The Vineyard (24 page)

Olivia could barely begin to imagine it. She had been too young to know what was going on during the Vietnam War, much less have any friends who fought. Two of her high school classmates had fought in Desert Storm, but neither had been hurt, and for all the times she had imagined a father and brothers in the navy, not a one of them had died.

But she did have a daughter. It wasn't beyond the pale to imagine that if there was another war, Tess might be drafted under the premise of equal rights for women. As a mother, she would be worried sick.

“Your parents must have been devastated.”

“Devastated,” Natalie said with a stricken look. “Brad had been gone from home for a while by that point. He hadn't been back to visit more than a few weekends each year, but my father continued to hope. Suddenly hope was gone. Just …
gone.”
She rapped the top of the chair once, as though to cap the finality of it, and took a steadying breath. “After that, even if Carl hadn't felt the patriotism, he would have gone. He had Brad's death to avenge.”

“Patriotism,” Olivia repeated. She conjured up a vision of the movie
The Music Man,
with Robert Preston and his band dressed in parade regalia, launching into “Seventy-six Trombones,” all of which was a balm from Natalie's stricken look. That look had touched her. Olivia didn't want to live through a war. She didn't want to lose someone she loved. There wasn't anything remotely romantic about that.

Natalie smiled. “Patriotism is another thing that your generation doesn't see the same way we do.”

“I do,” Olivia argued.

“You do not. When I say ‘patriotism,' you think of George C. Scott as General Patton or Mary Lou Retton winning Olympic gold. To you, it's an event. To us, it's a state of mind. When we fly the American flag in front of our homes, it's a matter of pride. When vets march in parades, it's a matter of pride. When we do things up red-white-and-blue, it's an expression of that same pride. Even tomorrow. The Fourth of July marks a different time in our history from the one I'm talking about here, but they're related. The War of Independence gave us freedom, and we rather like it. Your generation takes even that for granted. We didn't. We were children of the Depression. We don't take much for granted at all. We may not have had prosperity, but we wanted our freedom. That's what we fought for during World War Two.”

“You, too?”

“Did I enlist? No. I was here through the war. That didn't mean I was idle, though. The mobilization on behalf of the war effort was pervasive. You didn't have to be in uniform to help the cause. I don't know anyone who didn't do something.”

“What did you do?” Olivia asked. She pictured Natalie working on the assembly line in an armament plant, turning out bombers. There was a drama to that.

“Oh, lots of things.”

Modesty didn't work for Olivia. “Such as?”

Natalie sighed. “I was a civil defense volunteer—a spotter. I had a circular chart with pictures and watched the sky for enemy planes. Being on the East Coast, I imagined I would be the first to see the
Luftwaffe
. Fortunately, of course, no German planes ever appeared.”

“What else did you do?” Olivia asked. This time she pictured Natalie rolling bandages for the Red Cross or nursing the wounded who had returned home. It wasn't as dramatic as turning out bombers, but it would have been heartrending.

Natalie fished a photograph from the group on the desk. It showed people working the fields. “Asquonset became a great big victory garden. With so much of the produce from traditional suppliers going to feed the troops, small farms like ours filled the void locally.”

“These are all women.”

“That's all who was left. Jeremiah told us what to do, and we
did it. Those are other local women you see. One of them would watch the children while the rest of us worked.”

The children. Olivia did a little quick math as she rose and pulled another picture from those on the desk. It showed Natalie with a baby. “When was this taken?”

“Before this one,” Natalie said, pointing to the women in the field. “That was my son Brad. He was born in '42, obviously named after my brother. Susanne was born in '44. Greg was born in '60.”

“Brad hasn't called here since I've come,” Olivia said.

“No. He wouldn't.”

Olivia was thinking that Brad the son must have opted out the way Brad the brother had done, when Natalie's eyes went to the door.

Catching a little breath, the older woman broke into a surprised smile. “How
nice,”
she said and crossed the room to embrace a blonde-haired woman who wasn't much older than Olivia. A bit taller than Natalie, she wore slacks and a knit shell, chunky gold earrings, a matching necklace, and a pair of glittering diamond rings.

Ending the hug, Natalie held her back. “You look pale, daughter-in-law, but as beautiful as ever. Is everything all right?”

The woman hesitated a second too long.

Natalie frowned. “What is it?”

“Nothing.” There was a forced smile. “Well, nothing
that
bad.” She lowered her voice. “Greg and I are having some troubles. I thought I'd camp out here for a bit.”

Natalie released a breath, taking mere seconds to absorb Jill Seebring's words and move on. “You thought right. Take your usual room, and stay as long as you want. There's a buffet at the yacht club tonight and a cookout here tomorrow. After that, you can rest, unless you feel like helping out at the office. First, though, come meet my assistant.”

Fourteen
 

O
LIVIA LIKED
J
ILL
S
EEBRING
on sight. She didn't know whether it was the woman's easy smile when they were introduced, the bruised look that she couldn't quite hide, the closeness of their ages, or the simple fact of Jill showing up in the driveway late that afternoon wearing a sundress much like Olivia's. But she and Jill easily wound up in the same car heading for the yacht club.

“I'm not sure I'm up for this,” Jill said softly. “It's been a long day. I'm exhausted.”

Olivia was driving. Tess was in the backseat, along with the new maid, who was barely eighteen. Natalie claimed the girl had ten times the enthusiasm of the closest competitor. Whether she could do the job remained to be seen.

“One of us can always drive you back early,” Olivia told Jill. The buffet was called for five o'clock. “How long do these things last?”

Tess leaned forward between the seats. She wore a pair of white shorts with a blue Asquonset T-shirt. Her glasses were clean. Her hair was in a neat French braid. “There's a fireworks show. It won't start till dark.”

“Have you met any of the local kids?” Jill asked her.

“Some are in my sailing class.”

“Well, that'll be fun, then.”

“I don't know. I don't really know them.”

“It'll be fun,” Jill insisted, and Olivia liked her for her confidence, too.

“Where do you live?” Tess asked Jill.

“Washington.”

“How come your husband isn't here?”

Olivia was thinking that she should have told Tess something of the situation when Jill said a perfectly logical, “He's busy working. I always spend more time here than he does.”

“Do you work?” Olivia asked. Everything about the woman was professional, from the sleek blonde hair tucked easily behind an ear to the simplicity of another pair of chunky earrings to the absence of a watch or anything else that might mess up her wrists and get in the way of papers or other work materials.

“Not officially.”

“What does that mean?” Tess asked.

Jill smiled. “It means I don't get paid.” To Olivia, she said, “I do PR for charity fund-raisers. I help with the planning and the publicity.”

“Why don't they pay you?” Tess asked.

“They don't have the money.”

“Do you have any kids?”

“Not yet,” Jill said.

They pulled into the yacht club parking lot beside Carl's car. A third Asquonset car pulled up moments later.

Olivia didn't see Simon among the occupants—which meant that either he hadn't felt anything at all that morning or he had and he refused to admit it. She had thought he might come. After all, eating in the dining room at the Great House was one thing—Olivia could understand that he might find that too cozy—but this was a larger group, with a hundred or more at the buffet. There was nothing personal about it.

He could be coming in his truck.

Not that she was asking Natalie and Carl about him. She didn't want to give encouragement to something that wasn't going to happen.

So she asked other people, starting with Donna Gomez, Simon's first in command and, as such, the one who might have been expected to drive over with the man. Donna was strong and slim, dark haired, olive skinned, very much Olivia's age, though she had two children in their late teens. Her husband and the kids had come with her, which Donna claimed was an Asquonset tradition.

“If it's a tradition,” Olivia said, “where's your boss?”

“Simon?” Donna asked. “Most likely back home. He doesn't come out much.”

“Since his wife died?”

“Even before. He's very private. She was a socializing force.”

The wine maker, David Sperling, echoed that thought when Olivia talked with him a short time later. They were admiring the boats secured in slips. The sun was starting to lower. “See that one there?” he asked, pointing to a handsome cruiser with a cabin underneath. “That belongs to the vineyard. We used to have a sailboat, but, well, you heard about the accident.”

“That was four years ago. I'm surprised they haven't bought another.”

“Alexander wanted to, but he wanted something large.” David pointed to another boat. It was a sailboat that was longer and wider than the cruiser. “There you have a mainsail and a jib. Alexander wanted even more than that.”

“I can see why,” Olivia said, recalling Carl's description of the accident. “A large boat wouldn't be as vulnerable.”

“That wasn't why Alexander wanted it,” David said with a fond smile. “He wanted an eye-catcher.”

“Was he a good sailor?”

“Not particularly. Fortunately, he knew it. When he was taking people out, he put Simon at the helm. Simon was the best. He hasn't been in a boat since the accident, though. In fact, he hasn't been here to the
club
since the accident.”

“So what does he do with himself? You know, in his free time?”

The answer to that came from Anne Marie Friar, the receptionist in the business office. Olivia talked with her daily. She was personable and chatty, perhaps more so than she should have been in this instance, but Olivia was, after all, Natalie's confidante.

“He reads,” Anne Marie said. “He's constantly buying books, mostly on-line now. He must love that. He doesn't even have to
show up in a bookstore. The packages are delivered to us. We give him a buzz, and he picks them up. His place must be stuffed.”

“Where is his place?” Olivia asked. She knew that he lived on Asquonset land within walking distance of the grapes, but nothing designated as Simon's house was marked on any map she had seen. She had explored. During late afternoon runs, she had taken every well-trod path on the property and still didn't have a clue.

“It's on the southeast side.”

“There's nothing there.”

“There is, only you can't see it unless you're on top of it. There's a narrow road marked by a reflector on a tree. The house is half a mile up. It's on the same acre that Natalie's father gave to Carl's father when the Seebrings first came here to live.”

Olivia knew that Carl had a place in town. She had assumed that the house where he'd grown up had been torn down and the land cultivated. “Simon lives in his
parents'
house?”

“Not quite,” Anne Marie said, seeming delighted to be able to impart some inside information. “It's been razed and rebuilt. Twice now, I believe.”

Olivia was about to ask more when she spotted Tess. She was with a group from her class. Well, not with them. More like trailing after them, and she didn't look pleased.

Want friends?
Simon had said.
Try a smile.

He was right. Nothing about the girl that Olivia saw just then would appeal to other children.

Smile,
Olivia mentally commanded, concentrating with all her strength, counting on brainwaves to convey the message, and incredibly, Tess looked her way. But her scowl only deepened. She made a hard motion with her hand, telling her mother not to look at her. Then she turned her back and followed the other children off the deck and into the club.

By then, Anne Marie was talking with someone else, and Natalie was waving at Olivia to join her. There were friends to meet, several of whom had lived in Asquonset longer than Natalie and might have been the mystery woman in those early pictures. All were in their seventies and eighties now, which made resemblances harder to spot. Olivia searched, but in vain. She was about to ask Natalie, when the buffet was served.