“Good for you.”
“I can’t do it without you. Please say you’ll help me?”
He sidestepped that. “Where are you staying in Napa?”
“With a friend of Pépé’s. Robert Sanábria.”
“Sanábria? Jesus, Lucie, you’re full of surprises. You know who Sanábria is, don’t you? California Winemaker of the Year a couple of years ago. One of the heavyweights in Napa. I didn’t know your grandfather knew him.”
“You’re avoiding the question.”
“What question?”
“Will you or won’t you help me blend this wine? You’re so much better at this than I am.”
“You must really want my help if you’re buttering me up.”
“You make it sound like I’m asking you to hang the moon someplace new,” I said. “Mick pays well, you know that.”
“Whose wine?”
“Cab from a vineyard called Rose Hill. It’s in Calistoga on the Silverado Trail.”
“I’ve heard of it,” he said. “Winemaker is some guy named Fargo, I think.”
“There’s a new owner. It’s probably a coincidence, but her name is Brooke Hennessey. I don’t suppose she’s related—”
He cut me off. “Jesus, Lucie! You left that until the end on purpose, didn’t you? She’s his daughter. Man, of all the gin joints in the world, Ilsa. Why’d you have to pick that one?”
“Please don’t be angry. I didn’t pick it.” He’d blown up like a volcano as soon as I mentioned Brooke. “There’s a lot more to the story that you don’t know. I can’t go into it now; it’s too complicated.”
“When is anything you do not complicated?”
I let that one pass. At least he hadn’t turned me down. But he still sounded mad. I plunged ahead.
“So you’re not in touch with Brooke Hennessey?”
“Last time I saw her she was sixteen. I heard she went off to Davis to study enology and viticulture like her old man. I never thought she’d stick it out, but she did.”
“Will you please come with me to this meeting? Please?”
His laughter was harsh. “You make it sound like it’s no big deal.”
I waited and bit my tongue.
When he answered, it was grudging. “I suppose I knew sooner or later I’d run into her. Just didn’t figure on it being now.”
“Thank you,” I said. “I’m really grateful. You have no idea.”
“Oh, you’ll pay for this, don’t you worry.”
“Send the bill to Mick,” I said. “Why don’t I call you when I get to town? Are you staying in San Jose at your mother’s place?”
“I’m kind of moving around. Right now I’m in Sausalito. Keeping an eye on a friend’s houseboat.”
When he was being evasive like that there was always more to the story. Until now, I’d thought of Quinn as someone who belonged to the land, with his innate understanding of the rhythm and pace of the growing season, his intuitive knack for knowing exactly when to harvest the grapes and when it was wiser to wait. It never occurred to me that he might be equally comfortable on the water, that maybe he was an adept sailor who knew firsthand about navigating the pretty bays around San Francisco or had grown up surfing California’s golden beaches like the sun-kissed boys and girls in the endless summers of old Beach Boys songs.
I knew almost nothing about his past, what his life had been like growing up. But that’s how he’d kept it in Virginia and it seemed he hadn’t changed now that he was back in California.
“A houseboat. How romantic.”
“You would say something like that.” At least his voice had lost its edge. “Look, it’s really easy to get from Sausalito to the city. Where are you staying?”
“Oh, gosh, I have no idea. It was four A.M. when we were having the discussion about the trip and I forgot to ask. Probably somewhere downtown, knowing Pépé.”
“The Embarcadero? Union Square?”
“I’m embarrassed to tell you this, but I really don’t know San Francisco. The last time I was there was probably twenty years ago. All I remember was that it was big and hilly.”
“It still is. When do you have to go up to Napa?”
“Sometime between tomorrow and Wednesday, when we fly home.”
“So you’ll have time to do some sightseeing,” he said. “I could show you around, if you want.”
“Would you? I’d like that.”
“Yeah, I’ll show you the real city. The good, the bad, and the ugly. We’ll skip the tourist traps.”
“How poetic. I thought you’d say you want me to leave my heart in San Francisco.”
“There are worse places to leave it,” he said. “Call me when you get in.”
He hung up.
He was right. There were worse places to leave my heart. Like where it was right now. Missing him.
Our Bastille Day party passed in a blur of voices and laughter and music. At the end of the evening we set off our best fireworks ever from a barge in the middle of the small pond by the Ruins, watching them fizz red, white, and blue as they lit up the silhouette of the mountains and cascaded over the dense rows of vines. For the first time in the past few days I felt absurdly happy, even giddy, partly because of all the compliments we got from our guests and partly because I’d kicked back and drunk enough wine to make me tipsy.
Frankie had transformed the courtyard between the villa and the winery into the kind of Parisian brasserie Hemingway and Fitzgerald would have frequented—white linen tablecloths, flickering candlelight, bud vases with a single rose—a midsummery night tableau of heads bent together across bistro tables in earnest conversation or flirty romance. Swags of Japanese lanterns hung across the courtyard, and tiny white lights woven through the arcade beams and around the columns gave the scene a dreamy, fluid timelessness. Over the last few weeks Frankie had taken my mother’s French records—the well-known chanteurs like Aznavour, Brel, Bécaud, Brassens, Piaf, and the classic rock and rollers like Patricia Kaas, Johnny Hallyday, Sylvie Vartan, Jean-Jacques Goldman, and dozens of others—and turned them into CD sound tracks. We played those during dinner until one of our favorite deejays showed up and started playing the kind of swingy dance music that emptied the tables and had people spilling into the arcades when the makeshift dance floor overflowed.
I caught sight of Pépé, genial and happy, sitting at a table the Romeos had staked out a few steps from the bar. Later I knew they’d disappear to smoke the Cuban cigars he’d brought from Paris. Eli came with Hope, who looked like a dark-haired angel in a white sundress with an enormous V-neck collar. I watched him catch her in his arms and swoop her up, whirling her around until they both were dizzy with laughter, her sweet face flushed and glowing, chubby arms clenched tight around my brother’s neck.
Once or twice I noticed Eli staring at Jasmine Nouri, who had helped Dominique set up and serve the bistro menu for the evening. He seemed mesmerized by the way she threw back her head to laugh at something one of the waiters whispered in her ear, the candlelight strafing her dark, glossy hair and silhouetting her profile like a noble relief on a coin. A couple of waitresses joined her behind the serving table and the group of them linked arms, singing and dancing with Aretha, the Beatles, Smokey. Jasmine moved with the sensual grace of a natural dancer, and by now the waiter who had shared the joke had begun hovering around her like a moth around a flame. I saw something hungry in Eli’s eyes as he stared at the pair of them, then Hope tugged his arm and they disappeared into the crowd.
Much later Kit Eastman showed up alone. She was still dressed in her work clothes, so I knew she’d probably spent another Saturday editing reporters’ stories for the Sunday paper and buried under paperwork. In the swirling chiaroscuro of candlelight and shadow, she looked haggard and run-down.
She leaned in for our usual air kiss. “Hey, hon. Sorry I’m late.”
“Where’s Bobby?” I cupped my hand to her ear so she could hear above the bouncy doo-wop harmony of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons.