Laura Drake - Twice in a Blue Moon

With Santa Barbara in the rearview mirror, champagne bubbles of excitement rose in her chest. As the car blew out of the Gaviota Tunnel, the sun and land exploded in a blaze that burned onto her retinas. The hills flowed away in golden waves and the road wound between them, lazy as a snake in the sun. Old red barns nestled at the bottom of the valleys, and cattle wandered along paths that their forebears had etched into the hillsides.

Peace blew in on the wind, brushing her face, settling on her skin. She smiled.

Almost there.

A little while later she was rolling into Widow’s Grove—and it was like visiting an old friend.

There’s a new antiques shop where the hardware used to be. Oh, Harry, look, there’s Hollister Drug where we got those great strawberry shakes. Remember that waitress with the crystal in her tooth and the ’50s waitress uniform and hot pink hair?

She turned onto Foxen Canyon Road, the precision straight rows of winter-barren grapevines undulating over the hills that she and Barney passed. The basset’s long ears flapped out the open window as he sniffed the air. Indigo tried it, too, pulling in the scent of dirt and growing things. “You remember this, don’t you?”

“Woof.”

“Well, this time we’re here to stay.” She drank in every hill, every landmark and every mailbox on what was, as of today, her road home.

They turned in at the sun-faded sign that read, “Tippling Widow Winery. Home of distinctive wines since 1978.”

“We’ll have to get that sign repainted,” she said. “It doesn’t make a very good impression from the road.” Dead leaves blew across the asphalt as they drove up the wide drive, unpruned denuded vines keeping pace on either side. “I wonder how the harvest was this year.”

The drive opened to a small, deserted parking lot that ended at the tasting room. The steel-roofed wooden building, painted in buff and redwood, was shaded by a wraparound porch. Square wooden tables and chairs rested in its shade. She pulled up and parked.

The place was so empty it seemed abandoned. Weeds grew among the rosebushes at the base of the porch, complete with wind-blown trash accents. What was the manager thinking? This would look awful to potential customers.

Where were the customers? The place should be bustling with tourists this time of year. Warning bells jangled in her head.

When Barney whined, she got out, gathered him in her arms and lifted him down. He wandered off the sidewalk, sniffed, then watered some weeds. As she closed the car door, the fecund scent of fermentation—a sure sign that the crop was being processed—calmed her unease a bit.

Until she walked closer and spied the cobwebs gracing the tables and chairs of the porch. And they were not fake Halloween leftovers.

She pulled the handle of the glass door—it was locked. She cupped her hands and looked in, though she couldn’t see much of the shadowed interior.

What the hell is going on? “Barnabas, come.”

He stopped sniffing and, collar jingling, trotted after her around the building, along the nine-foot-tall solid wood fence, to the working side of the winery. She pulled the metal door at the back of the pole-barn building. At least it was unlocked, and the lights were on. Barney followed her in, and she let the door close. No genteel trappings here—just concrete floors, stainless steel wine fermentation tanks, skylights and industrial lighting overhead.

“Hello?” Her voice echoed off the high steel ceiling. “Anyone here?” She held out her hand, palm down. “Barney. Stay.”

He sat, plump feet splayed.

She walked farther in, peering around raised fermentation vats and stepping over hoses.

In the last row, a pair of jeans-clad legs stuck out from under a vat, several wrenches spread on the floor beside them. “Hello?”

The legs didn’t move. Had he hit his head? Had something collapsed? Alarm skittered up her spine and scurried along her nerves. Jogging over, she knelt beside the legs and bent to peer under the vat. An old man lay, eyes closed, a tonsure of curly gray hair wild around his head. No blood. She reached out and touched his leg. Then shook it. “Hey, you okay?”

His lips parted, belching a snore.

“What the hell?” She snatched a wrench from the floor and banged it against the metal tank.

With a snort the man woke, jerked and smacked his head on the tank. “Jaysus!” He put a hand to his forehead and glared at her through one bloodshot eye. “Why’d you go and do tha’?”

A miasma of stale wine breath unfurled. She recoiled and stood, then backed up a step.

“Cantcha’ see I’m workin’ here?” The man rolled out from under the vat. “Who the hell’re you?”

“Indigo Blue. The owner.” The remnants of adrenaline in her system congealed to a sticky wad of anger. “You’re not working. You’re shit-faced.”

It took some precarious butt balancing and grunting, but the man eventually sat up. “I’m not. I was resting my eyes. This work isn’t easy, you kn—” He scratched his scalp. “Who’d you say you were, again?”

She didn’t want to ask her next question—didn’t want to know. She put her thumb and forefinger to the ticking bomb behind her eyebrows. “Please. Tell me you’re not the manager.”

He smiled, revealing a missing incisor and delivering another lethal dose of boozy halitosis. “I am.” He stuck out a hand. Then, realizing it held a wrench, he dropped the tool, and winced when it clanged on the cement. “I’m Cyrus Delaney. Proud to meetcha.” He held out his square, dirty hand again.

She shook only the ends of his fingers. The pretty dreams she’d imagined on the drive here detonated, gone in an instant. “Why isn’t the tasting room open?”

“The bitches up and quit, that’s why.”

When he turned to get to his knees, she didn’t slam her eyes closed fast enough. A close-up of his butt crack seared into her brain.

“How long ago?” She moaned.

“Oh, I think it was...uhnn.” He gained his feet. “Around about a couple weeks ago, reckon.”

Questions hit her brain with the heavy thud of bullets hitting raw meat. Then the hollow-pointed one hit. “Why isn’t it cold in here?”

She didn’t know much about making wine, but Uncle Bob always kept this room at a steady sixty degrees. Fermentation might be a natural event, but uncontrolled, it resulted in vinegar, not wine.

He looked around. “Yeah, why in’t it? That’s a good question.” He tottered away, swaying right and left, as if his knees didn’t bend.

God help me. She pulled her phone from the back pocket of her jeans and hit speed dial. Then, catching herself, she pushed End.

There was no cell tower where Harry was.

What now? Dread zinged along nerves made brittle by the adrenaline dump.

Who am I to decide?

Oh, sure, she’d made lots of decisions as a married woman in regards to running the household, party planning—the mundane white noise of everyday life. But Harry, or his staff, had taught her all that. And though he was gone now the thought of him, no more than a phone call away if she needed help, still resided in the back of her mind. His presence had always been a comfort. And a safety rope.

She swallowed a burr-edged nugget of fear. This fiasco was hers to fix. There was no one else. The winery had been Uncle Bob’s baby. Harry’s haven. Failure meant she’d always carry the guilt and shame of losing that. It would be like losing them all over again.

She looked up at the metal roof. “Harry, you know I suck at this.”

The only original idea she’d ever had was moving to Hollywood. And if Harry hadn’t stooped to lift her up, dust her off and take her in, no telling where she’d be now. Giving BJs to up-and-coming stars? Worse?