Vintage Ladybug Farm

by Donna Ball

  “Well,” said Bridget, pulling her glove back on, “they drank, of course, and danced and had food. And then they blessed the wine from the previous year before releasing it to be served, and they asked the weather gods and the fruit gods to bless the vines that would produce this year’s harvest. It was really very sweet, when you think about it.” She bent to pick up the heavy spool of wire and dragged it to the next post. “Kind of symbolic of the full cycle of nature and the humble role of man within it.”

  “You read that on the Internet, right?” Cici screwed in another clamp.

  “Right.”

  “Hey, ladies!” Domnic called back to them, grinning. “A little less conversation, a little more action, eh? We’re getting ahead of you.”

  Cici and Bridget grinned back and waved to him, but Lindsay’s answering smile was brief and the other two women noticed she didn’t quite meet Dominic’s gaze as she dug her shovel into the ground. “Well, a party sounds like fun,” Lindsay admitted. “I just don’t know where you’re going to find anyone to bless the vines. The Episcopals used to do a blessing of the animals back in Baltimore, remember? We took Lori’s cat to it one year. But I don’t know anyone who blesses vines.”

  Bridget grunted as she grabbed the wire and pulled it taut, while Cici tightened the clamp. “I’m sure,” she said, digging in her heels, “there’s someone …” She pulled harder. “On the Internet.”

  Bridget slipped backwards and almost fell; Lindsay shoved her hard in the small of the back and Bridget righted herself, casting Lindsay a grateful look.

  Cici reached out a hand to steady her. “I don’t know if we’re up to a big party,” she said. “Not that soon, anyway. We still have a hole in our roof, remember?”

  “It wouldn’t have to be big,” Bridget said, breathing easier as Cici finished tightening the clamp and she could release the tension on the wire. “I’m thinking just us, and Derrick and Paul, and Lori and Mark of course, Dominic, Frank Adams and his wife, and maybe Farley. Everyone who’s helped us with the winery.”

  “Then we’d better include Mark’s parents,” said Lindsay, tamping the last of the soil around the cutting she’d just planted. “I still think they’re our secret investors.”

  “Oh great, how awkward would that be?” said Cici.

  “Of course,” added Bridget innocently, “we’d give tours of the winery, and it would be the perfect time to preview The Tasting Table.”

  Cici stared at her. “Bridget”—her voice was incredulous—“we’ve spent four months trying to get a hole in our roof repaired, and you think we can build a restaurant in two weeks?”

  “It doesn’t have to be built,” Bridget insisted. “Remember, technically I’m just catering events. I don’t have to have a real restaurant or a restaurant license or anything like that. Just a place.”

  Cici and Lindsay exchanged a glance and a wry smile. “Well,” Cici said, “as long as it’s just a place …”

  “Ladies!” Dominic swiped the back of his arm over his wet face. “Daylight’s burning!”

  Bridget bent to pick up the spool of wire again and Cici centered another clamp. “So glad we found him,” she muttered.

  But Lindsay, glancing quickly across the row at the two men, only smiled vaguely and did not reply.

  ~*~

  In Ida Mae’s Kitchen

  ~*~

  Lindsay was stirring up a pot of cabbage soup—Guaranteed to lose ten pounds the first week! according to the testimonials on the website—and trying not to hold her nose at the smell when Ida Mae came in from the porch with a basket of fresh mint in one hand and a collection of envelopes in the other. Ida Mae wrinkled her nose and shrank back from the odor emanating from the stove.

  “What are you stinking up my kitchen with now?” she demanded.

  Lindsay abandoned the soup and came over to her eagerly. “Is that the mail?”

  “That’s what it looks like to me.”

  Lindsay took the envelopes and sorted through them quickly, her expression falling as she failed to find what she was looking for. “I just don’t understand,” she said, placing the envelopes on the table for someone else to deal with. “We should have heard something by now. I checked with all the websites and none of them are running behind.”

  Ida Mae covered the soup pot with a lid, trying to fan away some of the odor with her apron. “If you’re gonna keep this on simmer, you better start opening some windows.”

  “Ida Mae, are you sure we haven’t gotten something official looking from a college? It would probably have an emblem or watermark or something on the envelope and say ‘university’ somewhere.”

  Ida Mae gave her a dry look as she spread out the mint in a colander and ran it under water. “I reckon I know what a college is.”

  Lindsay wrestled with the stubborn lock on the east-facing window. “All the colleges get their replies out by April. They just can’t say nothing. They have to send something—yes or no. They have to.”

  Ida Mae said, “I didn’t say they hadn’t.”

  The window flew up on its sash with a rattle, and Lindsay staggered back a little. She whirled to Ida Mae. “Do you mean we did get something from a college?”

  “Got four or five of them, as near as I can tell. Course, I don’t always see the mail first.”

  Lindsay stared at her. “What? Why didn’t you tell me? Where are they?”

  Ida Mae shook the water off the mint placidly. “Weren’t addressed to you.”

  “But …” Lindsay fell back with a puzzled frown. “You mean Noah has them?”

  “That’d be my guess. Seeing as how his name was on them.”

  “But why wouldn’t he tell me?”

  “Why should he?”

  “Well, because … Why shouldn’t he?”

  “Maybe because it don’t involve you.”

  “Well, of course it does!” She was indignant. “I’m his mother, even if I haven’t been for very long, and more importantly, his teacher! I have a right to know what college he’s been accepted into. Of course I do! Do you know how worried I’ve been? Do you know how important this is? You just wait until he gets home from school. I’ll get to the bottom of this!” She turned on her heel to go.

  Ida Mae blew out a long-suffering sigh. “Well, if that ain’t just like you to go prancing off in your high-heeled shoes to fix the world without giving thought one to whether or not it needs fixing. Or wants fixing, for that matter.”

  Lindsay looked down at her sneakers, puzzled. “I’m not wearing high heels. What are you talking about?”

  “You took in a wild boy,” said Ida Mae, “and you didn’t do a half-bad job taming him; I’ll give you that. But he took care of hisself for more years than you been taking care of him; you remember that.” She stacked the mint on the cutting board and sliced off the stems in one efficient roll of the knife. “Maybe he don’t want to be ruled over by a pack of women. Maybe he likes to keep some things to hisself. Maybe he feels like he needs to hold on to that part that took care of hisself for all that time, just in case he ever needs it again. And maybe you’re forgetting he ain’t a boy no more. He’s already got one foot over the line of being a man. And maybe this here ain’t as much of your business as you think it is.”

  Lindsay was quiet for a moment. Then she said, “I forget sometimes, who he is and what he’s been through. I guess if I were him I’d want to guard a little independence for myself, too. It really is his decision. He’s earned it. Thanks, Ida Mae.” She turned to leave.

  Ida Mae didn’t look up from mincing the mint. “And if you think for one minute you’re going to go off and leave that mess simmering on my stove, you got another thing coming.”

  Abashed, Lindsay murmured, “Yes, ma’am,” and returned to stir the soup.

  ~*~

  The planting and staking of the new vines took the remainder of the week, and the women went to bed aching with exhaustion each night, too tired even to complain. But at the end of the week,
their bedraggled, neglected, winter-torn vineyard looked like a picture postcard. Neat orderly rows curved down the hillside, trellises stood tall and straight; baby grapevines hugged each post; and mature vines began putting out sweet green shoots. The white gravel road swept from the driveway to the vineyard entrance to the winery below the barn, and a new cedar sign glistened in the dew of early morning: Ladybug Farm Winery. Cici, Bridget, and Lindsay stood on the side porch in their pajamas and robes with their morning coffee as the mist was rising off the vines, and they simply admired the view.

  “Funny,” observed Bridget, “I can hardly even remember how much my back hurts now.”

  “I should get my camera,” Lindsay said, sipping her coffee. “This would be a perfect picture for our brochure.” But she made no move to actually go inside.

  “We can afford brochures,” said Cici, wonderingly. “Life is good.”

  “Well, almost.” Lindsay frowned a little. “I just wish Noah would talk to me about his college choice.”

  “It’s a big decision,” Bridget said. “The first step toward being an adult.”

  “Remember what I went through with Lori?” Cici said.

  “I just don’t understand why he would be so secretive about it,” Lindsay said. “Why he wouldn’t want to at least discuss it with me.”

  Both women were deliberately silent, gazing at their cups.

  Lindsay’s expression sharpened. “What?” she demanded. “What are you thinking? I know that look.”

  Cici and Bridget tried not to roll their eyes as they shared a glance. “Well,” said Bridget carefully, “you know you can be a little hands-on, particularly when it comes to matters of education.”

  And as Lindsay’s eyes widened to the point of bulging out of her head, Cici added quickly, “Not that there’s anything wrong with that. You’re a teacher. Listen, it’s hard to let go. It’s the hardest thing about parenting. But the best thing about you—the thing I admire most about you—is how hard you’ve tried to respect Noah’s boundaries. I don’t think he could have grown up to be as responsible as he has if you hadn’t done that, so … just a little longer, okay?”

  “You really did make such a big deal on his birthday about giving him the choice,” Bridget reminded her. “I think he might be taking that a little too seriously. Just give him some time.”

  Lindsay took a deep breath and blew it out slowly. “I never had to take care of anything before,” she admitted. “Not even a parakeet. I just want to do it right.”

  Cici saluted her with her coffee cup. “You’re doing great,” she assured her.

  And Bridget added, raising her own cup, “Really.”

  Before Lindsay could even muster a smile in reply, Rebel darted out from under the porch in a furious cacophony of barking. He raced down the drive in a blur of black-and-white feet, and in another moment they heard the sound of tires on the drive. Lindsay straightened up and pushed back her hair as the truck rounded the curve, because Dominic often came to check the wine or work in the vineyard this time of morning. It wasn’t that he was unaccustomed to seeing any of them in their pajamas, and Cici and Bridget were as comfortable around him as they would have been with a brother. But they couldn’t help notice that Lindsay’s sleepwear had gotten quite a bit cuter over the past few weeks, and often, she came to breakfast wearing lip gloss, just in case.

  Lindsay relaxed as they all saw it was only the battered red pickup of the roofing crew. Rebel veered off, as disappointed as Lindsay, and raced toward the meadow to torment the sheep.

  Cici heaved a huge sigh. “And so the day begins.”

  The roofers had finally begun replacing sheets of blue tarp with sheets of actual plywood, happily banging away from seven in the morning until noon, then disappearing until the notion struck them once again to continue the job. Rebel barked himself hoarse every morning, circling the trucks and the ladders, snapping at tires and lunging at toolboxes, until finally Cici yelled out the window, “You can bite them if you want to, Rebel!” After that, Rebel seemed to lose interest and trotted away in search of something to do. The roofers, however, looked at her with new respect and generally made themselves scarce when they saw her coming.

  “I guess Bridge and I will get started in the barn while you torture the roofers,” Lindsay told Cici, turning to go inside. “But first, breakfast. I think I smell wild berry muffins.”

  Bridget followed her. “I thought you were on a diet.”

  “It’s okay,” Lindsay assured her, though she sounded a little morose. “I can eat anything I want as long as I drink a quart of grapefruit juice first.”

  “A quart!”

  “To tell the truth,” Lindsay confessed, “I don’t have much of an appetite after that.”

  Cici started to follow them inside, then turned back at the sound of more tires on the driveway. Lindsay pushed past her to peer around the corner. They heard the truck stop in front and then move on. Cici shrugged. “Probably the mail,” she said.

  And then Dominic’s truck came into view.

  He slowed at the steps and rolled down his window. “Good morning, ladies,” he said pleasantly.

  Cici watched Lindsay. Lindsay tried very hard not to have any expression at all.

  Bridget called, “Hi, Dominic! We were just going in for breakfast. Will you join us?”

  “No, thank you kindly. I can’t stay. I just stopped by to drop off a little something for you. I saw it in town and thought you could use it. I left it on the front porch.” He put the truck in gear and waved as he drove off. “Have a good day, now!”

  Cici looked at Bridget, eyebrows raised in question. Lindsay swallowed hard. They all walked around the porch to the front of the house.

  There, sitting in alignment with the three white rocking chairs, was a new rocker, freshly painted white, with a big red bow on it. Pinned to the bow was a note. It said: Just in case you ever want to have company.

  “Well, my goodness,” said Bridget, reading the note. “How sweet!”

  “Thoughtful,” agreed Cici. “But then, he’s that kind of guy.”

  Lindsay just stood there, smiling and smiling, and didn’t say a word.

  ~*~

  “What a bunch of idiots,” Cici fumed, pulling on a pair of work gloves as she entered the barn half an hour later. “You won’t believe what they’ve done now. They’ve got half the shingles torn off the front porch roof—without even asking me, mind you!—and they’re planning to replace them with tin! Tin! This is a historic house. You don’t just go ripping off handmade tile shingles and tossing them in the trash pile. And you certainly don’t replace them with tin!”

  “Tin roofs are kind of nice,” Bridget said, but when Cici turned her glare on her, she added quickly, “but not on Federal-style houses, of course.” She grasped the handle of the wheelbarrow and pushed it across the stone barn floor.

  “Why don’t you call Paul and Derrick’s builder?” Lindsay suggested.

  “Oh, I don’t know. Paul says they’re already behind because of all the rain we had, and I’d feel awful if I stole their builder just when they were starting to make some progress.”

  “We’re going to have to find a builder anyway,” Bridget pointed out, “to remodel the barn for the restaurant and gift shop and build the office.”

  “I suppose,” agreed Cici with a sigh. “So.” She looked around the dustily sunlit barn with her hands on her jeaned hips. “What’s the plan here?”

  “Well.” Bridget dropped a box filled with loose nuts and bolts into the wheelbarrow and straightened up, dusting off her hands. “I know it’s hard to picture now, but I thought if we could move all this stuff out of the way, this corner here would be easy to section off. With the big doors open, there would be plenty of light, and we could set up a buffet station over here …” She crossed the floor with half-running steps and sketched a wide horseshoe shape in the air. “And tables …” Again a few running steps. “From here to here. I think we can get six in her
e easily, don’t you? And maybe half-walls …” More quick steps, more gestures. “Here, here, here. I mean, this is just a suggestion, right, of what the finished product will look like. Just for the party.”

  Cici nodded thoughtfully, looking around. “It’s kind of quaint, having lunch in the barn. I like it. But, Bridge, I don’t think you should count on getting real walls up between now and then—even half walls. Maybe some kind of screen …”

  “We could do trellis,” suggested Lindsay. “We’ve got all that trellis leftover from the wedding last year, and it’s already painted.”

  “Perfect,” exclaimed Bridget. “We could back it with fabric …”

  “And maybe wind some artificial grape leaf garlands through it,” Lindsay said. “I’ll bet they have some at the dollar store in town.”

  “If not, I know they have silk roses.”

  “Paul will die when he sees fake flowers.”

  “Well, he’s just going to have to figure out some way to make roses bloom in April, then. Or grape leaves, for that matter.”

  “We’ll have real flowers on the tables,” Lindsay assured her. “The tulips will be in bloom next week, and we’ve got plenty of daffodils.”

  “Better—lilacs,” declared Bridget. Her eyes lit up as she looked around, picturing it. “In keeping with the whole vineyard theme, right? Lilac blossoms do kind of resemble grape clusters, and I could make napkins out of some of that lavender calico I found last year …”

  “We have so many lilac bushes, we could bank the buffet with lilac branches. Of course, keeping them from wilting will be a problem. Do you know,” added Lindsay thoughtfully, “and just to keep Paul from making a scene, mind you—we could take cuttings from the pear tree, with all those gorgeous white blossoms and wind them through the trellis, mixed in with just a few lilac blossoms for symmetry, you know and—oh, I know! We’ll mix in some white Christmas lights for sparkle and maybe have Noah tack some on the underside of the loft. We could cover the lights with a drape of cheesecloth—they have it by the bolt at Family Hardware—and it would be absolutely heavenly! I know it won’t be as dramatic as if it were nighttime, but still, details are important.”