Sideways (10 page)

“So, what’s the plan, Shorthorn?” Jack asked, folding closed the sports section of his
USA Today
.

Tracing a squiggly line on the crude map in the guide, I said: “We’ll head north, begin our grape tour there, then wend our way south. That way, the more we imbibe, the closer we’ll be to the motel.”

Jack tapped an index finger against his temple. “Fucking genius, Miles.”

“Did you get hold of Babs?” I asked.

“Yeah.”

“Where was she that you had to call her in the middle of the night to track her down?”

Jack eyed me suspiciously. “Out with the girls. Why?”

“Oh. Out with the girls.”

Jack froze with his coffee cup halfway to his mouth and narrowed his eyes at me, awaiting the punch line.

“Don’t worry,” I said. “Women don’t do that shit before their wedding.”

“What shit?”

“You know, go fuck some random person just to exorcise the lust from their systems before they settle into routine marriage sex.”

“They don’t?”

“Traditionally, I think they maintain their virtue while the guy traipses through Slobberville to the blessed event. But,” I threw up my arms in mock surrender, “I could be wrong. Babs has that reputation.”

He ignored my jibe about his fiancée.“I’m going to get my nut on this trip, Miles,” Jack confided, ramrod serious.

“I know you are, big guy. I’ve got a good feeling about your chances.” I pumped my fist sarcastically.

He leaned across the table and dropped his voice to an undertone. “I am not shitting you. I have got to touch fresh pussy before I settle down. It’s
essential
.”

“Well,” I whispered back, “let’s hope you have some success with the locals. I’d hate to see you go into the stockade of marriage a failure.”

“Just so we’re on page one.” Jack reached around for his wallet while glancing at the check.

We left Ellen’s, trudged back to the motel, piled into

“The reason this region’s good for Pinot,” I said over the music and the rushing air through our open windows, “is that the cold maritime air off the Pacific flows in at night through these transverse valleys and cools down the berries. Pinot doesn’t like to be hot all the time. It needs temperature variances and a slow growing season to develop its acids. And it despises humidity because it’s thinskinned and susceptible to disease and rot. A finicky, elusive, but rewarding varietal.”

“Similar to a high-maintenance woman?” Jack wondered.

“Exactly. Though with all the effort, the pleasure in the final product is ultimately more satisfying. Plus … plus, there’s a different crop every year, so the experience is renewable. Sort of like teaching freshman English.”

Jack leveled his eyes at me. I stared straight through the windshield and didn’t meet his gaze. “You think I’m making a mistake, don’t you?”

“I didn’t say that. I was talking about wine, not marriage.” I turned to him. “Man, you’re touchy this morning. You need a bevie.”

“What do you really think?”

“I don’t.”

“But if you were paid to have an opinion, what would it be?”

“I think you’ll be happy having sex the same way with

It took Jack a moment, but he finally laughed. “You’ve got one dark aura, brother.”

“Actually, I’m an incurable romantic.”

More laughter exploded from Jack. “Uh-huh.” Then he stopped and said, “You miss Victoria, don’t you?”

“For a while after the divorce, I did,” I said. “But now I don’t. It would take a truly incandescent woman to move me to that kind of arrangement. Otherwise, what’s the point? You’re just marking time to the inevitable split.”

“Good. Because I was starting to worry about you.”

“Worry about me what?”

“Getting lost on me.”

I snorted and looked away. Jack had a knack for getting under my skin and drawing me out. And he had an annoying habit of doing it at inopportune times, like this morning, when I wasn’t feeling my most chipper and I wanted to forget about the real world of relationships, jobs, failed hopes and dreams, and the creeping inevitability of my mortality.

Our first stop was Byron, one of the northernmost wineries on the map. They had produced some good Pinots and Chardonnays in the late eighties and early nineties. But since having been acquired by the tentacular Mondavi empire in 1990 they had had some unimpressive years. I was curious to taste whether the new corporate umbrella had continued to handicap their vintner, or if they had returned to their artisanal risk-taking standards.

We turned right on Tepusquet and jostled east down a graded dirt road, a plume of dust billowing behind us. The morning view of the Santa Maria Valley was splendid, showcasing an infinitude of vineyards rollercoastering

We rolled into Byron around 11:30 and I nosed the 4Runner into a space in the uncrowded lot. We climbed out into the bright sunshine, spread our arms to the sky, and stretched. The air was flora-scented, warm and dry. I drew a deep, lung-expanding breath and exhaled slowly. Then I clapped my hands and held them together. “All right, let’s get into some Pinots!”

“That’s the Miles I want to hear.”

When we set foot on the porch of the small, timbered tasting room we were greeted by a locked door and a cardboard sign hanging from a chain that read: CLOSED.

“I thought you said they opened at eleven?” Jack said, glancing at his monstrous TAG Heuer.

“Please excuse my failure of leadership.”

“It’s eleven thirty already. Where are these clowns?”

I was already poking around. Upon closer inspection, another, smaller sign informed us that the tasting room actually didn’t open until twelve. “Sorry, Shakes, I was wrong. Noon.”

“Fuck,” Jack muttered.

We drifted over to a picnic bench that overlooked a dry wash. The brightening sun felt good on our faces. We sat side by side like that for a while, accompanied by the song of feeding birds. For a few minutes everything was blissfully perfect. Then:

“Guess I’ve got to tell you this,” Jack began haltingly.

“What?”

Without turning to face me, Jack spit it out: “Babs doesn’t think it’s a good idea for you to be my best man.”

My head turned in slow-motion toward Jack. He wouldn’t meet my questioning gaze.

“Victoria’s going to be there,” he said matter-of-factly.

“I assumed that. Given that she and Babs are pretty tight.”

“Yeah, but that’s not the whole story.”

I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear the whole story. I fixed my eyes on a hawk slicing across the pristine sky and waited for the peripeteia.

“Victoria got remarried,” Jack finally said.

The hawk caught an updraft and soared steeply vertical as if being reeled in by an unseen line, banked, and disappeared. When it was gone, I turned to Jack and said, “Pardon me?”

He squared around to face me. “She got remarried. Last week. She and her new husband will both be at the wedding. Babs doesn’t think you can handle it.” He punctuated the disclosure with a guilty, hangdog expression that he hoped would diminish its impact on me.

I hung my head dismally, trying to picture myself with this fresh agglomeration of dramatis personae. Nothing made sense. I clutched my head with both hands.

“That’s the only reason Babs is against your coming.”

“Well, why the fuck
am
I coming?”

“Because I want you there,” Jack replied, his tone rising to match mine.

“Is this what all the drama with you and Babs has been about? Me being the best man?”

“Sort of. I’m working on it. It’s going to work out.”

I walked out to where the wooden patio ended and the deck dropped off precipitously. I hugged my arms to my chest and gazed out into the startlingly blue sky and the vineyards unfurling below me. There was suddenly a stark contrast between this outward beauty and my feeling of total disconnection from the world—and the people I knew.

Jack shuffled up beside me. I heard him first, then I felt his breath on the back of my neck. He rested a hand on my shoulder for an extended moment, gave it an understanding little squeeze, then let it drop. I tilted my head skyward. High up, a fighter jet divided the sky in two with a zippered gash that bled white. I lowered my head and fixed my gaze on a pair of randy squirrels chasing each other in erratic circles.

As if to promote the start of a reaction, I began shaking my head back and forth. “You fucking drop this bombshell on me after you’ve already lured me out of L.A.” I turned to him with a pained expression. “Jesus, Jack, have you no conscience?”

“It’s not as if I don’t have any conscience. It’s because I don’t have any other really close male friends.” There was a pleading tone to his voice now. “I’m sorry.”

“I don’t know if I can go through with the wedding, Jack,” I said. “Even if I am ultimately accepted.”

“Come on, man. You’ve been divorced more than a year. Fuck, you had to figure this was going to happen sooner or later. People move on with their lives.”

“Spare me the platitudes. That still doesn’t mean I have to witness my ex-wife’s post-matrimonial joyousness.”

“I need you up there, man. It’s not going to be easy for me, either.”

I wheeled toward him, tensed for an argument. “Nobody
wants
me up there! I’m a common-variety gate crasher. Persona non grata. A fucking pariah.”

“Babs is coming around. Everybody’s cool.” His voice sank to an undertone. “Even Victoria.”

The last declaration was no doubt a blatant lie, but I let it slide. I ballooned one cheek out with my tongue and stared off, words failing me. The beautiful view was now a total blur as I journeyed inward.

“You’ve got to get back in the saddle again at some point,” Jack added.

“Oh, fuck that.”

“No, don’t say
fuck that!
” He grabbed me by the shoulder and spun me a quarter turn to face him. I refused to meet his eyes. “We’re up here to have some fun and get a little nutty. You know as well as I do that nothing erases memories of a split better than a little pussy.”

“Correction,” I snapped. “For me, it’s wine. Fuck pussy. It’s the biggest waste of time.”

“Oh, yeah, right.” Jack laughed. “Like you don’t wake up every morning hard as a hammer, wishing it would magically disappear.”

I ignored this last remark. “I just can’t believe you
waited
to tell me this.”

“You wouldn’t have come,” Jack argued, throwing both arms wide open.

“Surprise, surprise!”

“So let’s do the wine tour, then shine it, I don’t give a shit whether you come or not! Peter’s waiting in the wings to take your place.” He pivoted and walked away.

The two mating squirrels posed on their hind legs, observing us. I didn’t say anything. I didn’t move. The sky loomed vast and interminable, a celestial ocean where I could get deliriously lost if only I had a gun. Before I could let that fatalistic fantasy run its course, we heard the squeaky hinges of a screen door pierce the silence. We turned at the same moment and found a large woman in

The tiny tasting room was cool and wood-scented. One side was devoted to the usual winery bric-a-brac: T-shirts, sweatshirts, corkscrews, postcards, hats, picnic baskets, and glasses.

We eased up to the bar where the bottles were newly uncorked and ready for exploration. The Fellini-esque pourer—quite sexy if you didn’t imagine her on top—started us on the Sauvignon Blanc. It was an apple-ly, grassy rendition that served more as a palate starter than as something to get excited about. We sloshed our way through a pair of Chardonnays, one nutty, another buttery, neither thrilling.

Finally, we moved into some Pinots. Luckily, our wine server was pouring some of Byron’s expensive single-vineyards. When we got to the Sierra Madre, I stopped and truly savored it. The wine was subtly elegant—silkier than the La Rinconada, less bombastic, but equally magnificent. I asked the pourer to revisit me with another taste. It just got better and more complex.

“What do you think?” Jack asked.

“Terrific.”

“Wait till the 2000,” the pourer tipped us off. “We barrel-sampled it the other day and it’s out of this world.”

I turned to Jack. “Let’s get a bottle of this Sierra Madre.”

“Whatever you want, Miles.”

The pourer went into the back to get a bottle. Jack reached quickly for the one on the bar, filled us both half

“I thought you could use a real one,” Jack said.

“Yeah, I needed that,” I said.

I loaded up some cheese and crackers in napkins from the snacks table while Jack paid for the Sierra Madre. We repaired to the picnic bench outside and laid out a spread. I went to the car to retrieve my Burgundy glasses. Jack had the bottle uncorked when I came back. I poured two glasses and extended one to him. We swirled and nosed and swished and luxuriated in the wine.

“This is delicious,” Jack said.

“Wait until we get halfway through, it’ll really start to pop,” I said, briskly aerating the wine in my glass, forgetting for a moment all that I had just absorbed.

“Mm mm mm.” Jack smacked his lips, holding his glass up to the sunlight, studying its color. “Comparable to a red Burgundy?”

“Low-end ones, maybe. Not the great ones, of course. But I’m not complaining.”

We sat and sipped and snacked on the cheese and crackers. Soon, I could feel myself crossing that swaying footbridge from hangover to a numbed glow that I falsely associated with elation. The bitterness and depression that had been plaguing me since Jack’s revelations about Victoria and the wedding dissolved in the embrace of the beverage I admired in my glass and worshipped with my senses. The Sierra Madre gradually sorted itself out as the midday sun warmed it to a more optimal temperature and the milky cheeses neutralized its bright acidity, elevating it to new heights.

“Mm, this
is
good,” Jack said again.

“Lovely stuff,” I agreed.

“Feeling better?” Jack asked gingerly, watching me out of the corner of his eye.

“Immeasurably.” And I was. I didn’t give a damn anymore. “I needed this,” I added, holding up my glass.

Jack laughed. We corked the bottle at half mast—we had a lot of wineries left to visit—and called it a picnic.