The Vineyard (2 page)

I
N THE FOYER
of a small brick Colonial in Washington, D.C.'s, Woodley Park, a yellow envelope identical to the one his sister had received lay in the heap on the floor under the mail slot when Greg Seebring arrived home that same afternoon. He didn't see it at first. All he saw was the heap itself, which was far too big to represent a single day's mail. He had been gone for three. He guessed he was looking at mail from all three, but where was his wife?

“Jill?”
he called. Loosening his tie, he went looking. She wasn't in the living room, kitchen, or den. He went up the stairs, but the two bedrooms there were empty, too. Confused, he stood at the top of the banister and tried to recall whether she had anything planned. If so, she hadn't told him. Not that they'd talked during his trip. He'd been on the go the whole time, leaving the hotel early and returning late, too talked out to pick up the phone. He had felt really good about catching an early plane home. He had thought she would be pleased.

Pleased, indeed. She wasn't even
here
.

He should have called.

But hell, she hadn't called him, either.

Feeling suddenly exhausted, he went down the stairs for his bag. As soon as he lifted it, though, he set it back down and, taking only his laptop, scooped up the mail. Again, it seemed like too much.

He wondered if Jill had gone to see her mother. She had been considering that for a while.

Dumping the lot on the kitchen counter, he hooked the laptop to the phone and booted it up. While he waited, he pushed junk mail one way and bills another. Most of what remained was identifiable by a return address. There was an envelope from the Committee to Elect Michael Bonner, a friend of his who was running for the U.S. Senate and surely wanted money. There was one from a college friend of Jill's, and another postmarked Akron, Ohio, where Jill's mother lived, perhaps mailed before Jill had decided to visit. There was one with a more familiar postmark and an even more familiar scent.

Lifting the yellow envelope, he pictured his mother. Strong. Gracious. Daffodil-bright, if aloof.

But the vineyard colors were ivory with burgundy. She always used them. Asquonset was her identity.

The envelope had the weight of an invitation. No surprise there; partying was Natalie's specialty. But then, Alexander Seebring had loved a big bash, and who could begrudge him? No gentleman farmer, this man. Many a day he had walked the vineyard in his jeans and denim shirt alongside his manager. If not that, he was traveling to spread the Asquonset name, and the hard work had paid off. After years of struggle, he had Asquonset turning a tidy profit. He had earned the right to party.

Natalie knew how to oblige. She was in her element directing caterers, florists, and musicians. There had always been two festivals at Asquonset each year—one to welcome spring, one to celebrate the harvest. The spring party had been skipped this year, coming as it would have so soon after Al's death. Apparently, though, Natalie was chafing at the bit. She hated wearing black—didn't have a single black dress in her wardrobe, had actually had to go out and buy one for the funeral.

So, barely six months later, she was returning to form. Greg wasn't sure he approved. It seemed wrong, what with her husband of so many years—his father—still fresh in his grave, and the future of Asquonset up in the air.

Natalie wanted Greg to run it. She hadn't said that in as many words, but he had given her his answer anyway:
No. No way. Out of the question
.

He wondered if she had found a buyer—wondered, suddenly, whether this party was to introduce whoever it was. But she would
have told him first. Then again, maybe not. He had made his feelings about the vineyard more than clear. He was a pollster. He was on the road working with clients three weeks out of four. He had his own business to run, and he did it well. Making wine had been his father's passion. It wasn't Greg's.

Not that he was exactly an impartial observer. If Natalie sold Asquonset, there would be money coming in, half of which eventually would be his. In that sense, it behooved him to check out a potential buyer. He didn't want his mother letting the vineyard go for anything less than it was worth.

Dropping the envelope on the counter, he pulled up the laptop and typed in his password.

But that envelope seemed to command his attention. Curious to know what Natalie had in mind, he picked it up again, slit it open, and pulled out a card.

P
LEASE JOIN US FOR A CELEBRATION OF OUR WEDDING
L
ABOR
D
AY
S
UNDAY AT
4
P.M.
T
HE
G
REAT
H
OUSE
A
SQUONSET
V
INEYARD AND
W
INERY

N
ATALIE
S
EEBRING AND
C
ARL
B
URKE

He stared blankly at the card.

A wedding? His mother and Carl?

His mother and
Carl?
Where had
that
come from?

Natalie was seventy-six. Maybe she was losing it, he thought, shaking his head. And what about Carl? He had to be a few years older than that. What was in
his
mind?

Carl had been at the vineyard forever. Alexander had considered him a friend. But a friend wouldn't snatch up a man's widow less than six months after his death, any more than a man's widow would turn right around and marry the nearest thing in pants.

Understandably, Natalie would be leaning on Carl more, now that Alexander was gone. Greg hadn't thought anything of the fact that lately she was mentioning Carl more often. In hindsight, he realized that those mentions were always in praise. It looked like Greg had missed the point.

Was it romance?
Sex?
Weren't they a little old? Greg was forty,
and losing interest fast. Sex required effort, if you wanted to do it right. So maybe they didn't do it the way
he
did. Hell, he was embarrassed thinking of his mother doing it at all. But … with Carl? Carl was an old
coot!

Maybe he was a clever one, though. Maybe he had his eye on the vineyard. Hadn't he retired and passed the reins on to his own son? That supposedly had been Alexander's doing, but Carl had been vineyard manager too long not to have a say in who took over. So maybe Carl wanted Simon to have the vineyard. Maybe marrying Natalie was his way of ensuring it.

Greg had to call Natalie, but Lord, he hated doing that. What could he say—
I don't want the vineyard, but I don't want Simon having it either?

Maybe he should call Susanne first. She saw Natalie more often than he did. She might know what was going on.

Lord, he hated doing that, too. Susanne was sixteen years his senior. They shared a mother, but they had never been close.

Swearing under his breath, he loosened his collar button. He didn't need this. He needed a vacation, actually had one planned. So going to Asquonset on Labor Day weekend was out of the question. He was going north, all the way to Ontario for a fishing trip. Already had it booked.

Not that Jill was pleased. Given a choice, she'd take Asquonset. She liked it there. At least, he thought she did. Hard to say lately. She was going through something. She had been quieter than usual. Could she be having a midlife crisis? he wondered. At
thirty-eight?

He didn't want to think about his wife falling apart, but it beat thinking about Natalie marrying Carl. He would deal with them later. Crossing the kitchen, he opened the door to the garage. Jill's car was gone, which meant it was probably parked at the airport. Definitely visiting her mother, he decided. Then he had a thought. Hoping for a glimpse of what was bugging her—thinking that the letter from her mother might hold a clue—knowing that he could always say he had accidentally slit it open along with the rest of the mail—he opened it and pulled out a neatly folded sheet.

“Dear Greg …”

Dear Greg
. It was not from his mother-in-law to Jill. It was to
him
. He looked quickly at the address. Not to Jill at all. To him.
From
Jill.

Feeling a sudden foreboding, he began reading.

•   •   •

I
N A GARAGE STUDIO
behind an old white Victorian on a narrow side street in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Olivia Jones was daydreaming at work. She did it often. It was one of the perks of her job.

She restored old photographs, a skill that required patience, a sharp eye, and a steady hand. She had all three, along with an imagination that could take her inside the world of almost any picture. Even now, as she dotted varying shades of gray ink to restore a faded face, she was inside the frame with a family of migrant workers living in California in the early thirties. The Depression had taken hold. Life was hard, food scarce. Children worked with their parents and grandparents, hour after hour, in whatever fields needed picking. They began the day dirty and ended it more so. Their faces were somber, their cheeks gaunt, their eyes large and haunting.

They sat close together on the porch of a weathered shack. Moving around them, Olivia went inside. The place was small but functional. Bedding lay against nearly every wall, with a woodstove and a few chairs in the center. The air held the smell of dust and hard work, but there was more. On a heavy table nearby sat a loaf of fresh-baked bread, aromatic and warm. A stew cooked on the woodstove. One shelf held an assortment of cracked pottery and tin cups and plates. There would be clinking when the family ate. She could hear it now.

Returning to the porch, she was drawn in with an open arm, reconnected to this group as they were connected to one another. Everyone touched—a hand, an arm, a shoulder, a cheek. They were nine people spanning three generations, surviving the bleakness of their lives by taking comfort in family. They had nothing by way of material goods, only one another.

Olivia was thirty-five. She had a ten-year-old daughter, a job, an apartment with a TV and VCR, a computer, and a washer and dryer. She had a car. She had a Patagonia vest, L.L.Bean clogs, and a Nikon that was old enough and sturdy enough to fetch a pretty penny.

But boy, did she envy that migrant family its closeness.

“Those were hard times,” came a gruff voice by her shoulder.

She looked up to see her boss, Otis Thurman, scowling at the photograph. It was one of several that had been newly uncovered, believed to be the work of Dorothea Lange. The Metropolitan Museum
in New York had commissioned him to restore them. Olivia was doing the work.

“They were
simpler
times,” she said.

He grunted. “You want ‘em? Take ‘em. I'm leaving. Lock up when you go.” He walked off with less shuffle than another man of seventy-five might have, but then, Otis had his moods to keep him sharp. He had been in something of a snit all day, but after five years in his employ, Olivia knew not to take it personally. Otis was a frustrated Picasso, a would-be painter who would never be as good at creation as he was at restoration. But hope died hard, even at his age. He was returning to his canvas and oil full-time—seven weeks away from retirement and counting.

He was looking forward to it. Olivia was not.

He kept announcing the hours. Olivia tried not to hear.

We're a good team,
she argued.
I'm too old,
he replied.

And that was what intrigued her about this migrant family. The old man in the photograph was grizzled enough to make Otis look young, but he was still there, still productive, still part of that larger group.

Things were different nowadays. People burned out, and no wonder. They were up on the high wire of life alone with no net.

Olivia worried about Otis retiring, pictured him sitting alone day after day, with art tools that he couldn't use to his own high standards and no one to bully. He wasn't going to be happy.

Wrong, Olivia
. He had friends all over the art community and plenty of money saved up. He would be delighted.
She
was the one in trouble.

She had finally found her niche. Restoring old photographs was a natural for someone with a knowledge of cameras and an eye for art—and she had both, though it had taken her awhile to see it. Trial and error was the story of her life. She had waitressed. She had done telemarketing. She had sold clothes. Selling cameras had come after that, along with the discovery that she loved taking pictures. Then had come Tess. Then brief stints apprenticing with a professional photographer and freelancing for a museum that wanted pictures of its shows. Then Otis.

For the first time in her life, Olivia truly loved her work. She was better at photo restoration than she had been at anything else, and could lose herself for
hours
in prints from the past, smelling the age,
feeling the grandeur. For Olivia, the world of yesterday was more romantic than today. She would have liked to have lived back then.

Given that she couldn't, she liked working for Otis, and the feeling was mutual. Few people in her life had put up with her for five years. Granted, she indulged him his moods, and even he acknowledged that she did the job better than the long line of assistants before her.

Still, he genuinely liked her. The eight-by-ten tacked to the wall proved it. He had taken it last week when she had shown up at work with her hair cut painfully short. She had chopped it off herself in a fit of disgust, irritated with long hair in the sweltering heat. Immediately she had regretted it. A barber had neatened things up a bit, but she had gone on to work wearing a big straw hat—which Otis had promptly removed.

Bless his soul, he said that he liked her hair short, said that it made her look lighthearted and fun—and then he proceeded to catch just that on film. She was standing in front of a plain concrete wall, wearing a long tank dress, toes peeking from sandals, hair boyish. Feeling exposed and awkward, as unused to being on that side of the camera as she was embarrassed about her hair, she had wrapped her arms around her middle and tucked in her chin.