Chapter 6
One morning, a week after the real estate offer, Esteban waited in vain for his father to join him in the fields after breakfast. Gradually, he worked his way closer to the house so he could ask Madre where he’d gone.
“He went to the doctor. Nothing serious. To check his blood pressure.”
He already knew the gist of what Padre would say. There were only so many ways to say no. But he couldn’t put off Sauvignon much longer.
It was lunchtime when Padre finally pulled up the lane. At the table, while Madre related the latest news about Esmerelda’s kids in detail—Lily had gotten an A on her first-grade science project, Jenny had fallen off her bike and brush-burned her knees—the men listened and chewed their sandwiches. When the meal was over, they returned to separate areas of the field.
Once the lettuce had been weeded, he took a break from the vegetable gardens to check on his lavender experiments. He was cutting a stem from a specimen of Lavendula Goodwin Creek Grey when his father ambled over. “So? Have you given any more thought to that offer?” he asked, sniffing the cutting’s pungent scent.
“I have plenty of good food to eat, a comfortable home, and a fat wife.”
“That’s your answer?”
“Anything more than that only invites envidia.”
“Envy.”
“Undeserved good fortune often ends with something bad happening.”
“Like karma?” He tossed the sprig of Grey and went on to the next variety.
“I’ve seen it happen again and again in my life,” warned Padre. “There is only one more thing I want before I die. What every man wants.”
A grandson. Esteban had been hearing that all his adult life—more, since Esmerelda had birthed her third daughter. Even if his sister in Santa Rosa did someday produce a boy, the kid wasn’t likely to return to Napa to farm. Esmerelda’s husband was a teacher, so it was pretty much a no-brainer. Their kids would be the first in the Morales bloodline to go to college.
“You want your grandson to be legitimate?”
Padre crossed himself. “You have to ask me such a question?”
“That’s not happening anytime soon. I don’t even have a prospect.”
“You go out enough. Open your eyes! There are chulas everywhere.”
“None that I want to spend the rest of my life with.”
“Maybe you should stop playing with flowers and find one. I’m not getting any younger.”
“I’m only twenty-seven!”
“I married your mother when I was eighteen, and good thing I did. It took us another fourteen years until the Lord gave us a son.”
Esteban knew the story by heart. In their quest to conceive a boy, his parents had visited dozens of doctors, even a few curanderos—folk healers—in the years after Esmerelda came along.
If Padre was so glad to be in America, why did he cling so hard to the old ways? Getting tied down with a wife and kid was the furthest thing from Esteban’s mind. When he wasn’t trying to find the best strain of lavender for the Morales farm’s micro-climate, he was into hiking and diving with Tomas and George and the rest of his crew. And Padre didn’t know how right he was: there were women everywhere. Esteban didn’t do too bad with them, either. In fact, his record was pretty impressive, if he said so himself. No reason to limit himself to just one.
Deep down, he knew what was really bothering his father.
Where Padre came from, infertility was an embarrassment, a real threat to a man’s machismo. Padre worried he might have passed down what he considered his inadequacies to his son. That Esteban was like lavandin—a mule. A hybrid. Unable to reproduce. He was anxious to be proved wrong.
But Esteban was getting sidetracked. He still had to tell Sauvignon something.
Bodega was hopping.
“Isn’t this better than staying home, waiting for your phone to ring?” asked Meri, seated next to her.
It had been one long, agonizingly slow week, waiting for Esteban to call. Her whole career depended on Mr. Morales’s decision.
“You can’t work twenty-four-seven,” Meri said. “No harm in one glass of wine at the end of the day.”
“Look who’s talking about not working,” Char retorted. “The successful jeweler who’s branching out into—”
Intent on advising Savvy, Meri interrupted Char’s accolades. “Keep your eyes open. Who knows, you might even meet someone.”
Savvy rolled her eyes.
“Stranger things have happened,” Meri said.
Had it come to this? Was her baby sister really coaching her on how to pick up men now? She wasn’t dumb. When—if—Savvy ever had time to spare for a man, she could find one herself.
Down the bar, a familiar cellar master from another winery waved and Savvy smiled back.
She had to admit, this spot was unique. Tourists considered the Italian restaurant a can’t-miss wine country dining experience. At the same time, the locals knew it as a hangout for everyone from the lowliest picker to the most illustrious winemaker.
“If I ever become a barfly, this will be my bar of choice,” said Meri. “It’s a Stan-free zone. Here, I feel like I’m either well-known or unknown.”
“Stan-free?”
“Stalker-slash-fan.”
Savvy jumped a foot when her phone vibrated. She grabbed it from where she’d placed it on the bar, within easy reach.
“Hello?”
“This is Esteban Morales.”
The classy surroundings filled with satisfied murmurings faded away. All that existed was his voice. She clutched her phone closer to her ear.
“Hi! How are you?”
“Good. I have an answer for you.”
After a week, now Esteban didn’t mince words.
“Do you want to meet somewhere?” she asked.
“Where are you now?”
She blinked the restaurant back into focus. “Bodega.”
“See you in ten.”
Her pulse leapt. She found herself second-guessing her customary little black dress and worrying about whether her lipstick was smeared from the two sips of wine she’d drunk so far. Char and Meri were conversing with someone at the other end of the bar. She slid off her stool and went to the ladies’ room to spray on a little more Miss Dior before he arrived.
Even with their backs to the door, it was a cinch picking out the St. Pierre heiresses, lined up like a row of Easter tulips at the bar: same size and shape, different colors, delicately sipping wine from balloon-shaped glasses. One chestnut-colored twisted knot, one sizzling blond, and a brunette with jelly-bean streaks. Hair color aside, all three were cut from the same mold. Lay a level along the head of the one in the middle and the arc would be perfectly centered.
What was it about them that had that cluster of men in slim-cut suits without socks jockeying for position? There was no obvious sign of wealth, no come-fuck-me clothes. Maybe it was their tall, slim bodies. That air of confidence without cockiness. Whatever it was, what everyone said was true: those three were God’s gift to Napa. At least, on the outside. He still didn’t trust Savvy’s motives.
There were no seats left at the bar, yet one glance at Esteban cruising toward the French twist and the competition parted like a dust devil in a cornfield. Size mattered.
Behind Savvy’s nerdy glasses, her eyes widened with appreciation at his clean jeans and fresh shirt. If he saw her a hundred times, he’d never get used to those specs. To cover up a face like that was just wrong. They were a barrier between him and those liquid brown eyes, that flawless skin. Those plump lips . . .
“Hell-o?” she trilled, arching a brow.
“Hey.” If he was going to be hanging with a woman like her, he’d better up his conversational game.
The bartender asked what he was drinking. When he leaned in to be heard above the din, the heavenly scent of lily of the valley, warmed by her blood, assaulted his senses. He’d already come to associate the scent of roses with her, but this one wasn’t bad, either.
“The usual. Draft.”
“Well?” She couldn’t wait another minute. “What did your father say?”
“It’s like I told you. We have no interest in selling our land,” he said, one hand on his beer—a welcome reward after a hard day in the fields—the other resting on the back of her bar stool.
“What exactly did he say?”
He tried and failed to drag his eyes off the sight of her rosy fingertip, tracing the rim of her wineglass. “You have to understand who he is. Who we are.”
“So tell me.” She swiveled her stool until her knees bumped against his hip. On his other side, the crowd hemmed him in.
He inhaled to get ready for his speech. “Everyone’s a farmer, down in the Michoacán. My father grew up raising avocados, garbanzos, lemons, corn—you name it. There’s nothing he can’t grow.” Except, maybe lavender. But it wasn’t Padre who was messing around with that. Padre was too practical . . . or was sane the better word?
“Padre brought us here when land was still dirt cheap. For years, we helped his uncle work his farm, and in return he left the property to us. But even though Padre’s a citizen now, the way he lives his life is still like it was in the Michoacán. The biggest difference is here, he can make a much better living.”
Sauvignon listened intently. “What about you?”
He studied her face, looking for the meaning behind her words. “What do you want to do with your life?” she repeated.
He swigged his beer. That kind of impractical, philosophical question was only pondered by people like her. He glanced over at the men with fifty-dollar haircuts hovering around her sisters. People of privilege.
“Farming is in my blood.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
He laughed drily. “Kind of alien to me, that anyone can do whatever he wants with his life.”
“Why is that?”
He thought for a minute. “It’s not just what I want. There are other people to think about. Like my mother and father.”
“I’m sure your parents want you to be happy.”
She didn’t get it. That farm was Padre’s identity. Without it, he was nothing. He’d be wrecked if his only son gave up on it, after he’d devoted his life to nailing down a piece of the American dream for him. “Maybe what’s best for my family is what will make me happiest.”
“Say you didn’t happen to like farming. What would happen then?”
“You don’t do it because you like it,” he explained. “You just do it. For the people you love. Who love you.”
“So, it’s about honor.”
“You could call it that. I call it doing what’s right for the people you care most about.”
She shrugged. “Whatever. It’s not like you have to do something other than farm.”
But the reality was that Esteban couldn’t imagine a life without his hands in the dirt. “I like growing things.”
“So, you see yourself walking in your father’s footsteps? Farming the same patch of land he did for the rest of your life?”
When she rotated back toward the bar to retrieve her wine, her knees brushed against his fly this time, prompting his eyes to move downward to her skirted thighs. He took a long pull on his beer and tried not think about what they looked like naked.
Concentrate. He did have a dream—even if Padre thought it was harebrained. What if he confided in her and then failed to achieve it? She would know. Even if he ran into her fifty years from now, she would know.
This conversation needed to be over. She was the enemy. Letting her in was too hard . . . in so many ways. He was only going to have one beer with her, say what needed to be said, and then be on his way. Even now, his friends were waiting for him at a bar in town. Her prodding questions brought his deepest desires uncomfortably close to the surface, kindling something powerful. Or maybe it was her knees rubbing against his verga.
“You really want to know?”
She lifted one slim shoulder. “You’ve got to have dreams. Otherwise, what’s the point?” she asked, with all the self-assurance money could buy.
“Easy for you.”
In a snap, her smile faded, eyes filled with resentment.
“Sorry. That wasn’t fair.”
“Seriously? No one just wakes up one day, and bang, they’re a lawyer. You can’t buy a passing grade on the bar exam.”
“I said I was sorry.” He was really fucking this up. She angled back toward the bar, robbing him of her attention . . . leaving him desperate to win her back. Which made no sense whatsoever.
“I have this idea to start a lavender farm,” he blurted. As soon as the words left his mouth he felt stripped naked before God and the public. He looked around to see if anyone else had heard.
Sauvignon merely sipped at her drink and thought. Judging by the non-effect his revelation had on her, he might as well have asked her to pass the Sriracha. He tilted his empty glass, wishing there were still beer in it. His mouth felt like Death Valley.
Thankfully the bartender chose that moment to reappear. They had good help in this place.
“Another draft, Esteban?”
The fact that the bartender knew his name got her attention. He nodded yes to the beer, then, with another cocky impulse, turned to her and asked, “You hungry?”
She hesitated, weighing her options. “I guess I could eat a little something.”
“What’s today’s pesce crudo, Raoul?”
“We have some abalone sashimi. First catch of the season. We’re full tonight, but you can eat here, at the bar.”
Abalone . . . what Esteban had been waiting for all winter. He gave Raoul a thumbs-up. “Give us a double order. And give Sauvignon another glass of”—he knew little about wine—“whatever she’s drinking.”