua bath mat.
Emma had hired an experienced winery manager to assist André in operating Emma’s wineries in France—and the two had fallen in love. They were planning on getting married next spring in a village not far from Cochet. Emma was determined to make it to their wedding.
And, as promised, Jérôme had called Rosalyn when it was time to bring in the harvest.
Rosalyn hesitated to leave Emma, but Emma insisted that she was fartoowell taken care of by Blondine and Hugh. She gave Rosalyn a clumsily wrapped package, with the strict instructions that she wasn’t to open it until after her flight to Paris had taken off.
“Okay, a less somber toast!” declared Hugh, lifting his glass high. “To Blondine’s new job—she issomuch better at this than you ever were, Rosie girl, sorry to say—”
“Hey!” Rosalyn interrupted, and they all laughed.
“And to Rosalyn bringing in the harvest,” added Blondine.
“To Hugh,” said Rosalyn, “who forced me to go to France in the first place.”
“And to Dash,” Emma said, “without whom none of this would have happened.”
?“Thank you, Hugh,” said Rosalyn the following day, as her former boss drove her to the San Francisco airport.
“No problem. I had a lunch planned in the city anyway.”
“I’m not talking about the ride as much as...everything. Your support when Dash got sick, and all your financial help... I can never repay you. And you wanted nothing at all from me.”
“I made you sell wine.”
She laughed. “Just barely.”
He chuckled. “Anyway, it’s not true that I wanted nothing. I wanted you to be happy.”
“That’s what Dash used to say.”
“I’m pretty sure he’s still saying it, wherever he is.”
“Well, I’m not one hundred percent happy, but I’m working onit. Still, Hugh, not many people would have been so generous, or so understanding.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t bet on that.” He shrugged. “I went through some tough times as a kid, and some folks helped me out. If I didn’t pay it forward every once in a while, I wouldn’t be able to live with myself. Do me one more favor?”
“Name it.”
“Give this Jérôme character a chance. According to Emma, he’s the real deal.”
Jérôme and Rosalyn had been carrying on a correspondence since she’d returned to Napa. Theirs were long handwritten letters full of news and thoughts, longing and poetry. Being able to take time to explain her thoughts and emotions on the page allowed Rosalyn to open up more than she might have been able to face-to-face, and Jérôme seemed to feel the same.An epistolary relationship has a lot going for it,Rosalyn thought every time she thrilled at finding the telltale international envelope in her mailbox.
Émile’s letters had given her insight into the past, while Jérôme’s offered her a promise of the future.
?When the airplane bound for Paris reached altitude and the seat belt light pinged off, Rosalyn eagerly unwrapped Emma’s gift to find a ridiculous floppy, striped hat.
A note in Emma’s distinctive scrawl read:
My dear Rosalyn:
Here’s to bringing in the harvest, and drinking the wine. Because nobody’s story is written until the day they die.
Epilogue
Champagne in early September was a different world from the frozen landscape Rosalyn had known when she was last here, in January. She was struck by the region’s muggy heat, the sudden rainstorms, the plethora of bugs, and the verdant beauty of the region’s lush rolling hills.
The teams of grape pickers, calledhordons, were made up of workers primarily from Turkey and North Africa, as well as several locals and a few unpaid volunteers like Rosalyn, who stayed in a separate section of Jérôme’s house referred to as “the dormitory.”
