The Vineyard (48 page)

The screen door closed noisily. Tess ran into the kitchen, leaned against the counter, and breathless, reported, “Simon says the eye will just miss us. He isn't happy about that.”

Carl grunted. “No. He wouldn't be. If you're sitting in the path
of the eye of the storm, you get a small breather between blows. The point of greatest force is often sixty-some miles from the eye. If you happen to be sitting in
that
path, you get hit bad.”

Tess pushed up her glasses and looked up at him. “Will we be hit bad?”

“Nothing we can't handle,” he assured her.

“Simon says some people are evacuating.”

“Those'd be the ones who live right by the sea. A hurricane like this, you worry about the storm surge.”

“What's the storm surge?”

“Seawater that rises because of the hurricane blowing on the ocean.”

“How high does it get?”

“That depends on the storm. Simon'd know about the predictions for this one.”

“I'll go ask,” Tess declared, but Olivia pointed her to a chair. The child had been back and forth to Simon's office more times than she could count. The poor guy deserved a break.

“Susanne needs corn shucked.” Olivia took a big brown paper bag from the counter and set it down in front of Tess. “You are
the
best at that. I'll go ask Simon.”

Olivia let herself out the kitchen door into a late afternoon that was eerily dark. The air felt dense and heavy, filled with moisture. Cutting behind the house, she jogged along the path to the shed. A second-floor light was on, glowing as it wouldn't do on a sunny day. Slipping inside, she ran up the stairs and followed the light to the room at the end of the hall.

Simon sat at his computer with his chair tipped back as far as it could go. His hands were folded behind his head, and one knee was crossed. He was waiting, not necessarily for her.

“Hi,” she said and went up to the computer screen. “Whatcha got there?”

“Radar pictures.” Unfolding his hands, he lowered one to her back. “The National Hurricane Center posts them. It doesn't look good.”

Olivia studied his face. She knew his features well enough now to see that his eyes were more deep-set than usual. “You're exhausted.”

Snorting, he shot her a look. “This is only the start.”

His hand moved the smallest bit on her back. She wanted to
think she brought comfort. That was why she was here. She was a friend. “What kind of damage can she do?”

He shrugged. “That depends on her strength when she hits. If she weakens between now and then, the damage could be negligible—a few leaves, a vine or two. Anything more and the cost rises.”

“Worst-case scenario?”

“She hits us with winds greater than one-fifty an hour and wipes us out.”

“Wipes us out?”

“Snaps vines in two. That kind of wind is ferocious. Vines aren't made of steel.”

“But I thought hurricanes lose strength over land.”

“Yeah. After a few
hours
over land. We'll be getting her straight off the water. That's full force. And it isn't only the wind, it's the rain. Torrential rains soak soil. If the vines absorb too much too fast, the grapes swell and split. If they split, they rot. If they absorb too much water, the juice is diluted and the vintage is weak. Either case sucks.”

Grasping at straws, Olivia said a weak, “She may still veer away from the coast.”

Simon didn't look hopeful. “She may, but if she doesn't do it soon, we'll still feel her winds. She's a big fat thing. Look at this.” Tapping a few keys, he brought another image to his screen. This one showed Chloe looking like a typical hurricane—windmill-like, with a hole in the middle.

He pointed to her width. “This mama is nearly three hundred miles wide.”

Olivia had no basis for comparison. “That's big?”

“It's big.”

His computer made a small dinging sound. Taking his hand from her back, he sat forward and clicked on his e-mail icon. Seconds later he had a new message on the screen.

Olivia read along. “Who is Pete G.?”

“A friend with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.” He typed a fast answer and sent it.

“What did he mean, the right-left differential?”

“The winds on the right side of the eye are stronger. Right now, Chloe is blowing at one twenty right and one ten left.” He shot her a dry look. “Any way you cut it, that's a powerful storm.”

Olivia leaned against the desk. She wished there were something to be done. “I'm sorry, Simon.”

He smiled. “Not your fault.”

“It isn't fair. The vineyard had finally dried out. The sun was shining. Things were looking so good.”

“Things were looking
great,”
he corrected. “The sun's been making the grapes sweat. It's like boiling down syrup. The more excess fluid you lose, the more intense the remaining flavor. But hey, this is old hat. The crucial part of the ripening season always coincides with hurricane season. Happens every year.”

“Is there
nothing
you can do?”

“Nothing.”

“We've put men on the moon. Why can't we tame a hurricane?”

“Oh, we've tried. We've dropped silver iodide into the eye—there's a whole scientific theory why it should work, but it didn't. We developed a liquid cover to put on the ocean under a storm so that it can't feed off the water, but the damn cover comes apart in the waves. We've talked about dropping nuclear weapons into the eye, but forget that. Can you imagine the fallout?”

He let out a breath and, seeming calmer, caught her hand. “That's what this life is about. Farmers are gamblers. Didn't you know?”

She shook her head, lost—positively lost—in his eyes. Cold and hard? Is that what she had thought once? There was nothing cold and hard about them. They were the deepest blue imaginable. They were rich and knowledgeable, warm and compassionate. They were gentle, kind, worried, and she was nearly in over her head.

She felt terrified, just as she had when Natalie offered her a job.

He gave her hand a little shake. “Don't look at me that way.”

“I'm not looking at you,” she said, rising to the challenge. “I'm looking
through
you. Know what I see?”

He smiled, shook his head. “What do you see?”

“The reflection of a computer screen. That's what happens when you sit in front of one of these things too long. It starts to glow on the back of your skull. I mean, there's a reason why we use screen savers. Come on over to the Great House. You need a break from this.”

He arched a brow. “That's a break? There's a cold war going on there, or hadn't you noticed?”

She had to laugh. “It isn't that bad.”

“No one's talking to anybody.”

“Well, they're talking about the storm.” She tightened her fingers
around his and gave a little tug. “Come on. Come with me. You know more than any of them do. You can tell us what's happening while we sit around and wait.”

S
IMON CAME
, but he didn't have to tell anyone anything. Television coverage of the storm had preempted all regular programming. An army of reporters, experts, and would-be experts were on hand to answer every question imaginable.

Three sets were on in the Great House—the small one in the kitchen, a medium-sized one in the parlor, and a big one in the den. Dinner was served buffet style in the dining room, but no one actually sat. There was a lot of wandering—eating some here, walking to another room, eating some there. There was little chitchat, little closeness between couples who should have been close.

No big deal,
Olivia told herself.
A storm's coming. They're moving around, trying to keep everyone calm
.

But there was more to it than that. Susanne excused herself and went to her room as soon as the last of dinner was done. Greg was already gone by then. Natalie stayed for a while but looked distracted, and finally, pleading exhaustion, went up to bed. Simon shot Olivia a dry look and left. Jill stretched out on the den sofa with her arms folded on her chest and her eyes everywhere but on the television. Mark sprawled out in a nearby chair with his chin on a fist.

The tension rose, and still they waited.

S
USANNE WAS LYING AWAKE
in the dark when Mark finally came to bed. On her side, facing away, she listened to the pad of his footsteps and the rustle of clothing, felt the dip of the mattress and the pull of the sheet.

All was quiet for a minute. Then came the softest whisper. “Susanne?”

She wanted to pretend that she was sleeping, but she was too unsettled. She needed to talk with someone. “I'm awake,” she said and rolled to her back.

“Thinking about the storm?”

“No. About Mother. I'm in the middle of her book. She makes herself out to be quite something.”

“She is.”

“No, I mean,
quite
something,” she drawled. “To hear her tell it, Asquonset would have been lost years ago if it weren't for her.”

Mark turned to his side and came up on an elbow. “Is that so?” he asked, as though it wasn't an absurd thought at all.

“I don't
know
. It's what she says. Or implies. Did you ever hear anything about real estate holdings?”

“Your dad's?”

“No. Mother's.”

It was a minute before he answered. “I remember talking with her once and being impressed with how much she knew about real estate. She didn't mention specific holdings, but it wouldn't surprise me if she had them. She knew what she was talking about.”

That was news to Susanne. “She never talked to me about real estate.”

“Did you ever ask her about it?”

Susanne looked at him sharply. His face was a warm blur in the dark, but there was a distinct glint in his eyes. “Why would I do that?”

“You wouldn't. That's my point. But I
did
have reason. I invest in real estate. I must have mentioned something that started a discussion.”

She wanted to argue. But if Mark was anything, he was logical.

“Okay,” she said, coming at Natalie's premise from a different angle. “If you were to attribute the success of this vineyard to one person only, who would that be?”

Mark returned to his back and looked at the ceiling. “The vineyard itself?” He turned his head on the pillow. “Carl.”

“Not my mother?”

“I give her the business. I give Carl the vines.”

“What about my dad? What would you give him?”

He thought for a minute. “A Clio. For best ad. He did wonders spreading the name. Mention Asquonset, and people in the know mention Al.”

“Do you think he was smart? You know, intelligent. Shrewd. A good businessman.”

“He was definitely smart. I always thought he should have been a playwright. He had a flair for drama and a way with words.”

“But was he a good
businessman?”

Mark spoke lightly, fondly. “Oh, I don't know. The investment leads he gave me never worked out. But hey, I'm not speaking ill of
the dead. He'd be the first one to laugh about those, and I certainly survived.”

Susanne stared at him in the dark. “Why did I not know about
that?”

“That I survived?”

“That Dad's leads didn't work out.”

Mark paused, but briefly. “Why would I have told you?” he asked. “What point was there? Why would I knock the man down in front of his daughter?”

“Because I should have known the truth.”

“The truth was that he was a great guy.”

“The truth was,” Susanne argued, feeling hurt at having been kept out of the loop by her husband as well as her mother, “that he didn't do much of anything around here.”

“Did Natalie say that?”

“N
ATALIE DID
NOT
SAY THAT
,” Jill argued. She was lying on her back, about as far from Greg as she could get without falling off the bed.

Bothered by the separateness of it, he sat up. “She sure as hell came close. She all but castrates the guy.”

“Greg, I read her book. She does not. She simply makes a point that people thought he ran the vineyard, when he didn't. I mean, you were here growing up. Did you see him making daily decisions?”

“I saw him promoting the vineyard wherever he went.”

“That's right. He was wonderful at that. But he didn't know much about the grapes themselves. He didn't balance the books.”

“Neither did my mother. An accountant did it.”

“Okay,” Jill said slowly. “Let me rephrase that. He didn't read the books that the accountant balanced.”

“Did Natalie?”

“Yes
. If you're reading
her
book closely enough, you'll see that.”

Greg looked off toward the window. The sheers billowed gently, but the air in the room remained warm. Suddenly needing to breathe, he jumped off the bed and opened the window as far as it would go. With his forearm on the upper sill, he put his face to the wind. It was instantly soothing, storm smell and all.

More quietly, he said, “She tells it like she personally made this place.”

“And you can't accept that,” Jill said, but her edge, too, had softened. That made what she said less of a challenge and more of an observation, even a bit of a question.

The wind continued to feel good. It carried the scent of earth and leaves, and dredged up memories that had been buried for years. Greg had helped plant many a vine. He had helped prune and harvest. Those memories were good.

He searched them for his father, but came up empty-handed.

“All right,” he conceded. “I can accept some of it. I can buy the part about his losing the shoe business, but he wasn't the only soldier who came home from the war and found nothing. I can buy into Natalie making money in real estate, and into her letting Carl make decisions about the vineyard itself. Hell, she'd been in love with the guy. It'd be only natural for her to favor him.”