A Taste of Sauvignon (14 page)

“W
hat about this gouda?” Savvy called, her head in the open re-Wfrigerator.

“It's good. I only bought it on Friday,” replied Jeanne.

Savvy came out holding the package of cheese, making a face. “It smells awful.”

Jeanne stepped over and sniffed. “It smells magnificent,” she said, sounding somewhat indignant.

Savvy frowned, thinking. There must be something else she could add to the picnic she was packing for the hike. Somehow everything had this perplexing, off odor today. She settled for strawberries, tucking them into the wicker basket alongside the fried chicken and brownies. It'd been nice of Jeanne to whip up some things that would work for Savvy and Esteban's hike, in addition to the meal she was preparing for everyone else in the household.

When the basket was ready to go, she went upstairs to put on the pink sundress she'd borrowed from Meri. She might be pushing the season a little, but with another day of above-average temperatures, this spring was more than making up for the past few months. Besides, she really wanted to wear a dress.

When Esteban had made love to her, he'd awakened something deep in her soul, the likes of which she'd never known. That day on the beach under the warm spring sun, he'd made her feel not just wanted for her body, but
cherished
. Adored. As if she was the very center of his universe. Until that day, Savvy had never even had an inkling of what romantic love was all about. Sure, she loved her sisters. Jeanne loved her, she felt sure. Papa? He'd always kept a roof over her head. All those things paled in comparison to what Esteban did to her.

Though they had their hands all over each other every time they were together—outside his house, in his truck, wherever—they'd still only been together once. She was obsessed with experiencing that delicious feeling of wanting and being wanted again, and a dress could only make it easier.

She spritzed some Chanel No. 5 onto her wrist, and her nose wrinkled. Somehow, nothing smelled the way it was supposed to smell today.

 

Esteban tried to keep his eyes on the road as he drove north on 29 toward Bothe State Park. Those long, bare legs on the seat next to him were making it mighty hard, though. Because Savvy had put on some flimsy-ass dress to go hiking, like you do.
Pink
, no less. Not only that, she'd switched out the bun to a thick ponytail that she played with as he drove, grasping it hand-over-hand in long, slow strokes. Was the woman trying to kill him?

At least she'd taken his advice and worn sturdy shoes.

“You're quiet today,” said Savvy.

“Enjoying the view,” he said, clenching the wheel. She smelled great again, soft and sweet, and he could almost feel the warmth emanating from her lithe body.

“Here we are.” He parked the truck and grabbed the wicker basketful of food she'd brought, while she carried a blanket.

Everywhere Esteban and Savvy looked along the Redwood Trail, the forest was in bloom. Redwoods and madrone trees were bursting with green and the woods seemed full of hope, rebirth, and growth.

“Violets.” Savvy pointed to the flecks of purple dotting the green carpet they walked on. “Do you know, I haven't taken a walk in the woods since I moved back to Cali.”

“Did you get outside a lot back east?”

She gave him a sidelong grin. “About the only glimpse of nature I got in Boston was the weeds between the cracks in the sidewalk.”

They unpacked their picnic under some towering firs and listened to the water splashing down a rocky creek bed nearby while they ate chicken and sipped their Solo cups of wine.

“How's the Rathmells' lavender adapting?”

Music to his ears. She and Madre were the only people who ever asked. “This sun is the best thing that could happen for them. I think the roots are taking hold already. Might really work this time.”

“Yay.” From her seat on the blanket, she leaned over to squeeze his bicep. “I can't stop thinking about Anne Rathmell's still. Do you think she would sell it to me? They say the old copper ones are best. Nowadays they're making them out of steel.”

“Where would you keep it?”

“What would you think about me keeping it in your greenhouse? That is, if you have room.”

If his lavender took off, there would be a still right there on the premises to extract the oil. “I'll
make
room.”

Savvy leaned back on her elbows, grinning. “Don't laugh. When I was a little girl, I used to try to make my own perfumes by soaking rose petals in a glass of water. Sometimes I'd add things like grass clippings and crushed grape leaves. After a few days, the top would be covered with mold and our old housekeeper, Hilda, would throw it out. I wonder what ever became of Hilda? I missed out on so much while I was back east.

“What about you?” She eyed him up and down, reclining on the blanket in her pink dress, and he felt a pull in his groin. “Did you always have a fascination with growing things?”

In an effort to distract himself from her legs, he reached over to the bowl of strawberries and popped one into his mouth. “It's like I told you. Farming's in my blood.”

Savvy dug in the picnic basket. “Brownie?”

“Thanks.” He took a bite. “I don't ever remember thinking that's not what I wanted to do.” He polished off the brownie and reached for another. “Farming is a lifestyle. I grew up helping Padre, the same way he helped his dad. That's really the only way to learn it. It's never boring. I love being my own boss, having a flexible schedule. You have to know a little bit of chemistry to understand soil types and fertilizer, even if you're using organic methods, and you have to be a good problem-solver, because there's no one to depend on except yourself.”

“What I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around is this. Your dad has already put in an entire lifetime of hard work. Your mom said it's starting to take a toll on his health. Would it really be so wrong to give himself a break—sell his land for a great price? If not for himself, for your mother? After all, if he retires, she retires.”

He chuffed. “Madre loves to work as much as he does, if not more. The market doubles as her social life. I don't know what she'd do without that.”

It was important to make her understand the whole picture. “In Mexico, both my grandfathers farmed. Uncle Esteban was the firstborn son of his generation. He heard that things were better in America, and he decided to move, to make his family there. He came here as a single man when he was in his early twenties. Too bad, that's where it ended for him. He never had that family.”

“That's so sad.”

“They say a beautiful woman broke his heart, back in the Michoacán. That's why it wasn't so hard for him to leave.”

“He never found someone else?”

Esteban shook his head. “Uncle was a one-woman man. After her, he never dated, never married, never had kids. So when I came along, Grandfather encouraged Padre to follow him to Cali. Uncle and my parents left behind everything . . . family, friends, and homes, to cross the border. You think you missed out on things when you were back east? Imagine never coming back. But they were willing to make that sacrifice for future generations. Grandfather even came up with a name for it. The
Plan Familiar
.”

“Family Plan, right? Sorry—if I'd grown up around here, I'd have picked up a lot more Spanish by now.”

He nodded. “Our land is what holds us together. Uncle grew Christmas trees, Padre has his fruits and vegetables. Now it's my turn. Each generation can do his own thing on the same piece of ground. You see now?”

Lost in thought, she sipped her wine.

“About that real estate offer,” he said.

She lowered her cup and raised her eyes to his.

“Can I ask you something?”

“Ask away.”

“If NTI accepts Papa's counter, what's your cut?”

“What?” She scowled, as if she'd never even considered that question.

“What do you get out of this?”

“Six percent of the sale price is standard.”

“So, the higher the price it sells for, the more money you make.”

“That's generally the way real estate commissions work. In the end, it's all negotiable.”

“What would that mean to you?” he asked quietly.

She looked out at some pink rhododendron and thought. “It would mean a lot. Not for the reason you think, though.” She poured another inch of wine into her cup and downed it. “I've worked very hard to get where I am. When I was young, all I cared about was getting good grades so I could get into a top law school. Once I got to Boston Law, I spent my first year studying my ass off to qualify for moot court during my second. Then I edited footnotes on boring articles with titles like ‘Textualism and Statute Equity' for the law review.” She slipped off her glasses and rubbed the bridge of her nose between her eyes. “No wonder these lenses are so freaking thick.”

He felt a pang of guilt for busting on her glasses all those times, even if he'd never let on. “What drove you?”

She opened her mouth to say something, then snapped it shut. Finally she said, “What drives anyone? Wanting to make Papa proud, land a good job.”

She fingered a yellow violet growing close to the ground. “My goal now is to make partner. To do that, I need to prove I can produce.” Then she returned her focus to him. “So, to answer your question, for me, this deal isn't about the money. In fact, I'd probably end up offering to lower my commission, if that's what it would take to make it happen.”

Esteban gazed unseeing at his boots, lost in thought.

She touched his leg. “But none of that has anything to do with us, right? Let's put the real estate out of our minds, for now. I don't want it to spoil our day.” She tilted her head and smiled softly.

The treetops began to rustle. He looked up. “Wasn't supposed to rain today.”

A paper napkin blew a few feet away and Savvy shivered. “I felt a raindrop. I'll start packing up,” she said, reaching for the leftover food, stuffing it into the basket. Esteban swooped up the blanket and tossed it over his arm. He reached for Savvy's hand and led her back down the trail at a brisk pace, thinking about love and land and honor, while the wind blew her dress around her legs and the unexpected rain sprinkled their shoulders.

A
fter another week and a half went by with no response to her email, Savvy couldn't stand it any longer. She called Lawrence Van Horne, the master perfumer.

To her surprise, the man who answered the phone put her through. But her spirits fell again when Van Horne said everything he could to discourage her.

“I appreciate your interest, but I'm afraid what you're asking is impossible—what did you say your name was?”

“Savvy.”

“Savvy. I don't know of anyone who would be willing to train you over the Internet, without you coming to New York to learn in person.”

“Unfortunately I can't come to New York. I'm a lawyer. I have to stay here and work.”

“A lawyer? My dear, you'd best simply stay in California and forget about the perfume world. You'll make a lot more money as a lawyer than you ever will as a nose.”

There it was again. Money.

“Are you sure you can't help me? I'm a hard worker. I'm willing to study on my own. Just point me in the right direction, tell me what to read.”

“There's only so much you can learn from books. Even working closely under a master, it would take years of training to become a professional nose. You need discipline and patience.”

“I'm disciplined. I have patience.” She wanted this
.

“To begin with, how do I know you're worth training? Without a specific, innate ability, all the training in the world would be a waste of your time and mine.”

“I've always had a very acute sense of smell, ever since I was a child. I inherited it from my father. He's a winemaker.”

Through the phone came a jaded sigh. “Many people make their own wine. The sense of smell is exceedingly subjective. The only way you could possibly know if you have a trainable nose is to be tested. We do that by having you smell the different scent groups—citrus, floral, wood, and so on—to see if you can distinguish one from another. If you pass that test, the next step is to have you rank scents by intensity, from the faintest to the most concentrated.”

“Could you give me the specific instructions for those tests so I can do them on my own, then report back to you?”

She practically heard him rolling his eyes while the seconds ticked by. Her palm was damp from clutching the phone so tightly, and she was aware of her chest rising and falling.

“Tell me what you are smelling, right now, as we speak.”

“The starch in my dress, fresh from the cleaner's. Someone ate Chinese takeout in the lunchroom down the hall—yesterday. Three sprigs of lavender from the farm of a friend.”

“It doesn't take a ‘nose' to be able to smell lavender.”

“How many people can distinguish between
Lavendula angustifolia, intermedia
and
dentate
?”

At that, there was enough of a pause to give her a flicker of hope.

“It's unprecedented. I'm not making any promises. Give me some time to think it over.”

He'll say anything to get off the phone
.

“What was your last name, again?”

“St. Pierre. Sauvignon St. Pierre.”

 

Twenty-five hundred miles away in his New York City brownstone, Lawrence Van Horne was trying to enjoy his cocktail hour—that is, if he could ever get the persistent woman off the phone. Frowning, he reached around his wineglass for the bottle of his favorite cabernet, turning it to read the label.

“As in, Domaine St. Pierre?”

“Yes. Xavier St. Pierre is my father.”

Lawrence inserted his nose into his balloon-shaped glass, closed his eyes, and took three short whiffs. He drank, swishing to allow the ruby liquid to wash over his tongue, soft palate, and epiglottis.

“Let's see what we can do,” he replied.

A half hour later, Savvy was gazing out her office window at all the pretty spring colors, wondering how much essential oil could be distilled out of Rathmell Ranch's entire lavender harvest, when her phone rang.

“Savvy? Don Smith. Everything looks fine on the Morales contract. You want me to fax it over?”

“What?” She spun her chair back around with a clatter, to face her desk.

“You want me to fax it, or do you want to stop by and pick it up?”

“The partners accepted the Moraleses' counteroffer?”

“Yeah.”

Her heart skipped a beat. “Already?”

“The sooner we can close, the better. We need to tear everything out of there, raze the buildings, and put in rootstock by next spring.”

Savvy was speechless.

“You there?”

She stood. “Uh, yeah. Fax it over.”

“Will do. Take care. We'll talk soon about where to hold the closing and all.”

“Yippee!” Savvy's squeal had one of the assistants popping her head around the doorframe with a disapproving yet curious look.

Who cared what she thought? “Great news! I just did my first real estate deal!”

 

Esteban was loading the market gear into the back of his truck to prepare for the coming weekend, when Savvy's Mercedes pulled up the lane.

He was in high spirits. Sunday's passing shower hadn't affected the lavender at all. And now here came his two-legged mermaid. He hadn't been expecting her today on her way home from work, but he'd take it.

Her mile-wide grin matched his, as she got out of her car and wobbled rapidly toward him on those heels that made her calf muscles clench so sexily.

“Esteban!” she called breathlessly. Then he saw the long paper in her hand. It looked like the contract Padre had signed yesterday. A little ice chip formed in his belly.

“They took it! They took your offer!” she called when she was still yards away.

No puede ser!
The ice chip expanded into an iceberg, filling his whole being, freezing his feet to the earth.

“Can you believe it?” By the time she reached him, she was practically panting.

He still couldn't move.

“Look.” She thrust the contract toward him.

He didn't need to read it again. Against his will, he took it from her hand. One glance at the scrawled signature of NTI's general partner was all he needed. He shoved it back at Savvy like a hot potato.

“That's your copy,” she said. Gently she pushed his hand back.

He didn't want a copy. He took her hand with one of his and pressed the papers into it with the other. Then he picked up the crate containing Madre's market scales and produce bags and deposited it into the truck bed.

Savvy's smile faded. She looked down at the papers, then up at him. “You're upset.”

He stopped and stared at her. “Upset?
Upset? Qué demonios! ¿Qué quieres que diga? Toda mi punto de cambiar la vida!”

With a grunt, he hefted the big white market canopy into the truck bed—a job that usually required two men—while she stood and watched. The hand holding the contract drifted down to her side.

“I know. You're in shock. The
Plan Familiar
, and all that.”

“You say it like it's nothing! My grandfather's dream, my uncle's and father's work is just . . . pfffft—gone!” He threw his arms up. “What am I going to tell Padre?”

Savvy licked her lips and forced calm into her voice. “It was his offer. He set the price. He had to have known there was a chance NTI would take it.”

“What about Madre?” He gestured wildly toward their humble house, where a ruffled curtain fluttered out the window in the spring breeze. So what if it wasn't a mansion? It was theirs. “She's worked her whole life to make this . . . this cinder-block box a home! What's going to happen to it now?”

Savvy studied her shoes. When she looked up again, a tear rolled beneath the rim of her glasses. “I'm sorry,” she said. “I'm really sorry. I feel like I'm caught in the middle, here. I'm the one who started this whole thing. I never meant to hurt anybody. You've got to believe that, Esteban. I was only doing my job.”

She laid the papers on the edge of the truck bed, turned, and walked away.

He didn't even notice Padre behind him until he spoke.

“You don't have to translate to me what that was about.”

Esteban hung his head.

He felt his father's hand squeeze his shoulder. “Don't blame yourself. She's right. I was the one who made the offer.”

Esteban looked up sharply.

“That's right. I understood her,” his father said. “Your old
padre's
smarter than you think. Come. Let's figure this out together before we go in and break the news to your mother.”