Authors: Barbara Delinsky
The Vineyard (5 page)
Doing an about-face, she returned to the front door and
brought her briefcase back to the sofa. The minute she opened it, a hint of freesia escaped. She took out Natalie Seebring's envelope and held it for a minute.
Don't let me down, Natalie Seebring,
she thought and, for the second time, opened the clasp. Leaving the cover letter and the yellow envelope addressed to Otis inside, she drew out the pictures and laid them on her lap. Slowly, savoring each, she studied one after the other.
She knew the cast of characters by now. There were pictures of Natalie and her husband, and of Natalie, her husband, and the children. Some of the pictures included a new baby. A new baby! There was no sign of the older son in those. Sifting through, she saw no picture of the three children together at all. That was odd.
Then again, not so, she realized. This new baby was a late-in-life child, a little surprise born to two people still in love. The older son was probably away at boarding school, even college. Olivia imagined him at Harvard. She half expected to see a picture of him wearing football gear with the college letter on his shirt.
She didn't find one like that, but she did find a picture of the daughter at her wedding. There were pictures of Natalie's husband in the vineyard, with and without vineyard workers. Judging from the long sideburns worn by the men, this batch was from the sixties and seventies. There were also construction photos. It looked as though a new building was going up at the vineyardâan on-site winery, said the construction sign. She couldn't wait to see the building when it was done.
Olivia was relaxing already. She had never visited a vineyard, but everything she had seen in the photographs of this one spoke of prosperity, easy living, lots of sunshine, sweet grapes, and goodwill. She couldn't wait to see photos from the eighties and nineties, imagined scads of grandchildren hanging over the porch of the Great House, stacked in rows with their parents on the wide stone steps, lined up around picnic tables for the vineyard harvest.
These latest photos wouldn't need much repair. There were a few stains, a few spots where the emulsion had bubbled. There were several corner folds that had caused cracks, and some prints that were curled or bent. The largest problemâalways the case in her workâwas fading, but it was easily solved by copying the photo onto high contrast paper and enhancing the image with filters. Only
in rare instances, such as the Dorothea Lange print, was handwork involved. Natalie's pictures wouldn't need that. By and large they entailed more preservation than restoration. Olivia would be treating the set archivally. Natalie had been firm about that. She wanted her pictures to last forever.
Wondering what she planned to do with them, Olivia fished out the cover letter. It was on Asquonset letterhead, a full sheet of ivory paper with the burgundy logo in the upper left corner. Like the address on the mailing label, this letter was done by hand, written in letters that flowed as Olivia imagined Natalie's voice would do.
“Dear Otis,”
she wrote,
Enclosed please find the next installment of photographs. I continue to be amazed at the miracles you have worked on the older prints. These ones are newer. I'm afraid that's a wine stain in the corner of the one of my daughter's wedding. I wish I could say that the wine was from the wedding. If that were the case, we might have left it there for sentimental reasons. But, no. It's a recent stainâmy fault, I'm afraid. We were about to launch our new Estate Cabernet when I was sorting through these prints. My hand isn't as steady as it once was. Better wine than scotch, I suppose, given what we do for a living.
Olivia smiled. Natalie had a sweet sense of humor.
We're nearing the end of my collection of photographs. There will be a final package, which I hope to put in the mail next week. As I stated at the start of this project, my goal is to have all photographs returned to me by the first of August. That will give me a month to put them together in the fashion I want.
With regard to that fashion, I have a request. It occurs to me, with the time at hand now, that I'm going to need help with this next part of my project. Summers are busy at a vineyard, and there's so much else going on in my life that I fear I won't do justice on my end to the fine job you've done with my prints.
There is text to accompany the photographs. I've been writing it in bits and snatches, and it's been therapeutic. But six months isn't very long to put together a life story. My bits and snatches need organization and editing, and there are whole
other parts that I haven't touched on yet. So I'm looking to hire a summer assistant. I need someone who is computer literate but who has an eye for art.
Olivia sat up. I have an eye for art, she thought.
I want someone who is organized and neat and pleasant to be with. I need a curious person, someone who will ask questions and dig around and get me to say things I might otherwise keep to myself.
I'm organized and neat, Olivia mused. I'm pleasant to be with. And curious? I have a
gazillion
questions about the pictures I've restored.
I was thinking of hiring a college student, perhaps an English major, though I fear most have already flown wherever it is they fly for the summer. I'm placing an ad in Sunday's paper, but I would far rather work from a personal recommendation. You've done such a wonderful job with my photographs, Otis. You've been prompt and professional. I'm hoping that you may have Cambridge friends of like mind, certainly ones with an artistic bent, no doubt a few who are also good with words.
Ooops. A tiny glitch there. It wasn't that Olivia was
bad
with words. Not exactly. She just had to work harder than some people to get them up and running. Was she truly dyslexic? She had no idea. She had gone through school prior to the days of testing and labeling. According to those involved, she was simply a slow learner. But she did learn. She did get things done. It might take her awhile, but the finished product was just fine.
Natalie's offer got even better.
The Great House here at Asquonset has plenty of room to spare, so I can offer room and board, along with a handsome stipend. Time is of the essence. I welcome any recommendation you can make.
My thanks, and best wishes,
Natalie
By the time Olivia set down the letter, her thoughts were racing. Spending the summer in Rhode Island would be her
dream
âand she could do it, she could. Okay, so she wasn't a fast writerâin fact, she was actually something of a
struggling
writerâbut she could work nights and weekends to make up for it. She could do what Natalie wanted done. She knew she could. Didn't she do all those things for Otis?
Otis. Oh, dear. Otis wanted her to work through the end of July. She couldn't just quit. She owed it to him. He was a friend.
But Otis was
retiring
. After July, he wouldn't be her employer at all. He was abandoning her. Okay. Not abandoning her. Setting her free. So what if she left a few weeks earlier? What harm would that do? He had stopped taking in new work. All that was left was to finish the old. She could work extra hours until she left, and he could get the rest done after that.
Tess would love Asquonset. The vineyard lay midway between the Asquonset River and the Atlantic, and she would love both. She would love the tennis court right there on the groundsâOlivia had seen it in photographs. Tess would love the Great House. And Natalieâshe would
adore
Natalie. Natalie was the quintessential grandmother. She was the quintessential
great
-grandmother.
Room and board in the Great House. Olivia would die for that.
And a handsome stipend, too? She wondered how Natalie defined that. If the stipend was truly handsome, it might go a long way toward hiring tutors for Tess. A truly handsome stipend would come in really handy.
Jared was gone for good, and Olivia's mother remained among the missingâthese two harsh facts of life were now softened by Natalie Seebring's invitation.
All right. So it wasn't
exactly
an invitation. But the end result was the same.
I want that job,
Olivia thought.
Â
O
LIVIA SLEPT FITFULLY
. She wanted the Asquonset job, wanted it with a passion that grew as the hours passed. It wasn't the most realistic thing to set her heart on, she knew. There were scores of people more qualified than she, people who could write easily and had formal trainingânot that she doubted she could do the job. She
could
. She was
sure
that she could. And where there was a will, there was a way. Besides, she had something the others lacked: she already loved Asquonset. Plus, thanks to the photographs, she knew the people and even part of the story.
But would Natalie choose her?
When she finally slept, Olivia dreamed that she got the job. She was still at it the next morning, daydreaming while she got Tess dressed and fed and out of the house. Even as she walked with the briefcase and its precious contents under her arm and her daughter by her side, her thoughts were miles away.
The air was still, the Cambridge streets narrow and close. By the time they reached the school yard, she was fantasizing about open fields and ocean breezes.
“Mom?” Tess looked up at herâbeautiful Tess, the top of her
head chest-high to Olivia, her hair neatly combed, her freckles soft on her freshly scrubbed face, her slim body still prepubescent. Her glasses were clean and perched high on her nose. She looked to Olivia positively angelicâexcept for her expression, which fell somewhere between timidity and distaste. “What do I tell Mrs. Wright?”
Mrs. Wright. Lord. Olivia had forgotten about thatârepressed it, no doubt. Tess's school problems were an ongoing ordeal. The night's escape to Asquonset had been sweet.
Tell her we have a solution,
Olivia thought, quickly back in the midst of the mess.
Tell her you'll be having a tutor five days a week this summer. Tell her I want you moving into fifth grade with the rest of your class. Tell her, sweet child, that next time she wants to reach me, she should get off her duff and pick up the phone.
“Tell her,” Olivia said with restraint, “that I'm calling her this morning to set up an appointment. I'll meet with her whenever she wants.”
“I'm not staying back.”
Olivia pressed a two-fingered kiss to her daughter's nose. “I know.”
Tess grabbed the fingers and held them away. “I don't care if the kids
do
think I'm stupid. If I stay back, it's like someone's saying they're right.”
Olivia wanted to cry. She had never wanted her child to know this kind of pain. “Someday,” she said, vehement now, “those same kids will be asking
you
for answers.”
Tess stopped walking. “When?”
“When the nuts and bolts of reading take second place to understanding the material.”
“What do you mean, nuts and bolts?”
“The pieces. Like words. Punctuation.”
“And grammar? I hate grammar. I can write sentences. Parts of speech are easy to
use
. What's hard is having to
name
them. I don't see why I have to do that.”
“You have to name them because it's a requirement of getting into fifth grade.” The school bell rang. “Go on, now.”
Tess looked worried. “My stomach hurts.”
Of course it did. She was about to go off all alone. What she needed was a best friend. She needed someone in the school yard who would run over to her when she arrived. Other children were
huddled with their friends. Olivia wanted that for Tess. She was a sweet child. She was sensitiveâand pretty. But she wore thick glasses and she struggled in class, which made her the butt of jokes. It was enough to break Olivia's heart.
“Just think,” she said now. “Only two weeks more.” And then Asquonset? Asquonset might break the cycle. Daily tutoring might help. The ocean air might help. Tess would be sailing with children who had no way of knowing she couldn't read. If they accepted her, if she made a friend or two, if she had a positive experience for a change, it could make the difference.
“Am I going to be able to take tennis lessons?” Tess asked.
“I'm working on it.”
“I am
not
having a tutor.”
“If you don't have a tutor,” Olivia bartered, “then you can't do tennis.”
“Then if I have a tutor, I
can
do tennis?”
Olivia was caught. “We'll see.” She pointed at the door of the school.
Tess scowled at the pointing finger. Shifting her backpack, she trudged off.
“Hey,” Olivia said, her tone gentle now.
The child stopped, turned, and ran back, gave her a fast hug, then turned again and ran toward the school.
