Christmas in Wine Country (27 page)

“So I’ve heard.” Lila pictured tiny, graceful Axelle in her wee slip of a red dress.

“What was most interesting?” Jake ran a hand through his hair and stretched out, propping his feet up on the wine crate. “This time around, I saw things more from my father’s perspective. There’s a lot of bureaucracy over there. Everything’s controlled by the government. I happen to agree with a lot of their mandates, but it’s really restrictive. Someone like my father could never have grown the kind of business he has now.”

Lila didn’t know much about checks and balances between government and business, but she did know a thing or two about perspectives shifting over time. “So, you saw things differently when you lived over there?”

“Oh, God,” Jake exhaled. “When I was 24 I thought I was one of the peasant farmers working to overthrow the capitalist regime through grape cultivation.” Lila laughed, able instantly to picture a young, scowling Communist Jake. “Now I see everything from all sides,” he continued. “It kind-of sucks.”

“It is so much easier to just be mad at stuff,” Lila agreed.

“There’s a gift to being a kid. You see things in black and white.”

“Oh, I know,” Lila agreed, recalling how clearly she used to chart a course for herself. “I used to be so sure about what I needed to do to be a success.”

“Were you working for the revolution, too?” Jake smiled at her and Lila shifted, unconsciously working her way closer to him on the couch.

“Nothing so noble,” she admitted. “I’ve been more like a mouse in a maze after the cheese. First, the goal was straight As so I could get a scholarship to college. Then, it was straight As to keep my academic scholarship at Colgate. And then, it was climbing the corporate ladder at an ad agency in the city.” She pictured herself, worried, pinched, too thin, miserable. Could that have really been her? And yet not even a year had passed since then.

“Did it make you happy?” Jake asked.

“I tried. I tried really hard.” Lila looked at him to emphasize how hard.

“Why?”

“I guess I didn’t want to fail.” That had gone well.

“No, I mean, why were you there? Why did you decide that’s what you should do?”

“Right.” Lila sank back, taking a sip of wine and smiling at the question. She’d given it a lot of thought in the past few months, yet somehow had never asked it of herself during that phase of her life. “I think I felt like I owed it to my mom,” she admitted. “She had me when she was 19 and never had those chances.” Lila explained how much her mother had sacrificed—her career, her education, her own life, in many ways, to raise Lila.

“Guilt is a powerful thing.”

“And so subtle,” Lila agreed. “At least to me. But maybe I was just really dumb. I don’t even think I realized how miserable I was. Honestly, if everything hadn’t fallen apart, if I hadn’t lost my job and gotten dumped I think I’d still be there. If I hadn’t wound up failing so fantastically…well, you saw it,” she remembered, looking down as she rubbed the bridge of her nose.

“What, at the holiday party?” he asked.

“Well, the company was doing layoffs,” Lila recalled. “But I don’t think the karaoke helped.”

“It was pretty impressive,” Jake agreed. “It made quite an impression.” 

Lila wondered what, exactly, that impression had been. Fearing the worst, she returned to her theme. “If they hadn’t kicked me to the curb, I’d still be there.”

“I know what you’re talking about,” Jake agreed. “Guilt is big for me, too.” 

“Really?” Lila didn’t see it. “But you’ve been so independent. You stayed away for so long.” 

“That’s why I feel guilty. I got so good at giving my father the finger from across the ocean. I built him up into a comic book villain,” he admitted, messing with the back of his hair as Lila noticed he did when he was thinking. “Then I came back for my grandmother’s funeral.” Jake explained how a year and a half ago when he’d returned to Redwood Cove he’d been shocked to see how much his father had aged. “He has a heart condition now. He needs help. I hear his third wife was a nightmare. She’s out of the picture now, but you should see some of the people around him, or hanging off of him. They suck.”

Lila was reminded of Shakespearian plays and the dangers of kings surrounded by sycophantic advisors. “Does he know he needs help? Is that why he wants you working with him?”

“He wants me to take over the business for him when he retires.”

“What about Oliver?” Aware she might be treading into sensitive territory, she still asked, figuring, hey, they’d been sitting there talking nonstop for she didn’t know how long sharing things she wasn’t even sure she’d talked about with Annie and the bottom line was, she wanted to know.

“Oliver,” Jake sighed. “Oliver is…”

“Different from you?” Lila suggested, realizing she sounded somewhat hopeful.

Jake laughed and explained how different Oliver’s upbringing had been than his own. Too young to be sent away to school, Oliver had been raised by Big Bob and his first trophy wife. He’d had a taste of the high life, found that he liked it, and tailored his life toward becoming a successful businessman. Naturally, this led to Big Bob favoring Jake to take over the family business.

“So your dad thinks you’re a tree-hugging lunatic,” Lila recapped. “But he wants you to take over?”

“On his terms,” Jake said, “without my tree-hugging bullshit.” Lila looked at him, confused. “Oh, it doesn’t make sense,” Jake agreed. “But he’s a stubborn man and I was away so long I think he got fixated on bringing me back. Plus, I think he likes that I struck out on my own and didn’t come running home to daddy—even though he wanted me to. And he says I’m the only one who’s honest with him. Which is true,”
Jake
acknowledged, pouring them some more wine.

“That’s complicated.” Lila sipped her wine, thinking how families almost always were.

Jake shook his head. “It’s crazy. I spent so many years wanting more of him. Then I guess he spent a while wanting more of me.” 

“My dad wasn’t around when I was growing up either.” Surprising herself that she’d shared that, Lila looked down and didn’t elaborate. She’s devoted so much energy her whole life to wondering where her father was, what he was like and how he could be happy with no involvement in her life. If she were brutally honest, she had to admit that had been part of the relentless drive that had pushed her through her unhappy teens and early twenties—the misguided hope that if she achieved enough, became enough of a success, he’d be lured into her life.

“That’s hard,” Jake said. Lila could have sworn he nearly reached out to touch her hand but seemed to catch himself, bringing it, instead, up to his hair.

Lila shrugged. “I guess now the good thing is I can see it more from his side. He was 19, like my mom. He thought he was just having a summer fling. He wasn’t ready to be a father.”

Jake shook his head. “Seems like you’re doing a really good job seeing his side of it.” He exhaled and there was that crooked smile again. “But doesn’t it suck? Having to be all mature about things?” Lila smiled, knowing what he meant. “You grow up and realize we’re all human, everyone makes mistakes, we’re all trying our best, that kind of thing.”

“You liked it better when your dad was a comic book villain?” she asked, amused.

“No, I’m just saying, in some ways it was easier. Here I am, neck-deep in
bi
z
dev—” he turned to her conspiratorially—“that’s business development to you laypeople.” In a self-mocking tone, he continued, “I’m running around in a suit and tie, kissing people’s asses so we can expand our market share and maximize our profits. And I don’t even agree with how he’s running the business!”

“You could always pull out that middle finger again,” Lila suggested, laughing. “You said you got really good at doing that all those years.”

“That’s the problem.” Jake described how he felt he’d spent so long in that defiant extreme, he now felt trapped in the other. Lila got the image of a pendulum, Jake on the end of it. 

Lila took a sip of her wine and blocked yet another dangerous impulse to touch. This time it had been his hand. After gesturing around with exasperation at himself and the predicament he’d gotten himself into, Jake rested his arm along the back of the couch, his hand merely inches away from Lila’s shoulder. He had long fingers. Tan and calloused, he had a few minor scrapes and cuts. She bet he always did, prone as he was to digging around in the dirt. Damn if she hadn’t nearly reached out and touched it.

She decided that it was time. The ice had melted. The bottle of wine sat nearly empty. The sun was going down, taking with it any last illusion that Lila was simply
pausing for a brief res
pite
with her injury. Their conversation had ranged wide and barely paused. It also had never touched on his girlfriend.

Sitting up straighter, Lila ventured, “So, does Vanessa live here with you?”

             
“What?” He nearly spat out his sip of wine. “What would give you that idea? No.”

             
“OK,” Lila held her hands up defensively. “I was just wondering.”

             
“We’re not even dating.”

             
“You’re not?”

             
“No.” He shook his head. “Well, we were for a couple months. But it wasn’t anything serious. I ended it in March. Just a week before that damn magazine article came out.”

             
“But you went on that trip together?” Lila asked, remembering Vanessa’s toe-tapping at the vineyard.

             
“Business,” Jake explained. “She does all kinds of events at the vineyard and my dad sees her as this great resource. He’s hired her on as a consultant.”

             
“One of those great people he has around him.”

             
“One of the best.” Jake matched her wry smile. “Sometimes I think he wishes he were dating her himself, but that’s too weird even for my dad. She’s just his type, though, all business. He loved it when we were together—a good business partner, the foundation of a good marriage he told me. As if he would know.”

             
“But you’re not together now?” Lila asked, feeling a giddiness bubbling up within and wanting to hear it again.

             
“No,” Jake confirmed. “It was never a serious thing, we were just around each other all the time and she can be,” he paused, looking for the right word. “Relentless. She was around a lot and one thing led to another and then I ended it.”

             
“She still seems to be around a lot,” Lila observed, wondering if the same tactic might work on him again. 

             
“So, tell me,” Jake sat up, gleam in his eye. “You’re proud of everyone you’ve dated?”

             
“Well,” Lila squirmed a bit. “I wouldn’t exactly say…”

             
“The guy back at Ted’s with his arm wrapped around you?”

             
“He’s not…It’s…” She struggled for a good defense, unable to completely dismiss the reference to Trucker Tom.

             
“I rest my case,” Jake concluded, resting back against the sofa.

“OK, we’ve both made mistakes,” Lila acknowledged, tucking a curl behind her ear.

             
“But maybe not so much
anymore
?” Jake asked, looking at her with a smile.

             
“Maybe not,” Lila agreed, smiling back.

             
“I think we need some more wine,” Jake announced and rose off the sofa to head toward the kitchen.

             
“Because no one makes mistakes when they’re drinking wine,” Lila observed.

             
“Get your mind out of the gutter, Clark,” Jake reprimanded from the kitchen. “I was thinking we needed to make a toast.”

             
“Of course you were,” Lila laughed and looked out the window, wondering what was coming next. 

*
             
*
             
*
             

Standing naked in Jake’s bathroom, Lila wiped a circle clear in the fogged mirror. Heart thumping in her chest, her cheeks were as red as an apple and only partially due to the two glasses of wine she’d had and the hot shower she’d just taken. I’m sooo Zen, she thought mockingly, rolling her eyes and recalling that moment just a couple of weeks ago on the bench at the ocean. So calm and unattached. 

At that moment, Jake was downstairs making dinner. OK, so it was potatoes with gigantic tubers they’d had to break off and some sausages out of the freezer that had had more ice on them than meat, but still. They’d spent the last six straight hours of talking on his couch as she ‘iced her foot’—though, of course, all icing had pretty much stopped after the first twenty minutes—before a pause when her stomach had given a loud rumble. “You need food,” Jake had declared.

So here she was, standing with a wet mass of hair that, washed without any conditioner, would slowly dry into an insane curly tangle of a lion’s mane. There was
also the issue of undergarments, or the lack thereof. She’d been wearing leggings a running tank and shorts with built-in bra and panties and was now facing the prospect of commando. Pulling on his sweatpants, about a foot too long, and buttoning up his shirt which she realized was just as soft and yummy as she’d imagined, she decided to just go with it. Because when a gorgeous man told you to go change out of your running clothes and take a hot shower while he made you dinner, the correct answer was “all right.”