Ellen Crosby - The Riesling Retribution

He didn’t tell me to taste it, which wasn’t good. Even before I brought it to my nose, the funky odor of wine going bad hit me. Something like rotten eggs. A chemistry class nightmare.

“What happened? Can you save it?” Stunned, I sniffed the wine again. The smell was revolting.

“I guess we’ll find out.”

Not the answer I’d been hoping for.

“Want me to stay here and help you?”

“Thanks, but I’ve got to wrap my head around this. I’m better off working by myself. Besides, we’ve got the reenactment today. The place is going to be a madhouse. You need to be there.”

“Will you at least keep in touch and let me know how it’s going?”

He wrapped an arm around my waist and pulled me to him for a bruising kiss. When he was done, we were both breathing hard.

His voice was rough against my hair. “What are we going to do about this?”

I closed my eyes. “This” being “us.” Did he have regrets? Morning-after jitters?

I didn’t want to know. Right now he was focused on trying to figure out what had gone so wrong with one of our signature wines. It was not the time to ask if last night had been only about physical pleasure, or whether it had meant something more.

“We could just take it a day at a time,” I said.

“You’re okay with that?” He stroked my cheek with the back of his finger.

I nodded. “Absolutely.”

It was hard not to read too much into the relief in his smile.

“Good. That’s great. Thanks.”

I broke the awkward silence. “Guess I’d better go set things up at the villa. Frankie and Gina and the girls ought to be arriving anytime now. You know we’re going to close the winery when they actually do the reenactment of the battle,” I said. “I want to be sure everyone has a chance to watch it.”

“Good. Great.”

He wasn’t listening. “You think you might be able to break away and come see it?”

“Nah, I’d better sit tight.”

“Sure. Well, see you later.”

“Hey—”

“Yes?”

I turned to face him and prayed I didn’t sound too hopeful or like I was wearing my heart on my sleeve. There’s nothing worse for some men than a needy woman. I wasn’t going to do that, be like that. I didn’t want to drive him away.

“You’re not still thinking of trying to trip up Annabel Chastain with something today, are you?” He crumpled the Dixie cup into a tight ball. “If she shows up.”

“I’ll be fine. I know what I’m doing.”

He shook his head. “What’d they say in Hamlet? ‘The lady doth protest too much, methinks.’”

I smiled. “So you did read it.”

He looked aggrieved. “Yes, but only the comic book version. That’s all we had in California.”

“Boy, are you thin-skinned.”

“As a Riesling grape.” He grinned. “To be, or not to be. That is the question. Whether ’tis nobler—’”

“Okay, okay. You’ve made your point. I apologize.”

We were back on our old footing. He threw the Dixie cup at me and I ducked.

“Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or take arms against a sea of troubles—’” He paused. “You got a sea of troubles, buttercup. Be careful.”

It started to rain lightly as I walked over to the villa.

He was right.

I did have a sea of troubles.

The dark, swollen clouds that guaranteed heavy rains later in the day lowered the sky as though a dome enclosed the camp and the battlefield. The setting took on the surreal atmosphere of a movie soundstage. With the battle only hours away, anticipation of what was to come rippled through the place with a feverish energy that seemed contagious.

Frankie and the waitresses from the Goose Creek Inn joined Gina and me by the sutlers’ tents just after eleven. With the camps closing to the public in an hour, we decided to walk over and watch the last-minute preparations. We split up after crossing the bridge since Cheryl and Sandy, the waitresses, had boyfriends in the Union camp.

“Poor guys. They both get bumped off as soon as the fighting starts,” Frankie said. “The girls wanted to cheer them up since they’re going to lose so badly. Plus they wanted to decide on a restaurant for dinner tonight.”

“I wonder how they figure out who’s going to die,” Gina said. “It’s kind of creepy.”

“Actually, it’s kind of random,” Frankie said. “Cheryl said they either hand out cards that tell you what to do or the men count off and everyone with a certain number is supposed to fall down like he’s been killed or wounded.”

“Unless you’re somebody important,” I said. “Then they follow what happened in the real battle. B.J. and Ray Vitale, the Union commander, have been working on their plans for weeks.”

“I know it’s only acting,” Gina said, “but right now it feels sort of real.”

“It does, doesn’t it?” Frankie said. “Which is strange because you know it’s not.”

At the Confederate camp, a somber mood of preparation had replaced yesterday’s easy camaraderie. All around us soldiers tended to guns or lined up in formation to receive final orders from their commanding officers. We heard gunfire from beyond a stand of trees on the far side of the campground. Gina jumped.

“Have they started already?” Frankie asked. “How come they’re shooting?”

“Relax. Those are probably the safety checks,” I said, as a drum took up a steady martial cadence. “To make sure no one’s got live ammunition.”

“I don’t feel good,” Gina said. “I think this war stuff is getting to me.”

A gray-haired woman dressed like a Halloween witch came out of a large tent as Gina laid her hand on her forehead.

“Is she all right?” The woman pulled a vial out of the folds of black fabric and waved it under Gina’s nose. “Smelling salts, dearie. They should help.”

Gina jerked her head back as I caught a whiff of ammonia. “Who are you?”

“Phyllis Katz.” The woman smiled. “But around here everyone calls me the Black Widow. Come, there are chairs inside my tent and it’s starting to rain. You need to sit down until you get some color back.”

I saw the astonished look on Gina’s face as the Widow had slipped her arm around her waist.

“It’s all right,” she said. “I don’t bite.”

She and Gina disappeared through the tent flap.

“Is she for real?” Frankie asked. “Come into my parlor?”

“B.J. told me about her yesterday,” I said. “Apparently she’s got an educational display of—”

“Coffins,” Frankie said, as we stepped inside. “She collects coffins.”

Rows of them flanked by dressmaker forms draped with mourning attire filled every corner of the tent. Shelves and display cabinets held letters, dishes, crystal vials, and more death mementos than I had ever seen in one place.

Gina looked even paler than she had outside as the Widow led her to a small rocking chair and waved the vial under her nose again. She opened a black lace fan, fluttering it in front of Gina.

“Please,” the Widow said to Frankie and me, “have a look around. It’s taken me years to put together this collection. You won’t see another like it. The Victorians placed great significance on memorializing the dead, you know.”

Savannah had said the same thing about the Egyptians. What was it about certain cultures that they had this macabre fascination with death? But Frankie was already making a slow tour around the tent, hands clasped behind her back as she examined everything.

“What are the little bottles for?” Frankie asked. “More smelling salts?”

“To catch the tears of sorrow a woman shed for her dead husband,” the Widow said. “She placed a cork to seal them for one year and on the first anniversary of the death of her loved one, she sprinkled them on his grave.”