CABERNET ZIN (Cabernet Zin Wine Country) (21 page)

“Let me know if you want me to watch the kids next week by Sunday evening.”

“Sure,” Zack held the door for her then let it latch shut after she got in her car.

Zack put his bag down, hung his coat up, sighed, and kicked off his shoes.

Lydia stomped to the kitchen, “You’re late getting home. I had to do the kid’s homework again.”

“I just get in and you want to start that? My clients are all over the globe and I have to meet their schedules in all the different time zones. This is the job I had.”

“– What do you mean
had
?”

“They had cutbacks and a wave of firings. I was one of them. Did I ever mention Mable? They fired Mable today too. Early retirements are coming for many and layoffs are starting. Harold told me this is the first wave and that he expects another with managers like him getting kicked out too.”

“What?” Lydia banged her fists on the kitchen counter then stabbed the air with her finger at Zack, the sharp steel edge of her crisply painted nails cutting at him, “This is your fault. If you didn’t have that crazy winery investment that you are at all the time then you wouldn’t have been so expendable.”

“I did my work out there. It’s actually a better time zone for my work between Mexico and Asia than living here in Detroit. Sales are down and they are cutting back, it was just a matter of time.”

“No. It’s because you’re focused on all this other stuff and not your job nor these kids. And I have to pull you away from the computer because you’re on it all the time.”

“You’re dredging all this old stuff up? The computer is dead. You saw it after the flood. My job skills put me on the computer. Program Management involves time lines, reports, presentations, and other knowledge work. Should I wave a shovel over my head while I type?”

“Shoveling might help. You spend all this time on all these projects and none of them ever amounts to anything. Working hard and spinning your wheels – because look what it got you – out of work. You screwed up, admit it.”

Zack’s mouth worked up and down but no sound came out. He would bash something with his fist but he knew he would be the one fixing it, “I’m going downstairs to watch the game. Maybe I can hear it over the fans still drying the basement out.”

“Yeah, escape when the argument gets hard. Like quitting on work. And me. And the kids.”

“You are really not very nice, are you?” Zack went to the basement and turned on the television. He increased the volume until he could hear it over the powerful whine of the fans. He moved a solid wood chair that was mostly dry – one of the few pieces of furniture that remained. All the joints swelled and the flat panel slat in the back had warped. He expected when it was fully dried out the thing would fall apart. For now, it would hold him. He sat close to the television screen so he could hear the program and because of the way it swept passed his peripheral vision he pretended he sat in a box at the stadium. He really wanted, and needed, a beer but that meant another opportunity of going near the sharp blades of the argument machine.

-:-:-:-O-:-:-:-

Amanda drove her car to the corner fuel station and stopped at one of the pumps. She was sad for Zack. She walked into the convenience store, chose pop, chips, and a small container of ice cream, and went to the counter.

“This stuff plus ten dollars on pump number two.”

“Seventeen dollars and thirty-five cents,” the cashier’s drawer slid open with a loud strike of the register’s bell.

Amanda gave him the money and said, “You must get annoyed with that bell on the drawer all day.”

“I did at first, now it’s just part of the routine.” He dropped the change into her hand, “Those purchases looks like you are ready for a Friday night date?”

Amanda smiled, saying over her shoulder as she walked out, “No, watching a movie with some friends.”

She put her purchases in her car and pumped her fuel. The pump clicked down as it slowly approached the ten dollar limit. She twisted the cap back on her gas tank and put the fuel handle in the pump stand. She turned to reach for her car door handle.

“Hello, Amanda!” Nick stood between her and her car door. “Nice meeting you here.”

“I have to go.”

Nick looked in her car’s window and saw the chips, “You bought all single serving items. I cannot believe –” He ran a knuckle down the side of her face and along her jaw before she could pull away. “– That you do not have a date on a Friday night.”

The stiff black hairs growing out of the back of his fingers abraded her skin, “I’m on my way to my friend’s house.”

“Must not be a good friend. I can fix that. I have a nice snack at my place. I’m a chef on the weekends. I can whip something up for you for dinner … and for breakfast.”

“Let me go,” she pushed him away from her car.

Nick’s anger flared, he was about to push her back but the convenience store attendant speaker crackled, “Leave her alone sir, or I will have to call the police.”

Nick looked across the cement lot at the cashier’s window and saw the attendant watching passively. The overhead speaker clicked on again, “You are on our remote video recording already.”

Nick’s face flashed brick red. He swung his arms away from Amanda while he took steps back. Then he cut across the pump isles to his car, got in, and drove off with tires chirping out of the cement lot onto the blacktop street.

Amanda clicked open her car door. She slid down on the car seat. Her fingers shook as she worked at snapping the seatbelt buckle in place. She dropped her keys in a jangle between the seat and center console, “Shit!” She fumbled for the keys but found them, took a deep breath, and started her car. She watched her rear view mirror the entire way home to ensure no one followed her.

Amanda tossed her keys on her counter next to the scary movie she originally intended watching. She found a romantic comedy instead that just started on regular television. She opened the chips and sipped her pop. Her blanket wrapped her body and covered her cheek like a poultice over a wound.

-:-:-:-O-:-:-:-

Claire sat with her father as they watched a romantic comedy on broadcast television. She had seen it twice. Her father watched the movie as if mesmerized by the flashing mosaic of images. She studied his face. Worn, aged, and gray he sat in his old stuffed chair. He bought a used chair shortly after getting married. They reupholstered it when she was almost out of elementary school. The arms had become grease stained and threadbare along with the darker shading where her father’s head rubbed the fabric at the back. The chair always comforted him. Maybe it comforted her to see him sitting in it as he always did. The side of his face lit by the ghostly glow of the shifting television scenes. He looked at Claire, “Miss, could you get me some water?”

“Yes, Mr. Vega.” She went to the kitchen and drew a tumbler full of water. For an hour that morning, he remembered everything. Within the space of ten minutes, he faded back to this zombie state. He thought she filled the role of one of his old students when between his extremes. Then other times he thought her a nurse that kept him locked in a room that simulated his home while they performed dangerous medical experiments on him. He never seemed alarmed at the perceived danger and just accepted the situation.

“Here you go sir,” she wanted to say
Dad
so much, but she had learned that anything outside of what he assumed caused more confusion and she would argue with him the rest of the night. She learned to play along provided he remained safe and calm.

“Are they sending me on a mission tomorrow? I know that’s code for more tests. Are they going to run more tests on me and see if their experiments are effective?”

“No, Mr. Vega.”

“I thought not. If their experiments worked, I guess I’d be dead. They will keep trying until I am dead you know.”

“Yes, Mr. Vega.” The phone rang. Claire went to the kitchen and took the receiver off the wall. The phone was the same one the phone company rented people up through the nineteen seventies. Her father bought the thing from the phone company when the government changed the monopoly regulations opening up carrier competition. He told her the phone was so well built it would never wear out. One of the small investments he still used more than thirty years after purchasing it; equipment that might have been twenty years old when he bought it. The bludgeon-heavy receiver might easily last another thirty years.

“Hi, it’s Tyler. How is Dad?”

“The usual since we brought him home from the hospital.”

“Did you ask him?”

“Ask him what?”

“For that money I need. For my rent.”

“You saw him. He doesn’t know if I’m a nurse or his daughter.” Claire wanted to cry but she held firm. “I gave up my apartment when I had to move in here because I couldn’t make enough to afford it. I’m not sure how I’m supposed to keep my job going either,” she didn’t want Tyler thinking the same though. Better if he was out on his own than living here. Then she’d be taking care of both of them.

“I really need money. Dad gave me my rent when I couldn’t get it together. I’ve had rotten luck lately.”

“What kind of work are you doing?”

“Well … none at the moment. Just surfing.”

“I don’t have magical access to his finances.”

“How are you paying his bills?”

“He set everything up with auto pay. I haven’t even seen the statements to make sure it stays working; he locked everything up in his computer accounts. The bank won’t tell me details either. I hope he recovers before we have to make any changes.”

“That’s going to be a problem if something else happens to him.”

“I know,” Claire glanced at the power of attorney forms on the counter; she didn’t know how to get her father to a notary to sign them with her. His lucid time was too narrow and too unpredictable to schedule someone to stop by the house. “I try to catch him when he seems aware but that’s not often –” She worried more since she noticed a lengthening time between his true wakefulness.

“Do you have any money you can spare?”

“Since I came here to watch him, like I said, I’m barely working. So no.” Joan and Claire had discussed again getting Tyler to watch their father but they had agreed it best for the situation to keep Tyler on his own. Claire used the money she managed from work to buy groceries. She was glad neither she nor her elderly father ate much.

“Well, this sucks!” Tyler growled, stomping around on the other end of the phone. “Maybe I can make an excuse with the landlord again. Can you push Dad? I could use some help. I already pawned my guitars and two of my best surf boards to get through last month.”

“Can you teach more surfing classes or work at a fast food or a retail job?”

“I’ve gotten fired from all the places within walking distance and you know I don’t have a car. A car takes gas and insurance. The ones I can sometimes afford break down a lot. Which is another problem; I don’t know how to fix them.”

“I don’t know what to say.”

“Just talk to Dad for me?”

July

Zack clipped away the extra shoots growing from the base of the vine in front of him. He stood and rubbed the back of his glove across his forehead to push the sweat from burning his eyes. He heard footsteps crunching along a row and the tinkling of little bells. He searched for the source of the sound.

“Hi there.”

“Claire?” Zack dropped the clippers into his back pocket and removed his gloves. She bent low and the bells chimed furiously as she scraped under the trellis wire and crossed a row. Then two more rows while Zack met her by crossing several remaining rows between them.

“I brought you a drink,” she said, holding up a capped pitcher full of lemonade, lemon wedges, and ice.

“I thought I heard the sounds of angels and I hoped I wasn’t in this field having heat stroke.”

“The sound of angels? Oh, the ice against the glass,” she shook the pitcher and grinned. “Here,” she handed him a glass and then flipped the pitcher spout open and poured.

Zack took a sip, “Lemony … and really sweet.”

“I wondered if I put too much sugar in there.”

“No. This is great – it makes me wonder how soon the vultures would find me out here, hallucinating like I must be right now.”

“Didn’t you bring a water bottle? It’s really hot.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t bring enough. I must have tipped over by the fence post, dreaming all this?”

“I could pinch you,” she said while pouring a second glass for herself. She balanced the pitcher on a few rocks sitting above the dirt.

“And I would find that fun,” he sipped his lemonade. “You drove an hour out here to give me lemonade?”

“I hadn’t seen you in a while. I enjoy spending time with you.”

“Why do you seem attracted to me? While I’m ok, I know I’m not movie star handsome. Unlike you - you’re hot with a personality to die for … and did I say hot?”

“Maybe you
are
hallucinating against the post after all?”