Rob has finished with the Z4 and his coworker, Juan, moves the car to another service bay to examine its brakes and rebalance the tires.
Kelly approaches him. "The dude with the black Modena is here. It's ready, right?"
He nods. He's already got the hood up on the green Boxster, it shouldn't take long. Kelly looks really hot in her yellow cords and he decides he will ask her out tonight.
She looks at the Ferrari and notices the vanity plate. "Two Ravens. What is that? A rock group? The guy doesn't look like a rock musician."
Rob shrugs and shakes his head, going back to the Boxster. He can't wait for her to drive the damn thing out of here.
She senses his tension, doesn't understand it, but proceeds with caution. "He said he'd like to speak to you, to the mechanic."
Rob pulls his head out from the Boxster's hood and snaps, "Can you get Jonas to talk to him? I'm really in the middle of this."
He finds the clipboard with the work detail and hands it to her. "I adjusted the tensioners on the timing belt. It's all written down. Jonas will know."
Kelly takes the clipboard and retreats. She knows Rob well enough to know something is wrong and she isn't going to push him.
Jonas explains what work was done on the Ferrari, and Toby doesn't question whether Jonas is the mechanic. The ex-racecar driver exudes mechanical chops and also the manner of a business owner. Toby instantly recognizes the latter trait and relates to the man.
He sees his black beauty pulling into the waiting area with the sexy blonde driving it. She gets out, with the engine purring in idle, and invites Toby to retake possession of his car.
He gets in, revs the engine and listens. The annoying little ping is just gone. He revs a little higher and it's still all sweetness and light. He gives her a thumbs up.
She delivers a radiant smile, along with a clipboard with the invoice attached. Toby signs it with only a brief glance at the paperwork. He hands the clipboard back to her with a smile, then pulls forward and out the entrance area of the shop. The Ferrari comes to a stop before making a right turn onto the street, then it's gone.
Kelly notices Rob standing behind a post, watching the car leave. He looks sad. She walks over to him. "Tough day?"
He nods. His eyes soften a little as he looks at her and she likes that. Whatever is bugging him, it's not something she's done.
"Kelly, you want to grab some dinner down in Santa Cruz tonight?"
There are no races she is going to this weekend. "Sure," she says, arching her back slightly and stretching her arms above her head.
Chapter Forty-Four
Menlo Park. Cory is walking Snoots in a park a few blocks from his house. Today it's just plain old Snoots with his regular leash, and plain old Cory with his regular sunglasses.
As they stop by a tree that Snoots wants to inspect, a blind man, Cory's age, approaches them. He is being led by a black german shepherd in a seeing-eye harness.
Snoots shows interest in the dog, but the german shepherd proceeds forward, tail in dutiful repose. He stops only to touch noses with Snoots, then moves past him. Snoots reads the signal and does not pursue further interaction, suddenly becoming engrossed in sniffing a patch of nearby grass.
Cory feels a need to apologize to the man. "My dog wanted to greet yours. I know he's not supposed to. Sorry about that.”
The blind guy smiles. "That's okay. I've been using a cane for years, but my sister thought I might like a dog and I gotta say I really love having him. It's more free-wheeling. He's a great pal, too."
Cory looks at the guy with admiration, a catch in his throat. "Yeah. They sure are."
"Have a great day!" The blind man gives him a cheerful smile and resumes his walk.
Cory gives the man a quick backward glance; he's about the same height as Cory, with the same brown hair, and he has on big dark glasses similar to the ones Cory wore at the tasting. My good twin.
Cory sighs and pets his own dog, feeling both guilty and sad.
Telegraph Hill. Julie looks out the window of the spare bedroom that is her painting studio. She looks at her Blackberry Storm cradled in her hand and starts to make a call, then cancels it. More than once over the past two weeks she has considered driving over to Cory's house and knocking on the door. What stopped her was trying to imagine what she would say to him. He has not called her once.
No lights were on at his house the night she drove by. Out with Becca? But, a blind man wouldn't necessarily have lights on in his house unless sighted people were there. Maybe he was home that night, alone, wishing for company. She remembers the way he hugged her at the restaurant.
It's pretty obvious that he has a large fan club at this point. Lots of cuties are posting comments to his blog these days, along with fetching thumbnail pictures of themselves. Flustered and anxious, she has scrutinized their offers to meet him, to be his 'seeing eye girls', to arrange tastings with him, blind and otherwise.
But, there was his exchange with her on his blog when she posted comments about two Willamette Valley pinot noirs he had compared. She did not disclose her identity, but he bantered with her like a flirty guy. She feels a jealous spark at his attraction to her own anonymous persona and feels immediately ridiculous.
She looks at her smartphone again. She needs to make this call. She promised Denis.
Menlo Park. Cory heads back toward his house in a dejected mood. He needs to snap out of it, get focused and do some wine samplings with Snoots this evening. The readership of Blind Tasting continues to grow and he has two sets of syrah and cabernet blends to go through with the dog tonight.
He experiences a sudden dismal realization that he isn't anticipating the task as an adventure now, it's more of a duty, a chore.
His iPhone chirps in his pocket and he answers it.
"Cory? It's Julie."
"Hey." Vivid memories of their evening on the hill fill his mind again. Of how she looked at Sta's.
"My colleague Denis asked me to call you. Joe Trella has agreed to host another blind tasting and Leonard Pillar has agreed to participate. If you will."
Cory freezes in his tracks and Snoots turns to look back at him, wondering why they have stopped. "Leonard Pillar wants to do a blind tasting with me?"
"I know, I was actually shocked. He never does public tastings. But, he apparently thinks it would be interesting to do this with you."
"Wow."
"It's a big deal, Cory. It would be part of the four-day Auction Wine Country fundraiser. I'm sure you know that's the biggest annual wine auction in Napa. Maybe in the country."
"I don't know what to say." Cory's heart is pounding from the jolt of adrenalin.
"You surely understand by now that you are impressing people in the wine world. And, Leonard is not a bad guy."
"You know him?"
"Very well."
Possible responses to this sudden invitation race through his mind. He needs to tell her something. "I prefer tasting in private. The Trella event was really stressful."
Is she going to fail in her mission? With determination she maintains her casual delivery. "Don't decide yet. Call me back after you really think it through. In a couple of days?"
"Sure." He stares miserably into space.
"Thank you, Cory." She realizes she is clutching her phone with a vice-like grip, her back is rigid with nervous expectation. Doesn't he have anything to tell her, talk about?
He starts to initiate more conversation but stops himself. "Thanks for calling."
"Okay then, bye."
The call is ended. Why didn't he pursue her? He knows why. She has only known him wearing his dripping, stinking coat of deceit. Only she can't smell it yet. But, if he pursues her she will.
Another wine tasting at Trella means figuring out another round of likely vintages, of getting Snoots tuned up again pressing circuits in shoes. He'll need another dozen pairs of wired sneakers. He needs to talk this over with Rob. And Dawn.
He has only spoken
to Dawn once since the night of the tasting. It's mostly out of consideration for her, because he knows she's buried in her work right now. And he knows that she'll fit in whatever she needs to do to help with the blog and just subtract those hours from her sleep allotment.
But, he also hasn't called her because he's a little frustrated with her. She's hurt Rob. This situation is not good for their business. Or their camaraderie -- which is Cory's only source of happiness these days.
Chapter Forty-Five
Genetica Labs, L-3. "So these are the high-affinity binding ligands for the target molecule. And there's more data."
There is intense excitement in her voice as Dawn beckons Pete to the computer screen she is looking at next to the microarray analyzers.
Pete leans in for a look. It's definitely interesting output, but something is on his mind. He decides to get it over with. "Total bummer about the news."
She gives him a blank stare.
He's guessed right, Greg has not yet found it convenient to come by her office. He continues. "Your, our, patent is being challenged. BioBits apparently filed a nearly identical process three months ago. Greg thinks the likely cost-benefit of it now may not be sufficient to defend it."
Dawn pushes her glasses up onto her head and looks at him. "Have you seen a report from the patent examiner? I assume there is one?"
Pete leans against the table with his arms crossed. "Not yet. But, Dawn, you know only thirty percent of drugs make it past Phase II. Plus, we've got two others in the pipeline right now, devouring our cash flow."
"This is really shitty news."
He nods, still frowning. "It is. We just couldn't know about prior art that's been filed only three months ahead of us."
She walks to the door, looking back at Pete. "I'm going to look at the objections. And I'm going to talk to Greg."
"I wouldn't. He's meeting with potential investors right now. Big pharma."
"Then I'll email him. He'll read that even during a meeting."
Dawn sits cross-legged on her living room couch, still in her clean-room shirt and pants. She's been in front of her laptop for two hours. She sent email to Greg, to which he replied with a short, noncommittal: it was a nasty surprise. Let's talk soon. -g.
After rereading the patent that bears her own name as principal inventor and the objections of the patent examiner, she is not convinced that BioBits has adequately staked out all their claims. The inhibitors are close, but not chemically identical. How they attach at receptor sites is different. Neither small molecule has undergone significant preclinical trials yet.
She really needs to sit down with Greg and review the gory details. She knows she's looking at a gray area, but it's potential pancreatic cancer therapies they're talking about, and she also knows that patent examiners sometimes just don't get the subtleties, the critical distinctions being made in 21st-century drug design.
The doorbell startles her from her thoughts. If Greg has decided to come by now and talk, that's even better. Barefoot, she bounds up from the couch and opens the front door.
Toby is standing there, dressed in a stylish Italian leather jacket. She instantly snuffs her look of surprised shock, but not before he catches a glimpse. He knows she has forgotten about their date.
She lowers her head, mortified. "God! I'm sorry. I've got a major meltdown at work." She looks back at Toby and gestures with her arm, "Please, come in."
He enters the room, trying to mask his annoyance with the situation. "Shall I cancel our reservation?" he asks her testily.
She really owes him an apology, an explanation. His presence brings back a flood of sensuous memories and she doesn't want him to go.
Looking at him, her blue eyes intense, she tells him, "My patent is being challenged."
His dark eyes soften subtly. "Tell me about it over a bottle of good Barolo."
She finally registers that he's holding a bouquet of flowers and smiles more deeply. "Roses. They're beautiful! Thank you. Let me put them in some water."
She returns from the kitchen with a vase and puts the roses in it. She touches Toby's arm in an attempted gesture of intimacy. "I'm going to change and I'll be really fast."
The attention she is paying him is working. He smiles at her. He'll wait.
Fidelio's. When they enter the restaurant, Dawn and Toby are immediately shown to a choice window table. Dawn is wearing a short black dress and blue topaz earrings. Her hair is swept up with a tortoise-shell clip and she is wearing her contact lenses, eye makeup deftly applied. Make-up skills learned from her beautiful Dutch roommate in private school. She wants to please Toby after their rough start this evening.
Previously, he'd been drawn to her airy prettiness and flashy, confident mind. But tonight she's glamorous. It's distracting him from his fact-finding mission.
The sommelier, a blonde, bearded man in his late thirties comes up to their table. "Toby! How is life at Two Ravens?"
Toby stands up and the two men embrace. "Hello, Stefano. The zinfandel looks promising this year, if the rains don't come too early. Let me introduce Dawn. She's a biochemist."
Stefano shakes her hand. "You two must have a lot in common."
Dawn likes Stefano's easy manner. "If you mean biochemistry, I'm just a scientist. He's the artist."
Toby glances at her, thinking she's overdoing the flattery.
But, Stefano agrees. "He is that. Let me just mention I've got one bottle left of a 1998 Barolo Marenca, Luigi Pira, if you're in the mood."
Toby nods enthusiastically. "We are. We'll figure out the food."
Dawn peruses the menu, it's vast and complex. She already knows Toby can cook. And the man knows wine deeply.
He finally looks up from his menu and asks her, "See something that strikes you?"
Her blue eyes, dramatic with a touch of smoky eye shadow, gaze at him. "You choose for me. To go with the wine. It all looks incredible."
When the waiter appears, Toby tells him, "The lady will have the osso buco with saffron-infused fregola and I'll have the skirt steak with the eggplant caponata. And we'll share an order of the grilled calamari with Calabrian chilies and smoked cipollini. And how about a salad. The golden beets with lamb's tongue."
The waiter disappears.
Dawn smiles at him. "So what is fregola?"
"It's from Sardinia. Halfway between pasta and couscous. You'll like it."
She smiles more deeply at him, trying to flirt.
He needs to remain on guard tonight, and she's making it hard. She really looks beautiful sitting across from him. There's a possibility he could actually fall for her. There are too many unknowns right now to make that a wise course.
They've enjoyed an incredible dinner and an equally incredible bottle of Italian wine. The last bit of it is in their glasses, and they are sipping it slowly. Small empty dessert plates and demitasses of coffee are in front of them.
Toby's edge has softened. "You know, I can relate to your frustrations today. Every year I watch the grapes and the weather, but until the harvest I am never sure. Too little rain, too much rain, sudden frost. The chance for a spectacular vintage is gone."
Stefano walks by and places two glasses of pale golden wine in front of them. "2001 Coutet Barsac. On the house, Toby."
"That's incredibly generous, Stefano. Thanks."
"Great to see you. I need to get up to Sonoma. I need to restock my Two Ravens."
"Come by any time. Give my regards to Janice and the kids."
"You bet. Enjoy the evening."
Dawn takes a sip of the fine sauterne. She is completely relaxed now, living in the moment. She doesn't want the evening to end. She lays her hand on the table, hoping Toby will take it. He doesn't.
She takes another sip of the sauterne, looking at him with a soft, almost vulnerable, expression. "Winemaking is a kind of alchemy, isn't it. Drawing out the grapes' essence, turning it into gold."
Toby looks directly into her eyes. "Winemaking is not easy, Dawn
. It's an incredibly fickle business on top of the agricultural challenges. The wrong kind of publicity can ruin a small producer."
She nods empathetically, misreading the intensity in his eyes.
He takes a sip of the sauterne, it's evident from his expression that he thinks it's perfect. He looks into her eyes again. "A lot of sophisticated people drink wine. It gives them pleasure. It's their hobby. But for us, it's our livelihood."
She looks down, feeling vaguely uneasy.
He continues. "Two of my regular customers in Sonoma, high-end restaurants, didn't place their usual orders for the vintage that's now in barrels. Why is that?" Toby pauses to sip more of the exquisite sauterne. He looks back at her. "I'm concerned it's because of that bad review."
"What review?"
"Your buddy, who has become a celebrity critic it seems, called my wine average at that tasting. It got written up that way. In Napa, in Sonoma, 'average' is the kiss of death. My guess is, your guy has never sampled wine from the barrel. He didn't know how to analyze it for what it was."
She feels a terrible sense of responsibility. Are they ruining his business? It's not what they are about. She doesn't know what to say. She shrugs unconsciously and then realizes what a mistake she's made.
He grasps her hand forcefully. "What the hell is Blind Tasting? Your guy absolutely nails a Dante Hill single-sourced vintage almost immediately, but then he can't even ballpark a fine young syrah, still in the cask?"
She looks at him miserably. "Is this why you invited me to dinner? For an inquisition?"
"I've been totally honest with you. Evidently, that's more than you can say."
"God, Toby, I haven't lied to you." She finishes the glass of sauterne, but there's no pleasure in it now. The evening is shot to hell. "Will you take me home? Please."
They drive back to her house in silence. Toby parks on the street in front. Dawn tries to gauge his mood; she puts her hand on his arm and speaks gently, rationally. "I'm sorry about that review. But, our blog said great things about your Fire Lake, your Love Child. Cory admires you."
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