“I’m game for anything,” I said as I typed. “I’m updating your social media, in case you notice things happening. And I was thinking the first thing I would do would be to plan an evening tasting and jazz night.”
“Great,” she said.
“Do you have a marketing budget at all?” I asked.
“It’s around here somewhere,” she said, gesturing toward the piles of paper. “I mean, to be honest, there’s not a lot of extra cash around. You can spend a few hundred dollars; I’ll give you cash out of my pocket if I have to, but things are tight. And you charge for admission?”
“Yes, but I don’t know if that’ll cover everything. I want the tickets to feel binding enough for people to show up, but cheap enough that they’re not a purchase you worry too much about. We can maybe charge for extra wine, too, like beyond the first glass. And we can sell bottles. I bet people will take a bottle home. But I think we need to provide entertainment and food.”
“For music, ask Jackson Hill,” she said. “He’s my old friend from high school and he lives in town and is a great saxophone player. He’ll bring some guys and probably will work for food and wine if you’re nice to him.”
“That’s perfect,” I said.
“Oh, and he doesn’t like the phone, so you’ll need to go up to his place to ask him. I’m sure he’ll be happy to see you.”
“Okay,” I said, warily.
“To be honest, he’s not the most social guy. But he won’t slam the door in your face. I’ll draw you a map,” she said. “Good thing you’re pretty. That’ll help.” My looks had never been discussed so much. She handed me the map and pushed me toward the door as if she was glad to get rid of me. It was going to be hard to convince her that having me around was going to be fun and would make her life better. In practice, she was used to working alone.
I headed out to my car and propped Linda’s map on my dashboard. I sat there studying it and thinking about what I would say when I arrived at Jackson’s. “Hi, I’m this random new person in town who Linda hired, and today’s my first day and I’m coming to ask you a favor out of the blue.” It seemed crazy, especially since Linda was the one who knew Jackson. I took a deep breath, turned off the car, and headed back inside. Linda was standing at an overflowing filing cabinet and making a squinty face.
“I’m back,” I said. She jumped a little, clearly she wasn’t expecting me to come back.
“You startled me,” she said.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I realized that it would just be so weird for me to show up by myself to Jackson’s house. I mean, maybe it wouldn’t be for someone like Celeste, but for me . . . Anyway, I wonder if you would mind coming with me.”
She paused for a moment, as if she was really considering it. A kind of panic passed over her face and then a smile. “I just haven’t seen him in such a long time,” she said in a dreamier way than she had spoken in the past.
“So, you’ll do it?” I asked.
She sighed. “Okay. I must have secretly wanted to see him when I suggested it. Can I have a few minutes? I need to call Felipe and ask him to cover the room.”
“Of course,” I said. I settled in my desk chair and she disappeared. When she returned, more than a few minutes later, she was wearing a tasteful chambray shirtdress with three-quarter-length sleeves. She’d put some bronzer on her cheeks and a light gloss on her lips. She’d pulled her salt-and-pepper hair back from her face with a comb. She hadn’t been wearing makeup at dinner the night before or any of the times I’d seen her in the office or tasting room. I wondered if she was trying to impress Jackson, or me.
“You look nice,” I said.
“I can clean myself up every once in a while,” she said. “Mostly it’s just easier not to, though.”
“I get it,” I said.
“Oh, to be young,” she said. “You don’t have to worry about cleaning yourself up.”
“I wear makeup every day,” I protested.
“Well, you should stop,” she said. “You don’t need it.”
I blushed. “That’s nice,” I said.
I wasn’t sure what to say next, but then Felipe entered the room. “Here I am,” he said. He was around my height, with bright blue eyes and dark brown hair, closely cropped. He looked to be around my age. But he was an expert winemaker. How was that possible?
“Hi,” I said. “I’m Hannah, the summer . . . something. Marketing person?” I wasn’t sure what I was.
“It is very nice to meet you,” he said. He had an accent, which manifested itself in his pronouncing every word distinctly.
“Likewise,” I said.
“You got this?” Linda asked.
“I am getting this,” he said.
“It’s good for you to be in the room every once in a while.”
“Last time nobody came,” he said. “I am hoping for the same this time.”
“I’m not!” I said. “I’m going to tweet that our expert winemaker is pouring tastes for the rest of the afternoon.”
He blushed and laughed a little. “I do not appreciate that.”
“You’ll love it,” I said.
“Let’s go,” Linda said. “You drive, I’ll direct. Thanks, Felipe.”
“Safe traveling,” he called after us.
* * *
—
We walked out to my car and I drove away from the winery in the opposite direction from town. After about five minutes we found ourselves in pure countryside, surrounded by grapevines in long, straight lines. Linda put on NPR and listened silently, lost in her own thoughts. As I wound up into the hills, the roads narrow and bumpy, signs peppering the shoulder: SICK OF POTHOLES? GO TO POTHOLEGUYS.NET. The route could use a good resurfacing. Tiny corkscrew roads with few residents. They must be hard to maintain. Then again, it would be horrible to get a flat out on one of them where you might or might not have cell service and there wasn’t another person for miles. I did my best to avoid the holes, as my car, a ten-year-old Hyundai that I had bought for a thousand dollars when I moved to Berkeley, wasn’t the most robust car in the world. It shook when I drove it above sixty miles per hour and didn’t have any shocks at all. Ethan called it “the go-kart.” But it got me from place to place and barely used any gas. And rarely broke down if I kept the oil changed and rotated the tires. “There’s nothing to break,” he would mock me. “It’s like man’s first car.” The car had crank windows and a tape player, and you had to physically unlock the doors; no remote keyless entry for me. But I liked it that way. After seven years on the subway, my one-thousand-dollar Hyundai Accent was the height of luxury.
“Sorry about the car,” I said.
“What about it?”
“It’s not the smoothest ride,” I said. “Ethan called it the go-kart.”
“Oh, I don’t mind,” she said. “We aren’t used to fancy cars. And I know these roads . . . They haven’t been attended to in a long time.”
“I wonder why,” I said.
“No need,” she explained. “It’s not like a lot of people drive on them, and we don’t get the snow and ice like out east.”
“It is paradise,” I said.
“Sometimes,” she said.
As I drove, I saw cows and goats in pastures and farmhouses set back from the road, all of which seemed to be positioned for the best views of the valley. I wondered how long these farms had been in the families of their current residents, how one came to be a California farmer or a small-production winemaker. There had been many children of farmers in Iowa where I grew up who didn’t come to school during planting and harvesttime. I would ask my parents if I could skip school too, but my mother told me I was lucky not to have to do manual labor and I could get a job if I wanted one, but there was no way I could miss school. The kids who had to work on the farms never seemed too happy about it, and once one told me t
hat he much preferred math class to feeding a thresher. But I was still jealous.
“So, you and Jackson went to high school together?” I asked.
“We did,” she said. I could tell she was being evasive. Her makeup sparkled.
“Do a lot of people that you know from that time still live around here? It seems like you grew up with Celeste’s parents also.”
“Some,” she said.
“Why did Jackson stay?”
“He didn’t, but then he always had the house here. When his parents died . . .”
“Oh,” I said, sympathetically.
“He has a lot of land,” she said. “He can make as much noise as he wants.”
“That’s good for a musician,” I said.
“Just up here,” she said as we went around what felt like a hundred curves.
Jackson Hill’s house was at the end of a long, winding mountain road. He had a wooden gate that I had to get out of my car to open, and then I drove up a dirt road that continued past a small pond surrounded by ducks and a garden surrounded by a high anti-deer fence, a few grapevines, less tidy than the ones I had seen from the road, and a woodpile, complete with ax. It looked as if he had just stopped chopping to run into the house.
The house at the end of the road was a log cabin that looked like it had been built in the 1800s. Solid but small. A large Doberman lounged in the shade under a giant tree that grew beside the house. He looked up and yawned when I drove up, gravel crunching under my wheels. He gave a small bark when I stopped the car, but then went back to sleep.
The front door opened as I turned off the car, and an extremely tall and thin man with curly gray hair that seemed to grow vertically up out of his head appeared in the doorway. He looked like Lyle Lovett. His limbs were long and gangly and he held a cup of coffee in bony fingers.
“Who’s there?” he asked as I got out of my car.
“I’m Hannah Greene. I work at the Bellosguardo Winery. Linda sent me to talk to you about a gig.”
“I’m not playing anymore,” he said, and turned around and went back into the house. But he didn’t close the door behind him, so I took that to mean that the conversation wasn’t entirely closed. I followed him and stood in the doorway. Linda was still sitting in the car, with the window rolled down, and he didn’t seem to see her.
“It would be a huge favor to Linda. And to me, not that you know me.” His brusqueness made me feel sheepish. I looked back at Linda and gestured that I needed her help.
“I don’t,” he said, loudly.
Linda got out of the car and approached the door. “But you know me,” she said.
“Linda,” he said. He made the same face that she had made when I had suggested that she come. A shy smile.
“I knew you would give her a hard time,” she said, approaching the house.
“I give everyone a hard time,” he said. She approached and he hugged her tight. He even lifted her off the ground a little.
“Well,” she said. “Now you have to at least invite us in and offer us some iced tea.”
“How do you know I have iced tea?” he asked.
“Because your mother taught you well,” she said.
He nodded. “I do have some that I made yesterday. Sun tea, in fact.”
“I knew it,” she said.
He held the door open for us. “Welcome to Chez Hill.”
“Thanks,” I said.
“Don’t have much of a choice, do I?” he muttered to nobody in particular.
We walked directly into the kitchen, which was open to the rest of the house. A classic log cabin, clearly decorated by a single man. There were leather couches and a large television. A California flag hung on the wall, as did a gold record and a flattened saxophone.
“Have a seat,” he said, gesturing toward a wood table that looked like it was made from unfinished branches. He busied himself with the tea while I tried not to smile too broadly at Linda.
He brought the tea in mason jars to the table and sat next to Linda. He looked at me. “I played at their wedding, you know.”
“Were Everett and Linda high school sweethearts?”
He laughed. “Not exactly. More like high school enemies. Linda was actually my high school girlfriend.”
Linda shot a look at Jackson that said, “Stop it, now.”
“The plot thickens,” I teased.
“We haven’t seen each other in a long time,” he said. “What’s it been . . .”
“Five years?” Linda asked.
“Maybe longer,” he said. “Did I play at William’s graduation party?”
“You did,” she said. “But he’s thirty now, so that’s nine years.”
“Time flies,” he said. “How’s he doing?”
“He’s in New York for the summer,” she said.
“But that’s not why you’re here,” he said.
“We,” I said, interrupting their banter. “Well, I, if you want me to be specific. I’m trying to help them grow the vineyard. So we’re going to have an event. A party. For locals and tourists. And we’d love for you to play at it.”
“I’m busy,” he said.
“I didn’t tell you when it was yet,” I said.
“Good point,” he grumbled.
“I can work around your schedule,” I said. “You’re the first person I’m talking to about it. I want it to be on a Friday. In the summer. But again, flexible.”
“Okay,” he said. “I’ll look at my calendar and call you.”
“Can you look now?”
“You don’t trust me, do you?”
I made a noise that indicated wavering trust. He nodded and pushed himself up from the table. His body was gangly and oddly flexible, as if he had also been doing yoga for forty years. That was entirely possible; he did grow up in Northern California after all. He ambled over to an old rolltop desk. When he rolled the top up, it looked like it was stuffed to the brim with paper. The only thing keeping it from exploding was the roll top itself. He reached behind the crumpled paper and pulled out a well-worn pocket paper calendar. He flipped through some pages. “Looks like I’m free in June.”
“All of June?”
“Looks like it.” He didn’t seem insecure about this, which I loved. I wondered why he needed a calendar. Maybe it made him feel better. The idea of future plans. I, too, was free for all of June, but I was new in town. He seemed wise to me. I wondered if he regretted letting Linda go.
I smiled. “So what’s the first Friday in June? We can call it First Fridays at Bellosguardo.”
“June second.”
“You’re booked! I’ll pay you in wine and tips.”
“I don’t love the wine, though . . . You might have to cough up some beer,” he joked.
“Done,” I said.
“Wait. I have one more question.”
I raised an eyebrow at him. “Yes?”
“Just wondering what today is.”
I consulted my iPhone even though I knew exactly what day it was: the day I wasn’t starting at Goldman Sachs. “May fifteenth. We have about three weeks to get ready.”
“Okay,” he said. “We can do it.”
* * *
—
I thanked Jackson and got up from the table. I walked out in front of Linda but heard tense murmuring behind me. I tried my hardest to listen.
“You always do this . . . ,” he said.
“. . . miss you . . . ,” she said.
“. . . when things . . . okay,” he said. “I was always a sucker for you, Lindy.”
“I’m sorry,” she said.
When she met me at the door, there were tears in her eyes. I knew better than to say anything. I held the door open for her and followed her to the car.
We got in and drove in silence, not e
ven the radio playing, until we got to the bottom of the long, windy road that led to Jackson’s door. Once we were back on the main roads, she started to talk.
“So, that’s my Jackson,” she said.
“You were together in high school?”
“We were really in love,” she said. “But it couldn’t be. And now, he’s right, every few years, I get an itch. Like regular life isn’t enough and . . .”
“You go back to him?”
“Well, usually, I just call him and then we have a drink and get in a fight and I realize things with Everett are fine. There was one time when we really did get together for a summer; things were so bad at the winery, financially, and Everett and I just could not get along at all. But it was so hard on William. I eventually came back.”
“How was it between you two, you and Jackson?”
“Oh, that time?” She stared out the window. “It was good. Until it wasn’t.”
“And he’s never been married?”
“No,” she said. “He’s had girlfriends. There was even one who moved in for a while. But you must have seen, he’s not the easiest . . . I know how to pick them, don’t I?”
I had so many questions, but I let her keep talking.
“It was never practical,” she said, as if she was trying to tell herself the story to confirm she had done the right thing. “I had to stay here. My parents needed me for the winery. He wanted to be a rock star.”
“And?” I asked.
“I did. And he was. For a bit. Went down to LA, to Nashville. Played on a lot of records. Had a band. What were they called? The Fugitives? The Rascals? The Jailbirds? I can’t quite remember. It was a kind of fusion jazz. They had a trumpet and a saxophone. Anyway, they came up here and Everett and I went to see them in San Francisco. At the Fillmore, opening for B.B. King. I remember they played a mean version of ‘The House That Jack Built’ in their encore. He did a solo. Changed the way I thought of that song. I think I was pregnant with William.”
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