Eight Hundred Grapes

by Laura Dave

  “Your first arrest?”

  “Very funny.” He looked up and sighed. “Do you know what I was thinking the whole time? Maybe they won’t be able to get me out of here in time for the wedding. That I would miss Margaret and Bobby getting married.”

  “And that made you happy?”

  “It made me sad, actually. What do you think that means?”

  “That you love your brother.”

  He smiled. “. . . And don’t say that you love your brother.”

  I paused, trying to think of what to tell him, sitting in this depressing jail cell. Finn needed to figure out how to be somewhere else, both of us needed to be somewhere other than where we’d been.

  “I was out of line,” he said. “What I said about Ben. Sometimes it takes people a minute to figure it out.”

  I smiled, grateful and relieved to hear him say that.

  “But, the thing is, you just used to be so fearless when we were growing up. Fearless and fucking happy. I don’t know. I want you to be happy like that.”

  I smiled. “I was happy, wasn’t I? What happened?”

  “Adulthood. Ambition. Compromise.”

  I laughed. “All things you have managed to avoid.”

  He shrugged as a smile crept up. “I hear there is a famous movie star in town. Someone by the name of Michelle Carter?”

  “How did you hear that?”

  “I’ve been in jail, not . . . in jail.”

  I smiled.

  “Ethan’s been giving me hourly reports. Michelle spotted at the ice cream shop. Michelle spotted at The Tasting Room. Michelle spotted on Main Street and Fifth Street and at the Sebastopol Inn.” He paused. “What is she doing here?”

  “We invited her to the harvest party.”

  “Why?”

  “I’m making an effort with Ben. And that means making one with Michelle.”

  “Can I be the one to make an effort with Michelle?”

  “Come on, she’s not that pretty.”

  “Yes. She’s that pretty. She’s prettier.” He paused. “Since she’s coming, maybe you can set me up with her,” he said. “With Michelle. That would fix everything in terms of Margaret.”

  “You think?”

  “No,” he said, but he smiled while he said it.

  Then he paused, looked at me seriously.

  “I need you to tell me I’m not completely fucked,” he said.

  “You’re not even close.”

  Finn stood up, motioning around the jail cell. “Let’s be honest. I’m close.”

  The Wine Cave

  We got back to the house and Finn went inside to take a shower. I went down toward the vineyard and found my parents in the wine cave, walking along the aged barrels. They were working through the wines that they were going to serve that night, choosing from among the wines that had just finished fermenting. They were standing there together, working side by side, like they had been standing there eighteen months ago when those wines had begun the work they were getting ready to finish. My mother never gave herself credit for everything she did for the wine. It was the reason that she didn’t seem to see it now—how much she loved it.

  I watched them for a minute before moving closer. My mother leaned into my father. They looked happy together.

  My mother looked up. “Hey,” she said. “Where have you been all morning?”

  I didn’t know if the better answer was stealing their vineyard back for them or bailing their son out of jail.

  I looked back and forth between them, bracing myself for their wrath. “I was actually down at the courthouse.”

  “The courthouse?” My mother perked up. “Getting your marriage license?”

  “I filed an injunction,” I said.

  My mother tilted her head and gave me a look. “For what?”

  “The vineyard. To stop the sale of the vineyard.”

  My father laughed. “That’s not going to work.”

  I plowed onward. “Ben and I can’t match what Murray Grant is paying you for the vineyard, but we can come close if you take a share of the money in percentage of future earnings. And either way, we will figure out a way to make you whole.”

  They shared a look with each other, my father crossing his arms over his chest. “So what’s the plan?” he said. “You’re just going to give up your job?”

  “No. My firm has a San Francisco office.”

  My mother laughed. “Oh, so you’re going to be a lawyer and run the vineyard?”

  My father shook his head. “You and Ben don’t want this place. You think I want this place.”

  “I love it here, Dad.”

  “Enough to give up everything you’ve worked for? Your marriage and the firm . . .”

  “The vineyard isn’t getting in the way of any of that.”

  He looked at me seriously. “Then you have no idea what the vineyard is,” he said.

  My father turned back to his barrels, done talking. My mother looked away.

  I left the wine cave and headed up the hill, toward the house, quickly. I knew they were angry, but I was angry too. It left me thinking of my mother’s words. Be careful what you give up. You get it back however you can. I was floored and scared by everything my father seemed to be giving up here. And maybe it wasn’t my job to convince him that he was making a mistake—maybe I shouldn’t have even been trying—though I wasn’t just scared for him. I was scared how untethered I felt, thinking about losing the vineyard. As if for the first time, in a very long time, I was able to see how very much it mattered to me.

  I looked down the hill, toward the wine cave. My mother was walking through the doorway, my father hoisting a case of wine over his shoulder, following her. I wanted to call out to them, but they were too far away to hear anything, let alone what I didn’t know how to say.

  Sebastopol, California. 2004

  It was the night before their child’s wedding. It should have been a happy time, but Dan was worried about the wedding. He was worried about Bobby choosing Margaret. Dan loved Margaret and thought she’d be great for Bobby. That wasn’t the problem. The problem was that he wasn’t certain that Bobby thought Margaret would be great for Bobby. After Margaret lost the pregnancy, Bobby had expressed doubts to Dan as much as Bobby ever expressed things. He was young. And now that they weren’t going to have the kid, what was the rush? Dan had asked him the simple question. Why not wait, then?

  Bobby told him the truth. Because I won’t do it then and I think I should.

  Wasn’t that the worst reason to do anything?

  Dan drove into town to the brewery to see his kids, his daughter home from law school. She was like Bobby in this way. She thought she was supposed to take a certain path. She thought she should be in law school and, he knew, part of her wanted to be there, learning about torts. Tax law. She seemed happy, or she had convinced herself she was happy. That was often the same thing. Who was he to interfere?

  When he got home, Jen was sitting on the front steps, making place cards for the reception: so everyone would know where they were sitting at the long farm table, lit by candles and lanterns, shining grape leaves.

  She motioned toward Finn’s room. “The bride is sleeping upstairs,” Jen said.

  “Margaret? Why?”

  She shrugged. “Something about being here to help tomorrow. I sent her to Finn’s room so she wouldn’t see Bobby. Is that supposed to be bad luck? It’s silly for me to think of that. But I do.”

  “Finn and Bobby are sleeping at Finn’s place anyway, if they even leave The Brothers’ Tavern. They were all drinking pretty heavily when I left them, your daughter included.”

  “That’s comforting.”

  “Finn was in a mood. He was going on and on about how the barrel room looks ridiculous, but if worst comes to worst around here, we could rent
it out for weddings. Call it the Great Barrel Room and charge fifty thousand to rent it for a week.”

  He walked up the stairs.

  Jen smiled. “That’s not a bad idea,” she said.

  He took a seat next to his wife. “I’m worried about them.”

  “All of them?”

  “Yep.”

  “But I’m the one that worries. You’re the one that says it’s going to be okay.”

  “I thought we got to stop thinking about them so much, but this moment feels more important than even when they were young. They are becoming themselves.”

  She put more of the place cards in a stack.

  “Your sons are good men. You raised them to take care of each other, and your daughter is getting where she wants to go.”

  He looked at her. “Are you finding it hard to talk to her?”

  She shrugged. “She just likes saying torts. It’ll pass.”

  He shook his head. “Bobby doesn’t want to get married.”

  She took her husband’s hands. “That will pass too.”

  He leaned in toward his wife and said it, what he’d never admitted before, even to himself.

  “It makes me sad that none of them want the vineyard.”

  She looked up. “We raised them to want their own things.”

  He nodded. “I know, but . . .” He shook his head. “It’s silly. I’m being silly. I’m glad that they’re doing what they’re doing. I’m glad for each of them. I’m just feeling nostalgic.”

  “I bet that you are,” she said, but she moved closer to him.

  “I was the one who discouraged her from staying here. I told her to go explore new worlds.”

  “And?”

  “She seems like she isn’t happy with the one she chose, not the way I’ve seen her happy.”

  “Then she’ll find her way home.”

  They heard loud music coming from the guest bedroom, punk rock, blasting downward.

  “What’s wrong with Margaret tonight?”

  “Bride’s nerves?”

  He looked up, deciding whether to throw a rock at the window or just run upstairs and ask his future daughter-in-law if she was going crazy too.

  “I’m taking you somewhere,” she said.

  She took him down the vineyard, to Block 14, the small opening there, where she had a blanket and a bottle of wine and a small radio. They couldn’t hear the music from here. They couldn’t see anything but each other. Dan started kissing her, soft at first then harder, pulling up her dress from behind. She gripped his waist, his hip, bearing against him as he pushed himself into her. His hand holding her stomach.

  He pushed her curls off her face. “Can this be the first time we’re doing this?”

  It was the first. It wasn’t the last.

  Have-to-Have

  When I arrived at the house, the driveway was full of trucks, catering trucks and a florist truck, a van from a furniture company called Moving Up. The staff was in motion, setting up for the evening. They moved through the house and over the lawn, carrying candles and lanterns and flowers, lemons and grape leaves in glass vases, sofas on their backs.

  “Hey there.”

  I looked up to see Suzannah standing behind me, in the middle of the driveway, wearing a long blouse like a dress, short booties. Eight months pregnant and gorgeous. Like she belonged there.

  “I’ve arrived,” she said.

  She held out her arms to hug me, and I jumped in, so happy to see her it was crazy.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “What do you mean, what am I doing here? What do you think I’m doing here? I’m pawning off my work.”

  She squeezed me hard, then she let go.

  “Um. How did you leave out that Michelle Carter was the baby mama? That is the craziest part of this whole thing.”

  “What does it change?”

  “How I’m going to tell this story to everyone else.” Her eyes went wide. “Is it true that she does a honey cleanse every January and the rest of the year lives on French fries and burgers?”

  “Where did you hear that?”

  “I read it somewhere. That’s not the point.”

  “What is?”

  “Can you find out how she does it exactly? I love French fries and burgers.”

  I tilted my head, looking at her. “Did you really drive all the way up here?”

  “No. I flew and rented a car. For eight hundred dollars.”

  “That is crazy.”

  “For you, since you’re insisting on paying me back.”

  I smiled. “You are amazing.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Can we avoid going over the obvious? There is a time crunch. I have fifty minutes until I have to catch a flight back to Los Angeles.”

  “You don’t want to stay for the harvest party?”

  She cradled her stomach. “Sweetie, if I can’t drink, it may as well be the dentist.”

  Suzannah and I walked through the vineyard. “So let’s start with what matters, okay?”

  I nodded.

  “What on earth are you wearing and why are you wearing it?”

  I looked down at the jean shorts and peasant top I’d found in my closest, my hair in two loose buns. “This is how we dress in Sonoma County. It’s casual.”

  She pointed at her own dress. “No, this is casual,” she said. “That is circa 1971. Pull it together!”

  I smiled. “Working on it.”

  “Good, because I have some advice for you, and it isn’t easy.”

  “Okay.”

  “I know I said you should marry Ben, but I thought about it and you shouldn’t marry Ben. You’re doing the right thing walking away.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  She linked her arm through mine. “I’m talking about how Charles cheated on me in high school. I’m talking about how that was its own form of betrayal I had to get over.”

  “But that was your evidence for why I should stay with Ben.”

  “I know, which is my point. I could forgive Charles because I knew I never would have to compete for him, not really.” She shook her head. “I knew he really believes, as ridiculous as it is, that I’m the most beautiful woman in the world. That I’m his have-to-have.”

  She paused.

  “I don’t think Ben is yours.”

  That stopped me. “Why not?”

  She squeezed my arm tighter. “I always thought Ben got you, that you guys got each other. That’s why I’ve given him so much latitude with all of this, but . . I think if you came to that same conclusion, you’d know that you want to stay with Ben.”

  “I do.”

  “What do you mean you do?” she said.

  “We’re working things out.”

  She stopped walking. “What are you talking about, working things out?”

  I shrugged, thinking about how to explain it to her, which was when she got there.

  “He’s your have-to-have?” she said.

  I smiled, thinking about how I trusted that he was again. I was letting go enough to do it, to try to be happy.

  “So you’re all good?” she said.

  “Well, apparently I’m throwing out these shorts, but yes.”

  “Good,” she said. “That’s good.

  She looked in the direction of her rental car, realizing something else. “I got on a plane and drove from San Francisco for nothing? You’re going to have to do a better job of keeping me posted.”

  The Harvest Party

  It made me happy and sad at once, looking down over the party.

  From the upstairs bathroom, I could see people arriving, the bluegrass band playing them in. The tent was lit up with lanterns, tables inside lined with pizza and wine, gourmet pizza but pizza all the same—a tribu
te to the early harvest parties when that was all my parents could afford to serve. Tonight felt glamorous under the lanterns. Everyone was happy and excited to celebrate another harvest. My father’s last harvest. It looked, I imagined, how my wedding might.

  Ben had left a note on the mirror, fogged into the glass. COME DOWN SOON.

  I touched it with my hand. Then I checked out my reflection, smoothing down my purple dress, my hair pulled back off my face in a low ponytail. After the chaos of the last few days, I was surprised to find that it hadn’t taken me down. Maybe it was the break from the ninety-hour work weeks, but there was no denying it. I looked relaxed and happy.

  I heard a soft knock and looked up to find my father standing in the bathroom doorway, looking handsome in his white button-down shirt and dark pants, holding out a sprig of lavender, like a bouquet.

  “Here you go.”

  I smiled. “That’s for me?”

  He handed over the flower. “That’s for you,” he said. “If you’ll escort me downstairs.”

  “I’d love that, but I should be asking you. How’re you doing?”

  He put his arm in mine. “Better now.”

  We headed downstairs and out onto the patio.

  My father leaned in toward me as we headed into the tent. “A few days from now, I’ll be walking you into a different party here.”

  My heart skipped a beat. “I guess you will.”

  A waiter walked by and handed us each a glass of sparkling wine from his tray, the only sparkling wine my father would be serving tonight. It was from Louise and Gary’s small vineyard: a rosy, yummy mess of a California sparkling wine. Drier than it was sweet.

  My father took one for me, one for himself, raising his glass in a toast.

  “Thank you for trying to enjoin me. In an odd way, it’s the nicest thing anyone has done for me in a while.”

  “You yelled at me, though.”

  He tiled his glass, smiling. “Well. It’s also the meanest.”