Christmas in Wine Country (38 page)

             
With a gasp, Zoe exclaimed, “I knew it! Oliver’s gay!”

             
Tilting her head, Lila bit her lip and wondered, not for the first time, how Zoe’s mind made its connections. Also, how would Oliver being gay slow things down at the vineyard?

             
“Nope,” Pete replied. 

“Come on, honey.” Annie toyed with the strings on the hood of his sweatshirt. “You know we’re going to get it out of you.”

With a mighty sigh, Pete rubbed his eyes, then face, then surrendered. “All right.” Zoe cheered and drew near; Lila couldn’t help stepping closer herself. “It’s Big Bob Endicott. I hear he had a heart attack a week or two before Thanksgiving.”

“Oh no! Is he all right?” Lila remembered Jake had mentioned he had a heart condition.

“I don’t know much.” With a pointed look toward his wife, Pete added, “The family’s trying to keep it quiet. But what I’ve heard is it was a mild heart attack and now he’s at home resting.”

Big Bob confined to a bed. Lila pictured him wearing his trademark Stetson while propped up on pillows, barking orders at anyone foolish enough to come within earshot.

“We are so out of touch with our hearts,” Zoe observed.

“I wonder if he’ll step down?” Annie mused as she returned to her magazine stack. “Hard to see that happening, though.”

“Remember, the family’s keeping things quiet,” Pete repeated as his wife nodded.

As Zoe began opining on Omega 3s, magnesium deficiencies and heart health, Lila sat back with the paint chips and her thoughts. A heart attack. Mild or no, that was the real deal. She remembered Jake talking about the hectic pace they kept, the constant meetings and networking and travel. The dinners and, of course, the wine. Big Bob had certainly earned his name, in width as well as height.

Strained as things had been between him and his father, Lila guessed that this was rocking Jake’s world. Maybe even because things were strained. Jake’s father had played such a larger-than-life role to him. Villains became much more complex once they revealed their frailty. 

             
This called for a
Bundt
cake, Lila realized. She hadn’t spent 18 years under Gram’s roof for nothing. Births, deaths and any serious illnesses or accidents that raised the specter of the latter all required a delivery of food. Family-pleasing casseroles usually suited welcoming newcomers. They’d also do in the other circumstances, but a nice slice of cake with a hot cup of tea struck Lila as just the thing during a time of trouble.

             
She’d call Gram tonight for a recipe, she decided. Looking at the clock she revised that to tomorrow; it was 10:30pm back East. It had already been five weeks since she’d last seen Jake—not that she was counting but she was pretty much counting—what was another day? An interminable eon, she admitted, letting herself acknowledge for a moment just how much she wanted to see him. And now that she
knew about his father, even more than her exploding curiosity over why and how he’d pulled out of the lease, she felt worried. His family and his father’s entourage seemed more like a pit of vipers than a support network. She’d stop by Jake’s house Friday before work, she decided. No more wondering, wishing, waiting—she was done with the entire W-word family. It was time to grow up, put childish things like insecurities aside and get serious with some
Bundt
cake. 

             
             
             
             
             
             
*
             
*
             
*
             

             
At quarter of ten on Friday morning, Lila could think of several thousand reasons why she shouldn’t be in her car, neatly wrapped
Bundt
cake riding shotgun, nearly at Jake’s house. She hadn’t called first, for one. That had to be the work of a true idiot. Who just stopped by anymore? Sure, in the 1960s development of a neighborhood that Gram had lived in for the last three decades, where every house was just about 1,500 square feet and every lot was just about 15,000 square feet and neighbors borrowed tricycles and returned wandering dogs, it was perfectly normal to pop by. It might even strike neighbors as strange to not have an impromptu visit from Gram bearing garden clippings or sharing a theory as to why the oil truck had stayed down the end of the street in front of the Coleson’s for so long yesterday afternoon.

             
But this was Redwood Cove, and this was Jake Endicott, and what the hell was she doing? Lila wondered as she turned off onto Jake’s street. Too late now to call, she knew she’d sound nothing less than insane with, “Hi. I’m outside your house.” He would look out his window and she’d be sitting in her car staring at him, waving.

             
There was also the small matter of the scene she’d been at the heart of the last time she’d seen him. At his vineyard. When he’d fought with her date in front of his guests. And she’d taunted him, yet again, about being a spoiled rich boy hiding behind his father. She seemed to love that insult; it popped out whenever she felt under attack. It was a comforting storyline: he’s the asshole rich guy so who cares what he thinks anyway and, in contrast, she’s the hardworking, salt-of-the-earth heroine who could do no wrong. Who knew what sort of horrible, inappropriate, rude thing might pop out of her mouth this morning as she tried to do something nice? Why don’t you ring for one of your servants to feed the cake to you? Don’t worry, I’m sure your father has the best healthcare money can buy
,
unlike
the migrant farmworkers toiling in your fields?

             
A silver Mercedes M-Class SUV was parked in Jake’s driveway. Glistening in the morning sun, it looked like it had been test driven right from the dealership. Lila parked alongside the road and looked sheepishly at her Honda Civic’s cloth upholstery stained with coffee and tea and gum. She hadn’t taken it to a car wash since arriving in Redwood Cove almost a year ago, hadn’t even thought to do so until this moment.

             
Heaving a sigh of resignation, Lila zipped up her windbreaker and forced herself outside the car. Around the passenger side to retrieve the
B
undt cake, she reluctantly grabbed the card, too. So pleased with it yesterday, the card now struck her as absurd. Why hadn’t she just bought a straightforward “Thinking of your family” get-well-soon-type card from the drug store? Why did she have to go for the pretentious leaf print blank card? So she could fill it with her scintillating thoughts, which were, essentially, ‘thinking of you and your family, hope your father gets well soon’?

             
A cold wind bit at her cheeks as she approached the front door. She had little memory of it; the one time she’d been to his house she’d entered from the back door facing the water. By the time they’d headed out again to his car night had long since fallen. From the front it looked like a smallish, shingled beach cottage, nothing fancy. Large paving stones lead up to the door.  After a tentative tap garnered no response, she lifted her hand to give it a more hearty rap. The door opened. To Vanessa.

             
Scowling didn’t quite capture the dark and deeply displeased expression on Vanessa’s face as she kept the door open just about a foot.

             
Speechless, Lila struggled with a sudden urge to hurl the
B
undt cake over shoulder into the shrubs and run, run like the wind back to her car and peal out into the street. The only problem was that the street was a dead end so she’d have to circle back past the house. Either that or perform a slow and lurching three-point-turn in front of the house. Neither would suit her purposes.

             
“Yes?” Vanessa asked with all the graciousness of one answering a call from a telemarketer during dinner.

             
“I have a
B
undt cake.” Lila raised it up before her like the baby Jesus. The card, with “Jake” written in blue pen on the envelope, fluttered down onto the front stoop. Vanessa looked at it as if it were a cockroach. Noticing the Ray Ban aviator sunglasses perched atop her blonde coif, Lila wondered if she’d ever seen Vanessa without sunglasses. Here she was, wearing them indoors on a cloudy, December day. Maybe she literally never took them off?

             
“Who is it?” an equally annoyed-sounding voice asked from behind Vanessa. A hand snaked out to open the door another couple of feet to reveal Vanessa’s less gracious companion: Ashley, Jake’s sister-in-law. Lila recalled that when she’d spotted Ashley at the auction she’d had been wearing that same look of distaste spread across her manicured brows, sculpted cheekbones and plumped lips. Examining Lila, she squinted her eyes and said, “I know you.”

             
“It’s that girl from the chocolate shop,” Vanessa explained.

             
“The bookstore,” Lila corrected, seemingly unable to offer any of the other ways she’d like to be introduced, such as her name.

             
“Is that a cake?” Ashley asked, horrified.

             
“Yeah.” Lila found herself wrapping her hands protectively around it. Poor thing, it hadn’t been brought into this world for such abuse.

             
Turning to Vanessa, Ashley demanded, “Don’t get those carbs anywhere near me.” With that, she left the doorway.

             
“It’s for Jake,” Lila said.

             
“He’s not here.” Vanessa reached out, multiple bangle bracelets tingling and jingling as she moved her hand. “I’ll make sure he gets it.”

             
Bundt cake snatched by Vanessa, door closed before she could think to say another word, Lila stood on the doorstep in the December wind. Over by the driveway she saw a flutter of paper and realized her card had blown away. Just as well. Shaking her head, she started back toward her car.

             
Driving away, she consoled herself that it could have been worse. The door could have been ajar and she could have stumbled in upon Jake and Vanessa rubbing each other with oils in front of the fireplace. She could have delivered herself in a cake and popped out with a singing message meant for Jake but delivered to Vanessa and Ashley.

             
Punching on her iPod for some Howard Jones she wondered when she’d ever, fully, truly graduate from 8
th
grade. Cruel joke, that. Gather all those teenagers together in an auditorium on a warm, June day and declare them done with middle school. No more messing around with baby stuff; it was time to run with the big dogs! Truth was, life seemed to supply an endless and nearly constant supply of opportunities to revisit that special time of early adolescence. With all that practice, she should be awesome at it by now.

*
             
*
             
*

             
Grasping the large, carved wooden sign hanging in Cover to Cover’s front door, Lila turned it around with a thunk: Closed. A few holiday shoppers still lingered around the store, but it was already a few minutes past six so Lila needed to lock up. Outside, the street lamps cast pale light along the cobblestone sidewalk. Lila marveled at the predictable, yet still somehow surprising onset of the darkest days of the year. Already December 9
th
, it was less than a week away from the Redwood Cove holiday party, and less than a month away from her one year anniversary living in the town. Given that elusive, elastic quality of time, it simultaneously felt like she’d been living there much less and much longer.

“You sure it’s cool if I head out now?” Godfrey triple checked, black messenger bag already slung over his buttoned up black overcoat, gray scarf wrapped like a boa constrictor all around his neck. When you possessed all of 110 pounds on your slender frame, you didn’t take any chances with drafts.

“Yeah,” Lila reassured him once again. “It’s no problem. I’ll close up.”

“Excellent.” Godfrey gave her a salute as he headed out the door. “Until we meet again.” Lila chuckled as she locked the door behind him. His favorite Sci Fi show had been moved from Wednesdays to Mondays, throwing his entire weekly schedule into turmoil. He’d come to Lila with such gravitas this morning she’d worried that he was about to inform her of a terrible illness instead of asking if she could close up in his place. “It’s on at 9 and there’s a lot I need to get done,” he’d explained. Lila had happily acquiesced, wondering what exactly required three hours back at the house in preparation for watching a TV show. Blogging? Getting into costume? She decided sometimes it was better not to know. 

             
After ringing up the final customers and ushering them out into the cold and dark, Lila made her way over to the store’s giving tree to rearrange the remaining ornaments. Marion had set up the annual Christmas tree in the window decorated with paper ornaments, each bearing the name, age and interest of a needy local child. Lila remembered last year it had been one of the things she’d instantly loved about the bookstore. This year she was in charge of it, coordinating with two county social service agencies that clothed, fed, housed and otherwise kept the proverbial engine running for families in crisis. Shoppers could choose any book they thought might suit a three-year-
old who liked trucks, for example. Cover to Cover then took care of the wrapping and mailing.