Prosecco Heart

by Julie Strauss

  “Micah,” she whispered. “I know you’re in here.”

  He squirmed beneath the tangled sheets, burrowing further into Tabitha’s chest with a muffled giggle. She opened her eyes to see Gabrielle coming toward her bed, and she pulled her body into a long stretch, yanking the covers over Micah’s head as she did so.

  “I’m sorry,” Gabrielle said. “I told him not to come in here.”

  “Who?”

  “Micah.”

  “Micah? I haven’t seen him.”

  Gabrielle stopped, puzzled. Her eyes darted down to the covers, where the form of Micah’s tiny body could be clearly seen under the sheets.

  “Haven’t seen him in days.” A muffled squeal came from beneath the covers, and Tabitha stretched again and draped her leg over his belly. “I’ve never heard of him, actually. Never heard of a kid named Micah in my whole entire life.” She rolled again, draping both of her arms over his wiggling shape. “Gabrielle, this is the most uncomfortable bed on the planet. Full of lumps and bumps. It’s exactly like sleeping on boulders.” She pushed and prodded, tickling Micah’s sides through the sheets. He screamed and squirmed out of her reach, then scrambled out from under the sheet panting and laughing. Tabitha pulled him into her again, smoothing down his flyaway hair and kissing his warm cheeks.

  “I’m sorry. He’s a little hyped up. Doug made pancakes, and I think Micah drowned his in Nutella.”

  “Nuuu-tedda!” Micah screamed, and he tore off the bed and ran down the hallway to the kitchen. “Nutedda, nutedda, want nutedda.”

  Leaning against the doorway, Gabrielle watched him go, a strange mixture of amusement and worry in her eyes.

  “Let’s just be honest, we may as well have fed him birthday cake for breakfast.”

  Tabitha stretched again, pulled the tangled sheets up around her, and collapsed back into her pillow. “Cake is not a breakfast food. Nutella is. Everyone knows that.”

  “You always make me feel like an excellent mother.”

  “Good. You are an excellent mother.”

  The sisters smiled at each other, then Gabrielle climbed onto the bed next to Tabitha, laying her head on the same pillow and looking up at the ceiling.

  “Are you ever going to turn your phone on?”

  “Nope.”

  “They might have stopped calling.” When Tabitha didn’t reply, she continued, “Maybe all the messages are just from people you love. And your clients. And that Italian guy.”

  “I guarantee the Italian guy is not calling.”

  “Maybe he’s calling to say he’s fallen in love with you.”

  Tabitha rolled her eyes. “Please, G. The only messages on my phone are fallout from Mark’s article. Cori bugging me to get back to work. Royal saying God only knows what. Employees from El Zop wanting to know what’s going to happen to the winery. I can’t deal with it.”

  “You have to deal with it. That’s how life works.”

  Tabitha rolled over and took her phone from the drawer in the nightstand next to her.

  “Here.” She handed it to her sister. “You deal with it. I don’t even care what’s there.”

  “I’m not your secretary!” Gabrielle hollered at her retreating back as Tabitha walked into the bathroom. But she glanced back before she shut the door and saw that Gabrielle was already scrolling through messages.

  She washed her face and studied her reflection in the mirror. She looked so tired, even though she’d just woken up. She’d done almost nothing but sleep in the days since the competition, and she thought maybe she could never get enough. She wondered if she’d be able to nap today. She ran her wet hands through her hair, slicking it off her face. The pink was fading, and the bleached blonde underneath had a grey, ashy look. Maybe that was what was making her look so washed out. Time to re-dye it. Maybe a new color. Blue this time? Fire-engine red? How about a rainbow? She could do a unicorn tail, or mermaid hair, or whatever it was that all the young girls were doing nowadays. Anything new sounded good to her. She just wanted change.

  She dried her hands and face and walked back into her bedroom. Gabrielle sat up on the bed now, a small notebook and pen beside her.

  “You sure do look like my secretary.”

  Gabrielle ignored her, pushed a button on the phone, and held it to her ear again. Her brow creased in concentration as she wrote.

  “Okay, here’s the deal. You got about a million texts, mostly from your friends and the staff at El Zop. All very nice and encouraging. Three phone calls from Mark. In the third one, he said he’s not going to call again, but he’s publishing a follow-up story next Wednesday, and his editors want your input. One text and one phone call from Royal.”

  “What did he say?”

  “Didn’t say. Just that he needed to talk to you about a business matter, and you should call him.”

  “He’s calling to threaten me not to talk.”

  “That’s what I figured. So, I texted back and told him not to call you again, or tonight you would send an assassin out to take care of him for good.”

  “Really?”

  “No. I deleted his text and his message. It’s obviously not a winery matter, or he would have said something to me at work. If it’s urgent, he can contact you through an attorney.”

  “Perfect.”

  “One last thing. There was one text and one call from someone named Giovanni. I could barely understand what he said, but it sounded super dirty. I figured it was a troll, so I reported him to the police and deleted the messages.”

  “What?” Tabitha sputtered, trying to grab the phone. “But that was—”

  “The Italian? But I don’t understand. You said you didn’t care.” Gabrielle affected an innocent expression, holding the phone tightly to her chest. “I don’t want you to feel harassed or worried about anyone meddling in your life. You’re right; you don’t need another one-night stand. I did you a favor.”

  Tabitha lunged for her sister, who laughed and jumped from the bed. Gabrielle turned back and tossed the phone back to Tabitha, and went down the hall, calling for Micah.

  Tabitha scrunched under the covers again, pulling the sheet up over her head, and put the phone next to her ear to listen to Giovanni’s voice.

  21

  “I do not want to do this,” Tabitha groaned.

  Gabrielle turned off the car, and the sisters sat in the front seats staring up at the imposing bank of condominiums in front of them.

  “I know you don’t.”

  “How do you stay so cheerful around her?”

  Gabrielle sighed. “I don’t feel cheerful. I’m just hoping for the best, you know? What else can we do?”

  “Work yourself into an ulcer out of anxiety? Ignore her? Pretend she doesn’t exist?”

  Gabrielle eyed her evenly. “How are those techniques working for you so far?”

  Tabitha sighed, checked her hair in the visor mirror, and exited the car.

  “You look tired,” Jillie Jones Lawson said to Tabitha when she greeted her daughters at the door.

  Tabitha glanced at her sister with an I told you so look, then walked into the living room and leaned down to kiss her father on his forehead. “Hi, Dad. How are you doing?”

  “He’s fine,” their mother answered for him. “He’s not the one who needs a nap.”

  “Should I leave and go take a nap instead of visiting you?”

  Now Jillie rolled her eyes at Gabrielle with an I told you so look. Just as she had with Tabitha, Gabrielle kept a polite smile frozen on her face, her expression neutral, and sat on the couch next to her father, who barely glanced up from the golf tournament on the television.

  “It looks nice around here, Mom,” Gabrielle said. “You’ve added some color to the house. I really like it.”

  “So, you didn’t win,” Jillie acted as if she hadn’t heard Gabrielle. She remained in the doorway, silhouetted against the sunshine. “Your weasel of an ex-husband won. How are you bearing that humiliation?”

&nbs
p; Sighing, Tabitha dropped into an armchair, slumped low, her chin on her chest, and used her feet to spin the chair around to face out the window. She looked across the rolling green golf course flanked by fields of grapevines. She thought about the satisfying mark her Converse sneakers might leave on the eggshell-painted walls and had to force herself not to kick it.

  “Mom,” Gabrielle continued as if she were oblivious to the tension in the room, “I like this painting over the fireplace. Where did you find it?”

  “Losing the award wasn’t even the most humiliating moment of the week. Not even close. You’ll have to try again,” Tabitha grumbled into her chest, not turning to look at her mother.

  “I’ll tell you what is humiliating,” Jillie said. “You have never tried hard enough. You didn’t want it enough. You have to want it. And then you have to have the drive to get it. How do you think I won? I worked my ass off.”

  “There are other factors at play that you don’t understand.” Tabitha tried to keep her tone neutral, but could hear the acid dripping out of her words.

  “I gave up everything to get what I wanted. I didn’t see my family for months when I was preparing for the SommFest.”

  “You’re a real inspiration to sommeliers everywhere. Daughters, too.”

  “I’ve been looking for some new art for the family room,” Gabrielle continued, still wearing her polite smile. “I think something big and dramatic right over the fireplace, just like what you have here. I think it would make a bold statement in the house.”

  “Anyone who wants anything in life understands that they have to sacrifice something else to get it,” Jillie said. “If you have two people who understand making a sacrifice for a career, your life will work out better.”

  Tabitha spun her chair around to glare at her mother. “It helps to have a husband who pretends he’s deaf.”

  “It’s almost like it matches the couch, you know? Like, the painting has the same shade of purple in those—what are they? Are those supposed to be flowers in the painting? I can’t tell if this is a landscape or just modern art paint blobs. But it’s pretty. Must have been hard to match it to the furniture. Not too many people have purple couches…” Gabrielle trailed off and looked at her sister, who stared at her now, open-mouthed. Gabrielle twisted her keys in her fingers, her eyes darting between her mother and sister.

  “Gabrielle, what the fuck are you even talking about?” Tabitha said.

  Their father’s head snapped up. “Young lady!”

  “Really, Dad? That’s what you hear?”

  Felix turned his attention back to the television. “Don’t use that kind of language in this house.”

  Tabitha stood from the chair and walked into the kitchen. It was only a few feet from her parents, but she could have her back to them for a few minutes. She pulled a glass from the cabinet and pressed it on the refrigerator dispenser. She pulled open the fridge door. Pristine inside, as always. A few cucumbers, some paper-wrapped cheeses, and olives. Sparkling clean. She slammed the door, and some water splashed over her hand. Her sister stood on the other side of the kitchen counter, watching her with a sad look.

  “We haven’t even been here five minutes, and you’re already pouting in the kitchen.”

  “Should I talk about purple couches instead?” Tabitha asked. “You know that even if you suck up to her, she still won’t be nice to us.”

  “You girls know I can hear you, right?” Jillie called from the living room.

  Tabitha stared at her twin for a long moment, trying to glean something from her eyes. Her reflection, the person most like her in the world. Also, in some ways, the most opposite. How could they have the same mother, have come from the same egg and been split in half, and react so differently to the very person who’d borne them? Sometimes Tabitha thought that looking at her sister was like looking in a dark mirror.

  “Let’s just get through this,” Gabrielle whispered.

  “Would it kill her just to be nice for once? Would it kill her to ask me how I feel, instead of telling me what I did wrong?” Tabitha glanced at her mother, facing them from the living room.

  “How about that, Mom?” Tabitha said, walking back into the living room. “Maybe instead of leading with what I did wrong, you could say something else. Like, oh, I don’t know. Let’s try this: ‘Darling Daughter, I’m so proud of you for working so hard. It must have hurt to see your lying, cheating ex-husband win something he knew you wanted so badly. But, my Darling Daughter, I support your choices and love you anyway, whether or not you won some random competition.’”

  “That’s exactly what she said.”

  Everyone turned to stare at Felix, who had turned off the television but remained on the couch, looking up at the women of his life.

  “Dad? What are you talking about?”

  Tabitha could hear Gabrielle trying to keep the nervous giggle out of her voice.

  “I mean, Tabby Cat never listens to what her mother is saying. And her mother never says what she really means. I’ve always been amazed they didn’t kill each other years ago.”

  Tabitha blinked at Jillie, who seemed equally perplexed by Felix’s pronouncement. The mother and daughter regarded each other for a moment as if they were zoo animals watching each other through the glass partition. Aware, somehow, that they were trapped together but unsure how they were connected. The air between them crackled, and there seemed to be a recognition in Jillie’s eyes, a dawning of some realization about Tabitha. She could see it go across her mother’s face, just a flicker of it, and felt the same flicker dance through her thoughts. She wanted to grab it, that moment of awareness, to name it and perhaps even relax into it and stop pounding on the glass between them. But whatever had taken hold of her mother for that instant was already gone, and her eyes darkened, and her face went impassive once again.

  “Your father is right. You’ve never listened to me.”

  Tabitha took a deep, long breath and walked across the room to sit in the easy chair again. This time she did not slump, but instead sat with her back straight and her knees crossed. She met her mother’s gaze.

  “I’m listening. Tell me what you think.”

  “Exactly what I said. You didn’t work hard enough to win this.”

  “Mom. I have never worked so hard in my life. I gave up everything. Do you understand? Everything. Except for Gab, I have barely seen a human person in the last six months while I trained for SommFest. I did nothing but work at the winery and work for OWNS and then come home and study. If there is something else I could have done, I would love to know what it is.”

  “How do you think Royal did it?”

  “Truthfully? I think he cheated.”

  “From what I hear, so does everyone else.”

  “So, then, you must see that there was nothing else I could have done.”

  Jillie’s face did not change. “There was more you could have done. Royal did what needed to be done.”

  “So next time I’ll cheat? Is that your advice?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. Next time you’ll know who you’re up against.”

  “If I’m up against a cheater, I’m going to lose unless I cheat, too. And I’m not going to.”

  “You use the same methods he uses and beat him at his own game, you eliminate the cheating, or you stop complaining. The way I see it, those are your only three options.”

  “Why does this matter so much, anyway? Ultimately that stupid SommFest is just a bunch of adults in dress-up clothes giving themselves awards. It’s a big, weird ritual of masturbatory self-congratulation. They are deciding who among them was best at selling a leisure product using subjective taste to manipulate someone else’s subjective taste.”

  “My, my, my. It sounds to me like you’ve thought about this a lot, considering how hard you are pretending not to care that you lost.”

  “Mom,” Gabrielle broke in. “You’re missing Tab’s point.”

  “This doesn’t involve you, Gabriell
e.”

  Gabrielle’s face fell, and a fury rose in Tabitha’s chest.

  “Of course it involves her! She is a human with a heart, and she cares about me.”

  “So do I,” Jillie said.

  “Oh, bullshit.”

  “Young. Lady!” her father said.

  Tabitha took a deep breath and put her hand over her sister’s. “By ‘eliminate the cheating,’ I assume you mean by reporting Royal and watching my business go down the drain? If I do that, both of your daughters are jobless. That can’t be what you intended. Don’t try to deny it; you made it clear every single day of our lives that your career was more important to you than anything else in the world. And that’s great. Good for you, you’re a hero to the wine world. But my choices aren’t that clear.”

  “I don’t want you out of work. I want you to face reality. Stop sleeping until noon, stop ignoring your phone calls, stop slouching around my house like a snack-deprived toddler. Fix your problem or learn to live with it.”

  “Well.” Felix slapped his hands on his knees and stood up with a dramatic groan. “I’m hungry.”

  Jillie turned and walked toward her bedroom. “Let me get my coat. I didn’t feel like cooking, so we’re going out to lunch.”

  The family stayed quiet for a moment after she left. Felix stood with his hands in his pockets, jiggling his keys and peering at Tabitha with a small smile on his face.

  “See what I mean?” he finally said.

  Tabitha glanced at her sister, but couldn’t read her expression. “Um, no, Dad. I don’t see what you mean at all.”

  “This time she said what she meant.”

  “That I should cheat?”

  “That Royal cheats! That’s how he wins. She’s proud that you didn’t lower yourself to his level to get what you want. The truth will out, is what she’s saying. She’s told you for years that you have to do your best work, and there will always be a payoff for good, honest work. Royal gets his reward one way, but you’ll get a better one eventually. You are the best somm in the business; everyone knows that. Maybe even better than your mother was in her prime.”