A Taste of Merlot (14 page)

W
hile Our Little Italian Place wasn't exactly Zagat-worthy, still, Mark found himself looking forward to their cozy corner booth.

“Ah, my favorite couple. Zee one who is so much in love.” Sal, their aging waiter, bowed, bringing a smile to Meri's face. Mark would have to tip even more generously than usual.

While they waited for their food, Mark asked about her plans for her jewelry going forward.

“I'm going to follow through with what we talked about before. Keep polishing my collection so it's better than ever, ready to show in the spring.”

Mark took a drink from his water glass and nodded his approval. “Even though it didn't work out this year, you have to stay positive. You never know what will happen later.”

“I hope so.” The shadow of self-doubt in her eyes made his gut twist. He'd wanted so badly to be the one to give her her first big break.

But who could blame her for being insecure? She still thought he was just a Harrington's buyer. Good thing he hadn't ordered wine with lunch, because the temptation to tell her about his vision for the future of the stores—and her line—might've been too much. DeVon had given him a stern warning not to discuss his pie-in-the-sky plans with
anyone
until all the particulars were ironed out.

By the time Sal had cleared their plates and attempted to seduce Meri with a decadent-looking chocolate éclair, she seemed to be herself again except for the dark circles still under her eyes.

“I'll try one of those,” Mark said with a nod at the dessert tray.

Meri watched with amusement as he devoured half the pastry in one bite.

“What's the verdict?” she laughed.

He considered, chewing. “I give it a B for flakiness, the chocolate an A-minus, and the filling—well, here—you tell me.” He brought the éclair to her lips. She only hesitated a second before her pretty pink tongue darted out to scoop up a gob of creamy filling.

Mark couldn't take his eyes off her mouth as she took her time licking the sweet excess from her lips. As he watched, all his blood drained from his head to the center of his body. It took all the strength he had not to clear the plates from the table with one sweep and lay her down, right there in the restaurant.

Instead, he reached across the tablecloth, grasping her unpolished fingertips.

She cringed apologetically. “Rough as ever, aren't they?”

With her free hand, she patted her lips with her napkin, leaving him struck again by her unique blend of raw artistic talent, ladylike table manners, and sensuality.

“You're perfect.” He brought said knuckles to his lips. “Besides, if I want soft, the rest of you more than makes up for it.”

Glowing again, she leaned in. “Let's take another day off,” she said, lowering her voice. “Play hooky, but this time, just stay home together.” Her eyes were full of meaning. “Lucky for me, my schedule's pretty flexible, given I work weekends.”

It was a wonder the napkin in his lap didn't resemble a tepee. “I like the way you think.”

Sal was back to ask if they were ready for the check. There went his fat tip.

“Aaauugh! Damn it, Meri, I can't.” Reluctantly, Mark released her hand. “I've got a ton of things to do this afternoon.”

Rejection fell across her features like a curtain. She averted her eyes and retrieved her bag from where it hung across her chair. “Sure. What was I thinking? It's the middle of the week, and Lord knows, I have a lot to do, too. Hey, thanks for your input. I've got more than enough to keep me busy for—heck—a long time. A
very
long time. Ages, in fact.”

She pushed back her chair to get up, but he caught her wrist.

“There's an away game this weekend. James and DeVon are talking about watching it at Kezar. It's a sports pub in Cole Valley. You got along with Hannah and Jasmine, didn't you? They made a point of asking about you.”

He watched the curtains part again.

“That sounds nice. Meet you at the co-op again? It's best if I keep my doors open on the weekends as long as possible.”

“The game won't start 'til six-thirty. Pick you up an hour before that?”

“Very thoughtful of your 'Niners to play around my work schedule. We close at five. That'll leave me just enough time to tidy up and change.”

He pulled out her chair for her, relieved, if still randy.

“Are you driving right back to the city?”

“Ah, no.”

She turned wide, questioning eyes to him.

He felt his face contort into a conciliatory grimace as he guided her to the door, his fingertips discreetly brushing against the strap of her bra in the center of her back. He knew it had dawned on her when her shoulders stiffened to his touch and she stopped short in the middle of the restaurant and whirled around.

“Was Rainn the reason you came up here today?”

“No. I wanted to have lunch with you. But Rainn and I still have to get together in person to discuss business sometimes. You know that.”

 

Of course they do.
Meri remembered how it had been just last week, when Gilty Artisanal Jewelry, not Día de los Muertos
,
was Harrington's hot new acquisition. The excitement of narrowing down her collection, signing contracts. Soaking up Mark's suggestions during their little
tête-à-tête . . .
which had turned into a candlelit pizza dinner, which had turned into way more than a business meeting.

She hated herself for her silence on the walk back to the co-op. Hated that he would take it for jealousy. That was definitely part of it. But there was something else: a sickening dread that someday, sooner or later, Rainn would tell Mark about the secret she wanted desperately to stay in the past.

When they got to her studio, Mark pulled the door closed behind them.

“Come 'ere,” he said softly, pulling her into his arms. And then his warm mouth was on hers, his tongue, tasting of chocolate, tangling with hers, and she was disintegrating, forgiving and forgetting about everything but Mark's hard body, of which she could never quite seem to get enough.

“You know you're all I think about, night and day, don't you?” he breathed, an inch from her ear.

If she'd been melting before, now she was practically liquid.

“Honest?” Could she
really
trust Mark Newman? Since she was eight years old, she'd been unable to let her guard down with anyone but her sisters. Mark was her first real test.

She'd worn her high pink wedges again today. Maybe, if she stared into those clover-green eyes hard enough, she could convince herself his male ego was strong enough to resist any bad stuff that might threaten the magic they'd found together.

“I mean it,” he said into her eyes.

She kissed
him
this time, relief blending into the heady mix of emotions unleashed in her every time she was in his presence.

She was breathless and swollen-lipped when he finally broke away with a glance downward.

“Those shoes kill me,” he moaned. He slid his arm around her waist and marshalled her into him with a possessive tug. “I'll never be able to look at them without thinking about—”

She grinned knowingly. Their first time, right here in this ramshackle studio that she laughably called an atelier. “So, you're a shoe man,” she teased, wrapping one ankle around his.

“I am now.”

And then, he raised that cursed watch of his to eye level.

“I'm sorry. . . .”

She couldn't help giving him a pleading look.

“I'm already ten minutes late.”

Reluctantly, she set him free.

“I'll see you in four days. But I'll call you soon.” And he was gone.

Meri thought it best not to watch him go down the hall. Instead, she went back to her bench hook. She wasn't used to men turning down her advances. She couldn't help but be confused.

If they couldn't come together over her work, and she couldn't tempt him with her body, what else was there?

 

Sunday afternoon at Kezar, Meri found herself hooked on the sports bar before she even walked through its front doors. Parked outside the wildly popular pub was a long-haired, white-bearded man astride a crimson and gold chopper, and on the back was a gaudy mannequin decked out in every piece of 'Niners gear ever conceived. Inside, at the bar, a row of beer taps stretched out forever. Flat-screen TVs hung side by side across an expanse of brick walls. Everywhere she looked it was sports, sports, and more sports.

“Whaddaya think?” yelled Mark, his hand on her back, guiding her through the narrow space.

“Very—sporty,” she yelled back, wondering how on earth they'd find the others in the body-to-body mash-up.

“They say during the big European matches, it starts filling up at five a.m.”

Through strings of brightly colored international flags fluttering from the ceiling, she caught a glimpse of James's long arm waving from a far-flung table. “Back here!”

Jasmine and Hannah scooted over to wedge Meri between them.

“You look like one of the gang now,” said DeVon, admiring Meri's new team jersey.

“You gotta try one of these babies,” James demanded, thrusting a gooey blob at her the moment she sat down. “Voted best in the city.”

She knew what it was, but she'd never partaken.
Abalone soaked in champagne? Check. White truffles? Check. Chicken wings? Not so much.
To demonstrate, Mark grabbed one from the top of the pile in the middle of the table and devoured it in five seconds flat. She looked back at the sticky morsel in James's sauce-coated thumb and forefinger and gulped.
How many calories were in these things?
Tentatively, she took it from him to take that first nibble. “Mmmm!”

“Help yourself,” said Hannah. There was a smear of sauce at the corner of her mouth. “We ordered enough for everybody.”

Everyone acted as though the Jumbotron incident at the stadium had never happened, but they couldn't fool Meri. That out-of-the-way table they'd secured early . . . the way Jasmine and Hannah had insisted on squeezing her between them . . . none of it was lost on her. The unspoken objective was to protect her, and her heart filled with gratitude and a comforting feeling of inclusion such as she'd never known outside the circle of her sisters. The warmth in Mark's eyes from over the rim of his beer mug clinched it. Here, in this sports bar, with Mark's craft-beer-drinking, wing-eating friends, was where this wine heiress belonged.

B
y mid-October, the crush was over. The grape juice had sat in contact with the skins, fermenting until the Brix levels were precisely where Papa wanted them. The moment he gave the word, the juice and skins were separated, the skins pressed to extract their tannins.

Up to that point, all the grapes from the different vineyards—even the tiny blocks the size of the
potager
kept by Jeanne—were kept separate. Now all that was left was for Papa to sample each tank and blend them to his highly refined taste.

Some of his reds were barreled within weeks of being harvested. The sauvignon blanc would remain in its stainless steel tanks longer, and the chardonnay would be put into oak and aged a second time to give it its characteristic woodiness. The timing of the second fermentation was highly unpredictable and out of human control. Sometimes it started immediately. Other times it took months.

At any point in the process, something—anything—could go wrong. Air getting into the tanks could cause oxidation. A slight temperature fluctuation could kill the good yeast cells. Acetic acid bacteria could turn a whole batch of wine to vinegar overnight.

Meri's life had fallen into a routine, too. Most days were spent hard at work on the concepts that Mark had helped her develop. But always in the back of her mind was the potential for disaster, as long as Mark had anything to do with Rainn.

Mark explained that, starting in October, he needed to travel to as many store branches as possible to assure everything was in place for the coming holiday season. Christmas and Valentine's Day sales could make or break the retail year. With stores from coast to coast, the long-established route involved flying east, touching down in cities along the way, and then circling back.

When he had a few hours to spare, Mark would pop into Meri's atelier and take her down the street to their restaurant. When he had more time, they would go with James and Jasmine and Hannah and DeVon to explore out-of-the-way places to eat, “more for the quality of the cooking than the glamour and glitz,” Mark said, or watch football at Kezar—always at the back table.

Meri's knowledge of wine perfectly complemented Mark's interest in food. The combinations were endless, especially when they ventured into the realm of ethnic cuisine. Their favorite thing became toting a couple of varieties of St. Pierre to an untried BYOB, pairing them with new dishes.

By late November, Meri's collection was coming together. Papa always did the same thing for the all-American Thanksgiving holiday: he went to France. In past years, the girls had stayed put at their respective prep schools and colleges—unless they got super lucky and were invited to a traditional holiday dinner in someone's home.

But with the exception of Papa, this year was different from all the others. Char was engaged now. She was invited to eat with Ryder's family. Savvy was flying to Tahoe with old friends from law school.

And Meri was with Mark and company. On the steep slope of Mark's Russian Hill driveway, the guys deep-fried a fifteen-pound turkey, while Meri, Hannah, and Jasmine cradled their wineglasses at a safe distance, pulling their sweaters tighter against the damp fog, shouting dire yet unheeded warnings about the dangers of mixing propane and hot cooking oil. Then came Jasmine's mom's stuffing recipe and Hannah's cherry pie.

After dinner, every piece of furniture in Mark's living room was draped with full-to-bursting twenty-somethings. Naturally, they all fell asleep during the game. When they awoke, the sky over the Bay was dark. Mark and Meri stood in his doorway waving good-bye, then loaded up the dishwasher together before heading back to the couch. That night, they did nothing more delectable than savor second helpings of pie. Meri felt like an old married lady. In one way, she'd never been happier.

Still. If Mark really found her desirable, wouldn't they be spending every possible moment between the sheets?

The next morning, Mark planned to go into the office early to monitor Black Friday sales. Meri had packed up her bag to go back to the atelier. That's when he informed her that he was taking Rainn on a trip.

He lowered her onto the couch with him, settling her sideways on his lap. “Harrington's ad agency has come up with a TV commercial around the theme of Día de los Muertos to promote Rainn's line. It's shooting in L.A. I'm going down to Los Angeles to keep an eye on things.”

“I saw the new billboard.” She'd been second-guessing herself ever since she'd spotted the freshly-pasted ad: C
OMING
S
OON
F
ROM
H
ARRINGTON'S
A: S
PARKLING
N
EW
C
OLLABORATION
F
OR
O
UR
G
OLDEN
A
NNIVERSARY
!

Like a nail in a coffin, that announcement drove home the painful fact that Meri had thrown away the chance of a lifetime.

“I presume Rainn will be there.”

“She's starring in it.” To his credit, he winced, bracing himself for her reaction.

“Lovely.” She paused, gazing down at her work-sore hands lying impotently in her lap. “How many nights will you be gone?”

“Our flight leaves Monday morning and we'll be home late Friday.”

Our
flight.
We'll
be home.
Mark and Rainn, wedged in tight on those sardine-can plane seats.

He squeezed her in a one-armed hug. “You have nothing to worry about, babe. None of this was my idea. But it's my job. I can't say no.” He pulled back to scan her expression. “You know that.”

She smiled weakly.

“The guys said something about going out Friday night. Why don't you go with them? I'll catch up with you all later, when my flight gets in.”

When she hoisted her bag onto her shoulder, it felt as if it were full of bricks. Mark walked her to her car and opened her door, tucking her in. He raised a hand of farewell as she drove away . . . hoping it wasn't for the last time.

 

All week, Meri did everything she could think of to keep her mind off what Mark and Rainn were doing in Los Angeles. But on Monday, in the midst of fashioning a complicated clasp for a new necklace, a vision of his close-cropped head huddled next to Rainn's while they debated over a fine point of her collection wormed its way into her mind. She squeezed her eyes closed to block it out. But no sooner did she brush that away than she envisioned Rainn seated next to Mark, long scarf flowing behind her in the breeze from their convertible rental car as they glided down a palm-lined avenue.

She really had to do something to tame her imagination.

Still, that TV commercial, the four-hundred-mile trip south with Mark to sunny Southern California in the dead of winter, could've been hers, if she hadn't been so obstinate. That was fact, not fantasy.

Driving home from work Tuesday evening, she pictured Mark and Rainn dining out, Mark's hand politely guiding Rainn's elbow into one of L.A.'s finest restaurants. People mistaking them for a couple.

Wednesday night, alone in her bed, she thought about the wicked kick it would give Rainn to tell Mark just how trashy his girlfriend really was. Clean-cut Mark would be revolted by Meri's promiscuous past . . . cringing at his close call. After all, if Meri had agreed to work for Harrington's and then that film had hit the Internet, it might even have cost Mark his job.

 

By Thursday, Mark's patience hung by a thread. All week he'd done nothing but observe from a canvas chair while skeleton-suited actors and marigold-bedecked actresses hefted overloaded platters of food on their shoulders in rehearsal of a macabre parade. Just now, Rainn, costumed in an off-the-shoulder blouse, stood still while a makeup artist dabbed at some minute imperfection that apparently could make or break the scene while the stylist experimented with various combinations of Rainn's jewelry.

After trying out several bracelets and rings, the guy from Harrington's ad agency still wasn't happy. Mark fidgeted. Scratched his chin. When could they wrap this up so he could get back home to Meri?

“Let me try something.” On an impulse, he leapt from his seat and walked onto the set. There, he picked out a pendant and chain from the box of samples, went behind Rainn, and fastened it around her neck.

The cameras whirred their test shots. Mark hurried to get out of the way. “Hold it. No—back! Go back!” yelled the director, through the lens. “Yes.” He waved. “No. Behind her.” What the hell did he want him to do? Mark was no actor!

“Yes! Right there. Now, lean over her shoulder. Great! Put your hands on her upper arms. Brilliant!”

Standing close enough to breathe the bitter scent of her, touching her skin, unnerved him. When the director called “got it” and the cameras stopped, he couldn't sprint back to the shelter of his chair fast enough.

The past three nights in L.A., Mark had pleaded work to do, then either snuck out alone to an eatery found on one of his favorite food blogs or else ordered room service.

Tonight, during their sole evening meal together, Rainn tried to impress him with the leathery pinot noir she ordered. Not a good match for the delicate, white-fleshed Pacific sand dab. Wistfully, he wondered what Meri would've chosen, had it been her line instead of Rainn's he was down here promoting.

Her Hollywood week winding down, Rainn acted higher than giraffe nuts. All through the meal she talked nonstop about her ideas for her second collection, which she'd named
Revolucion.
Mark picked at his fish while she droned on, something about bloodstone and jet and yada yada yada.

After the ride back to their adjacent hotel rooms in Mark's rental car, she insisted on inviting him in to show him her sketches for the new line. From feigning interest in her project all through dinner, Mark was beat, but it was even more exhausting arguing with her. He caved.

Which was how he ended up sitting on the couch next to her, her sketches scattered across the coffee table.

She must've noticed his boredom after the second time he nodded off.

“You're tired. I'll put these away,” she said, gathering up her papers. Maybe she had a little empathy after all.

“So, what's up with you and Merlot?”

He blinked.

“How's she doing since she dropped out and all?”

Keep your mouth shut
,
Mark. Anything you say will be used against you.

Rainn sighed. “Shame she didn't have what it takes to finish. I mean, some of her stuff wasn't bad. And not only her jewelry. Did you know she did some acting, back in school? I guess that's not that surprising, her mom having been a famous actress and all.”

He grunted.

“We can probably find one of her mom's films right now on one of those old movie channels.” She picked up the TV remote and began pushing buttons.

“I should be going,” said Mark.

“What did I tell you? Here's one.” She clicked on a scene from a classic in which a Meri look-alike glided across the screen in an old-fashioned dressing gown, opposite a handsome actor with slicked-back hair. Intriguing, but not something he cared to watch in present company.

He let slip a yawn. “Well.” He clapped his hands to his thighs, in the unmistakable signal that he was ready to go.

“I know. This old stuff's kind of boring, right? Let's see if we can find something more recent. Might have to watch on my laptop.”

She flipped open her computer and typed. “Did you know Gates has a filmmaking department? Remember Dylan and Austin? You saw them the other day, outside the co-op. We've always been tight. Got an apartment together in Vallejo after graduation. Merlot acted in one of their films. Jury's out on whether she was as good as her mom. But you know us artists. We can be very . . .” She smiled, eyes and barbell flashing evilly. “
Creative
.”

She pressed the go arrow, tilted the screen his way and waited for his reaction.

She might as well have injected him with epinephrine. Suddenly Mark was wide awake.