Annie and Taylor left for the Grubenmacher Mansion at a little past eight. Since learning that Steven Vick would be there, Annie had felt almost sick to her stomach, dreading the possible reunion. Taylor was affected in a different way. Her voice was high-pitched, and she seemed strangely animated, almost manic.
They pulled into the semicircular driveway in front of the Grubenmacher Mansion where a high school-aged boy hopped up to open the door, then moved Taylor’s van to a gravel parking area behind the building, beyond the garden. Floodlights illuminated the front of the mansion. “Wow,” was all Annie could think to say, seeing the building in all its gold and burgundy glory.
“It drives me nuts that this is all wasted on that dried-up old bat,” Taylor whispered. “Gerald just cringes every time he sees it—the woman is either nuts or color-blind, maybe both.”
The foyer was mobbed with arriving guests, all trading wine-related shop talk. Annie had found that almost all professional gatherings were interesting—as long as the professionals weren’t lawyers. When she could get her mind off Steven Vick, she found herself looking forward to learning something new about wine.
A young woman spotted them and pushed her way through the mob. Even from across the room, Annie could tell that this must be Taylor’s daughter, Celia. She had the same high cheekbones and grayish-blue eyes that had helped win Taylor so many admirers in high school. If Taylor hadn’t told her Celia’s age, Annie would have guessed she was closer to twenty-five than seventeen.
“Mom, thank God you’re finally here. The display’s almost set up, but the guys brought the ’89 cabernet instead of the ’88. Galen’s furious, and wanted to talk to you as soon as you got here.” Taylor quickly introduced Celia, and in a moment, they were joined by a stocky man in a western-style shirt and gray eelskin cowboy boots. Taylor introduced him as Galen Rockwell, North Faire’s winemaker. He cracked the barest of smiles, shook Annie’s hand, then apologized for having to discuss the wine display with Taylor. His voice was deep and resonant.
“Now?” said Taylor, not even trying to hide her irritation. Galen said something in a low voice that upset Taylor. “Oh, all right. Celia, I have to go with Galen. Will you show Annie around, introduce her to people?” With that, Taylor and the winemaker walked hurriedly toward the kitchen.
Celia turned to Annie, oblivious to her mother’s strange mood. “Isn’t this exciting? North Faire has held tasting events before, but nothing as huge as this. It’s incredible.”
Taylor had warned Annie not to overdress, that folks in the valley didn’t go much for formality. But she apparently hadn’t told Celia, who was wearing the kind of dress only a seventeen-year- ld could get away with. It had a black velvet strapless bodice, and a short pouf of gold satin that was hardly long enough to be called a skirt. The fact that no one else in the room was wearing glitter didn’t seem to faze her a bit.
Just inside the foyer, a tiny, elderly woman was greeting friends. “That’s her highness, Florence Grubenmacher,” Celia whispered conspiratorially. “Rumor has it that she hasn’t seen the inside of a dress shop since 1962.” Annie noted that Mrs. Grubenmacher’s navy and white sheath, string of pearls, and bird’s-nest hairdo did look like they were straight off the pages of Life magazine.
“Should we say hello?”
Celia shook her head. “No. There’s so much bad blood between her and Mom, she’d probably just snub us.”
“I’d noticed that Taylor didn’t have very many kind things to say.”
“The animosity is mutual, believe me.”
“Do you know why?”
Celia shook her head. “It’s something to do with her son. She thinks Taylor was mean to him in grade school or something. I wouldn’t mind saying hello to the man she’s talking to, though. That’s Dr. Marchand. Isn’t he just the sexiest thing here?”
Annie could see Celia’s point, though he wasn’t her type. The man was tan and fit, with the air of someone who spends most of his time pursuing leisure activities.
“And he’s not married!”
“So, what’s the story on him?” Annie asked. “I know Taylor said to be particularly nice to him because he’s the guest of honor.”
“Uh-huh. He’s a retired physician, and his passion is collecting wine. He really was the driving force behind this event. He came up with the idea, got all of the wineries excited, and put up ten thousand dollars of his own money. That part’s between you and me—he wanted the gift to be anonymous. But the real reason she wants us to be nice to him is because he invests in small wineries. He has a whole lot of money invested in small wineries down in California. What he does is, he looks for young wineries that maybe have a lot of potential, but are having financial difficulties. Then he steps in as a limited partner until they get on their feet again, sort of like a patron of the arts.”
“And Taylor thinks he might invest in a winery up here?”
“He’s said as much. He’s very interested in the future of Washington wines, and North Faire is on his list of wineries to check out.”
“I thought North Faire was doing well financially.”
Celia’s eyes widened. “I don’t know where you got that idea. Mom’s letting me work with the bookkeeper and build up my accounting skills. It’s hand to mouth most of the time. We’re doing pretty well this year, but there’s nothing to spare. Some months, it’s touch and go whether we’ll make the payroll.”
Annie thought about the fifteen-hundred-dollar check she had in her purse from Taylor. It was a lot of money to throw around, if cash flow was tight. She wondered if Taylor’s legal problems were worse than she was letting on.
Celia babbled on as they skirted Mrs. Grubenmacher and tried to work their way toward the hors d’oeuvres table. “Not that there are many people on the payroll. Galen’s an employee, and there’s sometimes enough money for him to hire a helper at harvest time. The vineyard manager’s on some kind of percentage contract, and he pays the men who pick the grapes. The rest of it Mom and I do—the bottling, gluing the labels on by hand, putting on the foils, making up the cases to be shipped….” They had only advanced a few steps when Celia nudged Annie with her elbow. “Uh-oh. I should have warned you. Be prepared to meet Harry.”
“Be prepared? For…”
Annie looked up to see a huge bear of a man lumbering across the room. In his mid-sixties, he had bristly salt-and-pepper hair that stood up in defiance of anything resembling a hairstyle. When he saw Celia, his rubbery face puckered with delight.
“There she is, the love of my life, the apple of my eye.” The big man planted wet kisses on Celia’s cheeks. “And where are you hiding that enchantress you call your mother?” The man had to be at least six foot four, and, Annie guessed, well over two hundred and fifty pounds. He wore tuxedo pants that looked twenty years old, a pale blue cotton shirt, and a bright red floral print tie. He looked down at his tie and wiped away a dab of cocktail sauce. “That was good planning to wear the red tie, I’d say.” He turned to Annie and beamed, his eyes crinkling with hundreds of laugh lines. “And who is this? Why haven’t I seen you before? Celia, who is your lovely friend? Don’t be jealous, my dear, but she may have stolen my heart. I can’t get over it. With that fiery red hair, you are identical in every way to my wonderful third-grade teacher, Mrs. Pennyworth—the source of my first and most intense schoolboy crush.”
Celia, laughing with feigned embarrassment, introduced Annie. “Annie, this is Harrison Braithwaite. He lives in a big old house in town that he swears he’s going to turn into a bed-and-breakfast one of these days. Before he retired, he was an ancient history professor. Isn’t that right, Harry?”
“A professor of ancient history, if you please, my dear. Lest Annie think it was I who was ‘ancient.’ ”
“But I’m upset, Harry,” Celia pouted. “I thought I was the one who reminded you of your third-grade teacher.”
“Oh, no, no, no. You remind me of Miss Schomakker, my sixth-grade teacher. I was madly in love with her, too, but the third-grade teacher came first. That was generally the case in elementary schools in those days.”
“Harry is also the self-appointed mayor of Harmony.”
“Mayor? That’s very impressive.”
“Not really. There are no job duties to speak of. I wanted to be town curmudgeon, you see. I have the eyebrows for it.” To demonstrate, he lifted his incredibly bushy black eyebrows and opened his eyes in a look of mock astonishment. “But to be a truly qualified curmudgeon, one has to be negative about things. And the trouble is, when I complain about things, no one takes me seriously. It’s my face, I think. I don’t have a negative face, and—”
Celia couldn’t help laughing. “Harry’s a marvelous mayor. Why, just last summer—”
“Hush, Celia, dear. Let me finish.” He kissed her hand and turned back to Annie. “So, I figured as mayor, I could complain about things and they’d have to take me seriously, in hopes of one day elevating myself into the ranks of curmudgeonhood. Curmudgeonliness? What do you think, is it a good plan?”
“Sounds good to me.”
“Good. Celia, dear, I’m going to steal your friend for a moment, and have her teach me how to taste wine.”
“All right, Harry. But don’t monopolize her. Taylor wanted her to meet a few other people this evening.”
“Very well. I’ll relinquish her at some point.”
As Celia headed back toward the wine-tasting area, Harry guided Annie through the maze of people toward the dining room. “I’m going to let you in on the Braithwaite Rule for successful wine tasting. Always do it on a reasonably full stomach. Much more enjoyable that way. First, we must fortify ourselves at the groaning board, and then, as Oliver Wendell Holmes so aptly put it, ‘the blood of the vineyard shall mingle with mine.’ ”
The dining room table was spread with an appetizing variety of cheeses, prawns, and pates, making Annie suddenly feel very hungry. At her side, Harry Braithwaite was creating a pyramid of appetizers on his plate so high that she was sure it was all going to topple at any moment.
Beyond the dining room, in the ballroom, each of the fifteen participating wineries had a small linen-covered table from which they were pouring samples from their “library,” the winery’s personal store of past vintages, no longer for sale. They were about to head in the direction of the wine tasting when Harry stopped and bellowed at someone across the room. As they got closer, Annie saw that their target was a handsome, uniformed state trooper standing with a young woman with maroon-tinted hair. The young woman looked up at Harry, screwing her face into an unflattering pout.
“Annie. You must meet my granddaughter, Mimi. When her mother, Violetta, named her after Puccini’s great tragic heroine from La Bohème, we had no idea how apt the name would be. Mimi makes every effort to be as Bohemian as possible.”
Mimi Braithwaite looked seventeen or eighteen, and was dressed in what Annie thought might be the grunge look, but she wasn’t sure. She had on a black rib-knit T-shirt and black leggings, over which she wore a gauzy, ankle-length ballerina skirt. To complete the look, Mimi wore a pair of clunky Doc Martens and had tied a flannel shirt around her waist. Her short hair was practically shaved up the back of her neck, and fell forward in a heavy fringe that covered one eye. When spoken to, she glanced briefly at her grandfather, rolled her heavily made-up eyes (at least the one that was visible) and resumed her pout. “Grandpa, please don’t embarrass me like you usually do.”
Harry ignored her plea, and gave her a loud smacking kiss on each cheek. She squirmed under his embrace like a kitten that doesn’t want to be held.
“Grandpa, I told you not to do that.” Mimi tried to sound sophisticated and bored, imitating the Beverly Hills accents of her favorite TV stars. In reality, she just sounded whiny.
The state trooper extended his hand! “How d’ you do, sir, ma’am. I’m Seth Longacre, Washington State Patrol. I just found out your granddaughter and I went to the same high school.”
Mimi continued to look bored. “Yeah, like it’s some big deal.”
“We didn’t actually know each other,” the trooper explained. “I was a senior when she was a freshman, and I was pretty busy with football and basketball. I, uh, guess you didn’t make it to too many games, huh, Mimi?”
“Like, duh.”
“So, you’re a junior, now, right?” Seth Longacre asked, trying to keep the conversation going.
Mimi scowled. “The only reason I’m even at that stupid high school is ’cause I got dropped here against my will. But that doesn’t mean I have to stay. Zeno—he’s my boyfriend—he’s the lead singer with the Nuclear Floss, and they just moved out to L.A., and he says I can come out and be, like, with the band as soon as I can pay my share of the expenses.” She craned her neck as if looking for someone in the room. “And believe me, it’s not going to be very long.”
“Mimi, dearest. This is a festive occasion. Let’s not bore our friends with the same tiresome argument that’s been dampening our dinner conversation for the last three months. Hmm?”
Mimi rolled her eyes again, as if it were a gesture she had just mastered and wanted to practice until it became second nature. She must not have seen whoever she was looking for inside, because she suddenly wanted to go outside for a cigarette, pushing past the trooper toward the door. Harry looked embarrassed.
“Yes, that’s my little Mimi. It’s been difficult raising her, with her mother traveling so much. I really have no idea why she wanted to come tonight, but she was the one who insisted I get her a ticket. Are you here on duty?” he asked the trooper.
“Oh, no, sir. Celia Vick invited me.” He glanced in the direction of the North Faire table with a moonstruck expression. “Isn’t she wonderful? Not that your granddaughter isn’t just as wonderful, sir.”
Harry smiled. “That’s quite all right. Somehow, I don’t think you’re Mimi’s type. Tell me, though—”
Harry’s question was interrupted by the sound of raised voices. Every head in the room turned toward the front door.
“I have every right to be here, you fucking asshole. I don’t care what my wife told you. I’ve got a ticket right here—see, it’s got my name on it. I was personally invited by Martin Grubenmacher.” There was a buzz in the room as someone went to look for Martin Grubenmacher.
Annie’s heart was pounding at the sound of Steven Vick’s voice, so familiar in spite of all the years that had passed. She looked around for Taylor, but the room was too crowded. When she turned back toward Steve, she found him looking straight at her, his lip curled in unfriendly recognition.