"Actually, Rob wired all the sneakers, I only wired one pair of sunglasses. He must be an awesome mechanic."
The mention of Rob pleases her. She pictures his hands, strong and clean. She likes to imagine that he was the one who covered her with the afghan, but believes it was probably Cory who did it.
An attractive blonde in pastel jogging clothes approaches them on the path. She's walking an apricot-colored labradoodle on a leash.
The labradoodle gives play signals to Snoots by placing her front paws down and raising up her behind.
Snoots shows interest, pulling forward to touch noses with the labradoodle, his tail high and wagging, not held in the low, relaxed posture of a seeing-eye dog on duty.
"Molly, no!" the woman pleads, flustered by her dog's interaction with a service dog on duty. She turns an embarrassed face to Dawn. "I am so sorry. She's a labradoodle and they're just so frisky. She's very sweet, but I'm so sorry."
The woman tries unsuccessfully to pull Molly away as Snoots puts his head over Molly's shoulder in a male-dominant gesture. Molly likes this and submits, turning so that Snoots can mount her, which he starts to do.
Cory pulls back on him, trying to maintain the composure of someone who cannot visually assess the situation.
Desperately the woman fumbles for a dog treat in her NorthFace fanny pack. As Molly takes the treat, the woman, now deeply humiliated, grabs Molly's collar and drags her away.
Snoots tugs on his leash wanting to pursue Molly, his tail still high and wagging. Molly twists around for another look.
"Molly, leave it! Leave it!" The woman twists around, too. "I really am so sorry!"
Cory smiles. "It's okay. He's new. I'm training him and we've just started."
The woman beams at him. "That's so wonderful! I mean that's really great what these dogs can do, isn't it. Molly! Let's go Molly! Good luck with him. And have a really great day."
Dawn waves cheerfully while Cory continues to stare straight ahead, mindful of his current persona.
The woman hurries away with Molly, who is now on a very short leash.
Dawn turns to Cory with an approving smile. "That was good. You're convincing, you're getting the body language down."
"I've got to get Snoots down. He can't do this stuff at the tasting and I've only got a week left."
She squeezes his arm in affection. "Look, you handled him really well just now. Your instinct was to keep in character. Admit it, you like this edgy stuff. It's why you aren't writing apps for, what was that place, OpenPiles?"
He laughs. "OpenPhiles. I may come to regret that decision."
Cory drops Dawn by her lab before driving home. Snoots is happy to be out of the harness, riding shotgun in Cory's black Honda. The precious wired glasses are now safely stashed in the glove compartment and Cory has donned his regular, aviator-style shades.
He feels an acute need for some down time from the training right now. If Becca isn't home, he'll call her, meet her somewhere. Just go somewhere for a few hours, the two of them.
As he pulls up to the house, he sees Becca leaning against a flashy blue sports car. A Ferarri. There's a guy leaning against it. Derek Hammond. They are deep in conversation and haven't yet noticed Cory's car.
Cory watches Becca's face; her hair is pulled to one side in a long ponytail, her graceful arms, bare, are folded in front of her, her head is bowed forward a little as she listens to something Derek is saying.
Cory gets out of his car, feeling a mixture of curiosity and resentment. He lets Snoots out the passenger side.
Derek and Becca now look up and notice Cory and the dog.
Snoots trots toward them, tail high, the hair on his back standing up. He approaches Derek with a woo-woo-woo bark; he doesn't yet know if this stranger is friend or foe, and the dog needs to assert his own dominance of his home turf.
Derek puts his hand out toward Snoots; his eyes are warily observing the dog, but his smile is broad and confident. "Hey there, boy."
Snoots sniffs the outstretched hand tentatively, but snaps his head away when Derek tries to pet him. More woo-woo-woos.
"Come here, Snoots," Cory commands.
Snoots returns to his master’s side, still facing the stranger, tail and back hair still up, ears cocked forward, panting lightly. Just enough to display his rows of ivory fangs.
Becca made brief, noncommittal eye contact with Cory during Snoots' encounter with Derek. Now she turns and walks back to the house and goes inside.
Cory looks at Derek without coming closer. Derek smiles at him and extends a hand toward him, while continuing to lean against his blue Spyder F430.
Cory would need to take a couple of steps toward him to shake the hand. He doesn't do this. Instead, he shakes his head casually. "Is there something I can help you with?"
Derek, dressed in a brown designer hoodie, keeps his cool. The smile stays put. He folds his arms across his chest and directs his eyes toward the house. "I was sort of in the middle of talking to Becca." He adds, as if to explain, "iPhlox stuff."
"She seems to be finished with the conversation. Maybe you should go."
Cory is surprised at his own words, but he knows he means them.
Derek continues smiling. "Listen, I'm sorry if I've intruded here. But, she and I haven't really finished our conversation."
"I'm aware of what's happened, what you've put her through." Cory feels a flush of anger begin to circulate through his body. "It really would be best if you left now."
He is beginning to wonder whether he'll need to punch the guy. It's a strange thought, but a compelling one.
Rob, just coming out of his apartment above the garage, sees Cory talking to a guy in a brown hoodie. Then Rob recognizes the blue Spyder and quickly concludes who the guy is. And what's happening down there.
He descends the stairs quietly and approaches them casually, but his male instincts are on full alert. Rob folds his arms across his chest; his strong arm muscles evident in his T-shirt. He gives Derek a casual nod, but it's his eyes that deliver his message: I'll back him. Keep that in mind.
Derek shakes his head, arms still crossed. "Hey guys, I'm really trying to be friendly here."
"Why?" Cory asks, now locked into a stare with Derek.
Rob observes that Cory has balled his hands into fists at his side. Rob is suddenly worried what Snoots might do if Cory decides to take a swing at the guy. Especially if the guy swings back. There's a ridge of fur standing up along the dog's back. Bad headlines run through his brain: Stanford Ph.D. in jail for assault, judge orders dog destroyed after man's mauling. He's got to diffuse this if he can.
Rob shrugs at Derek. "Look, man, she's not even here." He sweeps his hand through the air to show the lack of Becca. "I'd take that as a hint."
The front door of Cory's house opens and Becca comes out. She's carrying her two overnight bags, the only items she's kept here the past week. She feels three sets of male eyes watching her, knowing she is at the center of this drama.
She stops in front of Cory and smiles at him. "I left the key on the kitchen counter." She wants to touch his arm, but doesn't dare. "Cory? Thanks for everything. I really mean it."
Without another look or word, she lets Derek open the door of the blue Spyder for her, and slides in.
Derek gives a self-deprecating shrug and smiles at Cory and Rob. He's won and he can afford to be generous. "Have a good one, guys."
He gets in his car, revs the Ferrari's engine to underscore the power beneath its hood, then peels the car smartly into the street. With Becca.
Cory stands there, saying nothing, watching the Ferrari disappear around a corner.
Rob would have preferred a bucket of boiling water thrown over his own head instead of witnessing what his buddy has just been dealt. He squats and pets Snoots, ruffling his fur. "Hey, boy!" It's all he can think of, and there's a catch in his throat when he says it.
Cory turns to him, his voice robotic. "I should do some more training th
is afternoon. We've only got a week."
"Sure, Core. Want to play a little pool first? Or if you want, I finally broke down and bought Grand Theft Auto Four. It's pretty awesome."
"Sure," Cory replies almost inaudibly.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
CA-29, Napa Valley. It's two hours since they left Cory's house in Menlo Park. There was heavy traffic on I-80, but the urban spread of the Bay Area has now given way to vineyards stretching across a wide valley, with a mountain range flanking either side.
They continue to follow a parade of cars through the wine country; it's a Saturday in July and the tasting rooms are open, accommodating the hordes of weekend visitors from San Francisco and elsewhere.
Dawn is sandwiched next to Snoots in the back of Rob's Mazda, Earlier, the dog tried to put his head in her lap, but she didn't want his moist canine snout resting on her stylish black pants today. So he'd turned around and reoriented himself, thrusting his back legs up against her, taking up two-thirds of the back seat.
From her back-seat vantage point, Dawn admires Rob's well-toned triceps below the short sleeves of his black polo shirt. His strong hands hold the sporty steering wheel with a comfortable, easy expertise.
Privately, she worries about Cory and what he's got to face today. Is he really up for this? When she saw him this morning, she kiddingly told him he'd achieved the look of a pretentious young humanities professor with his duck tail, trimmed beard and chambray shirt. Normally, such teasing would make him laugh. But not today. Seeing his wan smile at her remark she realized just how physically exhausted and emotionally burned out he really is.
"So where's our turn?" Rob asks.
Cory checks his iPhone and locates the small blue dot that indicates their GPS-tracked current position on the map. "It's coming up in about twelve miles. Dwyer Road."
"Maybe we should start putting the samples in your shoes," Dawn advises. "We'll be there in less than half an hour. You don't want to be doing this in the parking lot of the winery."
"Good point." Cory removes his wired dark glasses and puts them carefully into the breast pocket of his shirt, which they barely fit into. Then he unties his right sneaker, currently in sleep mode, and puts it in his lap. He opens the glove compartment and withdraws a plastic tackle box and passes it back to Dawn.
She opens it and unfolds a paper schematic which maps where each of the twenty wine samples are to be placed on Cory's two shoes. If Snoots selects a spot on the sneaker and activates the underlying circuit, text associated with a specific wine will appear inside the dark glasses. Each text is already linked to a specific switch in each shoe, so the correct wine drop must be placed where its corresponding switch is located. Mixing up samples and circuits would be a disaster at this point.
Dawn studies the diagram and selects one of the twenty small labeled vials of red wine that are inside the box. She picks up a package of Q-Tips from the box and pulls one out.
Snoots lifts his head slightly to survey this new activity, decides it's fine, and lowers his head back down.
She opens the vial and gently swirls the end of her Q-Tip in it. "Okay, here's Dark Moon 2005. Rob, can you watch the bumps in the road while we're doing this?"
"I can try," he says, slightly releasing the gas peddle and downshifting, "but there's a Beamer up my tailpipe right now." Rob laughs derisively. "Why is it always Beamers?"
Cory takes the wine-soaked Q-Tip between two fingers of his left hand. "So, where does this go?"
Dawn rechecks the diagram to verify the intended location of the sample. "For the right shoe, the Dark Moon pinot noir is the far left lower level, due west on the shoe, if the toe points north."
Cory puts his right hand inside the sneaker and gently touches the small round sensor secured at the leftmost lower-level position. He holds the Q-Tip with two fingers while he establishes the outside location with his right thumb, then carefully dabs the sneaker with the Q-Tip, just above the left-most, lower-level sensor.
The tiny wine stain is not visible on the black high top sneaker. They've tested how long Snoots can pick up the scents and Dawn is confident that three hours is probably a solid window for the chemical viability of the shoe samples.
It's one-fifteen now. They should be at the winery in another fifteen minutes or so. The tasting supposedly starts around two. That's well within the window of three hours. If Snoots performs today, the dog will make his choices quickly, within seconds. Cory will then have to gauge the other wine tasters, wait for their comments, take his own time.
Tasting and critiquing five wines shouldn't take more than an hour or hour and a half. Well within the timeframe of scent viability for Snoots. Unless. Unless there are details he's overlooked.
Rob sees the sign for their turnoff, slows the Mazda down and turns off the highway onto a smaller gravel road. Vineyards line both sides of the road as far as the eye can see, and although they are elegantly well-tended, the setting is definitely agricultural.
Cory feels a shot of adrenalin, but keeps applying drops of wine to the right shoe according to Dawn's instructions. He finishes the right sneaker. Time for the left.
As Cory applies the last dab of wine to the left sneaker, Rob is stopped at an intersection of dirt roads. "Which way, boss? Follow the balloons?"
Cory glances at his iPhone, then at the green and gold balloons tied to a post. "Yeah."
The Mazda makes two more turns through country lanes, now lined with oaks. There are no signs at the intersections, just green and gold balloons, but the little blue GPS-driven dot on Cory's iPhone map continues to approach the red-flagged endpoint of the digitally-displayed route.
Cory puts his dark glasses back on and performs a battery test: he slides a tiny switch on the inside of the right earpiece. A tiny red LED on the inside of the glasses' nose bridge lights up, indicating battery power. He switches it back off and looks at Rob. "You remembered the extra batteries, right?"
"Don't stress, Core. The gear is good." Rob pats his jeans pocket.
"Just keep Snootsy calm. That's the most important thing. So he can do his job." Dawn thinks a pep talk about now is just what Cory needs.
"What do I do if he just doesn't perform, Dawn? At all. What if he doesn't actually detect any matches to these samples?"
"Then you'll have to wing it. You do know a fair bit about wine," she replies.
"Not the way Snoots knows it."
She smiles. "Okay, so let's establish the protocol that, if you're toast, you give me some pre-agreed signal and I'll pretend to faint. I could be your fiancée and now you've got a reasonable exit. You can't concentrate on wine while your beloved is possibly dying. People will relate to that."
Cory laughs grimly. "Better stick with molecular biology."
"Well! You should know I played Cleopatra in a school play in tenth grade."
Rob shakes his head. "Geez, where did you go to high school?"
"Okay, it was a snooty private academy."
"What if someone recognizes me? People from the Bay Area will be there."
Dawn sighs. "Cory, you're not that famous yet. And if someone does, you'll just have to be your own twin. The other brother from Ohio who majored in wine, and lost his sight through sinful living."
"And if they recognize Snoots?"
"He's a clone. I'll claim responsibility." Her jesting has no effect on him. More seriously, she adds. "Snoots will broadcast 'service dog' in that harness, he'll be just another working-stiff shepherd. People are going to give you major sympathy points when they see him."
She leans forward to scrutinize his face better. "And your beard is actually a good camouflage, I'm not sure I'd recognize you in a restaurant with it, your hair and those glasses. You don't look much like yourself today, if that's any comfort." She smiles wickedly at him. "You definitely look at least thirty."
A wrought-iron gate flanked by massive granite posts connected by a graceful arch comes into view ahead. The gate is open, and carved into the g
ranite arch overhead are the words 'Trella Winery'.
Rob turns into the elegant drive of crushed rock and proceeds up a hill lined with tall, Italian conifers.
They arrive at a spacious circular driveway landscaped with immaculate shrubs, brilliant flowers and potted plants in giant terra cotta urns. Two dozen cars are parked in a shaded parking area off to one side, mostly sports cars and high-end SUVs.
Rob notices a black Ferrari with the vanity plate, 2RAVENS, and points it out, while he looks for a parking spot. "Guess we know whose car that is. Hey, there's a really old Lotus. Looks in great shape."
He points to a low-slung, canary-yellow two-seater parked in the shade of one of the tall old trees. Rob rolls into his spot and cuts the engine.
Cory picks up the seeing-eye harness at his feet and opens the car door.
Rob quickly tells him, "Wait until I come around and help you put the harness on Snoots. You need to look a little disoriented."
Cory nods, gets out of the car and stands, waiting for Rob, who comes around and moves him away from the car. Rob then offers Dawn a hand.
She shimmies out of the back seat and stretches, shaking her hair to smooth it. She puts on a black jacket which goes with her black pants; it has a flared waist and one flirty button at the back. She hopes the outfit and her dark-framed glasses will add some gravitas to their presence here among the winerati.
Snoots jumps out, eager to explore the new surroundings.
Dawn holds him by his collar while Rob slips on the seeing eye harness. The dog fidgets, but finally Rob hands the harness handle to Cory. "He's all yours."
Dawn takes Cory's arm. "Want me to walk with you a little to let him burn off some steam before we go in? I don't think he should mark these fancy bushes right here, maybe back down the driveway is a better place."
Cory takes a deep breath and lets it out. "Yeah. Let's do that."
The three of them walk along the edge of the drive, letting Snoots mark a couple of the Italian conifers. He's energized by all the exciting scents of this new place, his tail high, his nose snuffling deeply in the grass.
Blind Tasting Page 15