by Lesley Diehl
“Yeah, I know. I planned it that way. I thought about moving upstate after nine-eleven but never found the right place. This is perfect. Finally.”
“I hope you’ll feel that way several months from now.”
“Why should I not?” He gestured toward one of the bar stools and took one for himself.
“This is not Nirvana. We have our share of problems here.”
“Yeah, but my ex-wife, who’s pretty high maintenance, won’t be inclined to follow me here. No shopping.”
I shifted around on my bar stool.
He noticed the movement. “There I go again, putting my foot in my mouth. Too much information, too soon, huh?”
“So what kind of restaurant will this be?”
“The best kind. Great food, good drink, slavish service, and, of course, there’s me, the knowledgeable proprietor. No, really, with my background it has to be Italian, northern Italian, specializing in Tuscan food.”
It sounded good.
“I just returned from Tuscany. I suppose you know all about their craft beers there,” he said.
“Just what I read.”
“Well, tell me about your brews.”
I did and with relish. There’s nothing I like better than to promote my work.
“Say, I’ve got a great idea. Why don’t we do some evenings here, your beers and my food. If it works, maybe you can convince the other brewers in the valley to join in.”
“I did one of those pairings at my place just the other night. The community college supplied the food.”
A look of dejection replaced the smile on his face.
“Then I’m too late.”
“Actually, you’re not.” I filled him in on Bruce’s death and the dean’s conversation with me earlier.
“Good. Great. I mean, not about the kid and your misfortune with the college, but, you know. How about it?”
“Well, sure. Let’s talk.”
“We’ll negotiate over food. That’s the best way to do business. I’ve got a pork loin in the oven. It should be ready in another hour. Meantime, I can’t offer you one of your brews, but how about a glass of wine?”
I nodded.
Several hours later, we were still at the bar, but spread out before us was a feast—pork seasoned with garlic, oregano and thyme and roasted potatoes with grilled asparagus. We continued to discuss ideas for pairings as we ate. The roast was juicy, the potatoes crispy outside, buttery inside. I picked up a spear of asparagus and bit off the end.
He watched as I chewed it, then took a sip of red wine.
“A girl with an appetite, that’s what I like.” He paused. “So how about it? You and me?”
We were so involved in our conversation and food, we hadn’t heard anyone enter the restaurant, but someone had. Jake.
“You and her, what?”
I jumped off my bar stool. “Jake, hi. We were discussing business.”
He looked at the wine, the food and Tony. I groaned inwardly. I knew what it looked like.
“This is Tony Cantrell. He’s opening this restaurant and wondered if we could get together on a pairings event.”
Tony had gotten off his stool and was taking in Jake’s appearance. He held out his hand. “You are?”
“Jake Ryan, assistant deputy sheriff.”
“Oh, boy. I hope I haven’t broken any laws yet.”
“Like?”
“Uh, serving a patron before we’re officially open here.”
“No, I’m sure she appreciated the food. It does look better than buttered movie popcorn.”
Then I remembered. Jake and I had a date tonight. “I’m sorry. I forgot we were going to the movie tonight.”
Jake’s voice was level and sounded friendly, but by the muscle twitch working overtime in his cheek, I could imagine what he was thinking.
“When I didn’t find you at home, I drove into town, thinking you got held up after the memorial service. I saw your truck parked outside, and here you are. I guess it was pretty thoughtless of me not to offer you some dinner before the movie. Thank goodness you found someone who would.”
Tony was beginning to look uncomfortable.
“Pull up a stool. There’s plenty of food,” he said.
“I’ll pass tonight. I don’t like to interrupt business meetings. Catch you some other time.” He spun on his heel and walked out.
I ran after him and caught him on the street.
“I’m sorry. I don’t know what to say.”
“Making up some story about pairings is silly. Why lie to me?”
Now I was getting mad. “Because it’s true. Dean Wagner told me the college no longer wanted anything to do with me. I stopped at the restaurant to welcome Tony to town, and the time got away from me. He did offer to host a pairings night at his place when he opened up. That’s all it was.”
“It looked like dinner and wine to me.”
“You’re not my keeper, you know. I’m free to have the friends I like, whether you know them or not.”
After the words were out of my mouth I regretted them. I had forgotten our date, after all. I walked up to him and put my hand on his arm.
“There’s still time for that movie, and I’m not so full I can’t share a popcorn with my fella.”
“I don’t think your heart would be in it, Hera.”
Without a look backward, he turned, got into his car and drove off.
I walked back into the restaurant where Tony was clearing our food and wine off the bar.
“You think it would do any good for me to talk to him?”
“Absolutely not, unless you want to make it worse. He’ll get over it.” I hoped he would, but how long would it take him? Jake was a stubborn man.
“You’re not having second thoughts about a business relationship with me, are you?”
“No, and I intend to get the other brewers involved in this too. It will be good for everyone. I wanted closer ties with the community and thought the college would be the way to do it, but I like this better.”
He held up a bottle. “A little brandy to seal the deal?”
“Sure, why not?”
~
By the time I left Tony’s after two brandies, not one, I knew I shouldn’t drive. I left my truck parked in front of his place, and the two of us walked down the deserted street together toward Sally’s bakery. She had a small apartment over it, and I knew she wouldn’t mind putting me up for the night.
Tony and I hugged goodnight. It was a friendship hug, nothing more, but I couldn’t help noticing how well our two bodies fit together. I ascended the stairs to Sally’s. A light glowed in the kitchen, and I heard voices inside. Sally opened the door at my knock.
“Hera. What are you doing here? Is something wrong? Come in.”
Her mother sat at the kitchen table. There were cheese and crackers, a slice of pie and some chocolate cookies in front of them, a late night snack.
“Mrs. Granger. I hope you don’t mind my barging in like this, but I’ve had a little too much wine and brandy to drive home tonight. I thought I’d just crash on Sally’s couch.”
“Oh, no. You take the spare bedroom. I’m sure you have to get up tomorrow and brew something.” She made it sound as if I had a large cauldron of bubbling liquid I needed to give a morning stir to.
“That’s true. It’s better to add the eye of newt in the a.m.”
She and Sally laughed.
“You are a little tipsy. You never make jokes about your beer,” said Sally.
“Don’t I? Well, maybe I should.”
Sally gave me one of her looks, the ones she used when we were in high school and I’d been out necking behind the bleachers with some guy during the lunch hour.
“I’d think Jake would take better care of you,” she said.
“It wasn’t Jake.”
Both of them stared at me, waiting for me to explain.
“It’s late. I’ll just use the bathroom and flop on the couch. Don’t get up
, Mrs. Granger. You go ahead and eat some more lemon meringue pie, Sally. The baby wants a piece too, I’ll bet.” I gave a teeny wave as I left the room. Sally was right. I was a little tipsy. I bumped into the bathroom door. I was a lot tipsy.
The next morning when I walked to get my truck around six a.m., who was leaning against it but one of our local police. This time Jake was in uniform.
“I was about to ticket it. You should read the signs. There is no overnight parking on the streets.”
“Look, I said I was sorry.” I was about to explain that I stayed at Sally’s, but I was tired of being defensive. I had nothing to be defensive about. “Could I get into my truck? I need to go home and put some newt parts in my ale.”
“What?” He stepped back. I hopped in and pulled out. When I looked in my rearview mirror he was still standing there with that odd look on his face. The past few weeks had been vintage Jake and Hera, like the relationship we’d had in law school when we fought one moment and found passion with one another the next. I felt a tingle run up my spine when I thought of Jake naked in my bed. It would be good if that happened sooner rather than later. Tony? Tony who?
I rolled down my window. The sun was coming up, and the air was dry and sweet smelling from the leaves that fell onto the road and swirled around my tires as I drove. Jeremiah would be at the brew barn early, so I didn’t have to worry about how everything was doing. Later this week we’d bottle some more of the stout, but for now it was a matter of keeping an eye on the other ale. I could trust Jeremiah to do that. He was developing into an accomplished brewer in his own right. I decided to stop by Ronald and Deni’s place. I hadn’t talked with him since the pairings night.
Because the Ramford brewery had burned down, leaving only charred timbers of the barn and the beautiful house Mr. Ramford had built, Ronald had purchased a mobile home which he had set up on the property. He and Deni were planning to plant grapes in the spring, turning the place into a winery. That would make old man Ramford turn in his grave. The Ramfords were a crazy family. Ronald seemed to be the only sane one of the lot.
Deni greeted me at the door and handed me a cup of coffee.
“Ronald’s just getting up. Come in and join us for breakfast.” She walked across the kitchen floor to the stove, her long gauzy skirt swinging around her ankles, the tiny silver bells on it tinkling with a birdlike song. She was from the Caribbean, and with her sunny, upbeat nature she brought a much-needed stability to a family who had struggled with so much hatred and violence.
Ronald, Ramford’s oldest son, had only recently returned to the area. Along with his mother, he had inherited the Ramford estate and properties.
“You’re the very person I wanted to see,” he said. His brown hair, wet from the shower, was slicked back from his face. He gave me a hug, and we sat down to eat.
Deni served pancakes and bacon, more food than I usually had in the morning, but my stomach liked the input of fat and carbs on top of all that booze last night.
“I think it’s time you and the Ramfords finally got together, business wise, I mean,” he said.
“Business propositions are coming and going, it seems.” I related to them Dean Wagner’s dismissal of me and my conversation with Tony Cantrell last night.
“What I have in mind might work out for all of us then,” he said. “I’d like to construct a lodge here with a restaurant connected. We could hold pairings for beer, wine and food, beer festivals and other events. You can use the remainder of your new barn to expand the brewery. It’s what you wanted to do with it anyway, right?”
The idea excited me. “This would become a kind of regional beer and wine center.”
“I’m sure the college would like to participate by making it a place where their students in the culinary arts program could work and do internships,” Ronald said.
“Be careful of that one. The college has no use for me now.”
“We can work on that. I’m sure they’ll come around.”
“What about the issue of money? I’m extended as far as I can go with the bank.”
“But I’m not. I called my lawyer yesterday. We need to begin to settle dad’s estate anyway. He’s putting an announcement in a number of newspapers asking those who might have a claim on the estate to come forward now. Since Michael inherited along with Mom and me, and died without a will, it’s necessary to open the settlement up to claimants.”
“Such as Sally,” I said.
“Exactly. Her child should inherit part of the Ramford money.”
“I can’t think of anyone else, can you?” I asked.
Until now, Deni had been silent.
“I heard Mr. Ramford liked the ladies,” she said.
Ronald and I nodded, thinking back to all the stories that went around town when he was alive.
“Mom knew about his philandering. It was no secret.”
“What are you saying, Deni?” I asked.
“He liked the ladies and they liked him, maybe enough to have children with him?”
“I’m sure those women were smart enough to have gotten money from him long ago if there were any Ramford children.” Ronald said.
“Yes, but she’s right. Those children would still have a claim on his estate,” I finished my coffee and got up.
“You’d think those parties would have come forth long ago, when he was still alive.” Ronald grabbed the coffee pot and poured me another cup before I could stop him. I guess he wanted me to stay.
“You’ve gone through your father’s papers. Did you find anything indicating a payment or payments to someone?” I sat again and spooned sugar into my cup.
“Like blackmail, you mean.?”
“Perhaps, or it could have been legal. He might have set up a fund for a child of his.”
“I’ve seen nothing like that, and Dad’s lawyer hasn’t mentioned such an arrangement.”
“I guess we’ll have to wait and see who comes out of the woodwork. Probably no one. I wouldn’t worry about it.” I raised my cup. “Anyway, here’s to the regional center.” We toasted and continued to make plans for what we decided would be called Butternut Valley Brewery and Winery Resort Complex.
Deni toasted with us, then a worried look passed over her features. When she caught me looking at her, she turned her back and busied herself loading the dishwasher.
Five
Jake and I had our usual over-the-top make-up sex several days later when he “happened” to stop by my place, claiming he was on his way to a bachelor party and wanted a gift to bring to the prospective groom.
“I thought to myself, what could be better than an ale from Hera’s?” He stood in the doorway yelling all of this information to me while Jeremiah and I operated the bottling assembly.
“I can turn off the bottler so the two of you can talk.” Jeremiah moved toward the wall switch.
I shook my head and signaled Jeremiah to continue with bottling. I walked past Jake into the barn and to the coolers where I retrieved a six-pack of Summer Serendipity and held it up.
“Will this do?”
“Great.”
I shoved the six-pack into his arms as I squeezed past him on the way out of the cooler. The moment our bodies touched, I knew the rest of the afternoon was lost.
“Jeremiah,” I yelled. “Finish the bottling, would you?”
“I already planned to,” he said as we passed by the door on our way to the house.
“And wipe that grin off your face,” I said.
He took his sleeve and did just that.
“Wise acre.”
“Me or him?” Jake was close behind me as we climbed the stairs to my bedroom.
“What about your party?” I asked. He still held the beer in his arms.
“We’ll have one right here.”
I opened the bedroom window. “It’s so hot.”
Jake set the beer on the bedside table and moved toward the window. He closed it.
“What are you doing?”
<
br /> “You get a little loud.”
“I thought we were going to, you know, not argue.”
“You are loud in both cases.”
“Oh.”
“We’ll probably need this beer to pour over our bodies to cool us down before we’re through.” He gave me his lopsided grin.
“This is one of my finest brews. We do not pour it over bodies. It is to be enjoyed by drinking it, not bathing in it.”
“Hera, you are so rigid.” He put his arms around me, and we fell onto the bed.
I got no work done that afternoon.
There were no apologies on either side. There never were with Jake and me. We just moved on to the next fight.
“Jake, maybe we need to talk.” I’d opened the window and let the fall air dry the perspiration from our bodies.
He looked at me in surprise. “Talk? Maybe so.”
The phone rang. I looked at the caller ID. It was Sally.
“Sally, what’s wrong?”
“Have you ever heard the name Marshall Harrington?”
“Not really. There are some Harringtons living in Sidney Center.”
“Marshall Harrington contacted Ronald’s lawyer. He’s claiming he’s the illegitimate son of Michael Ramford, Sr.”
Oh boy. Deni was right.
~
“I’m so worried about my baby,” said Sally.
“That’s why you have a lawyer to help you,” I pointed out. We were sitting at a table in her closed bakery.
“But now I’m thinking, what if Michael wasn’t Ramford’s son, and this guy is? Then this baby isn’t related to the Ramfords.”
“Don’t be silly. Of course she is. She’s Claudia’s granddaughter. Michael was her son. He doesn’t have to be Ramford, Sr’s son.” I was holding Sally’s freckled hand in mine.
“Oh, that’s true, but I get so confused at times. Maybe it was a mistake to close down the bakery during the week. Maybe I’ll need the money.”
I squeezed her hand tighter. “Sally, look at me.”
She raised her eyes to mine.
“We are going to get through this, but now the DNA thing will become more important. I know you didn’t want to consider it before, but it’s necessary, and we all need to be prepared for what the tests will say.”