Eighteen
The photograph was the last thing Vivian looked at before she went to sleep every night, and the first thing she saw when her eyes opened in the morning.
The image on her nightstand, framed in sterling silver, was of her children in the 1970s, sitting on the steps of the veranda, the lush green of the vineyard in the background. Asher wore a lightweight summer blazer, and Leah wore a madras plaid dress, her long dark hair in a braid. She’d had more than one photographer tell her that her family looked as perfect as a Ralph Lauren ad. From the outside, her entire life looked as perfect as a Ralph Lauren ad. But things were never truly as they appeared.
She sat up with a sudden realization: the photo by her bedside was just one of hundreds like it in albums shelved in the library. With the potential buyers coming to poke around the property today, who knew what they would get their grubby hands on? She would have to start taking inventory of the house and hiding anything personal. She might not be able to protect her winery, but she could still guard her privacy.
The bedroom door opened.
“Mom? It’s Leah.”
“I’m sleeping.”
“No, you’re not.”
Leah walked to the windows and slid the curtains over half an inch. Vivian, having seen so little natural light over the past few days, saw spots.
“It’s a beautiful morning,” Leah said. “Come on. I know you’re upset. But I’m here and Sadie decided to stay and we want to spend time with you.”
She could barely experience the good news. She felt like nothing would be okay ever again. At the same time, she didn’t want Leah and Sadie to see her like this.
“I am entitled to take to my room if I wish.”
“The tasting room is full, and people are asking for you. They want to see the glamorous Vivian Hollander. And I know you enjoy being that person.”
She did enjoy being that person. She would be that person until the new owner dragged her off the property kicking and screaming.
But first, the photo albums.
The crowd of customers trickling out from the tasting room to the veranda made it hard to believe the winery was failing. Leah walked among the tables, surrounded by groups of women laughing and taking photos and pouring bottle after bottle of wine. One table had tall balloons shaped in the number “21” tied to the chairs. The women looked like teenagers, and they were clearly well into their second or third bottle.
It was strange to witness a dual reality: the happy customers, and the stress and strain behind the scenes.
In the distance, Mateo pulled leaves from the vines. Leah wondered if the winery’s new owners would keep the Arguetas employed. The possibility that they might not made her shudder.
Mateo clearly shared his father’s passion for the land. Just a few days earlier, he had shown Leah and Sadie a clonal stock of new Chardonnay and explained that the older the grape variety, the more cloning took place. Mateo had started talking about something else that she just remembered. Something about Hollander being a forty-eight-year-old winery, and therefore . . . therefore what?
A cork popped, distracting her. Jazz music played from the high speakers tucked into the four corners of the vaulted ceiling. Leah inhaled one of the customers’ sweet perfume. It struck her, amid the merriment, that the customers on the veranda were mostly women.
And then her father, along with four men in suits, emerged through the winery’s door. The potential buyers.
Leah turned away, took the stairs down to the lawn, and walked toward the field. She felt compelled, for some reason, to talk to Mateo a little further. What about the vineyard being forty-eight years old? Leah knew she was being ridiculous, as if she could ask enough questions to solve the problem that her father, in all his years of experience, could not.
The sun was bright and strong. Leah wished she’d worn a hat. She wouldn’t burn, but it still wasn’t great for her skin. The photos of her grandmother Gelleh reminded her what too much sun could do. The woman’s face, dominated by wide dark eyes, had been like a raisin. As a child, Leah had found her terrifying.
“Hey,” Leah called out.
Mateo turned around. “Oh, hi, Leah.”
“How’s it going?”
“Just shoot thinning the Chardonnay. We have lots of it.”
Chardonnay, a white grape from Burgundy, was thick-skinned and versatile and because of that was possibly the most widely grown grape in the world. The flip side of that was that it was responsible for some very mediocre wine. Hollander Estates had always been able to tease something miraculous out of it.
“Mateo, I know my father can be very set in his ways. You said something the other day about this being a forty-eight-year-old winery; I know that’s a winery in its infancy in some parts of the world, but for the North Fork of Long Island, it’s a long time. I’m just wondering if there’s anything that maybe has become . . . habit? Rote? Any opportunities that might have been overlooked just by the sheer longevity of this operation?” It was a question that nagged at her.
Mateo looked out into the field, wiping his brow with the back of his hand. “Your father did an incredible thing. He was a pioneer out here.”
“I know, I know. I’m not trying to suggest otherwise. I was just wondering: If you had to do something different, what would it be?”
Mateo shrugged. “I’d probably rip out some of the existing fields and put new varietals in. We’re top-heavy in Merlot.”
In 1995, Wine Spectator had hailed Leonard Hollander as the “Long Island Master of Merlot.” Of course he grew a lot of that particular grape. It was his calling card. He’d never rip out any of those plants.
Mateo looked around, then took a step closer.
“Can I ask you something?” he said, dropping his clippers to the ground.
“Sure.”
“Are the rumors true? Is your father selling?”
Leah could have kicked herself for opening herself up to the question—and she definitely wanted to kick her father and brother for putting her in this position in the first place. She believed what she told Asher: the Arguetas had a right to know what was going on. And yet her respect for her father simply ran too deep for her to go rogue on this. Mateo looked her in the eye, and she glanced away.
“Um, my father doesn’t really loop me in on business decisions.”
Maybe it was time for that to change.