Olivia was startled. “He lived?”
“He did. And Alexander was good to him. He used to sit with him and talk, and when Alexander talked, you listened—and smiled and believed. He would say that Asquonset was on the cusp of greatness, and that the newest batch of vines were producing grapes to beat the band. He would point to a bottle of French wine and insist that it was only a matter of time before our wine was as much in demand as that one. I mean, most of it was baloney,” she said with a fond smile, “but my father no longer went to the fields, so he didn’t know the difference. He listened and felt better. Alexander even took him into town, which I could never do because he was so frail, and Carl could never do because he was so busy. But Al had the time and the patience, and he could lift him and move him. He could help him out of the car and ease him into a chair at Pindman’s. Granted, there was something in it for Alexander. My father was a guaranteed captive audience. Still, in his own way, Al did give the man a new lease on life.”
“Well, I’m glad about that.”
“But you’re still upset that I didn’t divorce him to marry Carl.”
“No,” Olivia said quickly, determined not to be judgmental. “You had your reasons. I’m just not sure I would have done the same thing.”
“That’s because times have changed. You people take divorce lightly. You see it all the time in the papers and on television, and you read about it in books. It’s become commonplace. So, naturally, at the first sign of trouble, one of you moves out. My generation wasn’t that way. Granted, it was harder to get divorced back then, but that wasn’t why I stayed with Alexander. And it wasn’t for the sake of the children, though had it not been for them, Al and I might have drifted apart. No, I stayed with him because he was my husband. Back then, we respected the institution of marriage. Maybe it had to do with the war. Our husbands had fought so that we could be free. They had risked their lives. They had seen horrors we could only imagine. We owed them our loyalty. Divorce was not a consideration.”
“Even if he had been abusive?”
“Well, he wasn’t. He didn’t drink. He didn’t gamble. He was a good man with no business sense.”
“But didn’t you even think about divorce?”
“Not as a viable option,” Natalie insisted. “I loved Carl. Had I been able to turn back the clock, I would have chosen to be married to him. But I couldn’t change things. I was married to Alexander. I had to live with that. I had to make the best of it. Look at you. Haven’t you done the same thing?”
Olivia was puzzled by the shift in focus. “Me?”
“You wanted your mother to love you, but she took off for parts unknown. You wanted Tess’s father to love you, but he didn’t. So, there you were with no family backup, and you suddenly had a child who was totally dependent on you. You couldn’t change things. You couldn’t ask your mother to baby-sit when you were climbing the walls. You couldn’t just … draft another man to put bread on the table and play father to Tess. So you went to work. You took care of Tess yourself. I respect that.”
“You do?” Olivia asked with a smile.
“I do. That’s one of the reasons I hired you. I might not have known the details, but I sensed an independence in you.”
Olivia’s smile faded. “It isn’t always fun being independent. It seems that I’ve spent my life looking for someone to lean on.”
“But you haven’t fallen down without.”
“No. I couldn’t. I had Tess. She needed me.”
“Just as I had Asquonset. It needed me, too.”
I think that was what kept me going more than anything else. I loved my children, but I knew that they would grow up in spite of me. Children do that. Regardless of what their parents want, they become adults with minds of their own. Asquonset was something else. It didn’t have a brain. It couldn’t function on its own. If we did nothing, it would fall fallow. If it was going to grow, someone had to take charge.
Who could do that? My father was frail and sick. Jeremiah was taking care of Brida. Alexander was paralyzed when it came to money, and Carl refused to upstage him.
That left me. I had worked the farm during the war and knew every aspect of the operation. So I had knowledge, and I had purpose—and the purpose had little to do with growing potatoes and corn. I wanted to grow grapes. Grapes were the underlying reason for my marrying Alexander. What better way to justify that marriage than to make a success of growing them?
Ah. But we couldn’t buy vinifera vines. We had no money.
Well, we didn’t have the kind of money we had expected, but we did have something. The Seebring factories were silent and dark, but they were solid structures sitting on solid land in the midst of a plentiful workforce. Someone had to want to take them off our hands.
Alexander was a hard sell. Those plants had the Seebring name on them. To this day, I believe that a part of him dreamed that somehow they would one day reopen and thrive. Don’t ask me how he thought that would happen, but then, Alexander was never one for solutions. But he did dream. And he did have pride. As long as he owned those plants, he owned something.
I convinced him that owning Asquonset was something. I painted grand pictures of what the place might be if we put all our energy into it. I told him that he would be traveling to Europe to buy vines, just as he had for my father, only this time we would be more careful with our choices. I showed him a diagram of the farm with the fields that I thought could support grapes, and I told him why.
How did I know all this? My father had books. He had letters. He had handwritten treatises.
Unfortunately, he was a banker. He was a mathematician and was good with numbers, but he couldn’t read that material and interpret it with regard to our land. Carl could, and he did. He passed the material on to me, and I saw it, too. It made sense that a grape that would thrive in Napa Valley would not do well here. Nor would a grape that would thrive in the warmer regions of France or Italy. Those are Mediterranean climates. They are more stable, with long, hot, dry summers and cool, rainy winters. Ours isn’t like that. Ours is a Continental climate, like that of the European growing regions in Burgundy, Champagne, and the Rhine, where the air is cooler and the growing season shorter. We needed to plant vines that had thrived in these regions, because their weather was comparable to ours.
I explained all this to Alexander, and he understood. He saw the potential for successfully growing grapes here. More important, he liked the picture I painted of his role in it.
So he gave in. We met with the local bankers, and he made my arguments about the buildings, the land, and the workforce. He convinced them that those two factories would be worth a pretty penny to an entrepreneur wanting to cash in on the prosperity that had come with peace. He was passionate and persuasive. But then, that was his forte. He was also a poker player and knew how to bluff.
We made fifty percent more on the sales of those buildings than we had thought we would get—which wasn’t saying much, but it was a start. We borrowed the rest of what we needed from the bank.
We? No. Alexander handled that part on his own. He was a man. I was a woman. When it came to bank loans, that made a difference.
Did it bother me? No. The important thing was that we got the money. I wasn’t doing this for the sake of pride. I was doing it for Asquonset.
Besides, I was lucky. Many women I knew were out of work. They had jumped into the workforce during the war, when men were few and jobs were plentiful. Suddenly the men were home, and the women were out of work. That was an injustice. What I experienced was merely an annoyance. There’s a big difference.
Besides, Alexander needed to feel important. He put behind him the factory closings and latched on to the vineyard as though the first had been a deliberate move to facilitate the last. Yes, there was pride involved for him. He had a sizable ego.
Please, Olivia. Take care when you write that. It can sound critical, which is not how I feel. Susanne and Greg had the highest regard for their fat
her, and he did deserve it. What he did, he did well. He was a powerful public relations instrument for Asquonset. I could never have been on the road the way he was. It didn’t interest me. I was happiest when I was at home.
Why? Because of Carl? you ask.
No. Because of the vineyards. As my own children grew, the grapes took their place.
But back to Alexander. His ego wasn’t unique. Many men need adulation. The trick is for us women to understand this and use it to our own benefit.
You look dismayed. Why? Ahhh, you think that sounds manipulative?
It isn’t manipulative, Olivia. It is pure common sense. Alexander was good at certain things. He wanted to think he was good at others. If I let him think that, he felt better about himself. When he felt better about himself, not only did he do better at what he already did well, but he was easier to live with.
That made my life easier. It’s as simple as that. Once his ego needs were met, he was comfortable letting me do what I wanted. When I did what I wanted, I felt in control. We supported each other.
“But that’s playing a game,” Olivia remarked. “Why do we have to do that?”
“We don’t,” Natalie answered. “But if we play, we stand to win. If we refuse, we don’t have a chance.”
“Then the women’s movement was a waste of time?”
“Not at all. It taught women to aspire. It opened their eyes to possibilities. What it failed to do was to be realistic about getting there. In an ideal world, women have equal rights with men, but our world isn’t ideal. Being realistic means working the system. It means understanding the psyches involved and using them. Take Simon.”
Olivia shot her a puzzled smile. “What does Simon have to do with anything?”
“He’s a complex person. Women want him to be warm and open, but he isn’t. There are reasons for that. If we understand the reasons, we can work around them to find the openness and the warmth.”
“I take it you’re talking about his wife and daughter.”
“In part. He was torn apart when they died. He doesn’t want to be vulnerable to that kind of pain again, so he’s put up a wall.”
Olivia had seen that wall. He had all but planted it in front of her nose when she had first come to the vineyard. “What’s the other part?”
“His childhood. His mother was a lovely person. Ana was a local woman who married later in life, but she knew what she wanted. She wanted a husband, and she wanted a child. I suspect that she knew how Carl felt about me, but she was wise enough to marry him anyway. She got a husband and a child, and they did love her. That said, I’m not sure she ever fully believed it. She always held a little something of herself back.”
“So you think Simon is predisposed to hold back?”
“It’s possible.”
“Did he do it with Laura?”
“I suspect. She was quiet. It wasn’t in her nature to push him.” She looked at Olivia and smiled for a minute longer than necessary.
Olivia smiled right back. “And it is in mine?” Slowly, purposefully, she shook her head.
“Of course it is,” Natalie insisted. “You push me all the time.”
“That’s not what I mean. If you’re playing matchmaker—”
“I’m not. I’m just making a point about men.”
“You were supposed to be making a point about women.”
“Well, I am. The point is that women can do far better with men if they understand what they’re about. I was fine once I understood that Alexander needed to be stroked. Simon doesn’t need to be stroked. He needs to be prodded.”
“Not by me,” Olivia said and picked up her pen. “Do you want to do more now, or would you rather I get back to writing?”
Twenty-one
THE SUMMER WAS HALF DONE. Olivia kept thinking about it that night. How not to, with the direction that Tess’s questions had taken? They had been reading On the Banks of Plum Creek, one of the Laura Ingalls Wilder books that were Tess’s bedtime favorites, but her mind was on the kittens. Smack in the middle of a chapter, she looked up at Olivia and asked again if they could have one. Olivia repeated the argument about apartments and cats.
“But if we move,” Tess reasoned, “we could get an apartment that would let us have one. When will we know if we’re moving?”
“As soon as I know where I’m working.”
“When will that be?”
“Soon.”
“When will I hear about schools?”
Olivia didn’t know. And suddenly, with no more provocation than Tess’s few questions, she was worried. With more Asquonset time ahead than behind, she had coasted. She had assured herself that something would come through, that things always worked out, that come fall she would have a job and Tess would have a school.
Now summer was half gone, and she had nothing. She had to get cracking. If she didn’t do it, it wouldn’t get done.
To that end, she got up even before dawn the next morning and, taking care not to wake anyone along the way, went up to the loft. She turned on a light, then the computer. Within minutes, she was surfing the Internet. This time she wasn’t going to put all her eggs in one basket. She wasn’t even putting them in a dozen baskets. She printed out the names and addresses of every museum she could find, then did the same with art galleries. Inserting her own floppy disk, she printed out that many copies of her résumé. She was in the process of composing a new cover letter when the door opened. Her heart skipped a beat—largely in relief that she had gotten dressed—even before she saw who was there.
It was Simon. Quietly, she said, “Why did I know it was you?”
“Because,” he answered, closing the door, “no one else is crazy enough to be up so early. I saw the light. What are you doing?” He came up behind her and looked at the screen.
She nearly covered it with her hands, but stopped herself. That wouldn’t have been very grown-up. “Don’t read it. It’s just a rough draft. I’m a lousy speller, totally spell check dependent. If you read that, you’re going to wonder how in the world I’m writing Natalie’s story, but the finished product is always—”
“Shh!” he said and put a hand on her shoulder.
She didn’t say another word. His hand stayed where it was, even after he finished reading and had straightened.
“I need a job,” she said softly. She kept her eyes on the screen. “Natalie signed me on only until Labor Day.”
“Will your work for her be done by then?”
“Yes.”
“Where do you want to go?”
“Wherever. Beggars can’t be choosers.”
His hand moved. Was it a caress—or simply a gesture of comfort? “Why do you say it that way? You have a skill. You’re an artist.”
“Artists have a knack for living on the verge of starvation. I need to feed, clothe, and educate Tess.” Taking a breath, she put on a smile and rose from the chair. His hand fell away, which made it easier for her to talk. “I’ll find a job. I may try something entirely different.”
“Like what?”
“Being a concierge.”
He looked bemused. “At a hotel?”
“Why not? I’m a people person. I can arrange for theater tickets and limos. I can tell people which sights to see and which ones to avoid. I can recommend restaurants and make reservations.” She grinned, letting her imagination go. “Wouldn’t that be fun, trying out all those restaurants so that I’d know which ones to recommend.”
“I think most recommendations are bought and sold.”
“Well, that’s a cynical view. I wouldn’t run my concierge station that way, and I’d let hotel patrons know it. We don’t have payola on my shift. I’d tell them the truth.”
“What if their taste in restaurants is different from yours?”
She shrugged. “That’s bound to happen once in a while. You can’t please all the people all the time. We could live right there at the hotel. Can you imagine? Tess would be another Eloise. Wow, did sh
e love those stories. She wanted to go to Paris after she read Eloise in Paris. But I think she’d settle for New York. Wouldn’t that be cool, living at the Plaza—”
Simon silenced her with a kiss, not altogether a surprise, given that seconds before he was looking at her mouth, but that didn’t prepare her any. Nor did talk of moving to New York do anything to dampen the feeling. It was warm and fuzzy, familiar in ways that it shouldn’t have been with only one prior kiss.
Olivia had always liked warm and fuzzy. Warm and fuzzy was a sepia-toned print of an apple pie hot from the oven, sitting with crockery that had seen generations of use. It was a dancing fire drying a pair of wool mittens with her name knitted into them—or a big mug of hot cocoa with a huge glob of whipped cream on top. Warm and fuzzy was the kind of kiss that was so gentle and sweet you wanted to melt—the kind you leaned into and curled up next to—the kind that just went on and on and on without losing a drop of heat. It was the kind that you clung to, that you didn’t want to end, that startled you when it did because you didn’t understand it at all.
Simon looked just as startled; not that that answered any questions.
“What is this?” she whispered.
“Beats me,” he whispered back. Holding her close with one arm, he moved his fingers slowly through her hair. It was growing out, but not fast enough.
“It used to be long, down below my shoulders, right up until this past May. It was really pretty neat, but too warm. I got impatient one night and cut it all off. I’m like that—impatient and impulsive. Maybe that’s what this is.”
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