Catharine Bramkamp - Real Estate Diva 04 - Trash Out (9 page)

“Besides the wonderful you, who else is helping her?”

He looked up from his angel hair pasta and a slow grin spread across his face. 
“O
’
Reilly is helping
. That makes the two of us investing again in Cassandra, only now he wants her back.”

“That’s a switch.”

Ben nodded and twirled his pasta
.
“Cassandra seems
to be focused on someone else though, she’s not giving Peter the time of day, even after he dropped two million on her
.”

I stopped spinning my pasta. 

He nodded. “That’s how we got it all up and running.  I just gave her some more to make sure all that paper work is filed.  O’Reilly is bringing in one of his secretaries to help Cassandra.  I’m not worried about the opening, but I don’t want her doing anything under the table during the wedding.  That would be bad for Patrick.”

“Two million?”

He grinned.  “See what we do for love?”

I shook my head.  I knew Ben was into this winery at least as much as O’Reilly.
It only bothered me a little. If
I 
were
thin and wore flowing clothes, I could get
men to
invest
millions of dollars into my vanity project
.  But to be honest, I didn’t need the money.

 
He took another sip
of wine
.
  “
Did I tell you that
up until last year
the vineyard was
contracted out to Wind Runner Winery in Napa
?
” 

“I know that wine, they get something like $2,
4
00 a bottle on auction.  Patrick once bought a bottle.”

Ben nodded. “I have too. It’s pretty damn awesome.”

“Would you pay $2,400 for it?”

“
N
o, no more than $900.”

“
And have you?
”

He ignored my question.
“
B
ased on that,
O’Reilly and I were
pretty
enthusiastic about the idea of
Cassandra
making
her own Zin.”
He
regarded the wine in his glass.
“
The
whites she made in Australia were marvelous.”
 

I leaned back and sipped the considerably less expensive
B
arbara from Amador
C
ounty.
  I
was not going to argue with him about the
white
Hunter Valley
wine
I just drank at Cassandra’s and I wasn’t going to pursue the question of finances.  I
don’t ask what he does with his money and he doesn’t ask me what I do with mine
,
although he has
accidentally
seen my shoe collection.

“
The winery has everything.
You’ve been there, the old Von Graffen winery never looked so good.”

“It looked good.” I agreed.
For an overblown, Disney-like version of a Greek
Revival
winery
.

He took a few more bites of pasta before continuing.  I was happy to listen
, the
Garcia’s promised to check out the three listings I recommended tomorrow while I was at the winery opening.  That they were independen
t
was a point in their favor. I was feeling nice and mellow. 
O’Reilly was more heavily invested than Ben. Was anyone else bankrolling Cassandra? 

“We checked on the yield, looks good, not too much
,
” he
swallowed.
“Fred
assured
me the
rootstock
is
good,
survived the last p
hylloxera.

“Is calling the winery Prophesy Estates a going to be a problem?”
 
E
state wineries
needed to
source
their wine from the
ir own
back yard in order to be considered authentic
estate grown
.

“It’s
just the
winery
name, we’re not labeling the wine
‘
estate grown
’
.  It should be okay.
The yield should be about
84 tons of grapes
which will make
about
3,500 cases a year assuming no spoilage, but we won’t know about that for another year after everything
has
been in bottle for awhile.”

He ticked off the amounts on his long fingers.  One fingernail was bright purple, on the verge of turning black.

“Smashing concrete with a sledge hammer again?”  I lightly touched his finger.

“You don’t want to know.”

We sat in companionable silence for a few minutes, swirling the wine, savoring the pasta and bread.

“Do you think she’ll be ready for the wedding?”  I finally asked.

“She has to be.”  

Chapter
5

We drove
together
to Ben’s place after dinner
. We planned to stay the night
there so we wouldn’t have to drive too far tomorrow. Ben’s place was just up the
road from the winery. Besides,
I liked lounging around Ben’s grandmother’s house, and
Ben
had
rashly
promised Cassandra he’d be there to help first thing in the morning
.  One of my jobs
in the morning
was to
discuss
the
shower plans with Ben’s grandmother, Emily
.

Ben and his grandmother share a house
. It’s
not as creepy as it sounds. Her house is roughly 10,000 square
feet;
Ben lives
in one wing, Emily, the other.
The house
was built in the
S
panish style
sporting
three
, two story
wings
that
surround
ed
a
stylish courtyard
.
It was
in
this
flagstone “room” complete with burbling fountain,
that
Emily and I planned to hold the shower.
 

I loved sitting on the patio
with my first cup
of coffee in the early morning.
The
new
sun slanted across the flat patio stones,
filling the patio with light and warmth
that could last all the way to November.
I raised
my face to the sun and drank it in just as completely as I drank my coffee.
  Ben studied the local paper.
  
Emily and I
traded casual comments
about the shower
, but we were uninspired and not much planning got done.

“I like John
, he’s been catering here for years
.”  Emily managed to cross her legs on the patio chair and tuck her bare feet under her thighs
,
a
n impressive trick for a woman going on
eighty
.

“I agree
,
but I’m getting a sense that
we are not going to get our way.
” I glanced at my phone,
i
t had been well over twelve hours since I heard from one of the Furies,
their
silence was ominous and
made me nervous.

“Oh Ben, I hope I’m not disturbing you!” 
Cassandra drifted out to the patio trailing a long diaphanous robe and matching silk slacks, her long hair drifted around her
shou
lders like a renaissance inspired
halo. 

She looked ethereal: I looked slept in. 

Emily didn’t bother to hide her disdain. She rolled her eyes
, unwound her legs
and picked up the coffee pot.  “I’ll be inside.” 

I said something vague and scrambled out of the way, not interested in further comparisons between
me and the perfect woman
.
  But I didn’t go far. 

As I made my exit, I saw Cassandra flip her long hair over her shoulder and bat her eyes. Maybe if you are willowy and lovely, you can get away with a smirk
and a toss. Me?  I have to put my back into it.
  I ducked into the guest bath just off the patio.  No one noticed.  I heard Emily banging in the kitchen making far
more noise than cleaning up after cold cereal and coffee warranted.

“Ben, you must, must help me.”  Cassandra’s tone was one of a wheedling teen, I must
,
must
,
must attend the beach party.  I must
,
must
,
must
possess
these designer shoes.
I know from whence I speak.

“The
paper work
is too much for me!
I
know we need to have it all in,
Fred says
I have to do it myself
,
he can’t just sign everything
.
And
Peter charges too much an hour
.
”  Cassandra
’s voice began to creep up an octave.
“There is just so much!  Who knew there was so much paper work for a simple business
?
Peter says his assistant can help me, should I hire the assistant?
H
e says I can borrow her at no charge, what do you think of that?  She can type and stuff.”

Ben did not answer, but I imagined his eye was starting to twitch.

There was a shuffling sound and Cassandra
dropped her tone to one of seductive coaxing.
“Benjy
,
when can
I take a break
from all this work and
just sell
the
wine?
  You know, pour it and get awards and go to banquets
. I’d be good at banquets. Or those guests vintner events, those are fun
.
”

“
The wine is not
even in barrel yet.”
Ben
sounded un
-
moved by her predicament
. “This is crush, no one takes a break during crush, you know that.”

“I have most of it in barrel
,
”
s
he contradicted.  “One more batch, one more
crush
.
It was easier when I was down under.”  She muttered.

“You wanted to own
a
winery, you wanted to do it yourself.”  Ben pointed out cruelly.
“And
you have Fred and
if we bring in
this new girl,
it should
n’t
be too much of a strain.”

It sounded like Cassandra needed someone like Patricia
at her beck and call. Patricia was a
genius at computers and paperwork, but I was in no position to make a suggestion, no mat
ter how salient or valuable.  May
be
Peter O’Reilly the Third will produce the ultimate assistant.

“Do I have to start paying back
your
loan right now?  Can’t
you
wait until spring when we will sell cases and cases to the restaurants?
I know a few of them will adore the
white,
we can sell that right away.  I can do that myself.
”

I felt, rather than heard
,
Ben sigh.

“
Yes, you can sell your white.  Of course, you can probably sell it tomorrow, if you had all your paper work finished.”

The bathroom tile was cold on my bare feet but I was determined to tough it out.  I
clutched
my coffee
mug,
its warmth countered the chilly tile.

My phone buzzed. I pulled it out of my pocket.  “We need to discuss the cake.”
Texted one of the Furies.
  Ah, here they were.  And I was worried.

I typed furiously back simultaneously
keeping track of
Ben
and Cassandra’s conversation.

“I’m not here to
hassle
Peter, you know how we are
.
”
In other words, he didn’t want to be the heavy, and I didn’t blame him.

“Petite Marie is a friend of mine, you want someone else?”  I typed back.

“Please,” Cassandra wheedled.  “You used t
o do anything for me.  We made
a great couple. For a while.”  She amended.

“We had one night.”  He pointed out.  “We were never a couple.” 

I sipped my coffee, my ear glued to the bathroom door.  I hooked the small
grape - shaped bath rug
with my toes and pulled
it over
to
cushion my chilled feet.
In my mind I visualized him rolling his eyes.
So far, he was saying exactly the right things
:
f
rom my point of view.

My phone buzzed and
I
jumped
:
“
Tiffany Cakes
is far more suitable.” 
Claire texted.

Who spends time typing out
the word
suitable on a text message?  I glared at my phone.

“We could change that.” I heard Cassandra purr, all predator now.

There was a disturbing silence.
I placed my hand on the door lever, ready to interrupt and reluctantly texted with my right thumb. 
Emily had stopped banging and clanging in the kitchen, where was she when I needed her?

“All right, I’ll call.”
I typed in and
turned off the phone.

“Cassandra you have
to stop.  It’s not fair to you.
I told you,
we aren’t right for each other.  A relationship needs to be between equals
.”
Ben’s voice had that edge that I had heard only twice, and I was delighted to hear it
aimed
at someone else
besides me
.

“I can be your equal,” she said quickly.

“There is someone else, and you know it.”  His voice was stern.

“Her?”  Cassandra said dismissively. “She’s too big.”

“Solid.” Ben immediately corrected.  “She is everything to me, and don’t forget it.”

I absently worried my ring as I leaned on the door making sure I caught every word.

“
I was everything to you once.”
She was plaintive now.  I had never heard a women burn throu
gh so many emotions and so many
extremes
in such a short time
and
so early in the morning
.  She was like an actress, playing the part
of the over-worked
wine maker with
nowhere
to turn. And she managed to pack in five
variations of that role in as many
minutes.

“Cassandra.”  Ben said softly and carefully.  “You are not everything
to me. You are a project to me.
A good project
,
a good friend
, but
a project none
-
the
-
less.
”

“I can hate you, I can ruin you.” She offered half
-
heartedly.
  “I even have someone else, what do you think of that?”

“
I think that’s great, I wish you well.”

It was not the answer she was hunting for.

“
Y
ou have wonderful blue eyes.”

I hea
r
d the chair scrape on the tile and his bare feet slap against the
patio tile.

“
I’ll drop off the numbers and some names for you to call after the party this afternoon.”

“
This afternoon may be too late.
I think I do
hate you.” She decided.

“That’s fine.  Just don’t hate Patrick Sullivan, that will hurt you far more than any amount of animosity against me
.
”

Her feet beat a sad tattoo on the hard tile floor.
The
patio door slam
med
and then the front gate
.
 

“Okay, you can come out now.” Ben called.

I pushed open the bathroom door, clutching my now cold coffee.

“Did you know I was there the whole time?”

He grinned, “I never miss a chance to show off.”

The late afternoon sun
illuminated
Prophesy Estates’
faux urns and pillar crowns giving them
and the milling guests an
almost authentic antique patina.  I had
discovered
the oyster bar immediately
upon arrival
and was reluctant to give up my place or my friendly chat with the shucker whose family had been gathering Hog Island Oysters for three generations.  I didn’t dare ask the boy if he worked wedding showers, the Furies would counter
a
ct that gesture in a
heart
-
beat
, or with a succinct text.
They hated every one of my suggestions
.
I was batting 1,000.