5 Blue Period

by Melanie Jackson

  “May I introduce my present wife, Carissa?”

  “Soon to be ex if he has his way,” she muttered.

  Carl ignored her but Juliet could tell that he was annoyed that she was airing their business in public. Juliet knew that she could learn more about this impending divorce if she cared to. Relationships of the rich were community property in a small town and gossip popped up like gophers in a vegetable garden.

  “Carissa, this is the famous painter Raphael James and—should I call you Miss Henry? Miss Henry is also an artist and my champion partner at the grape stomp.”

  But not a famous artist. She was not being wooed to paint a mural in the visitor center. At least she rated a title in front of her name and recognition for an ability to squish grapes.

  “We have shared a vat and are stained purple to the knees by the juice of the same grapes. I don’t think formality is called for. Please call me Juliet.” She used her work smile on both of them. It had been mothballed for a couple of years but it was still serviceable.

  Owens looked mildly amused. Carissa’s returned smile was all teeth and no charm. She did not offer to shake hands. Possibly she was germophobic, but Juliet suspected that she had dismissed Raphael because he was an artist and in a wheelchair and was ignoring Juliet because she did not perceive her as a threat to her meal ticket. Or soon to be ex-meal ticket.

  In that she was correct. Juliet had no designs on Carl Owens. She’d sooner bed a shark. In the dark places of her heart, she even hoped that Jeffry Talbert—or whoever he was pretending to be—was going after the vintner.

  Since she was not expected to have any opinions about wine making or about anything else of importance, Juliet let her mind wander while Owens droned on about white grapes preferring the southern end of the valley where temperatures were cooler and how he was acquiring more land in the north for his cabernet grapes. Reading between the lines, it was obvious that Owens wanted the vines at Trefoil for the prestige they would bring through his claim that he used the rarest, oldest varietals in his wines. It would also allow him to put the word “estate” on his bottles. The designation required that all grapes in the wine be grown within five miles of the winery and Trefoil was the only place where he could get them. The Napa Valley was only thirty miles by five miles and every inch was owned, planted, and defended. The “estate” labeling wouldn’t fool anyone who knew about wine, but most people were ignorant and relied on television advertising. These people were his customers and he wanted to be able to charge double for his wine. It would pay for the new aerial tramway he was thinking of installing.

  While her brain was numbing under the steady drip of Owens’ voice, Juliet noticed another man who was standing aloof from the party. There wasn’t an obvious reason why he should excite her curiosity. He was dressed the same as everyone else, had the same clothes, the same haircut and same tan. But while everybody else was smiling with spurious politeness as they chatted with neighbors, this man was standing alone in a deep shadow and smoking intently.

  The smoking alone would have set him apart. People who prized their superior sense of smell—or at least who pretended to have a superior sense of smell—would never damage their nasal passages with smoke. And when he pulled the slim cigarette from his mouth, Juliet could see the end was ragged and stained an unpleasant brown. He was downwind, so she couldn’t know for sure, but she assumed that he wasn’t smoking tobacco. If, however, it was marijuana, the weed was failing completely as a relaxant. The man remained tense and angry. His face also did not match the young man’s body. It looked worn out enough to have been used by a couple of previous generations of hard-living men before being passed on to him. He was also casting hard glances at their host.

  She rejoined the conversation when Owens suggested a tour of the wine caves, but Raphael demurred. He countered with a suggestion of a tour tomorrow afternoon after the morning’s grape stomp since the caves would be a delightful escape from the heat of midafternoon. Then they could go to the visitor center and see the other exhibits. Raphael had unfortunately arrived late and not had the chance to see the other artists’ work.

  Since that was where Owens wanted Raphael to paint a mural and knew when it was best to stop pressing, he agreed easily and used his smile some more.

  Juliet reluctantly agreed to also join the tour when appealed to by Raphael, and having gotten what he wanted, Carl Owens left them, taking the repellant soon-to-be ex with him.

  “Let’s go,” Juliet said. “I’ve had enough iguana for one night.”

  “Do I need to take you out and feed you dessert?” Raphael asked.

  “It couldn’t hurt. My psyche could use a little sweetening.”

  Chapter 3

  The morning was pleasant with a lingering bit of lavender mist in the air. There was latent heat beyond the shadows which would tear through the last of the fog, but it had yet to show its claws. Possibly it was saving itself for the grape stomp-off where it could do the most harm to the stupid humans.

  A large bird flying overhead broke in on Juliet’s pre-coffee reverie. While not as lovely as a unicorn or a white stag, sailing above the dusty oak leaves it was still large enough and exotic enough to be remarkable. It seemed a shame that the scene was marred by a cell phone tower whose height interrupted the skyline and the bird’s flight. The twenty-first century’s blight was all ugly steel piers that trenched the ground with thick, and more beautiful, geometric shadows.

  She watched until the raptor disappeared and then went in to make herself some coffee on the machine that someone had thoughtfully installed in the guest cottage where she was staying. It was one of three tiny little huts clinging to the cement-hard earth and rock at the edge of Blue Period’s vineyards. Raphael had the one next to her and on the other side the cottage was reserved for someone named Max Schneider, who was some sort of business associate of Carl Owens. Juliet was under no illusions as to why she was being honored with accommodations at the winery. It was all Raphael’s doing and she was grateful. The local hotels and B and B places were expensive.

  Juliet’s legs hurt and she decided not to walk to Trefoil. She wasn’t enthused about the grape stomp, but she would make an effort to win and that meant saving her muscles.

  It was too nice a morning to be alone and she was glad when she found Raphael up and about. The artist was not a habitual early riser and often slept late when he had had a long night. His muse was more nocturnal than a creature of daylight hours, which was often inconvenient given the painter’s need for good light.

  “Good morning, Raphael. What a gorgeous day.”

  “It is indeed a lovely thing. I would like it more if there were coffee.”

  “I’ll show you how to use the coffeemaker,” she said politely.

  “Thank you.”

  As she demonstrated the personal brewer, Juliet asked if he would care to join her on a trip to a nearby winery and he agreed with equal politeness. They both spoke as though they had an audience. Seeing Talbert, or whoever the NSA agent was these days, had put them on their guard. It was within the realm of the possible, even reasonable, that their cottages had been bugged. They could have searched for listening devices and removed them, but knew that it was easier to just leave them in place and chat about nothing while they sipped their chosen beverages.

  They left for Trefoil at ten.

  “Did you really ride in a hot air balloon?” Raphael asked as they turned off the paved road and started uphill. It was a relief to escape the flatulent truck which seemed to be held together with rust and bungee cords and was quivering with the effort of dragging itself up the mild incline.

  “I did,” she said grimly. “I even saw the petrified forest and got talked into bathing my face in mud and went to see a French film in an open-air theater where I was attacked by mosquitos who sniggered at my insect repellant.”

  “Poor Juliet. I really am sorry about the delay.”

  “I forgive you. No doubt it will provide inspi
ration for my art.”

  “I can’t wait to see it.”

  Juliet pulled into the tiny gravel parking lot that could hold six compact cars.

  The winery Juliet was scheduled to visit was located on a bluff and guarded on its vulnerable side by an old wrought-iron fence and a pair of wooden doors, almost gray with age. The right one had a smaller, human-size door with a grille built into it. This was open. It was barely wide enough to accommodate Raphael’s chair and beyond the narrow opening was darkness.

  “Good morning, would you be Juliet Henry?” A pleasant voice asked from out of the gloom. There was a bit of Ireland in it and he rested lingeringly and lightly on his vowels.

  “Indeed, and you are Mr. Mulligan?” Juliet said and smiled warmly as Seamus Mulligan stepped into view. He was an older man, but erect and strong in the arms, which she could see because of his rolled-up sleeves. The scent of lavender surrounded him. He wore heavy jeans with large patch pockets that had nothing to do with fashion and everything to do with habitually carrying the tools of his trade.

  “You are not wrong,” he agreed.

  “This is my friend, Raphael James. If it is possible, he would like to take the tour with me.”

  “Mr. James, I’m honored. We’re all fans of your work here.” The words were mild but sincere. He went on before any reply was necessary. “Most of our grounds are level so there shouldn’t be a problem, so. If you will come this way….”

  They passed through the door one at a time. The paved courtyard beyond the gate was small but lovely. There was a life-size statue of Saint Francis, head averted so he didn’t have to watch the folly that went on around him. Like the real man, the birds seemed to like him a lot and reposed there in the dappled morning sun that had just fought its way over the thimbleberry trees and was leaking through the laced leaves whose branches were reaching vainly for the cooling winds from the coast.

  The grape harvest had not yet begun at Trefoil, Seamus explained. The older grapes required a couple more weeks of sun to achieve perfection. There would hopefully be plenty of help available at that time. The grapes had to be hand harvested to avoid damage to vine and fruit. The mechanical pickers were probably quite good in their own way, and so…. But they liked doing things in the traditional manner.

  He didn’t add because Carl Owen would be done hogging up every available man in the valley, something he might do out of spite if Owens thought it was the only way to get his hands on the smaller vineyard.

  “Many of the newer vineyards grow their vines large and have chosen grapes that produce a lot of fruit. But we have always felt that the best grapes come from vines with the fewest bunches. All the energy goes into those few clusters of perfect fruit. In younger vines that means aggressive pruning. We needn’t do it so much with these older vines which are more prudent in their habits.”

  The terraced fields were smaller than at Blue Period and the stone walls that surrounded them were weathered and in places gashed open where they allowed the traveling soil to spill through.

  “Heavy rains last winter,” Seamus explained. “They must be repaired. If there is time,” he added to himself.

  Time before Blue Period bought them out? Juliet wondered.

  “I understand that you did very well at yesterday’s stomp,” Seamus said as they left the fields and headed for the wine caves. Seeing her surprise he added, “Word that a competitor from outside had won spread quickly. Some people are delighted that this is so. It may be that there is some money being laid on today’s outcome.”

  “I will certainly back Juliet.”

  “As will I.”

  Juliet shook her head and Raphael grinned. Out in the garden beyond the last row of carefully tended grapes, an older woman with a large straw hat was kneeling under a rose bush that had exploded in apricot blossoms. If the grapes knew a restraining hand, the rosebush did not.

  There was enough of a resemblance in profile of the kneeling woman for Juliet to assume that this was Seamus’s sister, Moira. She knew from her reading that the siblings ran the place together. Moira seemed to be cutting herbs and stowing them in a basket. She looked very peaceful and oblivious to their presence. The term simple came to mind.

  Trefoil had a few employees moving about in the morning sun. They were all older and progressed at a leisurely pace. She assumed it was the calm before the storm. It would be more lively when the grapes were harvested. If anyone was worried about a takeover from Blue Period they didn’t show it.

  “I won alright. For my sins,” Juliet confessed. “Had I been a bit less competitive I wouldn’t have to climb back into a vat this afternoon. I am afraid my competitive nature was roused and this is one case where the sin carries its own punishment. My legs hurt today. Be careful with your money if you are truly laying bets.”

  Seamus laughed softly.

  “Sometimes the good Lord makes vices of our virtues. But I do understand. I am also as stubborn as the day is long when sufficiently roused. The Lord made us as we are, and so. And here are our caves. As you can see, they are manmade, not caves at all. The soil is stony here and in places unstable. They did not cut too far into the mountain.” He pulled open an old wood door. “It isn’t a bad place to age wine for all its modest size.”

  The vaults were not huge, perhaps fifteen feet in every direction, and lit only with a string of dim bulbs dangling from the shadows at the top of the arch. Minerals had leaked through the bricks, forming small stalactites that hung from the ceiling. There was no sound and nothing moved the thick air.

  The walls and floor were brick, the latter rutted by the trolleys that trundled the kegs of wine. The atmosphere was saturated with a century of fermenting grapes and made for a heady perfume. Time had accumulated the scent of a hundred harvests and there was too much odor crammed into too small a space. It made Juliet’s head begin to spin.

  There were plenty of barrels in the vaults, but it looked a bit barren after the sterile but packed wine cellars at Blue Period. However, it smelled a lot better and the people seemed happier there. Perhaps there was something to be said for keeping the old ways.

  She didn’t buy into the mysticism of wine. It was an alcoholic beverage that came in flavors, some better than others, and she preferred the ones that didn’t beat up her taste buds. And yet, there was something there at Trefoil that appealed to her. Looking at the oak barrels in that old vault made her feel connected to the traditions of the past and even a bit uplifted. She was betting that she would also like the wine.

  “Are you alright there now?” Seamus asked when she didn’t speak.

  “Yes, just enjoying myself. This feels like a proper winery and not an industrial plant.”

  Seamus smiled with real pleasure.

  “It gladdens my heart to hear it.”

  They exchanged grins.

  “And speaking of industry….”

  “Yes?”

  “So now, I hear that Max Schneider was at the party. That was a bit of a surprise. We had heard that he’s been in jail for embezzlement or something to do with money. But there! The gossips so often get it the wrong way around and sure the man has had more than his share of troubles.”

  “He is Owens’ old partner?” Juliet asked, willing to listen to this particular gossip.

  “You’re not wrong. Owens bought him out before he went to trial. The man needed money for his lawyer, they say. That was just before Blue Period broke into the national market. I gather that there is still some hard feeling there and who can blame him?” They exited the cave. The light outside was dazzling but the fresh air was welcome after the slightly sour mysteriousness of the vaults. “A pity the boy didn’t come home for the party, but he never could stand Carissa and his health has been … of concern. Perhaps it’s best he stayed away.”

  “Owens has a son?” This surprised Juliet. There hadn’t been a single hint that there was any family.

  “Yes, Edward is from Owens’ first marriage. She died in a fall d
own the stairs of their old house when Ed was only four. It was a tremendous loss to the boy. Especially since he was an only child and Carl is not … demonstrative. My sister did what she could, bless her, but there is no substitute for a mother’s love, is there?”

  “No, there’s not,” Juliet agreed. She knew this from personal experience.

  They had a brief look at the vines that were terraced all the way to the bluff and not accessible by wheelchair. Juliet was glad that she needn’t make the climb. The terrace drooped, worn away by the wind and rain and perhaps even by a hundred years of human harvests.

  The old wood was thick and twisted but heavy with fruit that glowed in the sun. The smell of baked earth rose around them. It was warm enough that Juliet began missing the wine vaults and was thinking fondly of the next part of the tour which would hopefully be indoors at a tasting room.

  “Are you interested in our lavender fields?” Seamus asked hopefully.

  “Very much,” Juliet assured him, secretly hoping they wouldn’t be out in the sun much longer though. Sweat was beginning to gather on her back and she found it unpleasant. All she needed was a case of prickly heat.

  “We’ve harvested most of the crop this year—we do it at night as we do the grapes—but the drying sheds are quite interesting if you are a gardener.”

  “I dabble.” She did. She also killed nearly everything she touched. Rose was always rescuing her abused plants.

  As aromatic and cool as the wine caves had been, Juliet was most taken by the shed where the harvested lavender was being bundled and bagged in small organza sacks. The scent of the harvested stems rocked her back on her heels and made her giddy. She couldn’t imagine why the women hadn’t fainted from the smell of their floral burdens.

  Some of the lavender was being made into wreaths. The giant table where the florists worked was something from a castle that had fallen on hard times. It was damaged, scarred on top but also charred by fire. Juliet circled the table. One couldn’t help but think of things like the French revolution but probably the mutilation was more recent. After all, who would pay to move a table that was so injured across an ocean? But when had it happened? There had been no mention in her reading of their being a fire at the winery.