Ellen Crosby - The Sauvignon Secret

“Because Charles Thiessman told me.”

“Pardon? Who told you?”

“Charles Thiessman. I was over at his place last night. He’s the one who put me on to this deal. He promised it’s a Cabernet Sauvignon to die for.”

“Is that so?”

“Yes. Listen to me, darling. The man knows what he’s talking about. He opened a bottle of his private reserve Cab. My God, Lucie, I’d stack it up against the best Bordeaux in France,” Mick said. “Charles told me your grandfather is here for a couple of days before flying out to California to give a talk. I was thinking maybe you could go out there with him and handle the negotiations for me in Napa while Luc is in Sonoma. Try the wine, agree on the blend.”

“I don’t know, Mick.”

“What if we talk about it tonight over dinner?”

“I can’t. I’ve got a previous commitment with my grandfather.” That also involved Charles Thiessman. “All right, then how about tomorrow? Come for breakfast in the rose garden or at least have tea? Someone else is going to buy this wine if I don’t grab it up.”

“I …”

“Lucie, love, I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t really need you. And the timing is perfect.”

Perfect for whom? What was he talking about?

“All right, I’ll come,” I said. “Tomorrow morning for tea.”

I hung up.

“Everything okay?” Frankie asked me.

“Yeah, fine. Mick wants me to check out some wine he wants to buy and, if I like it, make his blend.”

“You said yes?”

“I did.”

That made three times I’d walked into a setup with my eyes wide open in the past couple of days. Eli this morning, and just now Mick.

And setup number three—I was pretty sure of this, though I didn’t understand why—was Charles Thiessman. He wanted something from me, too.

Pépé and I drove up the winding private road to Mon Abri, Charles and Juliette Thiessman’s handsome stone-and-stucco Greek Revival home, shortly after seven thirty that evening. I had been here once a few years ago, for memory’s sake, the only year their house was on the annual spring garden tour, and many times as a child when my mother was alive.

In those days, Juliette and my mother would spend endless mornings strolling through the weed-choked remnants of gardens and scrubby lawn left to seed of the Thiessmans’ new home. I remember them holding bowl-sized cups of café au lait between their hands as though they were praying, while I became invisible as children do when adults are totally absorbed in some project. Even now I can still hear their voices and the musical trill of their laughter, passionately considering, discarding, then reconsidering plans for sweeping, many-hued perennial gardens that would bloom year-round, climbing roses twining around a graceful bower, a vista of flowering cherry trees, a pergola, a wisteria-covered bridge over a yet-to-be-built lily pond surrounded by rustic garden benches. Juliette’s vision was to re-create Monet’s Giverny gardens in Middleburg, calling it “Mon Abri,” or “my refuge.” My mother, who revered Thomas Jefferson’s Garden Book as the set-in-stone bible of what to plant in Virginia, warned her that unless she planned to throw a net over the entire yard, the deer would call it “my dinner.”

Over the years some of my mother’s advice obviously had prevailed, as we drove past dozens of white blooming crape myrtle at the entrance to the circular drive where the house sat on a knoll surrounded by now-mature dogwoods, as well as masses of azaleas, rhododendrons, hydrangeas, and rioting flower-filled gardens. A valet took the keys to the Mini and drove it off to a nearby field to park it among the Mercedeses, Jaguars, Lexuses, BMWs, and Porsches of the other guests. What had surprised me was that nearly all the license plates seemed to be from D.C. Not a gathering of neighbors, then.

“I thought this was going to be an intimate get-together with a few friends,” I whispered to Pépé as we climbed the steps to a columned veranda and a butler opened the door.

“Moi aussi,” he said. “At least, that’s what Charles said.”

Inside it looked like the house had been redecorated since my childhood days—the garden tour had been outdoor only. In the foyer, Juliette had duplicated the exuberance and lush abundance of Giverny with sun-drenched glazed yellow and ocher paint on the walls and brilliant floral fabrics splashed on two settees and the cushions of a couple of rush-seat chairs. Bright red geraniums potted in brass urns sat on either side of doorways leading to a library to the right and a formal living room to the left. Colorful botanic prints lined the walls of the staircase to the second floor. An enormous vase of tuberoses with greens tucked among them sat on a pedestal table in the middle of the marble floor, their fragrance lightly scenting the room.

Juliette, white hair swept up into a chignon and wearing a gold and white gown that looked vaguely Greek, found us before Charles did, catching her breath as the fingers of one hand fluttered over her heart when she saw my grandfather. I thought her cheeks became pink under her perfect makeup as her eyes lighted on Pépé, a warmth and affection in them that struck me as more than casual friendship. Then she saw me and froze. Her lips moved, and I knew she was murmuring “Chantal,” since I am the portrait of my mother at this age, or so I’ve been told.

With the courtliness that I love so much about him, Pépé reached for Juliette’s hand and kissed it, bowing lightly and breaking the awkwardness that had fallen like a spell over the three of us. “Juliette, ma chère. C’est tellement bien de vous revoir .”

My grandfather had known her for decades, but he still used the formal vous with Juliette. Tu implied an intimacy to someone of his generation that I was somehow glad he didn’t feel was appropriate between the two of them.

Juliette withdrew her hand and touched Pépé’s shoulder like a caress. “It’s good to see you, too, Luc,” she said in French. “And Lucie. For a moment, my dear, I thought I was looking at a ghost of Chantal … I don’t know why. I’m so sorry.”

“It’s all right,” I said. “I take it as a great compliment.”

Her smile seemed strained. “Please, both of you make yourselves at home. Get a drink. The waiters have champagne, but there is a bar outdoors by the swimming pool where there is anything you wish. It’s just through the library and out the door to the back terrace.”

The doorbell rang again. Her eyes strayed past us as the front door opened and closed and more guests arrived.

“We’ll find Charles,” Pépé said, “and leave you to your duties as hostess.”

“Thank you. We must catch up later … so many things to talk about,” she said. “I’m so glad you’ve come. Charles is terribly anxious to talk to you, Luc. Both of you, in fact.”

As she walked by us to greet the new arrivals, I’m sure I heard her say in a voice meant for my grandfather’s ears only, “Tu me manques énormément.”

I miss you terribly. She didn’t use vous . She had used the intimate tu with Pépé.

Pépé accepted two champagne flutes from a waiter as we walked into the library. He handed one to me without bothering to ask what I wanted to drink as he usually did, and I knew what Juliette had said had disturbed him.

In contrast to the vibrant foyer, the library was dark and masculine. Though it appeared to have none of her lighthearted decorating joie de vivre, Juliette’s presence still overwhelmed the heavy furniture, floor-to-ceiling shelves of gilt-edged leather-bound books, and antique maps because of a frankly sensual oil portrait that hung over the fireplace. I recognized her instantly, in spite of the fact that it must have been painted when she was a young woman about my age, some forty or more years ago. She had posed in a shaded garden or a wooded setting of mottled pale and fierce greens, head thrown back just a little as she sat languidly in an oversized rattan chair. Barefoot, her long dark hair carelessly pinned up as though she were hot and wanted it off her shoulders, she wore a strapless silk gown the color of a sultan’s rubies. The dress was so low cut that the French word for it is osée , something between daring and risqué. I found it impossible not to stare at Juliette’s décolleté, her ethereal beauty, the contrast of milk white skin against bloodred fabric, and the laughter dancing in her dark eyes as she watched someone or something out of view that amused or entertained her.