Chapter 8

“The new offer is six percent over market value,” Esteban told his father. They’d just completed their first joint task of the day, partially covering the seed potatoes with soil. Once the plants began to grow, they would continue to fill the trenches as needed until, finally, dirt was mounded up around each vine. Esteban squinted down into the trench. “Mierda. I wish this soil wasn’t so heavy.” Then he looked skyward. “That, or we’d get a long spell of dry weather.”

“A good farmer works with the weather the Lord gives him,” said Padre. “The spuds did fine when we planted them in this spot three years ago.” Potatoes were one of those crops that had to be rotated each year so the nutrients didn’t leach out of the soil. “The water will be good for them when the tubers are forming.”

“Not when they’re trying to cure,” countered Esteban.

“They can cure in the field.” Potatoes left in the field for a few days of dry weather helped the skins to mature, enabling them to be stored longer. Esteban didn’t bother to argue that they’d be curing them in the field anyway, even if the soil was ideal.

Esteban already knew what Padre’s decision would be with regard to the increased offer, so why didn’t he just come out with it? They were on the same page when it came to the farm. But Padre was the patriarch. It fell to him to lead, and Esteban to follow. Still, he needed some kind of answer for Sauvignon by the end of the day.

When his cell rang toward the end of the drizzly afternoon, he knew who it was without looking.

“Do you have any news for me?” she asked briskly.

She had worked him last night at Bodega. Totally sucked him in with her polite interest in his abalone and her lily of the valley perfume. Then, just when he let his defenses down, she’d T-boned him with the second offer.

Esteban was sowing the spring’s first spinach crop, a task he would repeat every ten days during the growing season.

“Not yet,” he said, swiping his sleeve across his forehead. “If I were you, I wouldn’t get my hopes up.”

“I’m coming over.”

“Suit yourself.” She could camp out in the damn pumpkin patch until Halloween if she thought it would convince Padre to sell, but she’d be wasting her time.

As he slipped his phone back into his jeans, he noticed Padre making his way over to him. Must’ve heard him talking on the phone.

“Two million dollars,” his father said.

“What?”

“You heard me.”

“That’s half a million more than it’s worth!”

Padre straightened up to his full five feet ten inches against his towering son. “Land is worth different things to different people.” He held up two fingers. “If they want it, it’s two million. Tell them they can take it or leave it.” With that, he turned and strode back to his peas.

For the first time, Esteban noticed the slight stoop in his father’s spine as he walked away. Padre wouldn’t be around forever. A strange surge of protectiveness welled up in him. He raised his voice as high as he dared at Padre’s back. “Why are you doing this? You don’t want to leave here. Neither does Madre.”

But apparently, Padre had already uttered that day’s quota of words.

Not long afterward, Esteban heard Savvy’s car. He tramped out of the sticky soil toward the lane, in the opposite direction from where Padre had gone.

Last night at Bodega he’d traded his work pants for his good jeans. Today he was back to dressing like the truck farmer that he was. But since there was nothing he could do about looking like a ditch-digger, he distracted himself by wondering what she would be wearing today. He’d only ever seen her in drab black. He reached up to pick a pearly pink blossom as he passed by the magnolia tree and twirled it between his fingers and thumb. What would she look like in pink?

He tossed the flower away before he reached the car, letting her open her own door so he didn’t defile it with his grimy hand. When she stood before him, all haughty and expectant, he skimmed her over, head to toe.

“Black again. I knew it.”

Her mouth tightened into a line and her eyes narrowed to slits. “Hmph,” she snorted. “You forgot to mention that in addition to your day job growing beans, you moonlight as a personal shopper.”

He couldn’t help grinning. “Good one.” To his pleasure, her eyes sparkled back at his and she bit back a grin of her own. But not for long.

“So. What’s the word?”

He threw up his soiled hands. “I’d invite you into the house to talk, but there’s not much sense in it.”

She lifted her brow impatiently.

“Our land’s not for sale, at any price. Tell your investors not to bother with any more offers.”

She raised her chin in defiance. “I’ll talk to him.” She took a few steps toward the field and his heart leapt into his throat.

“Won’t do you any good,” he called to her back. She couldn’t go out there.

She halted, glancing back with suspicion. “Does your father really not speak English?”

“Nada.” Probably understands a helluva lot more than he lets on, though.

“Go ahead then.” He gestured far afield to where Padre, the size of a June bug, worked. “Ask him yourself.” With studied casualness, Esteban propped his hands on his hips. What would he do if she took him up on it?

She looked down at her good heels. Then up, at the expanse of wet field. Her mouth formed a determined line.

 

Not selling wasn’t an option.

In Savvy’s mind’s eye, the valley floor transformed itself into the mud-brown carpet in the headmistress’s office at Five Oaks Preparatory Academy.

“One-twenty-nine. What a shame,” Mrs. Baker said.

Savvy knew what that the test results meant. Mrs. Baker seemed to relish spelling it out, anyway.

“One point too low to be admitted into the gifted program.”

Savvy’s face burned. She was smart enough. She had to get into that class.

“May I take the test again? I was really tired the first time.” She didn’t know that heavy, sleepy feeling was called jet lag. All she knew was she’d do anything to get one-thirty on that test. Back home in California, Papa had been impressed when she’d gotten in to the gifted program. She needed to get into its equivalent here, in Boston. To distinguish herself. Then maybe Papa wouldn’t forget about her, out of sight, all the way on the other side of the country.

Mrs. Baker dropped the IQ test into a folder in the back of a file cabinet and rammed the drawer shut. “We can’t be repeating tests indefinitely, in hopes you’ll eventually score high enough,” she said matter-of-factly. She scrawled her signature on some papers and tossed her pen aside.

It wasn’t merely recognition Savvy craved. She fingered the folded paper squares hidden in her pocket, letters of desperation from her heartbroken little sisters.

Savvy had memorized Meri’s crooked block printing: I hate it here. I don’t have any friends.

And Char’s tentative cursive: I want to go home. This isn’t like my old school. Please, do something.

Savvy was twelve. Old enough to handle anything. Anything, except knowing her sisters were hurting, and not being able to help them. It had been hard enough for Meri and Char when Maman died, let alone hearing all those rumors that Maman had run away from home right before her car crash. And then Papa siding with his lawyers, who’d advised that the best thing would be to send them away . . . away from their homes, their friends, their old schools.

Savvy could take it. But Char and Meri’s letters had her worried to the point where she couldn’t even eat. After all, Maman had always told her to take care of her little sisters. How could she now though, when she was stuck in Massachusetts, Meri’s school was in Rhode Island and Char’s, Connecticut? Savvy was powerless to help. At least if she got into the gifted program, she could study independently, rush her assignments out of the way, and then work on a plot to get them all back together again. Somehow.

“Come with me,” said Mrs. Baker.

Savvy’s hands were tied . . . her body, numb. All she could do was follow the headmistress down the hall. When they reached the opening of the plant-filled room where the gifted students roamed freely between microscopes, globes, and shelves full of the classics, Savvy stopped and stared, yearning to be inside. If only she could make Mrs. Baker understand. It wasn’t only that she wanted to be in there. She needed to be. To help her sisters.

“This way,” said Mrs. Baker. Next stop: the regular classroom, lined with columns of confining seats. Inquisitive eyes turned to stare, grateful for the least chance to tune out the teacher’s drone.

That day Savvy decided to become a lawyer. Lawyers were the guys in suits carrying briefcases who had swooped in to fix things when Maman died. Lawyers were smart. They made things happen. If lawyers could convince Papa to send his little girls away, what couldn’t they do? Once she became a lawyer, she’d never feel powerless again.

Vaguely, she felt the touch of a hand on her elbow. When had Esteban moved to her side, and why was he observing her with concern, as if she were an injured child? As if he saw beyond her tortoiseshell frames, past the somber dress and the carefully arranged bun to the little girl behind the façade, desperate to put her world in order?

“Hey,” he said softly. “You can’t always get what you want.” She heard compassion, not sarcasm in his voice. “Just because Padre doesn’t want to sell, it’s no reflection on you.”

She examined him with mute detachment.

“Do you want me to tell them? Your clients?”

The word clients snapped her out of her reverie. “Absolutely not. That wouldn’t be appropriate. I’ll deal with it.” Maybe she couldn’t have everything, but she was going to get that land for NTI. No way could she fail at her very first assignment.

She studied Esteban in the hazy afternoon light. In his formfitting chambray shirt and faded jeans, with his feet planted firmly on the ground, he was the picture of a simple farmer. Yet this particular farmer was exquisitely made, with the best hands she’d ever seen on a man. Her nostrils flared at his scent, sharper now than it had been last night. At Bodega he’d had the clean smell of soap. Now, at the end of his workday, he smelled earthy, like growing things and sun-warmed soil—the source of all life. Standing next to him made those funny things happen to her insides all over again.

Suddenly she knew what she had to do.

“Sauvignon?”

It was time.

She smiled. “Savvy,” she said through lowered lids.

Long past time.

“Call me Savvy.”

Something caught his eye over her shoulder, and she turned to see his mother toddling toward them.

“Señorita!” the older woman said, brushing away Savvy’s offer of a handshake. “Give me a hug.” She pressed her to her pillowy bosom. “I’ve come to invite you for supper,” she announced. “I’m making coq au vin.”

“Coq au vin?” Her favorite. Jeanne made it at least once a month. Savvy’s forehead wrinkled. She could easily imagine Mrs. Morales whipping up a mean batch of empanadas or some spicy mole sauce. But the classic French dish?

Mrs. Morales read her mind. “All you need is an old rooster and some Rioja.”

Esteban looked as stunned as Savvy. Still, her mission had just become more complicated and this might help. “I’d love to.”

“So you’ll come! The rooster is in the pot, and I have salad, fresh from the garden. Everything will be ready in an hour or so.”

Savvy brightened. This could fit right in with her plan. “That sounds wonderful. I’ll bring something—bread. And wine.”

Mrs. Morales clapped her hands with pleasure. “¡Bueno! See you at six. Esteban, you and Padre come in and clean up soon.” She bustled back toward the house.

 

“You don’t have to come,” Esteban told Savvy, after his mother was out of earshot. “Madre always has something on the stove.” He patted his stomach. “Must be why I got so big.”

“I couldn’t turn her down, hurt her feelings. Unless, of course, you have a problem with me coming for dinner . . .”

He shrugged. “Why would I?” There were so many reasons.

“Good.” She smiled brightly. “See you in an hour.”

Mierda, thought Esteban, watching her walk to her car. In little more than a week, that woman had turned his perfectly ordered life into a perfect shit storm. So why had he felt such concern for her when she got that lost-puppy look, after he told her the land deal was dead? Why couldn’t he peel his eyes off her now, as she dodged the rocks, making her way across the spongy ground to her car? Was it his imagination, or did she exaggerate the sway of her hips as she walked? As if she read his sinful mind, she whirled around and shot him one, final smile. Lost puppy, my ass. She was a temptress. Maybe Padre was right. The St. Pierres were nothing but trouble.

Now what? For once, he was glad Padre didn’t talk much. He didn’t want to answer any questions about the way his outrageous counteroffer had been not received, let alone break the news that Savvy St. Pierre was coming for dinner. That was just taking a bath with a toaster. Let Madre take the heat—this was all her idea.

He started for the house, avoiding his father like the plague. He knew Madre had told him when he heard their raised voices from where he was washing up in the bathroom.

“What were you thinking, inviting that woman back into our home? Don’t you know sending his daughter over here is a scheme orchestrated by St. Pierre to pilfer our land? You’re falling straight into his trap!”

“You’re getting too suspicious in your old age, Geraldo. It’s not Xavier who is after the farm this time, it’s the other investors. Sauvignon es una chica agradable. A nice girl. She would never betray us!”

“You’ve been listening too much to that cook of theirs. Of course she’s going to take their side!”

His parents hardly ever yelled. All of this had brought out the worst in Padre. If he found out Esteban had lied to Savvy about his two-million-dollar counteroffer, no telling how he might react.

Esteban toweled his face in the mirror. Sometimes it was a pain in the butt, being bilingual. Sitting down to eat with people who didn’t speak the same language wasn’t his idea of fun, even when they didn’t have a history of bad blood. Interpreting was an exercise in rapid-fire decision-making. The slightest nuance might change the entire meaning of a phrase.

He could opt to interpret everything that was said, even if that severely disrupted the normal flow of conversation. On the other hand, if he didn’t bother translating at all, he’d catch it from Madre for being disrespectful. That left the middle ground. But where exactly was that? People didn’t realize how fast thoughts flew out of their mouths. Or that some thoughts were way harder to translate than others. His head hurt already. Forget about eating—tonight’s dinner was a recipe for disaster.

What if both Padre and Savvy found out he’d lied about the counteroffer?

And how much did Madre know? She was bilingual too, just didn’t often have the confidence to intercede because she hadn’t gone to school in America. Had Padre told her he was countering? ¡Mierda! So much to keep straight! This was what he got for lying.