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?

A shudder rattled through her so hard her bones shook. She took a breath, then headed in the direction she’d seen her “manager” take.

She found him fiddling with the thermostat on the wall beside the tasting-room door.

“It’s not coming on.” He frowned at the dial as if maybe he’d merely forgotten how it worked.

Thank God she’d gotten the business checkbook from the accountant before she left LA. “Who do you call when this happens?”

“Never happened before.” He smacked his lips. “I’ll be right back. I need...” He pulled the metal door open, and dim lights came on in the barrel room—a glass-walled display room of oaken barrels of product. He went deeper, into the darkened tasting room, turned the corner and disappeared.

Indigo followed. She could see the sun through the windows out front, but the shaded porch left the tasting room in shadows. What wasn’t hard to see was the gray-on-black form lifting a bottle to his lips. Anger fired in her chest and shot through her so fast that white sparks drifted across her vision. She put her hands on her hips. “We have an emergency here. The entire year’s stock could be destroyed, and you’re drinking? You’ve got to be kidding me!”

The shadow lowered his arm. “Well, I was just gettin’ some fortification, then I was going to—”

“You’re fired.” She might not have the experience to make good decisions, but at least they wouldn’t be clouded by alcohol. She’d seen enough red-veined noses and yellowed eyes to recognize chronic alcoholism when she saw it. “Get your stuff and clear off.” She strode past what she knew to be the long burled-wood bar, with racks of wine behind, to the counter with a cash register next to the door.

“You can’t do that, missy. I been here for a long time.” She heard the slosh of a bottle being lifted.

“Bullshit. I just did.” Where was the phone book? She dug around under the counter. At least the light was better up here. Her intestines gurgled a warning, but she didn’t have time to worry about that now. “Get your stuff and get off this property. Aha.” She pulled out the thin Widow’s Grove phone book. “On second thought, wait right there for a minute. I’m following you out. I want to be sure some of the product is left when you’re gone.”

Once she’d looked up an air-conditioning company, called and extracted a promise that someone would be out right away, she walked to where Delaney stood, grumbling under his breath. “Let’s go.” She led the way into the warehouse and to the back door.

Barney stood when they walked up.

“What kinda dog is that?” Delaney slurred.

Barney sniffed the man’s pants leg then, lip curling, backed up.

“One with good taste.” She held the door and her breath when Delaney brushed by her.

“You won’t get away with this, lady. I’m going to the EDD.”

“You do that. Please. And I’m only guessing here, but I’ll bet when I contact the tasting room staff, they’ll have plenty they’ll want to say to the labor board themselves.” When Barney scooted out behind her, she let the door fall closed.

Delaney walked to the loading zone and turned to go up the hill.

“Hey, where are you going?” She and Barney jogged to catch up.

“To get my stuff. I moved into the cabin.” He huffed, trudging up the hill.

“Bob’s place?” Outrage fisted her hands as she imagined the cozy little log cabin defiled by this drunken slob. “Oh, no, you didn’t.”

“It was sitting empty.” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “And the bed down there was lumpy.” The cabin came into view as they crested the hill. The grapevines marched right up to the edge of the dusty yard, and the setting sun washed the old log walls golden.

She half expected to see Bob and Harry sitting in the wooden chairs, feet up on the railing, sipping merlot.

But they weren’t. Indigo’s chest squeezed her heart in a painful spasm of nostalgia.

Delaney went on grumbling about the slights he’d borne in his life as they stepped inside.

“Oh, no.” The air went out of her in a whoosh. The bear-tapestry-upholstered couch was sagging and stained. The Navajo rug was pocked with cinder-blackened holes, some possibly as recent as the foot-high ashes that spilled out of the huge fireplace.

Bottles, cups and filthy dishes occupied the low coffee table and graced every flat surface. The air was close and stale, smelling of garbage. Barney snapped at a buzzing fly.

All the pain she’d held inside since Harry’s death gathered, filling every space in her body, pushing, pushing. Every slight, every abuse, every loss started to boil. Her skin tightened in an attempt to contain it, but the pressure built in her soft parts—in her gut, behind her eyes.

She clapped her hands over her ears as the pressure exploded from her in a howl of pain. “Getout-getout-getout. Get out before I kill you!”

Delaney flinched, his mouth open.

Barnabas threw his head back and howled, raising the hair on her arms.

Delaney scrambled, snatching clothes from the furniture, stumbling between the bathroom and the bedroom.

She couldn’t watch. Couldn’t bear seeing the rest of the house just yet. Sinking to her knees, she gathered Barney in her arms, but the dog wouldn’t be consoled. His howls echoed through the large two-story room as if he, too, were pouring out his grief. She rocked him in shaking arms, whispering to him in an attempt to calm them both.

Delaney shuffled back and forth, loaded down with boxes, clothes hanging out of them. She wasn’t letting go of Barney to look through them. Knowing firsthand how demeaning that was, she couldn’t do it to another human being, even someone as useless as this manager.

Besides, everything precious had already been taken.

CHAPTER TWO

FROMTHEPORCH, Indigo watched the ex-manager’s rattletrap truck pull out onto the road below. “Well, it’s up to you and me now, Barn.”

The dog lifted his mournful face.

“Cheer up, bud. We may suck at making decisions, but we can’t do worse than that guy.”

A lead blanket of responsibility dropped onto her shoulders, making it hard to draw a full breath. No one to look to. No one to call. The success or failure of Harry’s last lifeline was in her hands. Her incompetent hands.

Oh, come on. You’re not totally clueless. After all, you’ve run your own yoga business.

A tattered remnant of a memory floated through her mind, of a carmine-red scrap of a dress that had cost her more than a good chunk of her bank account.

Yes, and that worked out so well. She slammed her mind shut on it.

She should start shoveling out the cabin. Turning, she stepped to the open door, then hesitated. The sun dipped below the edge of the world. The breeze blew colder than it had a moment ago. The dark played in the straggling vines, and she thought she heard the scurrying of rat-like claws in the dirt.

Ghosts whispered from the open doorway.

Blue? She’s a little chit, but I’m just glad to see Harry’s still got the interest.

He’ll tire of her. Smart men always do, once they start thinking with their bigger head.

You were less than nothing before you met my dad. You’re now free to go back to that.

The ghosts chuckled, breathing the smell of boozy sweat-stained sheets and failure into her face. Turning her back on the past, she blindly reached for the knob and shut the door.

She’d deal with the cabin when she felt stronger. “Let’s go, Barn.”

As they walked down the hill to the winery, a white panel van pulled into the parking lot, the name of the air-conditioning company she’d called on its side.

The dog woofed.

“It’s okay, Barn. The cavalry drives panel trucks nowadays.” She unlocked the front doors for the repairman, but that was about all the help she could render, having no idea what a compressor looked like, much less where it was located. She told him where she’d be and left him to it, imagining dollars ticking by on a taxi’s meter.

She and Barn walked through the tasting room and took the door on the left that led the way to the manager’s quarters. She shot a glance to the ceiling. “Oh please, God, I can’t take any more today.” Bracing herself for the worst, she opened the door.

Encouraged by a faint whiff of stale Lysol, she walked down the long hall, opening doors as she went. The first on the left revealed an abandoned office with windows that looked onto the parking lot. The next door was to a long room. Empty barrels and equipment littered the floor. Behind the door on the right stood the industrial washer and dryer, the deep working-man’s sink between them.

The next room on the right was the manager’s living quarters, and their home until the cabin was shoveled out.

She opened the door and sniffed. “It’s safe, Barney. Come on in.” Set up like a room in one of those extended-stay hotels, the apartment had a small kitchen area on the right, a two-person dining table to the left, and a neatly made double bed before her. Crossing the room, she turned left to check out the bathroom. The shower/tub combo, sink and toilet all gleamed.

Thank God the cleaning crew didn’t quit too.

Problems lay tangled in her mind like huge piles of string. She had no idea where to begin unknotting them.

First things first.

A short while later, on her last trip to the car unloading what she and Barney would need for the night, the repairman found her in the hall.

“I’ve cobbled together a temporary fix, ma’am, but frankly, your whole system is held together with bubble gum and cat hair.” He squatted to pat Barney. “It’ll need to be replaced.”

“The whole thing?’ The taxi meter in her head whirred.

“Well, some of the duct work could probably be salvaged.” Head down, he studiously petted an adoring Barney, whose tail whopped the metal doorjamb with a hollow bong.

She didn’t want to know. “How much?”

He named a figure that stole her breath, and a considerable chunk of the business savings account. But you couldn’t make wine without a consistent temperature. Even she knew that. Should she call another company for a second quote? She bit her lip. Businesses would be closed by now. Tomorrow might be too late.

Bong. Bong. Bong.

“Jeez, Barney.” She grabbed his collar and pulled the little traitor away from the door. He’d always liked men better.

What to do? Nothing had gone right since she’d stepped foot on the property. She’d known when she took this path that she’d have to trust in her intuition, but she hadn’t known that the weight of responsibility would be so heavy. It smothered her last flicker of energy. She looked up at the repairman’s young, guileless face. Surely she could trust a face like that. “How long will it take?”

“We don’t have a unit that large in stock. I’ll need to order one. Should take a week to ten days to get here.”

“Will the cat hair hold out?”

He smiled. “If it doesn’t, you call me. I’ll keep it running until then, no charge.”

He should. The price he quoted for labor alone would send his kid to college for a year. What would Harry do? A chill wind filled the place in her chest where Harry used to be, howling around the cracks in her cobbled-together life. She crossed her arms to cover the void and chose the easier option. “Yeah, okay, order the parts.”

She followed him out, locked up behind them, then returned to the manager’s quarters. The bed beckoned. She longed to fall onto it, curl into a fetal ball and welcome sleep’s respite. Instead, after a long, lingering look, she set up her laptop on the kitchen table and fired it up, then wandered into the kitchen area to find a bowl for Barney’s food. Her stomach growled, but the shelves and drawers revealed only dime-store dishes, bent-tined silverware and a few pots and pans. The fridge was empty save a box of baking soda that sure hadn’t been put there by the manager.

She poured Barney’s food into a chipped cereal bowl with Mickey Mouse tap dancing around the rim. She knew she should eat something. The stress of the past month had her jeans gapping, hanging off her hip bones. A bevy of women in Hollywood would kill for a size zero, but they sure wouldn’t want the grief and worry that had gotten her there.

You’ve got to start taking care of yourself. There was no one else to do it.

Tomorrow.

Barney finished his dinner and slopped half the water out of the other dish. Ears dripping, he meandered to the side of the bed and collapsed on the worn braided rug.

They were both out of shape. She’d go to town and stock up on healthy food and restart her yoga routine tomorrow. Plopping into the chair, she jiggled the mouse to refresh her laptop. It would take a lot more than discipline to deal with the rest of the mess that was the winery.

She knew little more about wine than to order white with fish and red with beef. Her education would have to come first. She searched the internet for books on wine making but found most either were for home hobbyists or were way-over-her-head technical. Then she hit pay dirt. The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Starting and Running a Winery. “That sounds about right.” With a click, she downloaded it to her e-reader.

The next knot in the pile of tangled string would be trickier. She’d need to find a winery manager who could do it all: vintner, cellar manager and vine steward. Her experience with the “manager” today had been a lesson in what happened when you left precious things in the hands of others. So, he or she would also have to be willing to teach her.

She needed someone she could trust.

She signed on to her simple business accounting software program and subtracted the cost of the new air-conditioning from the checking balance. She swallowed the knot of dread-laced acid at the back of her throat and added one more to the list of job requirements.

The future manager must be willing to work for next to nothing.

“Yeah, that should be an easy ad to write.” She did a search for a central California winery job board, trying to conjure the words to put lipstick on that pig.

* * *

DANOVANSQUINTED AT his computer screen and read the post again, hoping to glean more information.

Wanted: Winery Manager

A great opportunity to get in on the

Grand Reopening of a boutique winery with a solid reputation for outstanding wines.

Great working environment!

Please apply in person to

The Tippling Widow Winery,

Widow’s Grove, California

He’d never heard of The Tippling Widow, but that wasn’t surprising. Mom-and-pop operations lay scattered in the hills all over the valley.

Reading between the lines of the sunny ad, it was clear that this would be a lot of work for little acclaim. He squared his shoulders. This job was far beneath him. He’d been a lead vintner at one of the largest winemakers in all of California.

Had being the key point.

He flipped to the Bacchanal website. His own smile met him. A flashy photo of the favorite son raising a glass of Pan’s Reserve Cab, his father-in-law’s arm around his shoulder.

His breath whooshed out. The family hadn’t changed the website yet. No surprise there. He was still stunned to blasted stillness inside...the family must be too. His daughter’s cherubic smile drifted across his vision, softening the edges, blurring it. He pulled his mind from the darkness. He had to keep moving forward. There was nothing left behind.

Who was he kidding? If the owner of Tippling Widow hadn’t heard of his epic ousting at Bacchanal two weeks ago, a simple phone call to check references would remedy that. Failure bubbled up, turning his skull into a witch’s cauldron of funk. Should he even bother applying?

He glanced at the walls of the crappy apartment he wouldn’t be able to afford next month. What choice did he have? Gathering the scattered chunks of his career, his ego and his regrets, he wrote down the address of The Tippling Widow. He had to try.

When he first pulled into the parking lot, he thought the place abandoned. But a basset hound lumbered around the corner of the covered porch to the front steps and sat down, staring at his car. He shut off the engine.