The Ayenbite of Inwit (which, translated from Middle English, mean "The Bite Conscience,") is designed to provide and display short stories for the reading enjoyment of the general public. This one is "Rocambolesco," the story of a young woman from a family that has owned a vineyard for five generations and her attempt to reconcile with a brother who abandoned the family for years and has now returned and wants to reconcile. The idea for the story came when I read two books, Cork Dork by Bianca Bosker and God-Forsaken Grapes by Jason Wilson. These texts were fascinating and gave a window into the complex world of wine and wine production--fascinating enough to provoke the idea for this story.  Enjoy!

 

Rocambolesco

 

Giovanna Redaelli had taken ownership of the Rocambolesco Winery after her father died. His death had been sudden and unexpected. The question of what she would do with the business to which she was sole heir intruded even as she grieved her loss.

Giovanna had worked side by side with her father in the daily operation of their business. For years on end, she had been his co-manager. She had two brothers, but they were wastrels, not on speaking terms with her father (or with her), and long estranged from the family. Her father made certain they got nothing in his will, and especially no shares in the business he had so carefully built up and, with his daughter’s capable assistance, brought to such a prosperous place in the overcrowded world of wine-making and wine-selling. She had inherited the family enterprise. When he was gone, she had to decide what to do with it.

Frank, the winery manager, though she should sell.

“It will be hard for you to run the winery all by yourself,” he said. “It’s lots of work, and it calls for a lot of toughness.”

She looked up at him. “You don’t think I’m tough?”

He backed off a little, but not a lot. “You’ve got some spirit to be sure. But remember, Ginny:  wine-making is an old boy’s club. A lot of people you work with will see you as a woman they can easily manipulate.” She agreed but saw how this could be an advantage. She nodded.

“A couple of people want to buy us out,” he said. “They’re proposed some pretty good deals. You could walk away with a purse full of cash.”

“Really? I’d like to meet with them.”

He seemed surprised but said he would get her copies of the paperwork. In fact, she had seen the paperwork and gone over it with her financial consultant, who said they were not good deals at all. At this point, she wanted to see how far Frank would go in his treachery. If she sold out, he would be in a good position to advance his career. And she had no intention of selling. She planned to run the business herself.

In the last decade, sales had grown beyond anyone’s expectations. Her father lay behind much of this success. His skill as a vintner was unsurpassed. He knew how to make grapes grow, how to cultivate, nurture, and care for the plants. He knew by the smell, feel, and taste of a grape when it and its fellows were at the perfect point to be picked and crushed for the transformation into wine. He was a true vigneron and had mastered the entire process of winemaking, from growing to the effective use of the machinery involved in the fermentation process to the details of bottling, promoting, and distributing.

He had taught Giovanna everything he knew. He had known a lot, and she had learned it.

Giovanna made certain she worked at least one day a week in the tasting room. Customers had seen her featured in advertisements in magazines and on television commercials they ran. She was pretty and fashionable and knew how much customers delighted in meeting her and in being served samples by the owner of the business, who was not above working side by side with the other baristas. Doing duty in the samples room always tired her out. Still, she smiled, embraced, and kissed her mother when she arrived home after a long day there. The two of them sat in outside on a dining area that overlooked Grand Travers Bay. A cool breeze blew on them. Giovanna had the cook bring glasses and pour wine for them.

“Where’s Amy?” she asked.

Amy was the mother’s live-in assistant.

“I sent her home.”

Giovanna frowned. “That doesn’t seem like a good idea. Mother, you’re still not out of the woods.”

“When I see the doctor tomorrow, I think he’s going to give me the all-clear.”

Her mother had approached her fifth year of being cancer-free. After five years with no recurrence, most doctors could declare an optimistic prognosis. Giovanna was hopeful but still cautious and tentative.

“I’d feel better if Amy stayed to the end of the month.”

“Giovanna, I stopped chemo long, long ago.”

“There are after-effects—and your immunity was probably reduced with everything you felt when Daddy died.”

She immediately wished she had not said this.

“It will take much longer to get over that than to get over this.”

Giovanna’s eyes ringed with tears. “Mother, I’m sorry.”

“I’ll manage. Rosetta is here.”

Rosetta Rubo, their cook, worked from 10:00 to 7:00. Giovanna made breakfast for her and her mother every morning.

“I’m just concerned, Mama.” She tried not to cry but tears came when you didn’t want them. He mother took her hand.

“I’m being mean to you, Ginny. Forgive me. But I’m fine.” She smiled and kissed her daughter. “Get that through your head. I’m okay.”

She nodded and brushed the tears off her cheeks. “What will we tell Amy?”

“We’ll tell her I’m feeling better and can get on by myself now. We can cut her hours down slowly but pay her full wage until she leaves the job.”

Giovanna nodded. They drank and listened to the waves come in and the birds sing in the trees. After a diagnosis of kidney cancer, her mother had surgery. The surgery took care of the kidney cancer, but malignant cells cell appeared in her lymph nodes. A long regimen of chemotherapy seemed to have eliminated them. Her upcoming examination would determine that.

“I had a call,” her mother said.

The tone of her voice sounded a little odd. “From whom?” she asked.

Her mother hesitated then answered, “From Christopher.”

Giovanna frowned. Dark anger showed in her eyes.

“What does he want?”

“He’s back in town.”

Her calm, reflective mood evaporated. She started to get up out of her chair but stopped herself.

“In town?” Giovanna tried to say more but could only sputter. This was good, she later reflected, because if she had been able to speak she might have started swearing—a thing her mother thought improper for a young woman.

“Yes. He’s living in an apartment.”

“As long as he stays there and I don’t have to see him, I’m fine.” She paused then abruptly asked, “Mother, you didn’t invite him over, did you?” She felt dread at the mere thought of this.

“No. I didn’t think that would wise. But I told him he might come by in a week or so. I said you might like to see him.”

“My ass!” Giovanna caught herself. “I’m sorry, Mother. I didn’t mean to swear.”

Her mother patted her arm.

“Easy. Don’t throw a fit.”

Don’t throw a fit was something her mother said as a humorous reminder of something Giovanna had often done as a child. The phrase had become an on-going family joke, martialed to defuse situations when Giovanna got upset. She smiled and then sighed.

“I don’t want to see him. And I don’t want to hear reasons why I should want to see him.”

“He asked about you.”

“Well, at least he’s concerned about one member of our family.”

Silence fell. They sat, looking out at the lake. At 7:00, they went inside to eat.

They ate quietly, a contrast to when the whole family had been together, before the boys left and before her father died and her mother had been diagnosed with cancer. Laughter and talk had punctuated their meals. They were a stereotypical loud, emotional, expressive Italian family. For years now, silence had replaced what Giovanna had known in the past—the silence of estrangement, of disease, and of the grave.

After a time, she asked why Christopher had returned.

“Did he give a reason?”

“He’s had a change of heart, it seems.”

“It’s a little late for that.”

“Darling—people do change.”

“I’m not so sure they do.” She vaguely recalled a bible verse about how the leopard could not change its spots but could not remember it exactly and decided not to attempt to quote it. “How do you know he’s changed?”

“I know my children,” she replied.

They continued eating in silence. Thinking she had put a gloomy damper on the meal, Giovanna talked about the business. She told what Frank, her manager, had said to her this morning.

“He’s a crook,” her mother said. “I never understood why your father kept him employed for so long. If he thinks you should sell the business, it’s probably because he’s in with some other winery that will make him a co-owner if he gets you to give up your shares.”

“I suspected as much myself. I think he’s going to have to go, Mother.”

“I agree. He should have been booted out a long time ago.”

Having mentioned the dissonances in the business, Giovanna chronicled the good news. Rocambolesco had surged, both in sales and in reputation among wine critics and connoisseurs, largely due to four new varieties she and her father developed and marketed. She had been instrumental in bringing the favorable conditions about, and her father had acknowledged as much

Four years ago Giovanna had spent several months travelling through Europe in search of new variates of grape. At first she had thought she would simply look for new varieties of what were called noble grapes—the varieties used in eighty percent of the wines drunk around the world:  chardonnay, sauvignon blanc, merlot, pinot noir. But she ended up sipping several vintages with odd, fruity, chalky, dark highlights. When she asked about them, the merchants told her they were from small vineyard that produced unusual varieties of grapes.

The flavors of the wines intrigued her. She visited the vineyards—most of them tiny—where such grapes were grown. She found the growers eccentric, homey, and fascinating. She thought the wines they made were excellent. One night she called her father and set out the idea she had for expanding their market.

“One more merlot—one more pinot noir? Why not make a wine with exotic grapes; why not a”—she searched for a term—“a Narnia wine—something you’ve always dreamed of tasting and now you’re tasting it at last. And that would go along with our name.”

Rocambolesco, an Italian term, meant “fantastic” or “incredible.”

Her father was hesitant, but he trusted his daughter’s judgment. Giovanna made deals. Rocambolesco would promote the eccentric wine-makers’ product if they would provide cuttings from their vines. She left Europe but returned in the next winter to bring back sprigs of homage blanch from Switzerland, mayolet from Italy, tintilla de rota from Spain. She and her father experimented, making blends that used noble grapes with noticeable infusions of the obscure varieties—enough to alter the flavor of the noble grapes while not erasing their familiar bouquet. They launched a red blend and a white made with new-grown fruit and marketed it, ready to take a loss, hoping for a gain.

They sold out the initial bottling. Orders for next year’s stock piled up. The vintages from the small producers distributed by Rocambolesco also sold out. The venture put their vineyard firmly on the map. Giovanna’s father made her a full partner. Production of the new grapes went into full swing under her supervision. Increase in sales put a million dollars in her bank account.

Giovanna’s hands-on approach was essential to the success of the winery’s new venture. She supervised the growing of the new varieties of grape and frequently found herself in the fields. Some of their vineyard workers—many of them old-school Italians—didn’t like a woman supervising them. She had to fire several of them. She replaced one of the managers who seemed particularly recalcitrant with a Kyle Nevins, a young man from California who had grown up working in the vineyards there. Her diligence about the plants and his expertise in growing grapes made for a good harvest the next year. They were able to fill the upsurge of orders for the wines. Their sales increased considerably.

They were riding high when her father died of a heart attack.

“I’m glad the business is going well,” Giovanna’s mother said. “What now?”

“We’ll consolidate our gains. I might look for a couple more vineyards to purchase so we grow more of those new varieties of grape.”

“And maybe you’ll find a boyfriend?”

Giovanna rolled her eyes. “Mother, there’s plenty of time for that.”

She was thirty-two, pretty, and still single.

“Okay,” her mother said, knowing this was a thorny issue with her youngest child. “We’ll not debate the point.”

Slender, tall, with dark hair and eyes and a wide mouth, Giovanna Redaelli possessed the classic Italian beauty of Sophia Loren and Elizabeth Rossellini. Working in the family vineyards all her life plus playing sports in high school had given her a shapely body. She worked out twice a week and played on an intermural basketball team. From age eighteen she had modeled for Rocambolesco wines, appearing in glossy magazines wearing short skirts and boots, her hair tied up, smiling and holding a glass of wine; or, alternately, in shorts and a tied-up shirt that revealed her midriff, out in the vineyard, fruit stacked up beside her, a bottle of wine in one hand, a bunch of grapes in the other.

Giovanna dated in high school and had been popular with boys. She had made out in cars and at parties, but none of the young men she dated ever attempted to seduce her. Stereotypes of Italian fathers who guarded their daughters and knew horrific ways of punishing any young man who would violate the sacred object kept away would-be Casanovas. All fine with her. She went to a commuter college to get a degree in management and did not date many young men in that time because she was hardly ever on campus. The last ten years she had been so caught up in the expansion of the family enterprise that she had hardly dated at all. Trips to Italy, South, Africa, Chile, the Rhineland, France, California, and other grape-producing areas had taken up a lot of her time. Her mother, she knew, wanted grandchildren.

“Mama, I’ll get married. I want to. And I want to have children. There’s just too much to do,” she said, as she often did.

“There’s always too much to do. Unless you have a religious vocation, you should at least be looking around.”

Giovanna did not want to be a nun. She did not give a lot of time to religion, though she went faithfully with her mother to mass at a church outside of Petoskey. Her beauty and wealth frightened men off. Now she was old enough to make them wonder if she had any intention of marrying.

She wanted to, but so many factors militated against it. With the business in her hands, it might be even more difficult to fulfill her mother’s wishes.

                                                            ****

The next week, she inspected vineyards. Giovanna spoke fluent Spanish, which delighted the many migrant workers they employed (she also spoke Italian and French).

Tourist season had arrived, when floods of people from southern Michigan and the surrounding states thronged to the Upper Peninsula for its beaches, scenery, and wine. During this time, she made it point to dress nicely and pour for people who came into the sampling room. Her practices reflected good management technique but took up a great deal of her time.

Two weeks after she spoke with her mother, she walked into the sample room. She had gone shopping yesterday and came to work wearing a rather short dress she had bought. Frank whistled at her. Her anger arose. It was time to act.

“I’m glad you like my outfit, Frank,” she said. “And you’re fired. I’m letting you go. Clean out your office. I want you to vacate by noon. I’ll have Bekka write up a severance package for you.” He stood and gaped at her, as did all the baristas. After a long moment she said, “You heard me. Go clean out your office.” He gaped a moment then wheeled around and left. She turned to the baristas and started to say something, but at that moment a tour group of senior citizens came in. Her employees scrambled to their stations to pour samples for them. Giovanna went to her office.

That night when she lay down to sleep, she felt guilty about canning Frank. Damn it, she thought, I should have given him the boot a long time ago. She had had her secretary write a severance package, providing him with more money than he deserved and thanking him for his years of service. She would have to find someone to replace him. It was at times like this that she wished she had someone to go to. The thought made her reflect on what her she and mother had talked about. She could get married. She was pretty and had money. But what sort of men would be attracted by wealth and good looks? Not the right kind, she thought, rolling around to get comfortable. She wanted to be happy. She wanted to have children and provide a loving, nurturing home for them. She smiled as she tried to get comfortable. I’m not a nun, she told herself, but I might as well be. I have all the qualifications except for the desire to tuck myself away in a convent. She finally shifted her body into a relaxing configuration and drifted off to sleep.

                                                            ****

Monday morning the tasting room was thronged by 10:00. She and three employees poured samples for people. Sales were brisk. The weather had been good and the tourist traffic heavy. Just before lunch, she saw Kyle Nevins.

She was both alarmed and happy to see him; alarmed because he would not have come unannounced to the main building of the winery unless something was wrong (like he had decided to resign from his job or a vineyard had burned); happy because she had decided he would be a good replacement for Frank. He had done an excellent job in his four years working here, seemed to have good management skills, knew winemaking, and displayed stability and reliability, the traits employers looked for in any employee.

She greeted him and asked what he needed.

“Can we step outside, Miss Redaelli?”

Giovanna made it a point to get to know her vineyard managers, but she had hardly spoken with Kyle. The events of the last few years and militated against their seeing each other. She gestured toward a door. The two of them went through the back exit into to a sunny flower garden with wrought iron chairs and tables.  Her father had named it The Garden of Psyche. Most people knew that particular goddess from the story of Cupid and Psyche, but she had also been the Greek goddess of wine.

She asked him to sit and told one of the baristas to bring them a bottle and glasses.

“Kyle, it’s good to see you. You’ve done an excellent job the last few of years, and I’ve hardly said two words to you, let alone given you the recognition you deserve for your hand in getting our new vintages on the market.”

“You’ve had a lot going on,” he said. “And I’ve been busy and had a lot going on myself.”

She wanted to ask him what had made his life busy but needed first to know why he had come.

“That’s how it is. So what’s up?”

“I’ve come here at the request of your brother, Christopher.”

She gaped in surprise and then remembered herself.

“How do you know my brother?”

“He attends my church.”

It could not be the church she and her mother attended. She asked him which church he meant.

“Mission Fields Evangelical.”

Giovanna knew it. Several of her high school friends attended there. Now and then she had gone to services at their invitation—despite her father’s disapproval.

‘Be careful,” he would grumble. “Those people recruit.”

She would roll her eyes and say, “Daddy, I’m not planning to convert to their faith.”

As for religion, had always told herself the less of it the better.

“I’ve attended a few times in the past, though not since your church grew to what it is now.”

In the last few years, Mission Fields had gone from a large church to a megachurch.

“I knew my brother was back in town,” Giovanna continued. “He attends your church? He’s converted to Protestantism?”

He looked a little distressed at her question and the tone of voice she had taken.

“I don’t know about that. I only know he attends. I’m his small group leader.”

Small group was an evangelical phrase Giovanna knew because she had attended one for several months with a high school friend. It was a circle of people who met to study the Bible. She had enjoyed going and only stopped when she started to attend college did not have enough time to be there on Wednesday nights.

“He asked me,” Kyle said, “if you would be willing to meet with him.”

“Kyle,” she said, articulating her word so as to make what she wanted to communicate plain and clear, “there are not many people in the world I would rather not meet with than my brother.”

She had planned to take on an icily calm manner when she said this, but a wave of emotion rolled over her. She hoped she did not cry.

“I know you two have been estranged for quite a while.”

“I am not interested in meeting my brother or in speaking to him. Can you tell him as much?”

“He hopes to explain some things to you.”

“If that’s so, why didn’t he call me?”

“He said he didn’t think you would speak to him.”

This stung her. A flood of memories of their childhood and teen years, when they were close, before Christopher’s waywardness began, rose in her memory.

“He’s right.” The energy of her anger had receded. She sighed and felt herself tearing up. “You know my father died three years back.”

“I know, ma’am.”

“It’s difficult to consider matters related to my brother due to that. His behavior caused our family a great deal of anguish and heartache.”

“He realizes as much.”

“And you’re going to tell me he’s become born again and his life has changed?”

“I only came to tell you he wants to talk to you. Whatever has happened in his life would better be told to you by him.”

A little edge on his voice, she noted.

“I’m very busy right now,” she said. She paused a long moment. A twinge of shame filled her heart; pride in her family rose too. She did not want to give the impression that she had such a dislike of her own brother that she would not be gracious enough to speak with him. “I’m sorry, Kyle. This is an emotional issue for me and my family. But I can tell from what you’ve said that my brother does want to bring about some reconciliation. I guess I shouldn’t prevent that.” She looked at her watch. Really, she knew what time it was but needed a second to organize her disordered thoughts into a workable plan. She decided she would meet with him. She looked up at Kyle. “Can you bring my brother here around noon tomorrow? I’ll speak with him. I also need to discuss something important with you—something related to work.”

He nodded, a little nonplussed at the second part of her response.

“Thank you, Miss Redaelli. We’ll plan to be here.”

“Good. And you can call me Giovanna; in fact, I’ll insist on it. You’ve worked here four years and you’ve done a good job. We should be on a first name basis.”

He nodded. She could not think of anything more to say. He sensed as much, got up, and took leave of her.

                                                            ****

When Giovanna came home that evening, her mother had just returned from a consultation with her doctor that brought the best news Giovanna could have imagined: the results of a series of tests that indicated she was cancer-free. The two of them embraced, laughed, jumped for joy, and cried.

“Year five is the magic year,” her mother said. “Chances of recurrence go down almost to nothing after that.”

Giovanna held her close. At times she realized that when her mother died she would be all alone. Her father was gone. Her brothers—well, one had come crawling back to the family farm. She would be able to assess his level of sincerity tomorrow. Even if he was sincerely repentant, she thought, he would still be morally liable for the grief and pain he had caused the family—and for being absent for his father’s funeral and during his mother’s illness. She put her anger aside, not wanting anything to cloud the good news that her mother seemed to have beat the emperor of maladies. She suggested they drive to a small restaurant they both liked. Her mother insisted they go to church first. They stopped, prayed prayers of thanksgiving, and drove to the restaurant (which was Greek, not Italian). Back home, they opened a valuable old bottle of burgundy to celebrate. So it was that Giovanna was in better spirits when she met her brother. Besides the good news of her mother’s recovery, she received a report announcing that two major distributers in Europe had taken Rocambolesco as a client; and one in Australia, a market they had not before been able to access. Both distributers had put in big orders. Overall sales in their regular markets were up as well.

Despite the good news, when she saw Kyle walk in the door, with Christopher behind him, her animus rose.

Easy, she told herself. Easy and slow.

They approached the wine counter. Kyle stepped aside. Her brother, looking down, approached the bar. Giovanna waited for him to speak. After perhaps half a minute, he raised his eyes to meet her gaze.

The whipped dog look on his face did not cloud his good looks. Giovanna had always told her brother that he was handsome. So had all the girls at school, she thought. Maybe that was the beginning of his downfall.

“Hello, Giovanna,” he said.

It was the first time they had spoken in ten years.

She inclined her head—a rather formal greeting for him. “Christopher.” She hesitated. Not wanting to be rude, she added, “It’s good to see you.”

“And you. You look pretty, as always.”

She did not know how to reply. People around them seemed to have sensed the tension and were sending nervous glances their way.

“Why don’t we go to the sommelier’s lounge,” she suggested. She looked at Nevins. “Kyle, please have a drink on the house.” She instructed Clarence, who was pouring samples for people, to give him all he wanted of any vintage on hand. She and her brother walked back to the room Rocambolesco used for wine tasting. Classic furniture filled the room. Mirrors and portraits of their ancestors adorned the walls. An ornate chandelier hung from the ceiling. Sommeliers—wine-tasting experts—liked elegance, and the winery provided it when they came. Brother and sister settled in two chairs that pushed up to a long table where the tasting took place.

When Christopher sat down beside her, she got a better look at him. She saw a careworn, tired young man—like the people on television talk shows who are former alcoholics or drug users. He was one of those things, she thought. Or both.

After a long silence, she spoke.

“So?”

He seemed to summon his courage.

“It was hard to come here, Gevvie.”

His old nickname for her. She flinched imperceivably. She had hoped the conversation would not start out like this.

“Well, it’s hard for both of us. I don’t think we need to say that.”

He seemed rattled by her coldness.

“Giovanna, I don’t know where to start.”

“Neither do I, Christopher.” She had always called him by his full name, never the diminutive. “And if you don’t know what to say, maybe you should come back when you do. I have a business to run. Daddy is gone. Mother is recovering from a serious disease. I’m doing this gig all by myself. I don’t want to sound mean, but it taking up a lot of my time and energy to manage all of this.”

A surge of emotion tightened her throat. Tears ringed her eyes. She used all her strength to suppress what she felt but could not hide the tears. She blinked. One ran down each cheek.

“Give me a minute,” he said.

She waited, glad to have time to settle her emotions. She whisked the tears away with a brush of her finger.

“I can start by saying I’m sorry.”

Giovanna only nodded. Despite the sorrow she felt, her impatience began to rise once more.

“I’m sorry for what I did, Giovanna. What do you say when you’ve done wrong, hurt people; when it’s your fault and you can blame no one else; when you do something that messes up the lives of people you love; and the only thing you can do is face up to it?”

She felt a chill—but it contained a tiny flame of familial love.

“I guess you say what you just said. And I can accept your apology, Christopher. You need to realize, though, that the … fallout from you did affected Mother, Daddy, and me—it brought a lot of hurt and anguish on our family. If I seem a little cold, it’s not because I hate you or anything like that. It’s because I’ve been hurt. I guess people are naturally cautious after that’s happened.” She sighed, suddenly feeling heavy and burdened. “So, yes,” she continued. “It’s clear you are really sorry, and I’m glad to see that sincerity. But it’s going to take a while, Christopher. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

“I do.” He was near tears. She leaned back in the chair.

“So tell me what you’ve been doing.”

He knew, she observed, that she expected an answer.

“I lived in LA. I worked in a vineyard”—he tried to smile but the smile was more a grimace—“Does that surprise you? I didn’t make much money. I also got involved in the scene.”

“The scene?”

“The local drug scene. I got on the stuff.”

“Stuff? You mean heroin?”

“Cocaine.”

“Okay.”

“I was like that for six years.”

“You’re off drugs, I take it.”

“I’m off, yes.”

“I’m glad to hear that. Mother said you have an apartment. Are you working?”

“I have a place over on Cass Street over in Traverse City. I work at the Omelet House as a cook.”

She reacted to this, though she managed to conceal her response.

“Are you okay? I mean, do you need money?”

“I get by. I do some landscaping for the church.”

“Was it a church group that helped you get off drugs?”

He nodded. She was glad he did not launch into a conversion narrative. Though Giovanna had resolved not to feel sympathy for her brother, it began to creep into her soul.

“If you need financial help, let me know. You talked to Mother?”

“I did.”

“Remember she’s in recovery. She can’t deal with a lot of stress just now.”

“I know.”

Giovanna wondered if she should convey the good news of her mother’s cancer-free test results. She decided not to. They would talk soon enough and their mother could tell him the good news.

They chatted a little more easily. She had to admit to herself that her brother had lost none of his charm or wit in his years of being the prodigal son. They spent some fifteen minutes  talking about trivial things. Giovanna enjoyed their conversation. Maybe it would work. Maybe they could be fully reconciled. She would know in a while, but now it was best to be cautious and retain some distance. She told Christopher it was nice seeing him again and talking. They stood and shared a small embrace. She walked with him to the tasting room, gave her room manager the same instructions for Christopher she had given for Kyle. She and Kyle went to her office. As she left she saw Christopher looking over stock of wine available that day.

She motioned for him to set down across from her desk. Kyle’s friendship with Christopher would complicate things a little. But he was too practical to think she would offer him a new job just because he was friends with her brother. In fact, she reflected, he more probably though she felt some hostility toward him for insisting she see Christopher and meant to dress him down. She wondered if he had heard that she sacked Frank.

“I want to offer you the position of general manager,” she said.

He looked stunned. She laid out the circumstance that had brought the job offer about and described the duties he would undertake if he accepted it.

“Everything I’ve done here has been out in the field,” he said. “I’m not so sure I would be good at paperwork and administration.”

In fact, he had done an excellent job with paperwork and administration in his current position. A lot of vineyard managers did not even know how to write a report or keep expense accounts. She told him as much.

“And you will have a secretary. Your job will be to oversee production and supervise our vineyards—and, as you know, we’ve got a lot of them. And we’ll likely acquire a few more. You know how to organize and streamline production in the field and you know the markets. Best of all, you know grapes. I can’t think of anyone who better fits the skills set necessary for this job, Kyle.”

He wanted to know the particulars. After she outlined them, he contemplated a moment and said it seemed like a lot of work and would entail learning several new procedures, but he would be willing to take the job. If she offered it him, he would say yes.

She laughed. “You haven’t even heard the salary.”

“I’m not sure I want to. If it’s a lot of money, I’ll be all paranoid about not doing a good job and getting canned.”

‘You’ll do well.”

The amount of money she told him he would make astonished him.

I overpaid Frank, she said. But Kyle will do the job I paid Frank big money for that he never did very well.

“Well, Giovanna, I’ve already said yes. So, again:  yes, I will accept the offer.” He paused, not sure what should come next, then smiled and said, “Tell me when I start.”

They both laughed.

“This calls for a celebration,” she said.  She told Kelli, supervisor of the tasting room, to fetch an old bottle of vintage merlot from the cellar. While they waited for her to return, she went over some of the details.

Giovanna hardly knew Kyle, though she did know what an excellent job he had done and that those who worked under his supervision liked him. She had always found him attractive and charming, though she had never had the opportunity spend time with him and never saw him because of the different responsibilities their jobs and entailed and, for her, personal tragedies and the rigors of assuming control of the winery. Kelli brought the bottle in.

“Let’s drink now. After that, you can start filling out the paperwork.”

Kelli poured for them and then left. Giovanna raised her glass.

“To your new role in the company,” she said, smiling.

He smiled, bowed just slightly, and drank. She noticed he was not wearing a wedding ring.

They talked. The vineyards he supervised were near Beulah, a good drive from the winery itself.

“I’ll sell my house. It’s too big for me anyway,” he said.

She gave him a puzzled looked.

“My wife and I split a couple of years ago.”

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“Sometimes you just marry the wrong person. She didn’t want children, I did; lots of other issues emerged that we weren’t aware of when we were dating. I’d like to find a smaller place and, now, one closer to the winery.”

“The real estate market is up. You’ll probably get twice what you paid for the house. I’ll have Miriam look around for listings.”

Their conversation had turned gloomy. She asked him about winemaking in California and what it was like to work out there. He asked about the family business, its history and how it developed. It gave her pleasure to talk about the subject, which hardly anyone asked about or cared about. She was the fourth generation owner of the winery. Her great-great-grandfather had started it in 1866. After he had immigrated as a teenager to the United States from Italy, he fought in the Union army during the Civil War, saved his salary as a soldier, and used the money to started the winery. She enjoyed talking. After a while, she noticed she was talking loudly and broke into laughter. He gave her a questioning look.

“I’ve had too much to drink,” she said. “I haven’t been drunk in I don’t know how long.”

“Well,” he said, “that’s okay. It’s a celebration.”

They talked on until Kyle said he needed to go. They rose.

“Giovanna, thank you for giving me this opportunity,” he said.

He put out his hand. Yes, it had been a business transaction, she thought. But because she was happy and little drunk, and he was too, both stopped the forward motion of hands and laughed. She put out her arms and they shared an embrace.

Giovanna had not been this close to a man in six years. The circumstance-enforced celibacy in which she had lived prevented had her from enjoying even a hug. She felt warmth course through her and let the embrace last just a little longer than she would have normally. They pulled apart and smiled.

“It will be great to have you here at corporate headquarters,” she said, joking by using that particular phrase; they always called the building “the winery.” She hesitated, mind working frantically to decide if she should say what she wanted and deciding she would say it. “You’ve worked at Rocambolesco four years and I hardly even know you.”

“We’ll see each other a lot more now.”

She smiled. Better to stop there, she thought. Too many unknowns to try to take it further.

He left for home. She went into the tasting room and began to pour.

                                                            ****

That afternoon, she relaxed at home (her mother was away) and thought of her future and of being married. If she wanted to have children (which she did) she needed to get busy. Anxiety crept in when she considered this. As far as she knew, Christopher had not married; she did not even know where Samuel, her other brother, was. As much as the statement might sound utilitarian and mercenary, the family needed an heir. It needed more than one heir. As the only loyal child in the family, she had an obligation. She needed to get married and to have children. It was her choice to see things this way. However pragmatic it seemed—well, pragmatism was a good way to go in some cases.

She could get married. She had the assets to be markable:  good looks and money. But she dreaded the idea of being married to someone who did not love her; and of a marriage going sour and ending in divorce. There were men who were gold-diggers. She had to meet the right man, not just men who were simply marketable.

She thought more and more of Kyle.

Giovanna liked the way he looked.  He did not ogle  at her the way Frank always did, though she could sense he liked her looks. He did not prattle or run his mouth. He was not taciturn, though; and when he spoke, he communicated kindness.

She wondered where her mother had gone. Ten minutes later she got a call.

“Christopher is in the hospital,” she said.

Giovanna wondered in dread if he had lapsed back into drug used and overdosed. Her mother told her he had sliced his hand while chopping vegetables at the Omelet House.

“A pretty serious cut,” she said. “And, of course, when it happened it sliced through the latex glove he had on and the cut came in contact with material that might have any variety of nasty parasites in it. The doctors want him to stay overnight just so they can make sure the stitches hold and make sure there is no infection.”

Giovanna shuddered at the thought.

“I tried to call you, but you must have had your phone off.”

“I always turn it off when I pour.”

“Well, I’ve got to go. Christopher is okay. I’m meeting some women at church.”

“I’ll get over to see him.”

“They gave him a sedative and he’s asleep.”

“I want to see him, Mama.” Tears came to her eyes. Damn, damn, damn, she thought, chiding herself for being so emotional.

“I guess that’s right. He is your brother.”

Her mother went to her women’s group. Giovanna thought to change clothes but decided not to. She drove to the hospital, identified herself as a relative, and gained admission to the room. To her surprise, Christopher was awake. Nevins and a tall, pretty women were there. Christopher, who seemed tired but lucid, introduced the woman as Sybil, a deaconess from the church. She had thought at first the woman might be Kyle’s girlfriend but noticed she wore a wedding ring. The two of them left. Giovanna and Christopher were alone together.

Now she did not know what to do. He was her brother, but they had been apart for so long he seemed odd and strange. He smiled tiredly. She returned the smile.

“They told me you would be sedated,” Giovanna said.

“I have a lot of resistance to narcotics—for all the wrong reasons, I’ll admit.”

She pulled a chair up close to his bedside. Their nearness was awkward to both of them. She touched his face.

“You are okay, aren’t you?”

“I’m fine—though this will take me out of work for a while. And I don’t know how I’ll pay the ER bill.”

“We’ve got that.”

“Giovanna, you don’t have to”—

“I know I don’t have to, damn it,” she said, “but I’m going to. I’ve got lots of money and I hardly ever get to use it for something worthwhile.”

He smiled impishly.

“What is it?”

“I think that’s the first time I’ve heard you cuss.”

It took her a moment, but she laughed. Giovanna’s parents had always considered swearing gauche, rude, and not proper for a lady, and she had not done it much. In fact, she reflected, Christopher might be right. It might really be the first time she had spoken an oath aloud to him.

“Maybe so,” she said. “Anyhow, you’re okay, and that’s what matters. If you miss work or if your injury makes it so you can’t work, I’ll give you some expense money. Tell me how much you need and I’ll get it for you. And don’t skimp. You need to get well, so you need to eat well and have a clean place to stay. I’ll pay your bills. I’m sure Mother would have told you the same.”

He started to say something, but she held up her hand.

“No. I’ve had enough drama today. No need to go on and on with apologies and thanking me.” Wanting to change the subject, she said, “Did you hear that Mother is cancer-free?”

“No.” He seemed amazed and astonished. “I hadn’t. Wow. That’s a relief.”

“It sure is.” A little wave of anger passed through her. Where was he when it seemed like their mother would die? When she was so weak from surgery and so ill from chemotherapy? She suppressed her feelings.

“You look pretty,” he said, his tone suggesting he had read her feelings.

“I always try to dress up for work.”

Because of her dark skin, black hair, and dark eyes, bright colors looked good on her. She wore red, purple, and dark green a lot (today she had on a green skirt and white blouse—she never went to the winery in pants or shorts). She remembered that Christopher used to compliment her on the way she dressed when he had been home.

“Maybe after you heal up we can find you a place to work in the business,” she said.

He looked shocked and then like he might cry. She interdicted his emotion with a look.

“Christopher, I told you I’ve had enough drama today. So we’ll talk about it later. Is there anything you need?”

“No. And I wanted to say:  I think it’s great that you hired Kyle for a new job.”

“He’ll be my general manager. He’s replacing Frank.”

Christopher raised his eyebrows. “He didn’t tell me that.”

“It will be fun working with him, I think. I’ll finally be dealing with someone who’s competent.”

“He thinks you are very cool.”

She smiled. “Well, I’m glad to hear that.”

Her brother looked doubtful. “I mean, you know”—

She smiled merrily.

“Any women likes to learn a guy thinks she’s cool—especially a woman my age.” She gave a quick glance at her watch. Really, she had nowhere to go but thought this would be a good note on which to end their conversation. “I need to go. Mother will probably come to see you after her church group meeting ends. She came here earlier but you were out cold. I’ll leave a text and tell her you’re awake.”

He nodded. Giovanna thought to give her brother a kiss but decided against. She touched his hand, smiled, and left the room.

Outside the door, she saw Kyle. The woman had gone. She stopped.

“Kyle, I wanted to thank you for helping Christopher.”

“Always glad to.”

“We’ve got his expenses covered, so he’s good there.”

He only nodded, as if he didn’t know what to say. Understandable, she thought. I am his boss.

“How are the grapes looking his year?” she asked.

“Very good. The weather has been just right. I think it will be a perfect harvest volume, and the grapes are good for vintage.”

“That’s what we need. Orders for our new blends are up triple. I don’t know how we can fill them.”

“Like I said:  This year’s harvest is going to increase the volume.”

“Okay. By the way, my mother is having a little soiree to celebrate five years cancer-free. I’d love to see you there. You could get to know my mother. This is a family business, so you need to get to know the family.”

He said he would attend.

As Giovanna drove home, she let her thoughts rest on Kyle. As a business woman, she always did analysis. She thought through the dynamics of her situation and of the possibilities a relationship with him might succeed.

There was, first off, the matter of work. You didn’t initiate with your boss. You didn’t ask her out of a date or even out for coffee. You were reticent about getting too familiar with whoever owned the business for which you worked. She would have to show him she liked him and would not be put off if he made overtures of friendship. She had tried to do that a little and it seemed to be working.

Second, there was the difference of religion. Giovanna thought she would not want to leave the religion of her childhood—of her life. Its rhythms went deep into her. Kyle, an evangelical, might see the difference in their expressions of the Christian faith as a problem. She had some familiarity with the evangelical church. Her friend Brenda, whom she still knew and did things with from time to time, had never tried to proselytize her; nor, for that matter, had anyone else at Mission Fields. The days of dogmatism, she thought, had faded, and this was true for both sides of the schism. The days were gone when priests told the kids in CYO they should invite their protestant friends to come so they could be in the care of the one true, apostolic church; and when evangelical Christians gave you tracts attacking the Catholic Church. Kyle did not seem like a fanatic. She assumed he could tolerate diversity of faith. If he could not, he was not worth her time.

These were the two major considerations. There were minor considerations. He was divorced. Her mother would not like it if she married a divorced man (she was already thinking about marriage, she realized when this thought crossed her mind). But he did not have children, a thing that complicated life for those who divorced. She didn’t know what her church thought about it. In former days, the Church would not marry a parishioner to anyone who was not a Roman Catholic, let alone a Protestant divorcee. But things had changed. This was a bump in the road she would have to negotiate and maybe use her skills as a salesperson, but it was not an insurmountable difficulty.

She arrived home. When she saw the beautiful house she lived in and the window to her bedroom, she realized things had settled. The pain of her father’s sudden passing had settled into the sad grief of memory. Her mother had beaten cancer. She had secured control of the winery and the winery was doing well. Christopher had returned, and it seemed he might reconcile with her and with their mother. The things that had pressed on her so cruelly the last five years had receded. But without these concerns filling her heart, she realized she was lonely. She did not want to sleep alone. She did not want to be by herself. It was time to get married.

Giovanna’s mother had no doubt gone to see Christopher. She thought to call her but felt too tired to talk. She showered, put on the sort of lacy nightgown she liked to sleep in, and went to bed in the big, quiet, empty house.

As she drifted off to sleep she reflected with amusement that her desire to get to know Kyle had filtered through her mind in the same way a new business proposition might.

                                                            ****

The task of running a business took up her time, but she rejoiced that during the hectic month of grape harvest and antecedent production of a new vintage, she was together with Kyle quiet a lot. They worked for hours on production schedules, consulted with distributors, decided on mixtures for their “Narnia wines,” initiated a building project for more warehouses and an addition to the main winery, inspected fields, and examined the grapes that were coming in from the vineyards.

He always behaved the complete gentleman. She wondered how to act friendly without seeming flirtatious. The protocols of owning a business and being the kind of woman her mother had brought her up to be were sometimes maddening. But their friendship grew; she fancied she saw it grow beyond a female/male friendship into the beginnings of romance—though at times she wondered if she were living in a fool’s paradise and only imagining what she wanted to see.

The breakthrough came just before her mother’s party.

The party she had planned kept getting postponed. Giovanna’s mother visited relatives to tell them the good news. Altar guild business kept her occupied. When relatives heard she had recovered fully from her cancer, they came to visit. The fall months came on, harvest came and went. By the time she organized the event, she decided to make it a celebration of her health and a Christmas party.

Christmas had been lonely without her father or her brothers. And Christmas meant children—a thing of which her mother always reminded her. The preparations for the party took days. The house would be full. Christopher, who now worked as a vineyard manager for Rocambolesco, planned to bring Jennine, his girlfriend from church.

“I’d like you to meet her,” he said before he left the winery to check the vineyards he managed to see if the grapes they had left to freeze were ready to harvest for Eiswein. “Can we go out for coffee together sometime this weekend?”

“I’d like that.” Giovanna grinned. “Of course,” she added, “I’ll feel like a third wheel.”

“You’re not the only one who feels that way.”

“What do you mean?”

“Kyle feels that way too when he goes places with Jeannie and me.”

“I can’t believe there aren’t a bevy of girls in your church—large as it is—who aren’t flocking around him.”

“There aren’t as many eligible women there as you think. And the ones there are aren’t the kind of women he likes.” Christopher paused, seemed to consider, then said, “He really thinks you’re cool.”

She turned to look at him—too quickly, she later reflected—and spoke with too much surprise. “He does?”

Christopher laughed—the first time she had heard him laugh since he returned home.

“Why does that surprise you? He’s very struck on you.”

“And probably doesn’t know how to show that because I’m his boss.”

“Exactly.”  Her brother paused then said, “I could”—he spoke cautiously—“invite him along when we go out for coffee. You wouldn’t be a third wheel if I did that. Neither would he.”

She did not immediately answer and then realized she was acting nonplussed. She recovered.

“Christopher, I think I would like that a lot.”

“Maybe Saturday? We can go to Espresso Bay.”

“I can go that morning, yes.”

“He’ll think that’s great.”

Giovanna pondered then said, “I will too.”

They finished their coffee. Christopher and Jennine left.

After sitting alone for a while she walked outside of the winery and around back. Snow blanketed the ground. A winter-blue sky rose above the familiar bay. A cold wind blew off the water, but Giovanna had grown up in the north and had a great deal of resistance to cold. She enjoyed winter. Cold made her think more clearly.

A door had opened. The opportunity had come. And it was foregone conclusion. The beginning—the most knotty problem, as she had seen it—had arrived. She could meet him not as his employer. Unless something unusual happened—and she could not see what it would be—the outcome would be what she wanted; and what, she suspected, he wanted as well.

The wind blew. She stood there until she realized it was time to come in from the cold.