Silla smiled supportively. “That’s a thought.”
“And, you know, any excuse to use the word brothel.”
“It’s a great word.”
“Honestly, though, I don’t think I’d be any good with the professional sex. I’m barely an amateur. Been so long I’d probably stick the condom on the guy’s ear. Can virginity grow back?”
“Not that I’m aware of,” Silla said. “Back to the co-signing—”
“Or,” Dana said, “I could join a traveling circus for the winter. I hear they pay well if you’re willing to be shot out of a cannon. Even better if you’re willing to be shot out of a cannon naked while holding a porcupine.”
“Or,” Silla countered, “you could talk to your mother…”
“Is it bad that I’d rather take my chances with the naked porcupine?”
Silla shrugged. Dana sighed.
“Is there anything else? Any other way?”
“Well,”—Silla started, looking warily at Dana—“you could always reconsider the offer you got from Melanie Biggs.”
“Did you just say her name? You said her name.” Dana wagged her finger at Silla. “You know the rules. Five bucks in the kitty.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I.”
Silla let out a sharp exhale, looking pained as she spoke. “She said she’d keep you on staff. Nothing would have to change. And then you could hire everyone else back in the spring.”
“Yeah, so we could all work for the unholy demon spawn of Dolly Parton and Donald Trump? No. Thank. You. I will find another way.” Dana pointed at the ceramic Cheshire cat that sat on a shelf behind the bar, watching them with a vacuous smile. “You know the rules. You say her name, you pay up.”
Silla hesitated, then spoke. “She’s going to be in town this week, checking on her other properties here.”
“No,” Dana said firmly. “Now put the money in the kitty and let’s get back to watching my family business crash and burn, shall we?”
Silla pulled a five-dollar bill out of her pocket and handed it to Dana. Dana turned, stuffed it into the ceramic cat, then pulled a five out of her own pocket and handed it to Silla.
“Congratulations. You got a raise.”
Silla smiled and took the money. “Thanks.”
“Hey, I may be a brothel-owning, porcupine-loving, naked piece of cannon fodder, but I only take money from people I dislike.”
“Which brings us back to your mother,” Silla began.
“I like my mother,” Dana said. Silla nodded, sweetly pretending to believe it, but Dana could tell it was a charade. She stared down into her wineglass. She’d been right—Cabernet did go great with panic and despair. “It’s just that I don’t understand her. And every time I talk to her there are these weird awkward silences that stretch on forever. Seriously. You could bury Jimmy Hoffa in those silences. Matter of fact, I think that might be where he is.”
“Well, I’m out of ideas,” Silla said, “unless you think you might have a hundred thousand dollars or so in spare change stuck in your sofa cushions. I’d be happy to help you look.”
“Boy, you are just the most dedicated bookkeeper ever to escort a business into Chapter Eleven, you know that?” Dana pulled down another wineglass, filled it, and slid it across the bar to Silla. “You’ve earned it.”
Silla took a sip. Dana leaned her elbows on the bar and put her face in her hands. “My father was four when Grampa Wiley built this place. Did I ever tell you that?” Silla shook her head. Dana straightened up and pointed through the window. “My parents were married in the gazebo out back.”
She motioned toward the east side of the vineyard. “I lost my virginity in Nick’s pickup at the edge of the vineyard.” She pulled her head up and cringed at Silla. “Too much information?”
Silla laughed lightly. “Little bit.”
“I can’t lose this place,” she said, as much to herself as to Silla. Silla said nothing, just watched her quietly with that penetrating gaze that only severely sincere bookkeeper types can muster.
“So,” Dana said quietly, “what do you think is the proper outfit for running to your estranged mother and asking for money? Should I go hobo-chic, with my holey jeans and worn flannel top, or should I do straightforward abject penitence and just wear the hair shirt all the way down?”
Silla blinked. “You have a hair shirt?”
Dana lifted her glass.
“Hobo-chic it is.” She smiled at Silla. “Why don’t you get going? I’ll lock up when I’m done with my self-pity bender.”
Silla hesitated. “Are you sure? I could stay with you for a while.”
Dana shook her head. “You go on. Thanks.”
After Silla escaped, Dana pulled the garment bag toward her and unzipped it, revealing the white satin wedding dress inside.
Then she stared at it as she took another drink.
One good thing about the impending doom of losing the business that had been in her family for three generations—it put her moment of clarity in perspective. The whole freak-out had probably just been misplaced anxiety over the winery anyway, she told herself. It wasn’t a huge stretch to imagine—she’d known Silla was talking to the bank people today, and while she’d been hopeful, she knew they might not give her the loan. She was simply misplacing her emotions, as she often did. She knew she’d made the right decision with Nick, and anyway, a man she hadn’t seen in six years was the least of her problems.
Losing the family business, land, and home all in one fell swoop—that was a problem so tremendous and breathtaking in scope that it could easily eclipse a stupid little moment of clarity. No doubt about it.
She leaned back against the wall, her head resting on the cool window her father used to watch her through every morning. She stared up at the rough log ceiling, wondering if her father was watching her from above.
Then she quickly looked at the floor. It was equally possible Frank Wiley was watching her from a more southern perspective.
Either way, he was probably not impressed. He’d managed to keep Wiley Wines above water through an untold number of bad seasons, and even through the initial post-divorce years when he’d been so drunk that half of the time he’d forgotten little details, like opening the shop or paying taxes. And yet Dana, predominantly sober, couldn’t keep it running through the after-effects of one stupid little diseased crop.
Except she could. All she had to do was swallow her pride, go see her mother, and ask for money. The thought sent acid spiking through her stomach.
It’s not really asking for money, Dana thought. It’s asking for ink, a little ink in the form of signature that will make her responsible for the loan if I fail to breathe life back into Wiley Wines.
Oh, hell. Who was she kidding? She was asking her mother for money. Her mother. The woman who didn’t get her Christmas call from Dana until March. The woman who repeatedly extended invitations for Dana to visit her in Manhattan only to receive lame excuses like, Can’t, having a root canal.
But there was the flip side of the coin. She was also the woman who had left Dana’s dad after twenty-five years of marriage to run off with a wealthy Manhattan real-estate magnate. The woman who’d attended fabulous charity functions on the French Riviera while Dana helped her drunken father make it up the steps and into his bedroom before passing out. The woman who had left Dana behind to clean up her mess and watch Frank Wiley wither away and die of a broken heart.
Dana lifted herself up off the bar and put her empty wineglass in the sink. After she’d buried her dad, she’d sworn to herself she’d never touch a dime of Babs’s money. It felt tainted, somehow disloyal to her father, as Babs’s money was Bryson McGregor’s money, no matter how dead both men were. And Dana really didn’t want the money, anyway. As long as she had a roof, three squares a day, and clothes and shoes with patchable holes, she was happy. Money just didn’t mean that much to her.
But this place did. It meant everything.
> And, although she barely wanted to admit it to herself, not letting Melanie Biggs get her stinking Antichrist claws on Wiley Wines meant more.
“You have to understand, Dad,” she said, pulling the garment bag off the bar, “I’m out of options. I wouldn’t do this if I had a choice.”
She dug into her pocket for her keys.
“As much as I sympathize with you hating Bryson, and as much as I know you’re rolling over in your grave like a rotisserie chicken at the thought of his money saving this place… there’s no way in hell I’m letting that bitch get her skanky little hands on my winery.”
She pulled open the front door and stepped outside into the crisp fall air.
Garment bag bumping lazily over her shoulder, she started down the long gravel path toward her house at the edge of the vineyard. Her credit card would creak and complain, but it would get her one round-trip ticket to New York City, where she would ask her estranged mother for money and officially become the lowest form of life in the world.
It was a plan.
Four
Dana rolled her head from side to side, trying to work out the stiffness the trip had put in her neck as she watched the floor numbers tick by in bright red on the elevator panel.
5… 6… 7…
She checked her watch. 10:30. Late, but not by Babs’s standards; Dana was pretty sure her mother would still be up. Edgar the doorman had smiled brightly when he saw her and didn’t bother calling up. Apparently Babs had put Dana on the short list of people who didn’t require being announced, which had surprised Dana. She half-expected to be on the blacklist, wedged between vacuum salesmen and door-to-door evangelists. Instead, Edgar had led her to the elevators, keying in the penthouse floor and making polite chitchat by saying he was sure Babs would be thrilled to see her daughter.
If only Dana could be so sure. Three hours in standby mode at the airport, two hours on the plane, then forty minutes of a death-defying cab ride had done little to lower the anxiety she’d been working up all day. The closer she’d gotten to Babs’s place, the more certain she was that she was heading into disaster, that Babs would have her thrown out as soon as she walked in. Which would be easier, honestly. If Babs was awful about it, Dana could at least feel better about her own part in the tension in their relationship. But Dana knew exactly what to expect from her mother.
Graciousness, humor, and a big fat Where do I sign?
Dana’s sense of self-worth plummeted as the elevator lifted her closer to her mother. Only thoughts of Wiley Wines falling into the hands of Melanie Biggs kept her from hitting the emergency button and stopping the elevator altogether.
18… 19… 20…
Dana wrung her hands together. They were starting to sweat. She should have called first. Maybe it would have been better if she’d written a letter. Hired the Goodyear Blimp to do a flyby over the penthouse. Sent smoke signals or a telegram.
Mom. Stop. In big trouble. Stop. Need lots of money. Stop. Please save me as I am pathetic and useless. Stop.
“Oh, crap,” Dana grunted and glanced up at the numbers again.
28… 29… P.
Ding. The elevator doors opened, and Dana forced her shaky legs to carry her out into her mother’s penthouse. The living room, all white leather and gleaming glass, was empty. Dana glanced to her left, where an open archway showed her an equally sparkling, and equally empty, kitchen. She heard flamenco music coming faintly from outside and glanced toward the window over the sofa that looked out on the terrace. Light shone through, and Dana guessed her mother was outside enjoying a little autumn night air and likely drinking something with an umbrella in it.
“Well,” she muttered to herself, “time to get this show on the road.”
She tossed her bag below the coat rack and moved down the hallway to the sliding-glass terrace door. She could see Babs stretched out on a lounge chair, dressed in white and wearing some sort of fluffy pink monster on her head. Dana smiled; she’d been right about everything, except the umbrella. Babs was drinking a scotch and soda.
Dana slid the door open, walked over to the portable stereo and lowered the volume, then turned to face Babs as her mother pulled the hat off her head and squinted up at Dana.
“Hi,” she said weakly. “Nice hat.”
Her mother blinked twice in silence. Dana could feel Babs looking her up and down, probably deciding that the red in her hair was done badly. Which it probably was. It was out of a box and Dana was no hairdresser but damned if she was going to pay seventy-five bucks for someone to damage her hair with poisonous chemicals when she could do it herself for ten. She ran a hand over her head and waited for Babs to say something.
After the initial moment of shock passed, Babs smiled and stood up, drawing Dana into a hug in which they both put their faces to the same side, then each moved, then finally fit chins to shoulders briefly before they each backed off and just looked at each other.
“Dana, darling,” Babs said, her smile a little too bright. “What a surprise.”
“Yeah,” Dana said, scuffing one sneakered foot against the terrace’s polished concrete floor. “Sorry. I should have called first.”
“No,” Babs said. “It’s fine. I’m so glad you’re here.”
“Me too.”
They stared at each other for a long moment.
“Drink?” Babs said.
“Please.”
Dana followed Babs back into the penthouse to the fully stocked bar at the edge of the living room. Dana settled on a barstool and watched as her mother fixed a gin and tonic, complete with fresh lime, and slid it across the bar.
“Thank you,” Dana said, and took a large sip, feeling a wash of conflicting emotions. Happiness at seeing her mother. Guilt. Love. A touch of anger, a sprinkle of disappointment, all topped off with a healthy helping of self-loathing.
She took another drink.
“I’m sorry I didn’t call you back after you left that message on my birthday…” she began.
Babs waved a hand dismissively and scoffed at her. “Oh, not at all. I know you’re busy.”
“It’s just that work…”
Babs smiled. “Of course.”
“I had to take a second job.”
Babs’s smile faded a touch. “Why? Are things okay at the winery?”
Dana shook her head and let out a strained laugh. It was a perfect segue into the reason she’d come by, but she faltered right over it. “Oh, no. Fine. I just… you know… extra… miscellaneous… car payments.”
She tried not to roll her eyes at herself. She still drove the same crappy Ford Escort she’d bought used after college graduation. She was such a pathetic liar.
Babs grinned. “You got a new car? What kind? Something fast and stylish, I hope. Please don’t tell me it’s something sensible like a pickup truck or a minivan.”
Dana felt her brow crinkle under the stress of both lying and trying to understand her mother.
“I didn’t get a car.”
“You didn’t?”
“No.” Dana stared down at her feet. “I have a second job because I had to close the winery.”
Babs’s drink paused in midair. “What happened?” Dana felt the tension rising up her back, settling on her shoulders. She played nervously with the mixer straw in her drink. “Diseased grapes. I don’t know how it happened. I mean, it’s not like they’re out there on the vine, having indiscriminate sex and sharing dirty needles.”
Dana let loose with a nervous giggle. Babs stared at her, unsmiling.
Oh. Hell.
“So, anyway, they all got diseased and I wasn’t gonna have enough yield to justify the expense of the summer hires, so I closed the place down for the season. It’s really no big deal.” Dana took a gulp of her drink and forced a tight smile. “So, what have you been up to?”
Babs shrugged. “Oh, you know. Lots of indiscriminate sex and sharing dirty needles. The usual.” Her expression grew more serious. “What are you going to do?”
Dana lifted her glass. “Finish this. Have another.”
“I meant about the winery, Dana.” Babs paused, took a breath. “You’re not going to have to sell it, are you?”
“No,” Dana said quickly. “No, no. I went to the bank. You know, for a loan.”
“Oh. Good. How did that go?”
“Well, it was uncomfortable at first, you know, what with the crawling up my nether regions with a microscope, but… they’re thinking real hard about it. Of course, I’m going to have to jump through some hoops first.”
“Hoops?”
“Yeah. You know. Sacrifice a chicken, promise them my firstborn…” Dana took another sip of her drink and kept her eyes on the bar as she blurted out the last, painful bit. “Get a co-signer.”
Silence. Dreadful, horrible silence. Dana waited for the Where do 1 sign? she’d been expecting, but it didn’t come. She glanced up at her mother, who was watching her. Dana cleared her throat.
“Which…” she stammered, “… is kinda why I’m here.”
Babs nodded. “I see.”
More silence.
“But you don’t have to do it. There are other options. I think I saw something about the blood of a virgin in the paperwork.”
Babs tilted her head. “Will they want to crawl up my nether regions as well?”
Dana took a breath to answer but was saved by the elevator bell. It wasn’t until she heard Nick’s voice coming from the front hall that she realized it was very much a frying pan-fire situation.
“Babs, hey,” he said as he stepped in. “Did you forget to charge your cell phone? I’ve been calling for the last hour, and your landline is going straight to…”
He stopped. His eyes narrowed slightly as they landed on Dana, flashing disbelief at first, then slowly cooling. Dana’s stomach did a flip, and she prayed her gin and tonic wouldn’t make an encore appearance.
“… voice mail,” he said finally, his voice flat, his eyes still on Dana. “And it’s not accepting new messages. Must be full.”
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