A Taste of Sauvignon (16 page)

O
pening day. The day his family worked toward all year long. Madre always arranged their harvest in a way that made the Moraleses' stall look more colorful, more luscious than everyone else's. She chatted with the women, exclaiming over their cell phone photos of their growing children, and upsold the men with their meager grocery lists. Once people tasted the Moraleses' tasty products, they almost always came back for more.

Esteban pitched in wherever he was needed, loading and unloading the crates of produce, helping sell when Madre got too busy, emptying the cashbox into the bank pouch when the stack of ones started spilling over, same as he always did.

This year's opening day felt different, though, thanks to the G
OING
O
UT OF
B
USINESS
sign that Esteban had scribbled and stuck in the ground. The news quickly spread that the Moraleses' first market Saturday of the year would also be their last. Madre still smiled for the customers and Padre still hung out quietly in the background, but Esteban knew that deep down inside, they harbored the same confused feelings he did.

He had to admit, from a purely practical standpoint, Savvy was right. It made sense to take the two million and walk away. No more money worries, no more aching backs. Still, this market was a part of them. They were saying good-bye to a whole way of life.

Just like Bodega, the market was a melting pot of Napa Valley. Its packed stalls were a feast for the eyes as well as the palate. Especially on opening day, it was hard not to run into someone you knew. Esteban was toting another case of bags from the truck about mid-morning when he spotted Shane, sauntering shoulder to shoulder through the alley with a gang of guys from downtown. One of the guys, Justin Thompson, was okay, but most of the others were the type who bounced from job to job, earning just enough to get wasted most nights. If it weren't for the free live music and festival atmosphere of opening day, they probably wouldn't be at the market.

“Hey, E!”

Esteban nodded, his face half hidden behind the large box in his arms. From the corner of his eye, he saw Shane elbow the biggest man—Steve something, his name was. Years back, Steve had given Esteban the stink eye at a bar over a girl they both were hitting on. A girl so insignificant Esteban couldn't even recall her face.

“Dude. What happened to your hair?” prodded Steve with a cocky grin.

“Oh, yeah, thanks a lot for dumping me at Salt Point a couple weeks ago,” said Shane, throwing up gang signs with his hands.

What Esteban wanted to say was how ballsy the slightly built Shane was when he was surrounded by a pack of thugs. But he had better things to do.

“Thinks he's better than everyone else since he's humping one of the St. Pierre sisters,” called out Shane to his back.

He felt his jaw set
.
Let them have their fun. They weren't worth the trouble of wiping blood off his knuckles. But he couldn't resist a glance.

“What?” Shane spread his arms innocently, walking backward, his eyes flickering left and right for moral support. “Everyone's talking about it. They're all like, what's
he
doing with
her?
And I'm like, happens all the time. Everybody knows those wine princesses love to go slumming. Hook up with the help.”

Esteban kept on walking, his temples beginning to throb with his blood pressure.

“You seen her? The brunette one with the glasses? I'd tap that,” said an unfamiliar voice.

“You know how it goes,” said Shane, raising his voice even louder so Esteban would be sure to hear. “It never lasts.”

Esteban was almost to the stand when he heard their parting comment.

“Gonna be a kept man, now that ol' Xavier St. Pierre bought out the Moraleses, lock, stock, and barrel.”

He stopped in his tracks then. Set down the box. Turned. The others were now hastening away with wary backward glances.

Not Shane. Printed boxers bagging above the waistband of his jeans, still counting on the half dozen larger men to stand up for him, he continued to taunt.

“Didn't know that, huh? Look at him. He looks so surprised. It's a bitch when you're the last one to know, isn't it, E?”

How he got there, he'd never know, but Esteban found himself on top of the smaller man, fist poised above his face. “That's where it ends,” he growled.

Shane covered his face with his hands. “Hide your crazy, man! Don't blame me—ask Hector! That's who told me!”

Hector, Shane's cousin. A wine distributor.

“Everyone knows. Tell him.” From where Esteban was trying not to bash his face into the pavement, Shane's neck craned behind him to his gang, who had stopped some feet way. Too brave to run, not brave enough to enter the fray.

Esteban peered up at them too, searching face after face, the question plain in his eyes.

“It's true, man,” Justin Thompson said, his voice holding a twinge of regret. Justin's mom had worked in a winery since before God was born. She knew everybody and everybody knew her.

Esteban let go of Shane, rose and stood over him, unseeing. There was one way to find out for sure. When Savvy got there, she'd refute what they'd said.
She would.

Shane scrambled to his feet and strode away brushing the dirt off his sleeves, cocky as ever.

Esteban turned to see Padre standing white-faced at the rear of their market stand. Sweat beaded on his forehead.

“Padre?”

He ran to him.

F
inally, the weekend! Savvy stretched, yawned, and picked up her phone on the bedside table to check the time. Today was going to be a busy one. She planned to be at the ranch to look at the still by nine-thirty, then hit the market during its peak hours.

Her emotions zig-zagged as she went through her morning routine. She was excited to visit the Rathmell Ranch again and finally experience the market Jeanne had been raving about all these years. But she couldn't shake her guilt. Her first market visit would be the Moraleses' last day in business.

Selling still made sense from a money standpoint, but the major lifestyle change was going to take the Moraleses some getting used to. Normally, retiring and selling a home was something people took years to map out. By the time they finally made a decision, they'd already worked through some of the feelings of loss and resignation that came with the freedom of letting go.

If only retiring had been the Moraleses' idea. If only Savvy hadn't been the one to impose it on them.

While she waited for Anne Rathmell to answer her knock, Savvy studied the alcove surrounding the entrance to the ranch house. It could use a little attention. Clearly, the leggy weeds springing up around the squat silver and gray succulents weren't part of the original landscape design.

The door swung wide, but it wasn't Anne on the other side. Savvy lowered her gaze to a man in a paint-spattered cotton smock, seated in a wheel chair.

“Hi. I'm Savvy. I think Anne is expecting me?”

“Lucas Rathmell. Watch it—I seem to get paint everywhere when I work,” he warned before shaking her hand.

Savvy smiled. “Don't worry. One of my sisters is an artist.”

He wheeled himself around to go down the extra-wide hallway, and Savvy noticed even his chair was smudged with blotches of color.

“Annie?” Lucas called out. “Someone here to see you.”

Anne appeared from around a corner, slightly breathless. “Didn't hear the bell. I was on the computer doing one of those—what do you call it? Video-chatting things—with an old colleague from Stanford. Sorry to interrupt your painting, Lucas.”

“S'okay. Needed to stretch my legs, anyway.” He grinned at being the butt of his own joke.

“Did you two meet? Hold on, Savvy, let me find my sun hat.”

On their way to the distillery, Anne asked, “Just you today?”

“Esteban's family runs a stall at the Napa farmers' market. Today's their opening day. I'm going down as soon as I leave here.” Thinking about seeing him made her heart flutter.

Anne looked at her. “I was going to ask if the two of you are close, but that look in your eyes says it all. He's not what he seems on the surface, you know.”

Savvy shot her a curious look. “What do you mean?”

“He may look like nothing but a big, strapping farm boy,” said Anne, holding open the distillery door for her. “But there's a lot going on up here.” She tapped her head. “He's very bright. And very sensitive. Don't forget, I was a clinical psychologist for many years. I'm pretty good at reading people.”

Inside the distillery, a decade's worth of dust bombarded Savvy's nose. She sneezed.

“It's a disaster in here, isn't it?” said Anne.

More dust motes stirred up by their boots clouded the air, filtered by rays of pale light that managed to get through a grimy skylight. Built-in shelves lined the room, no doubt designed for holding the yield from the still.

Savvy walked over to the machine and drew a visible line in the soot along its girth, wondering if the brown tarnish could ever be rubbed off the copper. In her mind's eye, she saw the sun glinting orange off the still's newly restored finish, the shelves filled with sparkling glass bottles. “Oh, no, it's great.” She spread her arms and spun around. “I'm in love with it. All of it.”

Savvy was glad Anne thought it was a wreck. That meant she'd be more likely to let it go.

“What would you say if I offered to take it off your hands?” she asked.

“What? You want to buy that old thing?”

At that moment, Savvy couldn't imagine anything she'd like more than fixing up that still, stuffing its canister full of lavender, and sniffing the heavenly scented hydrosol and essential oil that came out the other end.

“What on earth would you do with it? Where would you put it?”

“I could find a place at my family's winery.”

“Aren't you all tied up being a lawyer?”

There was that. Interesting. She never felt this enthusiastic sitting at her desk at Witmer, Robinson and Scott.

Slowly, she traversed the room's corners, imagining how she would transform it if it were hers. A table over
here
, cupboards for lab equipment over
there
. . .

“Hmmm?”

“You haven't heard a thing I've said.”

Savvy pulled a face. “Sorry! Just thinking.”

“You're quite serious about this, aren't you?”

“We'll see.” She shrugged. “I've been told I have a ‘nose.' ”

“Tell you what. You can have the still. Do anything you want with it. Why not keep it here? Easier than you and me taking it apart and hauling it out to your car, getting ourselves and your seats all dirty. Lord knows, there's a ton of raw material to work with here. More than one person could ever process.”

Savvy's eyes threatened to bulge out of their sockets. “Are you serious?”

Anne's eyebrows went up under the brim of her hat. “Like I said earlier, Lucas and I didn't move here for the lavender.

“Besides, I'm going to be traveling a lot this summer. The project I was telling you about? I'm collaborating on another book—that's who I was online with when you came.”

“
Another
book?” Savvy asked, impressed.

Anne waved away Savvy's admiration. “Nothing you'd be interested in. Merely a dry, clinical piece about personalities. That's my area of expertise. Now, I know what you're thinking—these things can all be done on the computer nowadays—but there's something to be said for a good, old-fashioned meeting in the flesh. Spreading out all your papers, comparing notes. I've taken an apartment on the Stanford campus, to be closer to my writing partner for a few days out of the week.

“So why don't you simply come up here and work, whenever the spirit moves you? Easier than dismantling this old thing and lugging it down to where you'll also have to transport raw material, anyway.”

“What about your husband?”

“What about him?”

“He won't mind me poking around the property?”

“Pfft. Lucas won't even notice you're here. He's getting ready for a show. Totally self-sufficient, holed up in his studio. Painting was always
his
dream . . . though I can't imagine why we thought we had to live all the way out here in Timbuktu to write and paint. Could have stayed in Cupertino, where the sun shines two hundred sixty-five days a year, all the sidewalks have curb cuts to accommodate his chair, and there's a decent restaurant on every corner.”

“He seems happy enough,” Savvy said.

“Hmph. Usually. Last winter got to him a little.”

“How does this sound?” asked Savvy. “Let me give you some money for the still. At least a token amount—before you see how nice it looks when I polish it up and you change your mind,” she ribbed, “and I'll take you up on your offer to keep it here, until I think of something better.”

Anne thrust out her hand. “Deal. If you ever come to your senses, feel free to either take it with you or simply walk away, no harm done.”

Waving a hand in front of her face, Anne headed for the door. “This dust is killing me. Poke around here as long as you like. I have research to do.” She took another step, then halted. “And Savvy, there's something else. I feel I owe you an apology,” she said from the doorway.

“What on earth for?”

“The first time you called me on the phone? When you said you were one of the St. Pierres, I was expecting this pampered heiress . . . a self-centered socialite. Just look at you, though . . .”

Savvy's hand automatically flew to the elastic band she'd hastily stretched through her hair, lowering her gaze to the roomy flowered cotton dress she'd borrowed from Char, all the way down to her rubber boots. She must look a fright.

“Grounded as they come. And me, with my doctorate and all my books . . .” She exited, chiding herself as she walked away. “You'd think I'd know better than to believe in stereotypes. . . .”

 

As Savvy wove through the crowd of shoppers at the farmers' market, listening to the vendors hawking their wares—“Here, try a piece of our Taleggio. It's a semi-soft, washed-rind cheese”—admiring the stalls with their artfully staged breads and pyramids of free-range eggs and, of course, fruits and veggies. The sun warming her back made dancing shadows of the pedestrian's legs on the macadam. Best of all, she'd just bought her very own copper still! Her heart felt ready to burst with well-being.

While Savvy imagined the scent of her personal blends of essential oils, the actual aromas of the market—sweet, yeasty, pungent—swirled along on the air currents like tangible things.

And all the while, snippets of last night kept coming back to her, each one inciting a secret smile. Esteban, kissing her in ways she'd never even imagined only a few weeks ago. Those panties she'd agonized over at the department store, discarded like a candy bar wrapper. The way his touch had made her feel as if she were endlessly freefalling, only to find herself landing safely in his strong arms....

Something knocked Savvy out of her reverie. A small boy raced by, dipping and dodging between the shoppers.

The exuberance on his freckled face instantly replaced her annoyance with a smile. Another scamp whizzed after the first one in a merry chase. Within seconds, both kids had disappeared into the throng, leaving Savvy more thrown off at the sight of her hand lying protectively across her tummy than at having been jostled.

The distillery and the market weren't the only reasons today was such a big day for Savvy. This day marked two months since she'd bled.

One trip to the pharmacy and she'd know for sure. So why hadn't she taken the test?

At first, she'd put it off because she was afraid it would come back positive. But as the days and weeks went by, something in her heart grew along with her belly. It had started out as acceptance, and turned into hope. Now, she was scared to take that test for fear it would come out negative.

There it was, the sign heralding M
ORALES
F
ARM
.

Strangely, with all those people milling about, the stall was unmanned. Savvy stood in front of it, her brow furrowed. Where was Mrs. Morales? Where were Esteban and his father? It was a busy time for them all to be taking a break. They were apt to miss some good sales.

The pie vendor at the counter next to the Moraleses' called over to her. “If you want to buy something from their stall, I can help you.”

Savvy drifted over and waited until the customer in front of her paid for her pies.

“Where are the Moraleses?” asked Savvy.

“They took Mr. Morales to Queen of the Valley in an ambulance. Mrs. Morales rode along. I told her I'd keep an eye out for her customers, close up for her at the end of the day if she's not back . . .”

Savvy had pulled her phone out of her bag before she even realized it and was punching in Esteban's number.

It rang and rang.

She started sprinting back in the direction from which she'd come. Now every pedestrian was just an obstacle in her path.

When she got to her car, she threw her phone onto the passenger seat unanswered, and headed toward the hospital.