“I have to stay on my game when I’m officially tasting. You know that.”
“Yeah. I know.” Gabrielle stood up from the couch and started walking toward the kitchen.
“G? What is it?”
“Nothing. I’m glad you’re doing this. I really am.”
“Buuut…?” Tabitha said. Though she knew what was coming. Sometimes she wondered why she and her twin bothered to vocalize their thoughts
“But nothing,” Gabrielle said, smiling a little sadly. “I miss having a glass of wine with you, that’s all. I miss that little sparkle in your eyes when you love something. Your face turns to stone when you are working.”
“I know,” Tabitha said. “I miss it too. I miss the days when we just drank wine and laughed.”
Gabrielle nodded and went into the kitchen. Tabitha watched her fill the electric kettle, take down two mugs, and spoon an herbal mixture into both of them. From across the room, Tabitha could smell the lavender flowers and chamomile; Gabrielle was as much of an insomniac as she was, and this was her favorite nighttime mix.
Gabrielle handed her a mug, smiled, and turned back to her room. Tabitha could hear Doug snoring from their bedroom. Her sister had married a good man, but Tabitha watched her hesitate at the door. Perhaps Gabrielle was considering that snore. She turned from the door and stepped back toward the living room. A smirk played at the corner of her lips.
“Tabitha?”
“Yeah?”
“You are full of shit if you think you are not going to tell me the story of the Italian who gave you that champagne.”
Tabitha took a sip of the tea, which scalded her tongue and then warmed her throat as it slid down to her belly. She patted the couch cushion beside her.
“I already told you. It’s not champagne; it’s Prosecco. Have a seat.”
11
For their honeymoon, Royal had taken her to a hotel in London that didn’t even have a lobby. When they parked their car, a valet greeted them by name—Good afternoon, Viscount Vaginahunter, they had said, if Tabitha remembered correctly—and took them straight to their room. It was more like a palace wing, complete with his and hers bathrooms and a library. She never saw an employee or another guest, yet food and wine constantly appeared, and every towel, sheet, and bit of laundry remained cleaned and ironed the entire time they stayed there. It was a miracle of service technology, now that she thought of it.
The Double Standard Hotel in downtown Napa was not quite as luxurious, but it had an aggressively hip charm. The chandeliers were just a tad too modern; they resembled crystal swords jutting out from the ceiling. The armless couches around the lobby were just a bit too sleek, the way they backed each other as if each assignation that took place on them was just a turn of the head away from changing a life. It all looked impermanent, as if even the furniture did not want to commit. A serviceable level of luxury type of hotel; designed, she imagined, for the well-heeled but not vulgar rich who could afford to come to Napa and buy a great deal of good wine, but did ultimately pay attention to the price on the bottle. Those who wanted to impress their current spouse but weren’t afraid to keep their eyes open for an upgrade.
Tabitha knew it was her nerves telling her these stories. She’d had too much coffee on the drive up, and was worried she’d see Royal any moment now. She’d created a caffeine-fueled confrontation in her mind, and she imagined striding across the lobby, her spike heels clacking loudly and attracting the eyes of everyone in the room. The woman on his arm, whoever she might be today, would wither at the sight of Tabitha. Everyone in the room would expect a violent confrontation. But instead, Tabitha would pause in front of him and whisper, “Good luck in the competition,” her words dripping with acid and cracking so loudly in the lobby that they rang like a hard slap. Sometimes she swapped what she said. “Good luck being sad for the rest of your life” didn’t have the sharp anger she wanted, though it did convey what she felt. “See you in hell” got her anger across, but Tabitha didn’t want to imply that she would see him again in the afterworld; dealing with Royal in this life was punishment enough. She liked saying it in her car, however. She imagined her words brittle and sharp, letting the people in the lobby, and in the world, know that she was not only wishing him luck against her in the competition, but also in his entire life, where he was sure to fail against Amazonian forces like her. Because that’s what she was now, she had decided. An Amazon.
Of course, she hadn’t even worn heels to the competition. She never wore heels.
The valet was busy with the car in front of her, so she stepped out of her car and stood for a moment, facing the sunshine. She put her hands in fists on her hips and leaned her head, arching her back as if she were just facing the sun after a long drive. “Power,” she whispered to herself, trying to make herself believe the word. “I am a powerful, strong woman.”
“Ma’am? Can I take your car?”
She opened her eyes and faced the valet, who stood in front of her with a tiny smile. Tabitha made a move to open her trunk, but then stopped herself and reached for her purse on the passenger seat. She had to stand in Wonder Woman pose for one full minute. She needed to get up to her room, wash her face, and hit herself with some strength moves, per the instructions of Cori the Zen Yoga Freak.
“Your room won’t be ready for another hour,” the sleek check-in receptionist said when she arrived at the front desk. It was a hotel with supermodels for employees. Tabitha wished for the heels again.
“I need any room,” she said, her smile as sweet as she could manage. “I don’t care if it’s not clean yet. Can I please just go in there for five minutes? I’m expected at my event soon, and if I don’t—”
“Yes, I have your itinerary here,” said the Barbie doll, handing over a matte black folder with a wine glass etched in silver on the front. “Your first event is scheduled to start in approximately ten minutes. You can go straight to the event and we will be happy to bring all of your luggage to your room, and can even text you to let you know when the room is ready.”
Tabitha’s head spun. She needed to pee; she needed red lipstick; she needed to do the Wonder Woman pose, dammit. She could feel her blood pulsing with nervous energy. Ten minutes?
She ran through the lobby to the public restroom, berating herself for not standing up to the receptionist. She didn’t have the Amazon forces in her. Once inside a bathroom stall, she tried to recapture that image of herself she had pictured on the drive.
This is the new Tabitha. In charge of her life. Not taking shit from anyone.
It’s okay to be a few minutes late.
You have as much right to be here as anyone.
More right. You have more right to be here than some people.
We know who that is.
She tried to stand in power pose, but the stall was so narrow that she couldn’t even cock her elbows properly. She walked to the sink and stared at herself in the mirror.
Terrible.
Not terrible. Fine. It would be fine. She looked disheveled, but she could fix that. She tried to smooth down the left side of her hair, which had gone wonky because she had her window open on the drive. She didn’t have lipstick in her purse, and her t-shirt was wrinkled to hell.
Dammit. I am barely an adult.
She attempted the pose again. Feet spread, hands on hips, breasts out, chin in the air. Eyes closed. I am Wonder Woman. She breathed in deeply. I can handle anything that comes my way.
“Excuse me?” came a voice behind her. “May I use that sink?”
Damn, damn, damn.
One of the women waiting in line for the next toilet grinned as Tabitha walked by.
“Whatever it is, you’ve got this,” she said, holding up her hand for a fist bump.
Tabitha attempted a smile. “I’m not sure I’m cut out to be Wonder Woman.”
Everything had seemed so right when she left the house this morning. Badass and assured. Pink hair, suede thigh-high boots, a Ramones concert t-
shirt underneath her blazer. She looked like a teenager, not an adult. What was she thinking with all these braided leather bracelets? People were going to think she was into S&M. A rock and roll t-shirt? At a somm event? She had to change. She had a nicer, more professional blouse in her bag. Maybe she could get to it before they brought her luggage to her room. She’d be ten, maybe fifteen minutes late to the introductory lecture.
The bag was in the room. She could not get to the room, even though she asked as nicely as she could. The front desk clerk with the cheekbones that could slice through paper eyed her, pointing the way toward the front door.
“There is a corner shop just down the block if you need food or other supplies.” She pulled open a drawer. “And I can give you any toiletries you need. Feminine supplies? Toothbrush? Deodorant?”
It wasn’t Tabitha’s imagination. The receptionist had emphasized that last word.
Tabitha took a deep breath again and walked to the hotel ballroom. She heard a speaker behind the closed door say something over a muffled microphone, followed by a roar of laughter. One person sat behind the check-in desk and handed her an ID badge and a notebook with the schedule of events for the week.
“You’re not even that late,” the woman said in a loud stage whisper.
Had Tabitha still been married to Royal, would she be falling apart like this? She took her hand off the ballroom door handle and stepped back, leaning against the wall and considering the notion before she entered the room.
If she were still married and falling apart at this competition, she wouldn’t have admitted it to him. She would be wearing a proper business suit—Royal would have insisted. She would have been up all night, going over last-minute study tips with him instead of snuggling on the couch watching Pixar movies with Micah. Royal would have insisted she do one more round of blind tasting with Weston. Instead, she ate spaghetti with her sister. She had worked hard, prepared for this competition, but undoubtedly Royal had focused in like a laser-eyed shark, filling his body with an inhuman amount of wine knowledge while she filled her body with pasta.
She leaned against the wall and closed her eyes. What was done was done. She was here. It was time to get hold of herself.
Keeping her eyes closed, she straightened up, leaned away from the wall, and assumed the power pose again. Who cared if anyone saw? Thirty seconds of deep breathing never hurt anyone. Her heart began to slow down; her breath smoothed out its ragged edges. A sense of calm moved all the way into her belly and filled her with— Well, not confidence, exactly. But at least it seemed to be crowding out the anxiety corroding her insides.
One more deep breath. And another. She would take it in like a cool ocean breeze, and her confidence would be the diamond-pointed electricity that would propel her into the room. She sucked in deeply, her chest protruding. She filled her lungs and breathed out through her mouth. I can do this.
“Tab-eee-ta?”
She opened her eyes to see a man standing in front of her. A man with the deepest brown eyes she’d ever seen.
Eyes she recognized.
“Giovanni?”
12
She glanced over at Giovanni, in the seat next to her, and gave him a weak smile. She willed her body not to lean against his, or even brush up next to him. She pressed her legs together so tightly that she thought she might break a thighbone.
Giovanni. Here, in Napa, in this competition.
She couldn’t have been doing something grown up and interesting when he found her out in the hallway. No, instead she had her breasts jutted out like a cheerleader.
Now he sat back in his seat, his ankle crossed easily over his knee, and regarded her. So perfectly Italian.
She could feel the sweat bead on her forehead. She’d slept with him. She was sitting in this room full of professional people she needed to impress, and she was sitting next to a man she’d had sex with. Heat crept over her face, and she cleared her throat as if to clear away the thoughts before he could see them. Her heart pounded against her ribcage; she wondered if he could see it pulse in her throat.
And somewhere else in this room was another man she’d slept with. She was becoming that woman.
What woman? she asked her racing brain. A divorced woman. So what? There were plenty of those here. Half the room had had sex with the other half, probably. And she’d slept with a beautiful Italian man she met in a bar. There was nothing to be embarrassed about. She was not ashamed of the number of penises in her life.
Penii. Penisi?
She coughed to cover her giggle. The keynote speaker droned on about the future of wine, and she was sitting here trying to think of the plural word for penis. Giovanni’s right leg drifted toward her knee. She yanked her leg away from him and tried to smile without looking weird. Did she look weird? Did she smell weird? The receptionist had offered her deodorant—was that a suggestion? She turned to the right and bent down to reach into her purse, tucking her nose toward her armpit as she did so and taking a surreptitious sniff. It wasn’t great, but she’d smelled worse.
She sat up and smiled at Giovanni again. Stop fidgeting. She clasped her hands in her lap, white-knuckling them to hold them still.
His first international competition, he’d said in the hall. His winery. He had a winery.
Did he think she would be judging his winery?
Was that why he’d slept with her?
Her breath came in short gasps, and she swallowed hard to contain the sound. She was a fool. A classic divorced-lady fool. Like a rom-com. Worse, because she’d seen every rom-com ever made and she knew better than to sleep with Italian men. That never ended well for awkward heroines.
He’d known who she was when she walked into that bar in Treviso. She had been in Italy as a representative for Old World New School importers. If he owned a winery, it was entirely possible he read Wine Life Magazine. Maybe he saw the profile Mark had written about her and knew she was going to SommFest. He put his winery in the competition thinking she would give him a win because of their history.
Oh, God, she’d have to recuse herself. She’d have to tell the entire judging panel that she couldn’t compete because she’d fucked another one of the contestants.
Maybe he’d be disqualified. Maybe she’d be disqualified, and the entire competition would be forfeit, and the scandal would rock the entire organization. She’d go down in history as the woman who burned down the SommFest.
Over a penis.
But oh my heavens, what a penis. Every inch of her body throbbed now, a toxic combination of erotic thrill and mortification. Her stomach churned. An image of her legs, wrapped around him, how perfectly his taut waist fit between her thighs, and she could lock her ankles behind his back to pull him in closer. His bronzed skin against hers, his lips on her neck.
Her blood rushed to her head. What if her thoughts were being projected on to the screen behind the speaker’s dais? Everyone in the room would know what she was thinking—filthy, untamed thoughts about the man next to her, the man she would now help to destroy the wine world forever. Everyone here probably thought she was a pathetic, lonely divorcée who fell for the first man who showed her kindness after her husband cheated on her.
She leaped from her chair, nearly knocking it over as she stood.
“Excuse me. Excuse me. I’m sorry, excuse me. So sorry. Pardon me,” she whispered, and tried to smile as she stepped over the legs of each person in her row. This was just great. She’d shown up late and had to climb over all of them just to get to her seat; now she was climbing back over them once again. She thought if she didn’t get out of that room she might throw up. All over Giovanni. That would be an even less sexy end to their catastrophically humiliating story.
When she finally bolted out the door, she hardly made it across the hallway before she collapsed into the plush chairs. She leaned down and put her head between her knees.
“Tabitha?”
She opened her eyes and saw his shoes in front of her. Polis
hed brown leather. Obviously. Could he not wear ratty sneakers?
Breathing deeply, she sat up and faced him.
“Did you sleep with me to try to win this competition?”
Emotions washed over his face in the space of just a few seconds. Surprise. Anger. Then he smiled.
“Is that what you believe?”
“What else am I supposed to think? You just randomly slept with a woman at a bar, and then it turns out she might be a judge at a competition that could make or break your winery?”
“That would be incredibly skillful of me, yes.”
“So, it’s true? That’s what you did?”
“That is not what happened.”
“What happened, then?”
“We met. We were attracted to one another. We made love.”
“Made love? Are you kidding me?”
“Do you not remember?”
She tried to lower her voice.
“Was it because you thought I was a judge in this? Were you trying to sway the competition? It won’t work. I’m not judging the wineries this year; I’m only in the Sommelier Medal program. Even if I were judging wineries, this is a blind competition. I wouldn’t even know which wine was yours. Your stupid little plan would never work. The joke’s on you; sleeping with a judge got you nowhere.”
“I made love with every one of the judges. Not just you.”
Her mouth dropped open, and a smirk crept onto his handsome face.
“That’s not possible.”
“But it would make more sense, no?”
Tabitha dropped her head into her hands.
“Please tell me what is happening here.”
He glanced around the room before settling into the chair next to her. “One night, Francesco was helping an American in our family enoteca, because I did not want to talk to another international wine buyer who wanted only brand names and who refused to learn about what we do. I was not going to speak to this wine buyer. But, as it happened, the wine buyer was a woman. A very beautiful woman. I tried to ignore her, but her eyes, they haunted me. So, I decided to talk to her. Only talk. I had no intention of making love to her. Or anyone. But from the moment I greeted her, I could think only of putting my hands on her waist and pulling her to me.”
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