by Babe Walker
“So you’re pretty knowledgeable about wines? Tina said you’d be helping us streamline things at the winery.”
“Never been to a winery before. Don’t really like wine. Wine is weird. It’s pretentious, but in the bad way.”
“Not sure I totally agree.”
“But I have a tremendous amount of experience in business. So I think I’ll be able to help you guys out.”
“Oh, cool. What kind of business do you run?”
“Currently, I am technically unemployed, but formerly I was the founder and CEO of Babe fo Babies. A clothing line of dashikis for babies and children. It was major. People loved.”
“Wow. Congrats. Did you sell the company?”
“No. There was no market for what we sold. Ended up losing a shit ton of money. Like an actual shit ton. It was a huge failure in the end. But I heard Steve Jobs said that every great business person has to have at least one failure under their belt before they can be truly great.”
“Well, did you use what you learned from that experience to make your next one a big success?”
We pulled into the parking lot of Tina’s family winery. It was very cute and quaint. It looked like what a winery looked like in my head. Basically everywhere you turned looked like an Instagram picture with heavy filtering that your friend from summer camp who you don’t really know took.
“Listen, Ry. I get it. This must be weird for you. You’re Tina’s assistant and I’m just coming in here and shaking things up or whatever, and you’re scared. I totally get it.”
“I’m not her assistant. I’m the director of operations.”
“Of what?”
“Of R.V.A.O.O. Co.”
“What the fuck is that?”
“That’s the name of this winery, Babe.”
I could tell I was testing Ryan’s patience.
“They named this place R.V.A.O.O. Co.? That’s horrendous. As Tina’s assistant you must tell her that she needs to change the name immediately.”
“The Reynolds Vineyard and Olive Oil Company is a bit of a mouthful, don’t you think? Also, I’m not an assistant.”
“I don’t really know what to say right now.”
Ryan gave me a blank stare as if to say, “Fuck you, Babe” but also to say, “I would never say ‘fuck you,’ because I’m too polite.” There was a lot going on in that Prius. Then he just got out of the car and started walking toward a large warehouse-y looking building on the other side of the parking lot.
I’d never been in a Prius alone before so I quickly got out.
“Well, whatever you do here, it’s obviously not working, because, according to your boss, you guys are losing money!” I shouted across the lot to get Ryan’s attention.
“Are you coming on the tour?” Ryan asked at a completely normal volume, making me realize that I probably hadn’t needed to shout at him so loudly.
“Sure.”
I followed Ryan into the “warehouse.”
Not 100 percent sure that is what it’s called because truth be told I’m not a wine person, or a farmer, or anyone who has warehouse experience. Maybe it’s called a factory? I don’t know. Large building, machines, cases of wine stacked up, big metal tanks, very clean. You get it. It looked kind of cool. I’d honestly never ever once thought about wine being made before. Like, I spend a lot of time thinking about how my clothes and my juices are made, but it hit me that someone actually makes every product that I’ve ever come in contact with, which is sick in my opinion.
We climbed some stairs to an office area that overlooked the whole tank/wine/factory/worker area.
“This is me,” Ryan said as he entered a large office in the corner. It was actually beautiful. It had windows on one side overlooking the vineyard. Rolling hills of grape trees(?), I think. The other side of the office had windows that looked down at the people making the wine.
“Who did the interior design of this office?” I asked.
“Why? You don’t approve?”
“Incorrect. I actually love it. So simple and clean. I feel like I’m in a SoulCycle in outer space, but whatever the wine-country equivalent would be in space.”
“I don’t know what any of those references mean, but thank you?”
“You don’t know what outer space is?”
“No, I mean, I get that, but—”
“Whatever, it’s just, I was expecting something way more depressing. Tina made it out to be all doom and gloom over here, so I assumed this place would be in shambles, or something.”
“Well, we are having some financial troubles, but we just redesigned the winery space and offices.”
“It looks great.”
“You really think so?”
“Yes, really. And I hate everything, so that is a huge compliment coming from me.”
“Tina warned me that you would probably insult me and potentially everything about this place.”
“That makes total sense. By the way, judging by this office size and location, you are definitely not her assistant. So, what are you?”
“I’m the director of operations here.”
“What does that mean, exactly?”
“I’ll show you.”
Ryan proceeded to take me on a tour of the whole property. Everything from the fields of grapes, to the tasting room where people come to try the wine, to the lab where they make the actual “juice” that is going to go into the bottle. PS—Juice is a sick word and as much juicing as I’ve done in my life, it had never occurred to me just how sick of a word it actually was until I heard Ryan, director of operations at Reynolds Vineyard, say it four million times over the course of two hours.
Ryan was the most boring tour guide of my life. I don’t have a ton of experience being on tours, but I know that I was bored out of my mind. I felt like he was even bored. Like he didn’t care about wine or the winery, which I know wasn’t true. He was just low energy meets boring voice/face meets no one cares meets it’s wine so it should be a celebration but you’re making me sad.
We ended up at the bottling facility where they actually put the wine into glass bottles and send it off to stores.
“So why is there is no one here right now?”
“Because we made our first batch of wine for this year and it just isn’t selling as well as it normally does.”
“The wine I tasted last night was fucking delicious. Why isn’t it selling?”
“We rebranded the label and packaging for this year and it seems like that may be contributing to the problem.”
Ryan opened a box of the rosé I had been drinking last night. He handed me a bottle. It was really bad. Like so much going on. The most ornate cursive font you could imagine. It was illegible.
“This is what I was drinking last night?”
“Yeah. At Stan’s? They only serve our rosé.”
I think it said “Reynolds Rosé,” but I couldn’t be positive because it was printed so lightly I could barely make it out. The glass bottle had a green tint to it that made the color of the actual wine look like the color of human pee.
“This is horr-i-bullllllllll. What is this? Who did this?”
“I did.”
“No, but, like, why? The real color of this wine is fucking gorge. Getting rosé to be the color you guys achieved without making it too sweet is, like, impossible. But then you went and put it in this horrendous green bottle and it looks completely unappetizing and poisonous.”
“So you do know about wine?”
“I’m not an idiot, Ryan. I know what color and flavor profile rosé is supposed to have.”
“Great. Okay. I agree. I messed this up. But I don’t know how to fix it.”
“What made you think this was a good idea?” I asked as I thrust the poor excuse for a wine bottle into his poor excuse for a face.
“That is such a great story, but you left out the part where you ruined her family brand and ran her business into the ground.”
“I get that. I came in here and streamlined a lot of the ways they were doing business, which was much needed, but I guess I didn’t get the wine branding part quite right.”
“Just because you take one fucking consumer branding class at Stanford doesn’t make you Steve Jobs. Knowing what people want is not learned; it’s a gift. You are either born with it or not. Like singing, or painting, or anal. If you’re born with the god-given gift, then you are lucky and you have a responsibility to work at it, make yourself better, and achieve greatness. And if you’re not born with it, then you’re not born with it. And you, my friend, are not born with it.”
“And you are?”
“Of course. I’m gonna help you guys make this all better. Just give me some time to think about what needs to be done here. But first take me to Tina’s office. I want to talk to her for a sec and then I need to get back to the hotel spa because I have a ninety-minute massage at six thirty that I can’t be late for.”
“Tina is working from her house today. It’s just up the road.”
On the two-minute drive to Tina’s house I explained to Ryan that he was boring and that he needed to stop giving tours of the winery altogether, unless he was willing to present and perform like he cared about his life and didn’t want to die. He agreed with me, and actually thanked me for saying something about it.
Tina’s house was old, but cute, but haunted. I could feel the spirits as we pulled into the driveway. They weren’t there to harm anyone, so I was fine going in. When Tina answered the door, she was wearing pajamas and she looked like she had been crying.
“Come in.”
“You okay? Did you just have an encounter with another dimension?”
“No. What? I’m fine.”
“You don’t look fine. You look really, really bad, actually. Like fuck, Tina.”
She started to break down.
“I’m having trouble with a man in my life.”
“One: I’m so happy that there is a man in your life. Two: sorry that you’re having trouble, but I can help with this. Three: your winery is amazing and chic. Your wine brand is garbage. I’m gonna fix it. You’re gonna be fine.”
“I wish it were all that simple.”
“It is.”
It wasn’t and I knew that, but I needed Tina to believe that I had 1,000 percent confidence in myself.
“Who is the guy? Ex? Current? Soon-to-be ex?”
“You don’t know him; he was someone from my past who has resurfaced and I don’t know if I broke up with him last time we were together because I was afraid of commitment, or if it really just wasn’t going to work out.”
“Do you love him?”
“Unclear.”
“Tina, and I say this from the bottom of my heart and soul, I wrote my fucking dissertation on unclear.”
four
The next morning, after a night of tears and wine and a few lolz, I had a meeting in my cal with Tina and her older sister, Rebecca. I was proud to show up fifteen minutes early for the first time in my life.
“You’re over two hours late,” Tina announced when I walked in the conference room, before I could sit, before I could even take my sunglasses off.
“Oh, wow. I thought I was early. So weird when that happens. Anyway, what’s up? You must be Rebecca.”
She was sitting on the same side as Tina. Late thirties, blond hair, roots, small nose, small ears, pretty eyes, normal neck, average tits, Ralph Lauren lavender cashmere cable-knit sweater, lululemon yoga pants, Nike sneakers that looked like socks with laces. Ugh, fine, I thought.
“We know each other, Babe.”
“We do?”
“Yes, I was your SAT tutor, do you really not remember me?”
“Absolutely not,” I said, shocked at her shock. “Why would I remember the most traumatic yet also somehow most boring era of my life? I blocked that year out immediately.”
“Oh, of course you did.”
“Do you remember me?” I bit back, testing her.
“Of course I do.”
“Wonderful; that’s so sweet of you.”
I took a seat next to Tina and pulled my huge iPad out of my bag, placing it on the table before me. Ready to serve executive realness. Ready to change the wine game. Ready to show the Reynolds sisters what I was all about.
“Okay,” Tina started, “now that we’re all here, we should just jump right in to the biggest issue on the agenda, in my opinion—”
“The label,” I said before she could finish.
“Right,” she agreed, “the label needs a lot of love.”
“No, no. The label doesn’t ‘need some love.’ We’re not gonna pussyfoot around this now that there’s a new ideas girl in town. The label is fucking garbage and needs to be burned and whoever created it should be shot but not killed and then left to bleed dry on the side of the road.”
“I came up with the label,” said Rebecca.
“I didn’t mean that,” I quickly offered.
“It’s okay. I know the label is awful and the name is awful.”
“Well, good. At least you can own it. That’s the first step. I learned that at rehab.”
“I honestly was so fucking pregnant and wasn’t fully functioning when I came up with the wine’s name or label. I’m a new mom, as you can probably tell by my postbaby body.”
“I wasn’t going to say anything, but yes of course I noticed. Look at you owning all of your stuff!” I congratulated Rebecca. Tina had gone into her own world answering emails or doing something mundane on her laptop.
“When did you have your kid?”
“Kids. I have twins.”
“Oh god, please say they’re fraternal. Identical twins freak me out.”
“They’re identical. Two boys.”
“That’s terrific, it really is. Such a blessing. Wow.”
“Anyway. I’m open to your ideas about how to make this brand more exciting for millennials. Is that what we’re doing here?”
“Firstly, don’t use the word ‘millennials’ around me. Please. It just sucks the life out of the room. It’s the office-environment equivalent of calling yourself ‘the life of the party.’ What we’re doing here is not pandering to millennials, we are redirecting the narrative of your wine company’s branding so that we might get the attention of chic, clever, opinion-leading individuals with substantial followings on the Internet.”
“Okay . . .” Rebecca said, standing corrected.
“But before we get into all of that. I need to ask you. What’s the story with your vagina after twins? I mean honestly, I wanna know.”
“Maybe we should discuss that another time,” Tina chimed in aggressively. “We have so much work to do today and we’re already running a few hours late.”
“Okay, Dad.”
“She’s right,” Rebecca said, “I’ll tell you about the birth another time. It’s really not that interesting.”
“No, but, like, it is interesting to me. I’ve just never understood how it’s at all possible that not only one child can come through that little hole but two. And, of course I’m not an idiot, I know that it stretches and breaks or whatever, but how does it snap back, or does it?”
Tina got up in a huff and walked out.
Good.
“By the way, if you don’t want to tell a perfect stranger about your vagina hole, then that’s f
ine.”
“Well, you’re not a perfect stranger, which we’ve established.”
“Oh, that’s right.”
“As much as I’d love to talk about my kids, which is literally all I ever talk about now that I have them, I think Tina is right. We really, really need to talk about this label. Like, now.”
“I hear you.”
I liked Rebecca. She had a good vibe. I’d never be friends with her outside this scenario, but my heart was open to her today. We were just two young professional women, busting our way through glass ceilings, changing minds, and inspiring other women. Together we were stronger.
“Let’s talk about the name of the wine,” she said, pulling up some images of the bottle on her computer.
“Let’s talk about the names of your kids.”
“Oh, their names are Michael and Benjamin.”
So fucking boring.
“Looooove those names for them! Perfect and classic and iconic and fun, yet serious and basic and unique and thought-provoking.”
“Greg and I named the boys after our respective maternal grandfathers. Both men were really wonderful dads to our moms, so this was our little way of paying them tribute.”
Sooooo fucking boring.
“Amazing! I’m literally crying. Am I crying?”
“No,” she said looking closer at me, “I don’t think you’re crying.”
“And what are their vibes?”
“My boys?”
“Duh.”
“They’re only three months old, but—”
And you’re still fat? What’s happening here?
“Ah, I see,” I said. “So, you can’t tell what their whole gig is yet? Their likes, dislikes, whether they’ll be more into boobs or butts or penis, whether they’ll be cool or horrible, if they have big or small dicks, et cetera?”
“Um, well you can pretty much tell what their personalities are already.”