Ellen Crosby - The Sauvignon Secret

“There are worse places to leave it,” he said. “Call me when you get in.”

He hung up.

He was right. There were worse places to leave my heart. Like where it was right now. Missing him.

Our Bastille Day party passed in a blur of voices and laughter and music. At the end of the evening we set off our best fireworks ever from a barge in the middle of the small pond by the Ruins, watching them fizz red, white, and blue as they lit up the silhouette of the mountains and cascaded over the dense rows of vines. For the first time in the past few days I felt absurdly happy, even giddy, partly because of all the compliments we got from our guests and partly because I’d kicked back and drunk enough wine to make me tipsy.

Frankie had transformed the courtyard between the villa and the winery into the kind of Parisian brasserie Hemingway and Fitzgerald would have frequented—white linen tablecloths, flickering candlelight, bud vases with a single rose—a midsummery night tableau of heads bent together across bistro tables in earnest conversation or flirty romance. Swags of Japanese lanterns hung across the courtyard, and tiny white lights woven through the arcade beams and around the columns gave the scene a dreamy, fluid timelessness. Over the last few weeks Frankie had taken my mother’s French records—the well-known chanteurs like Aznavour, Brel, Bécaud, Brassens, Piaf, and the classic rock and rollers like Patricia Kaas, Johnny Hallyday, Sylvie Vartan, Jean-Jacques Goldman, and dozens of others—and turned them into CD sound tracks. We played those during dinner until one of our favorite deejays showed up and started playing the kind of swingy dance music that emptied the tables and had people spilling into the arcades when the makeshift dance floor overflowed.

I caught sight of Pépé, genial and happy, sitting at a table the Romeos had staked out a few steps from the bar. Later I knew they’d disappear to smoke the Cuban cigars he’d brought from Paris. Eli came with Hope, who looked like a dark-haired angel in a white sundress with an enormous V-neck collar. I watched him catch her in his arms and swoop her up, whirling her around until they both were dizzy with laughter, her sweet face flushed and glowing, chubby arms clenched tight around my brother’s neck.

Once or twice I noticed Eli staring at Jasmine Nouri, who had helped Dominique set up and serve the bistro menu for the evening. He seemed mesmerized by the way she threw back her head to laugh at something one of the waiters whispered in her ear, the candlelight strafing her dark, glossy hair and silhouetting her profile like a noble relief on a coin. A couple of waitresses joined her behind the serving table and the group of them linked arms, singing and dancing with Aretha, the Beatles, Smokey. Jasmine moved with the sensual grace of a natural dancer, and by now the waiter who had shared the joke had begun hovering around her like a moth around a flame. I saw something hungry in Eli’s eyes as he stared at the pair of them, then Hope tugged his arm and they disappeared into the crowd.

Much later Kit Eastman showed up alone. She was still dressed in her work clothes, so I knew she’d probably spent another Saturday editing reporters’ stories for the Sunday paper and buried under paperwork. In the swirling chiaroscuro of candlelight and shadow, she looked haggard and run-down.

She leaned in for our usual air kiss. “Hey, hon. Sorry I’m late.”

“Where’s Bobby?” I cupped my hand to her ear so she could hear above the bouncy doo-wop harmony of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons.

“Blue Ridge,” she yelled back. “Terrorism seminar. He says he’s sorry he can’t be here tonight, but duty calls.”

We moved away from the music and the lights and stood in the shadow of the archway that led to the villa and the parking lot beyond.

“What kind of terrorism?” I asked.

Though Washington was fifty miles away, we were still considered to be the outer fringe of the D.C. Metro area, which was permanently on a state of high alert. The plane that crashed into the Pentagon on 9/11 had left from Dulles Airport on the eastern border of Loudoun County. Ever since that day, the sheriff’s department seemed to be participating in a regular routine of training exercises and readiness drills.

“The bad kind,” she said.

“Now I know why you’re the Trib ’s Loudoun bureau chief,” I said. “What’s your saying? ‘If it’s news, it’s news to us’?”

She grinned. “It’s called agroterrorism. People doing bad things to crops or the water supply or livestock. Really remote far-out stuff. Don’t worry, they didn’t get an alert or anything like that. They just need to know about it.”

I didn’t smile back. “ Agro terrorism?”

“Well, you know. Loudoun’s still an agricultural county, in spite of all the high-tech businesses out on Route 28. They’re just preparing for whatever, unlikely as it is.”

Whatever. The topic of Pépé’s discussion at the Bohemian Grove in a few days. All of a sudden someone was talking about agroterrorism every time I turned around.

“Sure,” I said as a small shudder ran down my spine.

“Looks like a good party.” She scanned the crowd.

“It is. You missed dinner, but Dominique made so much food we’ll have leftovers until Labor Day. You hungry? There’s French onion soup.”

“Oh, God. I’ve died and gone to heaven. I’m starved. I didn’t leave the office all day. Ate the leftover stuff in the kitchenette. I think the sell-by date passed on a can of microwave chili.” She patted her stomach and looked uneasy. “Can you get botulism from that?”

“I don’t know. You feel all right?” I flagged down a waitress and asked her to bring Kit a bowl of soup and fix a dinner plate.

“I’m beat. More layoffs. The buyout days are over. Do more with less. You know the newspaper biz these days,” she said. “What’s left of it.”

“Is your job in jeopardy?”

She shrugged and looked defeated. “Everyone’s job is in jeopardy.”

The waitress showed up with Kit’s soup and two glasses of white wine.

“Mud in your eye,” Kit said and we clinked glasses. “Bobby told me you found Paul Noble the other day. That must have been grim.”

“It was. I don’t suppose he shared any information about the autopsy results. If the medical examiner confirmed yet whether it was suicide or not.”

“I sleep with the guy and it still doesn’t cut any ice. You know Bobby. Sometimes I think I’m the last to find out anything. He makes me work my ass off for it, too.”

“I guess that’s a no.”

“You guess right.” She picked up her spoon. “What are you doing tomorrow?”

“Flying to California with my grandfather.”

“You’re going, too? Wow, when did that happen? You taking him sightseeing?”

“It just happened and it’s business for both of us. Pépé’s giving a talk and Mick asked me to check out some wine he might buy from a vineyard in Napa. We’ll be back Wednesday.”

“Bobby told me about Luc’s talk. Why is Mick buying California wine?”

“Someone put him on to a good deal.”

She nodded and I was glad, suddenly, that Bobby hadn’t come along tonight because the reason I was traveling out West was indirectly linked to Paul Noble’s death—at least in Charles Thiessman’s mind. I didn’t want to lie to Kit and I sure as hell couldn’t lie to Bobby, especially if there turned out to be some truth to what Charles had said.

I sipped my wine and changed the subject to wedding talk, which Kit easily and willingly fell into. The deejay changed generations, switching from Stevie Wonder to Sinatra crooning “Fly Me to the Moon.” I leaned back against the stone arch, letting the music and candlelight and animated voices and laughter wash over me.