Fifty
Bridget floated on a raft in the middle of the pool, wearing a skimpy black crochet bikini and a pair of the fluorescent rubber sunglasses covering her eyes. Her long red hair fanned out into the water. Leah stood for a minute, squinting against the sun. Was Bridget reading Vivian’s copy of Lace?
“Bridget, hey—can I talk to you for a minute?”
She looked up, pushing her sunglasses on top of her head.
“Leah! Come on in. The water’s amazing,” she said.
All Leah could think about was the fact that her mother would go nuts if she saw her book in the pool.
“I’m afraid I can’t right now. But can you come out for a minute? I want to ask you something.”
“No one wants to have fun around here,” she said, making no move to get out of the pool.
“It will just take a minute.”
Bridget pulled her glasses down again, one hand drifting lazily into the water, paddling a small current to turn the raft in the other direction.
Oh, fine! Leah kicked off her sandals and stepped into the warm water of the shallow end, progressing only far enough that the water was above her knees but not soaking her shorts.
“I’m in the pool. Now can we talk?” Leah called out.
Bridget propelled the raft toward her. When she got close enough, Leah waded over.
“Isn’t this better?” Bridget smiled.
“It’s . . . fine.” It was heavenly.
“Let me guess: you want to talk about Asher.”
“No. What about him?”
“I dunno. He’s been acting weird since dinner last night. Quiet. I thought maybe you knew.”
As if she ever had a clue what was going on in that head of his. Her brother was only marginally less frustrating than her father.
“Sorry. Can’t help you there. I actually wanted to talk about social media.”
“You watched the video? This is the bathing suit,” Bridget said, tugging on the string of her top.
“I did watch the video. And I was thinking we could really use your help amplifying Hollander Estates on Instagram.”
Bridget’s face lit up. “I thought you guys would never ask! There’s so much more you could be doing.”
Of course there was. That seemed to be the overriding theme around there.
Leah’s idea for Instagram was to share not just photos of the wine but the story of life on a vineyard. Experiencing the seasons at the winery made every change sharper, more profound. It was a way of life she missed. It was a life she never stopped wanting to return to—not even when she moved on to her Manhattan world.
“Can we start taking some photos today?” Leah said.
“Absolutely! But you know, we should game-plan. Come up with a calendar of posts. I know my account probably looks spontaneous and random, but everything is planned out in advance.”
Leah nodded, kicking herself for not having this conversation sooner. There was still some time to capture the summer, the plants bursting with fruit.
“You know what? We should get Vivian, too. Two generations of Hollander women on the family vineyard. Hashtag WomenInWine.”
It was a good idea. But Leah hadn’t seen her mother all morning. Where was she?
Vivian stared out the back seat window of the Escalade while her driver steered through the busy Manhattan streets.
“Please just let me out here,” she said impatiently. What with all the double-parked delivery trucks, bike lanes, and traffic, she could get to the apartment building faster by walking.
Since the moment Leonard told her they were in financial trouble, she’d tried to come to terms with losing it all. She could never fully accept it. Now, thanks to Leah, she might not have to. But she didn’t want Leah to lose what was most important to her in the process.
The sidewalk, mercifully, was not crowded. The last time she’d visited the city she’d barely been able to walk from Fifty-Third Street to Fifty-Ninth because of the hordes of pedestrians. But Yorkville was, if not a sleepy neighborhood, at the very least highly livable. She could see why Leah had chosen it as the place to make a home for herself and her family.
Vivian’s childhood memories of Manhattan centered around visits to the Met. Ice skating in Central Park. Shopping with her mother on Fifth Avenue. She had loved the city, had assumed she would spend her entire life there. And then she married Leonard and never looked back.
Marriage was about compromise. Sacrifice. But not, she was finally realizing, only on the part of the wife. She might have failed as a partner in the winery, but she was not going to fail as a mother to her daughter. In her heart, she knew Steven loved Leah. The rest was just details. Steven just needed a little guidance seeing the details more clearly.
The building’s doorman waved her along. Steven was expecting her; she’d called an hour earlier with the improbable story that she was going to “be in the neighborhood” and wanted to stop by.
“Vivian,” he’d said. “Why don’t you save yourself a trip and just say whatever you want to say on the phone.”
“I’ll see you soon.”
He opened the door, and she shrugged off her light cashmere wrap and set her handbag down on the chair beside her. The room was small but filled with southern light. Whenever she visited Leah she had to adjust to the confining space. It was an average-size Manhattan apartment, but it felt like a closet to her. She’d been spoiled growing up in her family’s sprawling Park Avenue home.
Steven put the coffee on—a traditional brewer, not automatic pods—and they sat at the scuffed dining room table. She could envision Sadie as a small child, coloring on the oversize drawing pads Vivian bought for her at State News on Eighty-Sixth Street. Leonard never joined her on her trips to the city. He didn’t like Manhattan, and part of it was passive-aggressive punishment because Leah only visited them once or twice a year. Men could be so good at withholding. Steven was a prime example at the moment.
“You take your coffee black, right?” he called from the kitchen.
“Yes,” she said. The fact that he knew that was indicative of the years they’d spent sitting across from each other at family meals. After all this time, they were family. And yet they’d never had a serious, intimate conversation.
He handed her a full mug and sat across from her.
“Thank you,” she said. “I needed this.”
“So what brings you here this morning, Vivian?”
“I’m concerned that you haven’t been out to the winery to see Leah. Yes, I know the shop needs to be managed. But I’m sure you could find some time.”
“With all due respect, Vivian, have you considered that this might not be any of your business?”
“Considered and dismissed,” she said, smiling. “Now, what’s going on?”
She saw him hesitate. He leaned back in his chair, focusing his blue eyes on her. They were unreadable, and for a moment she was afraid she wouldn’t get a word out of him. But then . . .
“When I first met Leah, she’d just been cut out of the family business,” he said.
Vivian winced to hear it put so bluntly. “Yes. It was not what I wanted, but Leonard had his mind set on how he wanted to run the winery.”
Steven shrugged. “Whatever his rationale, or yours—it was unfair to Leah. But I told her then as I tell her now—we don’t need the winery. We created something of our own. I had the ‘day’ job—a demanding, not terribly rewarding job—while Leah started a passion project. And I fell in love with it, too. Selfishly, I looked forward to retiring and then the two of us running a shop together. So no, I’m not thrilled that she’s apparently chucking all that to fix Leonard’s mess.”
“I see. So the problem is that you’re worried about the cheese shop.”
“No, that’s reductive, Vivian.”
“So . . . talk to me. I’m listening.”
He leaned back in his chair, running a hand through his hair. “I’m also worried about Leah. She’s been a successful businesswoman for eighteen years. We’re in a position to build on that success, and instead, she’s setting herself up for failure. And I’m supposed to just pick up and move to the North Fork? None of this has been discussed in a rational, logical way. Leah just ran out of here the other day and shows no intention of coming back.”
Vivian pressed her spine against the seatback, turning her mug in circles. The gold bangles around her wrist clinked together. Outside, a siren wailed.
Of all her life regrets, her biggest was failing to defend Leah’s rightful place at the winery when she had expressed interest two decades earlier. Vivian hadn’t asserted herself then, but she would not make the same mistake twice.
“It’s true that this is a major decision,” she said carefully. “One that should be made by you as a couple. In fact, I can’t argue with anything you said. Except for one thing: the cheese shop was never Leah’s passion project.”
“Of course it was,” he said, but there was a falter in his voice, a break in eye contact. This wasn’t news to him.
“No. It was her consolation prize. The winery was always her dream. This is her chance to grab it. If you deny her this, you’re no better than Leonard taking it away from her the first time around.”