The Truth is in the Wine

by Curtis Bunn

  He had $4 million or so coming to him after taxes, but it was not enough to bring him total joy. The reality was that he still loved Ginger. Yes, he told her he wanted out of the marriage, but he did not mean it. Not really. He was frustrated, almost depressed and did not see any other way to spare her life.

  He wanted her love, needed her love. Before he lost his job, Paul was devoted and loving. He was not the most light-hearted guy, but Ginger could rely on him to love her and be there for her and their daughter. Losing his job changed him. He became distant and evil. His self-esteem evaporated. He felt no sense of self-worth. His changed disposition led to a troubled marriage.

  Winning the money instantly turned Paul into the Paul of old. He felt totally rejuvenated. But he needed Ginger’s love. Other than Diana, his high-school girlfriend, Ginger was the only woman he loved. And he wanted her love back. But he wanted her back on genuine terms; not because he became a millionaire.

  After his outburst a few weeks earlier, when he told her he wanted a divorce, their “marriage” really leveled off. They spoke pleasantly enough to each other around their daughter, but that was it. Ginger gathered herself and displayed a lack of interest in Paul, a disregard for their marriage and a disinterest in trying to save it.

  Paul was troubled. He had no idea he would get a financial windfall. When he did, still feeling like his life was incomplete told him something significant: He needed Ginger. Buying back her love was akin to prostitution, and Paul viewed prostitution as an act against God.

  Rather, he wanted to earn his wife’s love and admiration, something he once possessed. The early years of their eighteen-year marriage were idyllic. It was a union that was nearly storybook in their joy and commitment to each other. When they learned they could not conceive a child, they adopted Helena, who was eight days old at the time. He was thirty-three and she was twenty-six, and having their daughter brought Paul and Ginger even closer, as they threw their love into making the child feel loved. And she did.

  They did not have a lot of money but they had love and two salaries and they made it work—right up until around the time Paul was laid off his job. Over that nearly year of unemployment, his self-esteem plummeted like the economy and his weight increased by about fifteen unflattering pounds, all seemingly in his midsection and face.

  Their marriage was not on the rocks; it was under the rocks. The getaway road trips to Miami and New Orleans ceased. The affection they showed each other—affection that at one time made other couples uncomfortable and envious at the same time—vanished like the rabbit in the magician’s hat.

  In the month after he told Ginger he wanted a divorce, they only seemed to tolerate each other while uttering nary a loving word between them. Paul was mum because he was depressed and she was displeased because her man no longer was the provider and comforter he had been. And he blamed her for his woes.

  Her displeasure manifested itself in more and more time away with Helena and away from Paul—anything to not be around her husband whose manhood was assaulted with unemployment.

  But Paul loved his wife and he believed she still loved him. At least, he wanted to believe that. Circumstances got in the way, he told himself. Looking down at that lottery ticket shaking in his hand, he believed he had the elixir to their toxic union.

  The fix was not directly in how the money would influence his wife, however. It was in how it would impact him. The swagger, confidence, self-assuredness returned, and so he was immediately extracted from the doldrums. His renewed vim and vigor would be the keys to Ginger feeling better about him and, consequently, rescue their marriage. That was his hope.

  However, to make sure she would return to the loving woman he admired for the right reasons, he almost immediately determined he could not tell her of his winnings. Surely she would at least act as if she were back on board knowing the new extent of his bank account. If she was coming back, he wanted it to be on his merits, not his luck.

  As his wife, she was entitled to half of the jackpot. He was not trying to avoid giving it to her—$2 million surely would be enough to live a cherished life, he reasoned. But he really needed to see if he could repair the damage that wrecked their marriage and restore the love from Ginger he used as fuel.

  His shaking stopped as he worked his brain to conjure up something he could tell her that would at least minimize the questions of his sudden fat pockets.

  Paul could claim the money at any time, but decided he would wait a few weeks. He wanted the attention around the drawing to diminish before he contacted the lottery office. Paul liked to play the numbers, but Ginger berated him about doing so, saying, “That’s an ignorant way to waste money.”

  But Paul continued to play, only he did so in silence; Ginger had no idea. And neither she nor anyone knew about his winning numbers. He had no formula. There were no birthdays or license plate numbers or addresses. He selected random numbers that popped into his head for no particular reason.

  Of all the things that could have been overwhelming his brain—where to travel, what to buy, how to celebrate, never having to work again—Paul’s thoughts centered on saving his marriage. He considered Ginger his “wholemate,” saying “You make me whole” in reciting his vows at their wedding. Ginger was it for him, from the first time they met at the quaint bar at Aria restaurant in the Buckhead section of Atlanta.

  Ginger was with friends celebrating a birthday. When she went to the bar to order a bottle of wine, Paul—after observing her alluring presence—volunteered his expertise.

  “That bottle of wine you ordered will have the effect you want; it will get you drunk,” he said, smiling. “But if you want to have a great-tasting wine that also will get you where you want to get, I would recommend this.”

  He pointed to a sixty-five-dollar bottle of Palmeri Riesling. Ginger took his advice and later came back to thank him for the suggestion. She loved it. Paul was happy she came back to the bar, where he sat alone, sipping wine.

  “You should let me be your sommelier,” he said.

  “Maybe I would if I knew what that was,” Ginger answered. “You might be trying to set me up.”

  They laughed. “A sommelier is basically a wine steward, someone who knows and understands wines and can recommend the right one for the right meal, right occasion, right mood,” he said.

  “OK, I get it,” she answered. “And you’ll be my personal sommelier? How did I get so lucky?”

  “You obviously are a lucky person,” he said with a no-nonsense look on his face. Then he smiled.

  He had her then. Ginger was intrigued, soon in love and less than two years later they were married. And now Paul, in an instant, was an unlikely millionaire, married to a woman he loved despite having told her he wanted a divorce.

  Because he was so down about himself, he did not know how to change the course of his marriage. If only he could get a job, it would do something toward his self-esteem and therefore bring out the person she fell in love with, instead of the person that became mired in so much self-pity.

  Well, he came up better than finding a job. He hit the lottery, and his self-esteem rushed back to him as if injected into his bloodstream.

  Paul did not have any siblings and was not sure when he would tell his mother, although he would take care of her in every way she desired. Alvin, meanwhile, was the ace among his plethora of friends, his Super Glue-tight “dog” of twenty-two years. When Paul got the trembling out of his system, he screamed so loudly his head hurt. Then he shed joyous tears. Then he called Alvin, whom he referred to as Big Al.

  “Get over here right now. I don’t care what you’re doing; please, get here now,” Paul said.

  He alarmed Big Al. “What’s wrong, boy? Talk to me.”

  “Can’t. Not over the phone. Just get here,” Paul said. “Big news.”

  “Twenty minutes,” Big Al said.

  The news was so big that Big Al could not contain his glee. He knew Paul being a millionaire meant he was one,
too. His life as he knew it also had changed. That’s how tight they were.

  And so he leaped around Paul’s as if on a pogo stick. Paul sat there watching and laughing. He never let the ticket out of his hands.

  “I’d rather not have her than have her back because I have money,” Paul told Big Al.

  “Why do you want her back at all?” Alvin shot back. “You know how I feel about Ginger. She’s cool with me. But there’s a new world out there for you. You can do anything you want and acquire anything you want. I mean, seriously. You’re telling me you have four million dollars coming to you and you want to stay with a woman who has basically turned her back on you when stuff got tight? Let me tell you something: If I were happily married and hit the lottery for four mil, I’d get a divorce. Ain’t nothing one woman could do for me with that kinda money.”

  “You would say that, Big Al,” Paul said. “But then you don’t have your ‘wholemate.’ I do. All you have are ‘whoremates.’ It went bad for us, yeah. But now we can get it back.”

  “You think she won’t get inspired to act like she’s happy with all that money?” Big Al wanted to know.

  “That’s why I said I’m not telling her—at least not right now,” Paul said. “I’m going to act like everything is the same.”

  “How can you have that money and act like everything is the same? Are you crazy?” Big Al said.

  “Discipline,” Paul answered. “This is important. This is my life. This is my wife. I recognize where her head is: she’s disappointed that I’m not contributing to the household as I have, as I promised, as I’m supposed to. I told her a few weeks ago that I wanted a divorce. I didn’t want to hold her back. So, I need to know where Gin’s heart is. I haven’t been able to find out before now because my head has been messed up. An out-of-work man is a man with a burden that only another out-of-work man can understand. I’m fifty years old. Been working since I was four-teen—that’s thirty-six years straight where I earned a living.

  “To be out of work for almost year took something out of me. I couldn’t really convey it to her. I fell into a funk and she into a funk about me. I don’t like it, but I can’t blame her. I was supposed to be the man for her, to provide. Not working drained some of my manhood, in her eyes.”

  “It’s not like you weren’t trying to get employed,” Big Al said. “Or that you quit your job. You got downsized. Millions of guys have been downsized. And since then you have been hitting the bricks, interviewing, trying to get on. It’s a bad time in the country, no matter how hard President Obama tries. Seems like if you were trying to get work she would understand and not simply check out on you.

  “But, hey, that’s just me. Anyway, so what’s your plan? Anyone else gets rich, they act like they just got rich. You…you’re gonna act like nothing changed? I gotta see this.”

  “Well, not exactly,” he said. “I was part of a major class action suit against a bank that was overcharging on overdraft fees for twenty years. Ginger knows about it. I’m gonna tell her I got a settlement check of five thousand for that and that my income tax check came from last year—a little more money.

  “Then I’m going to take her on a trip we both said we really wanted to go on before I lost my job—to the Napa Valley in California, to the wine country. We never went because I don’t like to fly. But I’m going to for this.

  “Al, this is my chance to get my life back the way I want it, but even better because we’ll have each other and no more financial issues. Truth be told, I don’t want anyone else. I want Ginger.”

  “Well, good luck, my brother,” Al said. “I gotta get home. But when you’re ready to start really spending that money, hit me up.”

  “You know I got you, man,” Paul said. “First thing to do is line up your bills. We’re gonna pay all them off and go from there. I’ll have some nice cash for you.”

  They shook hands and slapped each other on the back.

  “Tomorrow!” Paul yelled to Al as he walked toward his car.

  An hour later, after he had pinched himself and the reality of the money set it, he heard the garage door open, indicating Ginger was home. The timing for the money was ideal; they had wiped out their savings for their daughter’s first year of college. Paying for her education no longer would be a worry.

  It seemed his only worry was if his wife would embrace him trying to mend their broken marriage.

  CHAPTER 3

  PICKING UP THE PIECES

  Paul got concerned when he realized Ginger had been in the car about fifteen minutes after he heard the garage door go up. He went to the refrigerator and pulled out a bottle of Viognier and two glasses.

  Before he could go check on Ginger, she emerged, moving slowly, with her head down. She was down about her daughter being off to college and scared about the panic attack she had.

  “Hey,” Paul said with a level of concern in his voice—something Ginger had not heard in some time, “You OK?”

  Ginger was stunned by his concern. She had heard no caring inflection in his voice for months, not toward her, anyway. She lifted her head and looked at him. Paul looked different, she noticed right away. He stood more upright and his eyes were bright, not sullen.

  “Do you care, Paul?” she said, walking past him to the living room, where she sat on the couch.

  Paul did not answer. He went to the kitchen and retrieved the wine and the glasses. He placed it on the coffee table in front of Ginger. She was confused. He had not offered her any of his precious wine in months.

  “Ginger,” he said, “I do care.”

  “Since when?” she asked.

  Paul poured wine into the glasses. He picked up one and handed it to Ginger. She looked at the glass for several seconds, looked at her husband and finally reached for the glass.

  “I have always cared, Gin,” he said. “I just…”

  “You just what, Paul?”

  “I just lost who I was,” he said.

  Ginger did not respond. She sat back on the couch, wine in hand.

  Paul went on. “I want you to realize that I’m sorry.”

  “You said you want a divorce, Paul,” she shot out.

  “I know and I didn’t mean it,” he said.

  “So why would you say something so hurtful?” Ginger said. “You said you wanted to get away from me. You think that didn’t hurt me, hurt my feelings?”

  “I didn’t mean it,” he said. “Listen, I was depressed. I was miserable. You won’t believe this, but I thought I would be doing the right thing by letting you move on. I didn’t see anything getting better and…I…I don’t know where that came from—divorce—but I just said it.”

  “You don’t just say you want a divorce, Paul,” she said.

  “I just said it,” he responded. “I don’t want a divorce, Gin. I want us to get back to where we used to be. I really do.”

  “Why? Why would you want that after how bad it has been?” she asked.

  “Please taste your wine,” Paul said. “It’s good.”

  “Paul,” Ginger said, exasperated.

  “OK, I’m just saying,” he said. He sipped his wine and added: “Anyway, think about it: Our baby is off to college. It’s only you and me. This is the perfect time for us to find what we used to have.”

  Ginger finally tasted the wine. It was good—clean, light, fresh, floral.

  “I don’t know how to respond to this, Paul,” she said. “I was in the car just now and I felt like I was dying. I dreaded coming in here and dealing with your attitude and total disregard for me. I literally was in the car crying. I couldn’t breathe.”

  “What?”

  “Yes, I’m serious,” she said. “I felt like there was nothing for me to come into this house to, no love. So, for you to tell me you didn’t mean all the awful things you said to me, the way you have treated me the last few weeks.…I don’t know.”

  “You’re supposed to be skeptical,” Paul said. “I understand it. I’m not asking you to do anything e
xcept have an open mind. I want to work this thing out. It’s very important to me.”

  Ginger took a big gulp of the wine, and it went straight to her head. She sipped more, and she could feel a change coming over her from it. When that happened, she became audacious.

  “So, what’s this about? You want sex?” she said. “All of a sudden you’re serving me wine and you want to work it out? Look at you. You’re all shaven and even have on cologne. What’s going on? I don’t get it. It was bad before, but the last three weeks have been terrible.

  “And now you want to work it out? That’s hard to believe. I don’t care what you say.”

  Paul knew his wife and he knew that the wine was kicking in. He also knew that challenging her would result in her getting more and more combative, especially after she finished her glass and immediately poured herself another.

  There were times when he would challenge her. But this was not one of them.

  “You will see over time,” he said. “Ginger, let’s make this work.”

  “How do you propose we do this, Mr. I Want A Divorce?” she said.

  Paul smiled.

  “What’s so funny?” she wanted to know. “You laughing at me?”

  “No. I was thinking we should take a trip,” he said.

  “A trip?” Ginger cracked. “To where? Fantasy Island?”

  “I was thinking the trip we have been talking about for years—to Napa Valley,” Paul said.

  “Napa? You want to drive across country?”

  “No,” he said. “Let’s fly.”

  “You wanna fly?” Ginger said. “Now I’m sure something’s up. You’re the same man who two days ago would not fly to see your daughter off at college. Now, you wanna fly to California with me to the wine country? Nah, something’s going on. What’s going on?”

  “I regret not flying with you and Helena to D.C.,” Paul said. “I do. I don’t like flying, but I should have made the trip anyway for my daughter. I regret that. But I will fly up there and fly back with her when she comes home for the first time. I have to do that for her.