Seven

Leah followed her mother to a spot in the field just off the veranda so Vivian could show her the new varietal they were planting, Auxerrois Blanc.

“Why didn’t Sadie join us? There’s no use sitting in the library all day. She could do that back at school,” Vivian said, putting on her trademark oversize sunglasses. Growing up, Leah never saw her mother without three things: big sunglasses, usually Chanel; high heels; and her gold Bulgari necklace featuring a panther head with emerald eyes.

It was just after nine in the morning, a gentle breeze blowing through the vineyard. In the distance, an owl hooted. Aside from that, silence. The winery would open in two hours, and her mother had suggested they spend quality time together before the day got started.

“Mother, please. Just be happy that she’s here.”

“Don’t get me wrong—I’m delighted. But, Leah dear, if you have to preface something with ‘just be happy that,’ it means you’re settling. And one should never settle.”

Leah chose not to take that bait. She wasn’t sure what her mother was implying she’d settled for: Her life in Manhattan? Running a cheese shop instead of working at the vineyard? As if she’d had a choice.

She spotted a familiar face a few yards away: Javier Argueta was tending to an unruly row of plants.

“Hi, Javier,” she said, giving him a wave. In his fifties now, Javier had a thick head of silver hair and sun-weathered skin. His eyes were still the same deep black pools that never failed to remind Leah of her girlhood infatuation with him.

Javier was from Guatemala, a place that seemed impossibly far away and unknowable to her as a teenager. He spoke Spanish. And it had been his idea to use only indigenous, native yeast to ferment the Hollander wines. This began Leah’s favorite vineyard tradition: on the first day of harvest, they asked each employee to bring something from home—an apple from a tree in the backyard or a seashell from the beach—and they added it to a sample of the first press of juice off the vines. They mixed it all up, and within twenty-four hours they’d have active fermentation—kind of like a sourdough bread starter. The resulting yeast was used to create all the wine that year. Leah had loved dropping in a dandelion or a pebble from the front yard, a small gesture that gave her a connection to that season’s vintage.

For a time, everything Javier said or did made her feel lit up inside. She could blush now just thinking about the very vivid fantasy she used to have about the two of them in the barn—a rustic building at the edge of the fields that had long ago been converted into the vineyard management office. But back then, it was just storage for field equipment.

She walks into the barn late on a hot summer afternoon. Her father has sent her there to fetch something—a pair of shears. Javier is there, wearing a tight T-shirt, his muscled arms glistening with a fine sheen of sweat. His brow is smudged with dirt. His dark eyes flash at her.

“What are you doing in here?” he sneers, contemptuous of her privileged life.

“I’m just trying to find something,” she says. “Can you help me look?”

He doesn’t want to help her but feels obligated. They hunt around for the shears, and their hands accidentally brush each other’s. They both freeze, the electricity between them as shocking as it is undeniable. Even though it’s wrong—so wrong—they can’t resist. They kiss . . .

“Welcome home,” Javier said with a smile, jolting her back into reality.

“Thanks,” she said. It had been a long time since Hollander Estates had been “home” to her. She was a different person than the young woman who had left all those years earlier. “So tell me about the Auxerrois Blanc,” Leah said.

“It’s a cousin of Chardonnay. We’re the only ones growing it on the North Fork. Your father hasn’t lost one ounce of his ambition,” Javier told her.

“Speaking of ambition,” Vivian said to Leah, adjusting her oversize straw sun hat, “we solved our vineyard management problem thanks to Mateo. And he’s doing an excellent job.”

Vivian had told her months earlier that their previous vineyard manager had been caught sampling a little too much of the product he was making. Javier’s son, Mateo, stepped up to fill the position. It was a big job, one that involved crop cultivation, thinning, pruning, tying, suckering, managing the canopy, planting and replanting, irrigating and harvesting. At most vineyards, the position would also entail making recommendations related to crop planting and fruit quality. But Leonard had never delegated those duties.

Javier hadn’t wanted the job; after nearly forty years at the winery, he was ready to pass the torch. At the end of each day he retired to the three-bedroom house at the entrance to the winery, a place called Field House. The property dated back to 1710 and was part of the historic registry; Vivian and Leonard had learned this the hard way when they tried to renovate it back in the 1980s. When they learned they couldn’t tear it down or integrate it into the winery building, Leonard decided to give it to the young Argueta family so Javier didn’t have to travel after his long workdays.

“Thank you, Señora Vivian,” Javier said. “I need to go speak to him now. Leah, wonderful to see you.”

Leah watched him head farther into the field, wondering how it was possible that Javier had a twenty-seven-year-old son. But then, she had her own grown child. They were no longer young. Time was passing too quickly.

“It’s great that Mateo got promoted,” Leah said.

“I only wish your brother put in half the work that Javier’s son puts in. Now he’s distracted with that nightmare girlfriend.”

“Oh, she seems nice enough,” Leah said.

Her mother shot her a look. “Don’t get me started.”

“Why do you still let his girlfriends bother you? Asher is never going to change, but on the plus side, he’s also never going to settle down. Next summer it will be some other Bridget.”

Her mother smiled at her. “Enough about that. Tell me what’s new with you.”

Now was the chance to discuss how difficult she was finding it to have Steven in the cheese shop alongside her every day. Having navigated the family business all these years with her own husband, maybe Vivian would have some advice. Still, she didn’t want to be overly negative. She didn’t want her mother to get the wrong idea—her marriage was fine.

While she searched for the right words, her mother’s phone rang.

“It’s your father,” she said to Leah. Then, into the phone, “Leonard, I’m showing Leah the new vines . . . What? Now?”

She ended the call, put her phone back in her bag, and sighed.

“I’m needed at the house.” She kissed Leah on the cheek. “You stay. Relax. I’m so happy you’re home.”