by Beverly Long
Pearl stopped in front of the machine that Arturo had warned George away from that morning, when he’d said it was reserved for Montai and his father. “There’s always work to be done but in September and October, the pace becomes almost frantic. During the crush—that’s what we call our harvest—grapes are brought here by the truckload. They are washed and then put in this baby,” she said, patting the machine lovingly. “Here they get destemmed and then crushed.”
It was starting to make a little sense. “And that’s wine?”
“No. Not yet. That’s must—a mixture of juice, skins, seeds and pulp. The next steps are a little different depending on whether we’re making a white wine, say from Chardonnay grapes, or our Cabernet Sauvignon, which is the red wine you had for dinner last night. With white wine, we press the grapes next. That separates the juice from the rest of the must.”
“But it’s not the same for red wine?” George asked.
“No, red wine actually gets its color from the clear grape juice having a chance to come in contact with the skin of the red grape. So primary fermentation begins while the juice is still mixed in with the grape skins.”
“What’s fermentation?”
“Fermentation is nothing more than the process of converting the sugar in the grapes into alcohol and carbon dioxide, which is simply released into the air. It happens when yeast, which is a naturally occurring organism on the skin of grapes, comes in contact with the juice. It’s basically a simple chemical process. It does, however, cause heat, and too much heat can be detrimental to the quality of the wine.”
Genevieve pulled an orange feather from behind her ear and handed it to him. “Orange is for clarity of thought. I figure you could use it about now.”
“Thank you,” he said. He stuck it in his pocket, right next to the purple one that she’d given him this morning. If she was right, he now had clear thoughts and a sense of purpose to carry them out. He walked over to one of the tall silver tanks. There was a ladder, taller than he’d ever seen, leaning up against it. He stepped around it and ran his hand over the dimpled side of the tank. “All that happens inside of here?”
“Yes,” Pearl answered. “With red wine, the must rises to the top during fermentation and it’s someone’s job to punch it down, or mix it all up again, to make sure that there is sufficient contact between the skins and the juice. These extension ladders come in handy. The dimples you see are refrigeration to counteract the heat.”
“Speaking of heat,” Genevieve said. “It’s damn hot out here.”
Pearl looked upward and studied the clear sky. “It is, isn’t it?” she said, like she’d just suddenly noticed. It was clear that when Pearl Song got a chance to talk about her wine, she took notice of little else. “Are you hot, darling?” she asked Melody.
“Not bad, but I should be getting over to the wine shed. I told Bernard that I’d start the data entry today.”
“All right. Lessons are over for today,” Pearl said. “Besides, I’ve kept you from your lunch, George. Go on in the house and Bessie will fix you something. Then, if you want to find Arturo, he said he’d be in Lot C. That’s the fifteen acres straight west of here. You can take the four-wheeler or if you prefer, saddle up Brontë. There’s a patch of olive trees nearby she can graze under.”
He didn’t know what a four-wheeler was but if it was anything like a car, it couldn’t be good. “That’s an easy choice,” he said honestly. “I’ll take Brontë.”
Melody put out her hand. “I can take your camera upstairs,” she said.
He hesitated, then felt stupid. It was just a camera. Even if she pulled it out and looked at it, there was nothing that would make her think it was anything but an old camera in really good shape. He relaxed his shoulder, let the strap fall, and then handed the box to her.
Their fingers met and for one brief moment, they were each connected to the other, and to the camera box. Pearl, Genevieve, even the buildings around them seemed to fade into the background. There was only Melody and him and his camera.
And he could smell the hearty scent of pig roasting on a spit and could hear the gentle murmur of voices in the background. Sarah. John. Fred Goodie and his intended bride, Suzanne. It was all exactly as it had been the night he’d taken the picture of Sarah.
He jerked back and the camera would have dropped to the ground if Melody had not been quick to grab it. “What’s wrong?” she asked, wrapping her arms around the sturdy box.
He sniffed the air and listened. Nothing. He looked around. Genevieve and Pearl stood there, their eyes wide with interest but giving no other indication that they’d smelled or heard anything odd.
“George?” Melody asked. Her pretty eyes, more violet today than blue, were filled with concern.
“Nothing,” he said. “I’ll see you ladies later.” He turned away quick, not sure that even he was a good enough liar to carry off this one.
***
Melody spent most of the afternoon working in Bernard’s small office, at the rear of the wine shed. To get there, she’d walked a bit nervously past the stacks and stacks of oak barrels, half expecting one to jump out of its rightful place and take flight. But they’d all behaved, staying quite still.
She spent the first two hours entering data. Between Bernard and Gino, they tracked everything. Rain amounts, daily temperatures—both the high and the low, sulfur applications, pruning schedules, and everything else in between on an almost acre-by-acre basis. Making great wine wasn’t a paint-by-the-numbers kind of activity, but yet, the numbers mattered. When the grapes were ready to harvest, they’d match all the numbers up and try to figure out what worked and what didn’t.
She ran out of paper printing off Bernard’s reports. She started opening filing-cabinet drawers and was surprised when she came across several drawers that were locked. She couldn’t remember them ever having to lock any of the drawers. Nobody came into the office area except family and Bernard and Gino.
She finally found the extra paper in the closet and just as she was finishing her reports, Bernard knocked on the door.
“How’s it going?” he asked.
She wiggled her fingers and flexed her wrists. “I’m out of shape. I used to be able to do this all day.”
“There’s no hurry. It just needs to get done sometime over the next couple weeks.”
“I heard some voices earlier. Was that you?”
“Yes. Tilly had one of her tours and there was a man who was insisting that when a wine has a vanilla taste, it’s because we’re adding vanilla extract.”
She pretended to be shocked. “That’s not true?”
Bernard rolled his eyes. “You’d have been proud of me. I didn’t tell him he was too stupid to live.”
“Of course not,” she said. “You’re much too nice for that.”
He snorted. “I hear we’re having a party in a couple days.”
She wasn’t surprised that he knew. Since this was his home, too, Grandmother would not invite thirty friends for dinner without letting him know in advance. “Grandmother seems to think it’s the thing to do. I don’t want it to wear her out, though.”
“If it does,” he said, picking up a stack of the papers she’d printed and leafing through them, “it would be a good kind of worn out. The kind that comes from pleasure.”
They heard a knock on the door and Tilly stuck her head in. “Bernard, I need you again. I swear, this guy thinks his ten-dollar tasting fee entitles him to twenty questions. He’s fascinated by fermentation.”
Bernard rolled his eyes but Melody knew it was mostly habit. Grandmother had told her along time ago that Bernard, like most winemakers, was part artist and part scientist. The artist in him wanted to create his masterpiece in private, to brood over it, to enjoy some anguish awaiting the end product. The scientist in him wanted to finitely examine each element of the process and to discuss it at length, to ponder the implications of varying the process, and to document it to death.
When there were questions from visitors, inevitably the scientist won out over the artist. He’d already followed Tilly out the door before Melody remembered she’d meant to ask him about the locked drawers.
She turned off the computer, cleared her workspace, and stood, absently rubbing her stomach. Jingle’s movements were becoming stronger, more defined. The delicate flutters were fast-turning into deliberate flips and it made her smile to think of Jingle swimming around, like the fish in Grandmother’s pond.
George had liked the pond and she’d thought he’d understood why it and the garden were important to her. But then he’d seemed almost impatient to leave, had even said something about wasting time.
Maybe he’d come to his senses and realized that Grandmother’s little dinner party was likely to give him indigestion. There’d be well-meaning neighbors and longtime family friends who’d be naturally curious about the marriage.
He’d do fine. She, on the other hand, if past performance were truly an indicator of future performance, would be a mess. She’d stumble over her words and her explanations would be so circuitous that she’d be lucky if she didn’t strangle herself.
As abrupt as he’d been in the garden, he’d still been gracious when Grandmother had insisted they tour the place. He’d asked good questions and his interest had seemed genuine. Grandmother had loved it and it had been wonderful to see how excited she’d been to show it all to George.
She needed to remember to thank him again. And then she was going to ask for a favor. They needed to rehearse for the dinner party. Well, fine, she needed to rehearse. But he needed to help her. Tonight, when they retired for the evening, they could make sure they had their story straight. She was hip-deep in this muck she’d created. If she weren’t careful, it would suck her in, like quicksand in the old horror movies.
Melody left the office and followed the sound of voices. Bernard stood in the middle of a group of at least ten, with Tilly off to the side. When Melody got close, she heard him explaining that their barrels were made out of American oak and that there was a careful rotation system in place to ensure that barrels were not used after three or four year; after that period of time, the ability of the wood to impart any desirable flavors into the wine would be diminished.
A man wearing a white shirt and bright red shorts that clashed alarmingly with his dark socks and dress shoes, raised his hand. “What happens to the barrels after that?”
“We sell them. Usually to a vineyard that doesn’t have the same standard for their rotation or the same high standard for wine production.”
It was true but it did sound a little pretentious. The man nodded and began flipping through some sort of pocket wine guidebook. He raised his hand once again when he evidently found the page he wanted.
“Yes, Sir?”
“Your 2003 Cabernet received four and one-half stars in Love Your Wine magazine. What did it lack that it didn’t get a full five stars?”
He’d asked it innocently enough that it was possible the poor man didn’t realize those were fighting words. Even Tilly, who had seemed zoned-out to that point, straightened up. No doubt she was concerned that sales in the gift shop, the next stop on the tour, might be hampered if the guests saw the winemaker explode.
Melody knew from past experience that Bernard could easily launch into a two-hour tirade about the ability of so-called experts to rate wine. It would be flavored with adjectives that would shock the woman in the purple-flowered pantsuit and likely leave Red Shorts with a red face.
Melody moved forward, caught Bernard’s eye, and winked at him. She knew exactly what the magazine had said about their Cabernet—that it lacked a certain complexity they’d come to expect from Sweet Song of Summer wines. She would bet her last dollar that Bernard knew exactly what the magazine had written.
Bernard smiled at the group. “That’s not a publication that I’m familiar with,” he said. “Now if you’ll excuse me. Please do enjoy the rest of your tour.”
Melody caught up with him at the door. “Good job,” she whispered.
“That guy would need a guidebook to find his balls,” Bernard hissed back. “Sorry,” he added.
“No problem. You handled him perfectly. I’m going to take off for the afternoon. I guess I’ll see you at dinner.”
“Actually, you won’t. I’ve got a date.”
“A date!” She said it louder than she’d intended.
He looked irritated. “Yes. A date. With Rebecca Fields.”
She wanted to be happy for him. She really did. But there was something too weird about Bernard and the very-thin Ms. Fields dating. “So, where are you going?”
“Dinner at Madeline’s in Yountville.”
“Very nice.” Madeline’s was one of the nicer restaurants in an area filled with nice restaurants. “Have fun,” she said, feeling bad that she couldn’t be genuinely happier for him. “And, Bernard,” she said, putting her hand on his arm.
“Yes.”
She wanted to tell him to be careful, to protect his heart.
“What is it, Melody?”
She smiled at him. “Whatever you do, don’t wear shorts and black socks with your Wingtips.”
He shook his head. “Do I have asshole written across my forehead?”
***
When George pulled the saddle off Brontë’s back at the end of the workday, he felt like every damn bone in his body hurt. His shirt was sweat-drenched, his pants were dirty, and he could smell himself.
When he walked into the house, Dionysos and Hermes, ever-watchful of intruders, came running. “It’s just me,” he said, kneeling down, with his hand out. He didn’t try to pet them. He just kept his hand still, letting them sniff.
“Is that you, George?”
“It is, Pearl.” He’d wanted to go right upstairs but it seemed rude now not to stop in and say hello. He walked toward the piano room, stopping when he got to the door. Both sisters were there.
“Come in, come in,” Genevieve beckoned. The cat was once again wrapped around her neck. She leaned over and patted the empty space on the couch.
“I better not,” he said. “I’ve got several layers of dirt on me and one is bound to come off on your furniture.”
Pearl smiled at him. “How did the afternoon go?”
He’d sliced a finger with the razor-sharp knife that Arturo had given him and both his heels had blisters. But there’d been no more spats between the men and they’d seemed to accept his presence among them. “Very nice.”
“Melody said she mentioned that I’m hosting a dinner party to celebrate your marriage and the baby. It’s tomorrow night—you may want to knock off a little early.”
“I’ll do that. Where is Melody, by the way?”
“We haven’t seen her,” Pearl said. “I imagine she’s out in the shed with Bernard. She should be in shortly to get ready for dinner.”
He nodded. “Well, then, if you’ll excuse me, ladies, I think I better get cleaned up myself.” He walked up the stairs and down the short hallway. He grabbed for the doorknob, pushed the door open, and stopped suddenly when all the air left his lungs.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
He’d expected the room to be empty. But Melody lay on her bed with barely a stitch on. Her shirt, which had skinny little straps, hugged her full breasts tight and stopped just inches below them, leaving her rounded stomach bare. The vee at the top of her legs was covered by an almost transparent little scrap of material and he could see the hair between her legs.
She was lovely. There was no other word for it. And he badly wanted to touch her. To stroke her smooth skin, to brush a hand across her nipples and see them beg for more attention, to spread her legs and taste her sweetness.
He could tell by the gentle rhythm of her breathing that she was sleeping. Her hair looked wet and her pillow damp, like she’d gotten out of the shower, gotten partially dressed, and then stopped to rest. He couldn’t stop staring at her stomach. It amazed him to think that as the
weeks grew to months, her smooth skin could stretch enough to accommodate her growing child.
In his time, woman died giving birth. New babes died, too. If anything had changed in a hundred and eighteen years, he hoped that had. It struck him suddenly that four months was not a terribly long time. Was it possible that he’d still be here? Would he get to see Melody’s child? Would he know that she’d seen her way safely through the ordeal? Or was it his destiny to go back to his own time soon and forever wonder what had happened to Melody and her child?
He felt suddenly light-headed, almost sick to his stomach. He couldn’t stay in this time. He needed to be where he belonged, in a time he understood.
He did know shit about being a sheriff. Not like grapes.
He took a step away from the bed and might have gotten away without her ever knowing he was standing there, staring like a young boy, if she hadn’t rolled over and in the process, almost made her plump breasts practically pop out of her little shirt.
“Christ Almighty,” he said.
Her eyes flew open and it reminded him of how she’d looked that first night on the beach. Then, she had stared at him, like he was something that had emerged from the sea. Now, she looked less frightened, less wary, but still surprised to see him standing over her bed.
“I didn’t know you were in here.” He was trying to look everywhere but at her breasts. But he was clearly unsuccessful; she glanced down and quickly shifted, pulling her shirt back into place.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I had no right.”
He could see the look of uncertainty in her violet eyes and then they cleared, like she’d come to some decision. “Come here,” she said, her voice soft. She held out her hand.
He shook his head. No. He couldn’t touch her. Not when he was feeling so weak. “I’m filthy dirty,” he said, grabbing on to the only excuse he could.
“That doesn’t matter. Please.”