The Vineyard (39 page)
Authors: Barbara Delinsky
Susanne didn't look at all sorry. “It was the right thing to doâyou know, the firstborn in each of three generationsâbut you can be sure that my Brad knows how to wash dishes. He knows how to cook, too. If there was one thing I could teach him, it was that.” Crossing the porch, she looked at Olivia. “Jill swears she can't taste food, so the choice is yours. What'll it be for dinnerâmarinated flank steak, garlic mashed potatoes, and salad, or grilled salmon, wild rice, and veggies?”
Olivia grinned. “Grilled salmon,” she said, feeling like an almost-sister and loving it.
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T
HE SALMON WAS WONDERFUL
, cooked moist and flavorfully, beautifully presented on a bed of nutty wild rice surrounded by julienned zucchini and yellow squash. With it, Susanne served a fruity Chardonnay from the Asquonset Riverside White series. Dessert was a smooth chocolate mousse.
Olivia insisted that she and Tess do all the cleanup by way of thanks for Susanne's help driving, but more was called for. When the counters had been wiped down and the kitchen lights turned low, she ran up to the loft, took a folder with the pages she had written to date, and ran back down. Susanne was using that low light in the kitchen to plot out the next day's meals.
Olivia set the folder on the counter beside her. “This is what I've written of your mother's story so far. It probably needs more editing, but it's readable. If you want to take a look.”
She left before Susanne could say whether she would, but when she returned to the kitchen later for a glass of milk for Tess, Susanne and the folder were gone.
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T
HE WEATHER IMPROVED
. With the coming of August, the sun shone more often, moderating the sea air and warming the days. The vines grew tall and a richer green, and Olivia's hair was long enough to look windblown rather than mussed.
“Sun and heat,” she said, a bit self-conscious when Simon remarked on the latter one morning. “Good for the head, good for grapes.”
“Don't you know it,” he responded.
If she did, it was thanks to him. Natalie was knowledgeable, but she was busier than ever making do with a skeletal crew as the wedding approached, and when Olivia might have talked grapes with Carl, he was lobbing tennis balls to Tess. He seemed to love it as much as she did, particularly since she was catching on. She hit more balls than she missed now, occasionally making Carl run to return one. She even listened to his talk about form and was feeling good enough about herself to pay heed. The lessons went on beyond the hour and often resumed after sailing, even after dinner. The days were still long enough for that.
This one promised to be a scorcher, even at dawn.
And why, Olivia wondered, was she out here with Simon at a time of day when she was vulnerable? Because they were friends now, she decided, feeling safe with that thought. They had things to talk about, whether it was her job search, Tess's reading, or Buck's kittens. Their favorite topic, though, was always the grapes.
Not that temptation entirely vanished. With the return of sun, Simon's skin burned as it had in June. His nose peeled, his shoulders peeledâall of which was endearing in a macho way. He had his sunglasses on the top of his head, at the ready for work, but his eyes were nearly as deep a blue now as the sky in the west.
Oh, yes, the attraction was still there, sometimes so strongly that she had to close her eyes and consciously redirect her thoughts, but Simon cooperated. He didn't look at her mouth or at her breasts. He looked either at her eyes or at the ground.
“August and September are big growing times,” he said now as they walked through the rows of vines. “If we get sun and warmth, we can make up for the rain and cold we had in June and July.”
“Then that rain won't affect the wine?” Olivia asked, encouraging him to say more. She loved watching him when he talked about his work, because he so clearly loved it. His face was gentle, his dark blue eyes remarkably warm.
“Everything affects the wine. That's why each year's vintage is different. But the rain won't be a negative thing, as long as we do get the sun. If the grapes only half ripen, that's something else.”
“What do you do then?”
“Make rosé. Or grape juice.”
“What if you don't get another drop of rain between now and harvest?”
“Not another drop in two months? That'd be trouble. If the ground gets too dry, the leaves close their pores to conserve what water they have. But carbon dioxide has to enter through those pores if photosynthesis is going to take place. If the pores close, there's no photosynthesis, and without photosynthesis, the leaves won't produce sugar to pass on to the fruit.” He stopped walking to gently move aside a patch of leaves. “See that pole?”
Olivia did, but only because he pointed it out. It was barely three feet tall, narrow, and so close to the post holding the trellis wires as to be nearly invisible.
“That's drip irrigation,” he explained. “It draws freshwater
from the river. If things get too dry, we can water the soil in a way that won't soak the grapes. We haven't had to do it often, but given the market we've built, it pays to be safe.”
“What about intense heat? Can that ruin a vintage?”
“It could. We've planted vines that thrive in the kind of cool weather climate we have here on the coast. Usually, it just means earlier ripening and an earlier harvest. I can handle that.”
“What can't you handle?” Olivia asked, doubting there was much.
“Hurricanes,” he said without missing a beat. “Word is this is going to be a bad season.”
“Here?” In the seven years Olivia had been in Cambridge, there had been only a handful of mild blows. Granted, Rhode Island was on the coast. Still, New England was New England.
“The Caribbean's already had two.”
“But you don't usually have trouble here, do you?”
“Oh, we have. Not that I'm looking for trouble”âhe shot her a dry lookâ“but you asked.”
“How do you protect the vines from a hurricane?”
“You don't. You just see that they're healthy, which means that you do what you normally do in August. You hedge. You layer leaves on the trellis. You monitor for pests. From this point on, I have to be careful about spraying. Some sprays aren't allowed within a certain number of days of harvest. If harvest comes early, and a spray is prohibited within sixty-six days of that, we're talking
now.”
Olivia thought about the harvest, and briefly regretted that she wouldn't be here to see it, to be a part of it. “How do you know when to pick the grapes?”
“Taste and a refractor. That's a machine that registers the sugar and acid content. We harvest when the grapes have the optimal balance between the two. If it happens in one group of vines before another, we harvest only the block that's ripe.”
“Do you use a machine?”
“If we're racing an early frost, we may, but I prefer to do it by hand. We hire extra workers for that. More this year, what with two of my staff gone.” He shot her a look as they walked on. “Speaking of which, how's the new cook?”
“Susanne?” Olivia asked only half in jest.
“No. The
cook
cook.”
“You mean Fiona.” Olivia was a minute finding the right words. “Young ⦠willful. She prides herself on knowing how to cook and doesn't like having Susanne there, but Susanne's far better at it. She's trying to teach her, but Fiona resists. The truth is, I don't think she's long for Asquonset life.”
“Is Susanne?” Simon asked with caution.
“Well, she's not talking about leaving. I think she's having fun. Not that she would admit it.”
“Barely a month till the wedding. Any word from Greg?”
“I
TALKED WITH HIM LAST NIGHT
,” Jill told Susanne when she asked. Breakfast was done. They sat on the patio, lingering over coffee. “He's with a client in Dallas.”
Susanne put her head back. She felt lazy in the heat. “Is he coming here?” It was no longer a matter of making him share the guilt. She wasn't feeling guilt now. She was here, she was busy, and if the truth were told, she was having a good time. Her days were filled doing what she loved most, and for once, she had an appreciative audience. But Jill wasn't quite as content.
“Not yet.”
“Is he coming for the wedding?”
“He says no,” Jill answered. “I think he's wrong, but when I dare suggest that, he gets defensive. How about you?”
Mark had asked her the same thing less than an hour ago. “If you're wondering whether I feel any better about the wedding seeing Mother with Carl, the answer is no. They're good together, and they're in loveâall that is quite apparent. It also makes a mockery of her relationship with my father. No, I'm only staying until the cook business gets straightened out.”
Jill leaned forward. “Fiona is
not
getting straightened out.”
Susanne knew that. “But maybe her problem is with me. Maybe once I leave and she's in charge, she'll be fine.”
“She may be happier, but will we? Where
does
she get some of those combinations? Rack of lamb dredged in cardamom? Shrimp on a bed of stewed figs? Kiwi sorbet with peanut brittle bits? I mean, innovation is one thing. Pushed too far, it's unpalatable. There may be good reason why her restaurant closed. I think you should stay awhile, Susanne.”
A small part of Susanne could do just that. When the children were young, she had spent most of the summer at Asquonset. The kids had loved the open air, the warmth, the shore breeze. They had loved playing with their grandfather.
Playing with their grandfather. Not their grandmother, Susanne mused. Alexander was the one who gave piggyback rides and played ball. Granted, he did it on his own schedule, and he was ever the disciplinarian if the playfulness got out of hand, but he was the one who took them to the yacht club and bought them penny candy at Pindman's. The children would have continued spending summers here if Susanne hadn't balked. But she couldn't relax hereâbecause her role model, Natalie, never relaxed. If Natalie wasn't gardening, she was cleaning closets with Marie, or nosing around the shed, or meeting with her accountant, or joining friends for lunch. She always seemed to have something to do that kept her from Susanne and the children. That made Susanne feel superfluous.
Obviously, some things never changed. Natalie hadn't spent more than twenty minutes at a stretch with her since her arrival. True, she wasn't exactly meeting friends for lunch at the yacht club or planning prewedding soirees. When she wasn't in the loft, she was outside, often on a cell phone. Fine, she was arranging for people to clean the carpets or groom the rhododendrons. Still, Susanne was her daughter, here for Natalie's sake. If Natalie didn't spend time with her, where was the incentive to stay?
“I'm here only until Fiona shapes up,” she said. “Mother can't help. She isn't focused enough.”
“She's feeling pressure about the new label look. It's a major marketing move. She's very involved in that, Susanne.”
Susanne grunted. “She certainly likes to think she is.”
“She is,” Jill insisted. “I'm at the office every day. She's instrumental in the marketing operation, and not only since Alexander's death. She has always been involved. Have you read anything of what Olivia's written?”
Susanne closed her eyes and lifted her face to the sun. “Nope.”
“You should. It's enlightening.”
“It's one-sided. My father isn't here to tell his side.”
She was delighted when Jill had no answer for thatâbut her delight was short lived. When Jill finally responded, her voice was more reasonable than Susanne might have liked.
“This isn't adversarial. No one's taking sides. Natalie isn't denigrating Alexander. She's simply telling about her part in the growth of Asquonset. Why is it we always knew so much about Alexander and so little about her? And the truth is, it's because he talked and she didn't. Now she's opening up. I think you should read her story, Susanne.”
We started slowly. For a while, it felt like we were spinning our wheels more than anything else. Wherever he went, Alexander created a vineyard in the minds of the people who listened, but back home, it was still largely experimentation and prayers.
Image was important. Alexander said that, and I agreed. We added the upper floors to the Great House in the early fifties, perhaps before we could comfortably afford it, but with two active children, we needed the space, and it did look good, I have to admit. We incorporated a picture of the house in our sales kit. Again, this was cultivating the image of success before we had a right to do it, but there was no harm done. It wasn't as though we weren't on our way. We did have grapes to sell.
Chardonnay were the first vines that took conclusively. We planted one acre, then two, then four in successive years. We weren't thinking of making wine ourselves. We weren't even thinking of supporting ourselves. Our goal was to add to the acreage at the same time that we found other varietals that would thrive here. To that end, we sold juice from our grapes to vineyards in Europe.
Why does that surprise you? European vineyards have good years and bad, too. Nowadays, we all have tricks up our sleeves to minimize the bad years, but back in the fifties, growing methods were less sophisticated. In a lean year, a vineyard could mix the juice from our grapes with their own and produce a wine that was actually quite respectable. And if the product of our work went into the lesser of their wines? That was fine. We were paid for what we sold them. That meant we had money to buy more vines.
How did we support ourselves? Corn and potatoes.
But you're right. That wasn't enough. Not to care for a growing family. Not to pay for Alexander's trips. Not for machinery and fertilizer and pesticides and fungicides.
How did we manage? I lost many a night's sleep until I found an answer, and then, when I acted, lost many a night's sleep worrying that it would fail. Fortunately, it didn't. Suburbia was an idea whose time had come.
Let me backtrack a bit. There was a fellow in town who had grown up with my brother and Carl. He visited us when Brad died, then went off to war himself, but he was injured and returned within the year. He had lost the sight in one eye, and though he swore that he could still fight, he was discharged. We used to see each other at Pindman's. I'd share my dreams about growing a vineyard, and he'd share his dreams about growing a town.
Yes, a town. He always thought big, Henry Selig did, and there were people who laughed. I never did, lest he laugh at my dream. Both were relatively far-fetched at that point.
I lost track of him when the war ended. I was so busy trying to hold my life together, and he moved down to New York. Next thing I knew, though, he was back, and suddenly his dream made a great deal of sense. He was looking around him, seeing all those soldiers back from war, many of them with college degrees thanks to the GI Bill, many with wives and growing families and jobs that paid good wages. Those men wanted to buy houses in places where their children could play outdoors and their wives could grow flowers.
Henry knew how to build houses. He knew how to plan a development that included hundreds of them, and he knew where he wanted to do it. There were small towns within an easy drive of Providence, and large tracts of land that were his for the buying. Suburbs were springing up in other states. He saw no reason why they shouldn't spring up in Rhode Island.
All he needed was the money to buy the land and to finance the purchase of building materials.
I had money. It wasn't muchâI would be but one of many investorsâbut I had taken it out of the bank loan and set it aside. I didn't know why at the time. Security, I guess. I had lived through the Depression. I liked knowing I had something stashed away just in case.
No. Alexander didn't know I had it.
Why not?
Oh, dear. How to explain. Maybe I felt I deserved something, after having been let down so badly. Maybe I was worried
that he would spend it and lose it. Yes, I suppose it was a matter of trust. I needed to know that I had something of my own.
I didn't tell Alexander about Henry Selig's business proposal. For what it's worth, I didn't even tell Carl. I was working as hard as any man at Asquonset to make the place a success. As I saw it, that money was mine.
It was a wise investment. Within a year, the first batch of houses were built and every single one sold. I saw a fivefold return on my investment. So I put the original amount, plus some, back in my account at the bank, and invested in the next phase of Henry's project. It was even more successful. Again, I added part to my account at the bank and reinvested the rest, and Henry never let me down. He went from building houses to building offices to building shopping malls. To this day, I get dividends on some of those investments.
Was I frightened? Terrified during that first phase. Logic said that it would be a success, but if it wasn't, my nest egg was gone. Once we saw how wildly successful real estate ventures could be, there was no fear.
Well, at one other point there was. During his time in New York, Henry mingled with the theater crowdâplaywrights, directors, actors, and actresses. Henry was already in Rhode Islandâwith some of my money in handâwhen Joe McCarthy and his committee were questioning members of that crowd for communist leanings. Henry's name came up. There was talk that he would be called to testify. He was never actually questioned. I guess they figured that even if he had left-leaning friends, he was such an utter capitalist that his presence would make mockery of their witch-hunt. But it was a scary few months. People were condemned by association. Henry was fingered because he was the friend of others who were fingered, and I was a friend of Henry's.
All's well that ends well, as they say. McCarthy got censured, Henry got rich, and I got the money to make the difference in our lifestyle while we were waiting for our grapevines to grow gold. We enlarged the Great House again, and decorated this time. We hired a cook and began to entertain. We hired a field hand, plowed new land, and planted triple the number of new vines. We bought modern machinery and enlarged the shed. We began bottling wine.
I'm not saying we couldn't have done it without my real estate earnings, but I do think it would have been harder, and surely would have taken longer. Those earnings made the difference. They were the little boost we needed. I'm pleased to have done that for Asquonset.