Christmas in Wine Country (37 page)

             
Jumping into action—after securing some table space for the Tofurkey—Lila did her best to help get Annie’s overly ambitious Thanksgiving dinner back on the rails. While a top-notch pastry chef chocolatier, the more mundane aspects of cooking proved elusive to Annie. About an hour later, filo squared away, turkey nicely basted, Lila was turning her attention to the potatoes when Zoe and Godfrey arrived.

             
With a shriek, Annie pointed at the clock. It was the first time Annie’s parents had agreed to come out to her house for Thanksgiving and their imminent arrival had her wound like a top.

             
“Relax,” Lila found herself telling Annie once again, amused to find herself in that position.

             
“You don’t know my mom,” Annie muttered, checking on the turkey yet again.

             
“I do, actually,” Lila reminded her, having met her several times over the years. Coiffed and with a penchant for gold, Annie’s mother tended to give off an air that things were not meeting her expectations. “We’ll sit her right next to Godfrey.”

             
Getting a laugh, Lila went to go offer drinks.

             
Hours later, after some stilted chit chat, after everyone got seated, after Charlotte declared that she was most thankful for Mr. Meows, and happily after Godfrey’s lengthy reading from the journal of William Bradford and recitation of the names of the 53 pilgrims at the first Thanksgiving plus a minute of silence for all of our un-named Native American brothers and sisters, they’d all enjoyed heaping plates of
scrumptious
food. Even Annie’s mother had complimented the cranberry sauce—hastily purchased by Pete at the gourmet market merely two hours ago after a momentary panic by Annie, but no one needed to know that. Many toasts ensued, most of which were devoted to the closing of the bookstore café lease. As befitting her expertise, Annie had more deserts than dishes in the main course and it took nearly as long as dinner for everyone to make their way samples of each. Declaring the filo dough squares the winners, Lila gave Annie a brief round of applause which everyone joined.

             
Dishes done, Annie’s parents sent on their way, everyone sacked out in front of the TV. Lila decided to step out on to the front porch for a bit of fresh air. Stuffed, she leaned against the house enjoying the evening chill and gazing up at the towering pines bordering Annie’s property. No redwoods here, just a few miles inland; they were temperamental trees. She pictured the enchanted Redwood grove along her running route, then Jake living nearby. Had he had Thanksgiving dinner over his brother’s house? Had Vanessa joined? Was he watching the football game Pete kept turning to in between the James Bond marathon?

             
The door creaked and Annie stepped out to join her on the porch.

             
“Charlotte go down OK?” Lila asked.

“Fell asleep while I was buttoning her into her PJs.”

“And how are you doing?” Just looking at her, Lila knew Annie was much more relaxed and even feeling somewhat pleased with herself.

             
“I think it went OK.” Annie crossed over to one of two wicker arm chairs on the porch. “I was thinking we should take these in because of the rain but now I’m glad we left them out.” Settling into the other chair, Lila agreed. “So, I was at the store yesterday,” Annie began.

“And every day this week,” Lila laughed. She’d been there most days, too, measuring, envisioning, talking with Pete’s crew. 

“Martin stopped by.”

“He’s always stopping by.” Lila could picture him, dapper and usually with a flash of purple in his tie or socks. “I think he likes it that we got the store.”

“He does. He told me as much.” After a pause, she looked at Lila and added, “He also told me how the Endicott deal fell through.”

“Yeah?” Lila wondered if her voice conveyed just how dramatically her pulse leapt at the prospect.

“Jake called him and pulled their offer.”

“Jake called Martin?”

“He pulled out of the deal.”

Sitting up toward the edge of her chair, Lila’s “Really?” came out in an unusually high octave.

“And then he made Martin promise to call you so you could have the next shot at the property.”

“Me?” Lila now squeaked.

“Sorry I didn’t tell you earlier, I was just so frantic with my parents and the filo—”

“Wait. Jake cancelled the deal and told Marin—”

“To call Lila Clark,” Annie nodded, confirming. “I know, I don’t get it either. But Martin specifically said, ‘he told me to call Lila Clark.’”

“Well, he didn’t.”

“That’s because he knows who’s really paying for things,” Annie laughed. “But the fact is, Jake said to call you.”

“Why didn’t Martin tell us before?”

“He wasn’t supposed to. But you know what a gossip he is, it just spilled out and then he kind-of mumbled to himself, ‘I wasn’t supposed to tell you that.’” Annie did a convincing Martin. “I asked him why not and he said Jake had asked him not to.”

             
Pete poked his head around the door. “She’s up.”

             
“That’s not good.” Annie rose from the chair with both determination and fatigue to go check on Charlotte.

             
Lila remained on the porch, kept company by her confusion, racing pulse, and more questions than she’d had even before getting some more answers. 

CHAPTER 13: Watch out Boy, She’ll Chew you Up

             
Zoe sat in lotus position, fingers touching, eyes closed, meditating on paint chips. “I see vanilla,” she said without opening her eyes. “It’s an ancient aphrodisiac.”

             
“They say sex sells,” Annie commented, over at the chipped former deli counter top. She was paging through a design magazine on the top of a large stack. Every now and then a rip would punctuate their conversation as she discovered something she liked and placed it in her folder. A few minutes ago she’d sung Twinkle Twinkle to Charlotte via cell phone. Her mother-in-law put her to bed that night, as she’d done most nights that week. The full court press was on: eight weeks and counting to transform the dingy, long-vacant deli into Redwood Cove’s most bustling new hangout.  

             
“Sex does sell,” Lila agreed, sitting over with Zoe and using her eyes to look at the squares of paint colors spread out before her. She could recall one campaign her SF firm had done for car care products featuring a woman in a bikini and short shorts in all sorts of improbable poses as she soaped up her car. Sales had spiked 17%. 

             
“You want them craving…” Zoe continued, taking a deep inhale and then pushing the air out in a full exhale.

             
“What?” Lila asked, expecting Zoe to complete her sentence.

             
Eyes open, Zoe smiled. “That’s just it. They’ll be in the café, surrounded by essence of vanilla, aroused, anticipating, wanting. And then they’ll buy your books.” She gestured over to what was still a dingy, scuffed wall. Pete and his crew would soon tear
it down to reveal Cover to Cover, the world’s best bookstore. Lila could see it so clearly she felt like taking a hammer to the wall, herself, in her impatience to launch.

             
“We still need to agree on a name,” Lila reminded them. 

             
“Yeah,” Zoe agreed. “But it can’t be too triple X or people will think it’s the adult wing of the bookstore.” 

Enjoying the parallel track Zoe’s mind traveled—alongside yet never touching—Lila laughed, “OK, so we need to find something that gets people’s attention without mistakenly leading them to think it’s a peep show.”

“What’s it about, really?” Zoe asked, arms behind her back, hands up in reverse prayer position. “I mean, what’s the essence of this café?”

Lila recalled so many conversations with harried and exhausted moms, grateful to have their children corralled for a few minutes in story hour, turning during the rest bit to another mom friend or a magazine as if for salvation. She could picture over-scheduled visitors up from the city on hiatus from work deadlines and conference calls and shuttling kids to soccer practices and piano lessons, kicking around Redwood Cove and taking time to have a coffee and a treat, flip through a book and chillax.

“It’s about time, I guess,” Lila contemplated the precious commodity. “Taking time to enjoy, appreciate, relax.”

“Genius!” Zoe shouted and Lila laughed again, pleased she could always count on Zoe for drama. “It’s About Time! That’s our name!”

“It’s About Time?” Annie repeated, not seeming quite as sold but considering.

“Really?” Lila asked, thinking how in her five years at an advertising firm she’d never, ever approach doing anything like coming up with a name or a slogan. She was NOT a creative.

“I love it,” Zoe declared.

“It’s not that sexy,” Lila worried and then realized she was doing exactly what she’d rolled her eyes about back in advertising: crafting a blatant appeal to people’s basest instincts. Food sex food sex—not to mention the constant stream of contradictions: shopping saves you money, food makes you skinny. Back at the firm it had all increasingly struck her as sad and hollow. Apparently, though, she only had scruples and intellectual distance when it came to promoting other people’s products; when it came to her new café, her very own business venture, she had no problem pulling out the bikini and the bucket of soapy water.

“We should have a poster up at the holiday party,” Annie said, looking up from her magazine. “Or maybe postcards announcing our opening day.”

“Joyce could probably make something,” Zoe agreed. “Though I think she’s already in charge of setting up the tree.” Most of Redwood Cove’s residents were involved in one way or another with putting together the annual holiday bash. Held at the Redwood Cove’s Community Center—essentially a large, converted barn that housed everything from senior jazzercise to toddler tumbling—the locals kept it deliberately low-key with home baked goodies, elementary-school-designed Christmas tree ornaments, and a hodge podge of local amateur musicians assembled into a swing
band backing up Redwood Cove’s finest crooner: 68-year-old Fred Trumbull. Specializing in Sinatra, Fred knew how to put on a show.

This year it would all go down on Saturday, December 14
th
. Lila was bringing raspberry jam squares and debating whether she was going to let Zoe talk her into dressing retro. Zoe had assured her that she had some fabulous dresses in her closet—which Lila had no problem imagining was true—but she didn’t quite share Zoe’s enthusiasm for wearing ‘beehives so high they’ll scare the hairspray can.’

             
The door opened and Pete walked in with a guy Lila recognized as a member of his crew. Both were clad similarly in Carhartt workpants, boots and sweatshirts, though Pete wore a baseball cap and his friend had on his hood. Their boots trod heavy on the already scuffed floors; polishing them would be last on the list just before opening day. Pete made his way over to Annie and leaned over her shoulder, glancing at the magazine and giving her a squeeze around her waist.

             
“You said you’d be here an hour ago,” Annie said grumpily.

             
“I did,” Pete agreed. “Things are going slow at Endicott these days.” At the mention of Endicott, Pete drew instant curiosity from the women in the room.

“You’re working over at Endicott?” Lila asked.

“Yup.” Holding up his hands and looking at them all he took a step backward and dug himself in much deeper, saying, “Something’s going on there but I can’t tell you guys anything about it.”

             
“Oh really?” Annie asked, alive with the scent of a story. Closing the gap between herself and Pete, she hooked a finger in his belt loop. “Now why would you say anything as silly as that?”

             
Pete backed up and literally hit a wall. “I don’t even know if what I heard is true.”

             
With the sly smile of victory, Annie gave his chin an affectionate scratch. “So you heard something.”

             
“Things at Endicott Vineyards
a
re
slow,” Zoe repeated, standing up. Sleuth on the case, she ticked the fact off on her fingers, followed by, “Pete has heard a rumor as to why.”

             
“Family drama?” Annie asked, looking deep into Pete’s eyes. He pulled down the brim of his cap in a last-ditch attempt at deflection.

             
“Does it have to do with—” Stopping herself just before she blurted out Jake’s name—she was 28, after all, not 13—Lila lamely finished, “The vineyard?”

             
“Yeah.” Pete felt comfortable stating the obvious. “It has to do with the vineyard.” Looking at his friend, he asked, “Help me out, man.”

             
“You’re on your own with this one,” his friend chuckled, heading back into the kitchen and out of sight.