“So, Dee,” I said to my friend, who was still holding an empty coffee cup. Even pouting, she looked adorable in a ruffly white blouse, short black skirt, and red peep-toe platform heels that raised her from a short five feet to a towering five three. “How’d you like to play the Wine Goddess, like that girl on TV?”
She sat up, grinning. “Sweet. I’ll wear a big flowered skirt and a puffy peasant top and put on a crown made from grapes and—”
I nodded as she continued the seemingly endless description of her planned costume. Sounded like something out of that old
I Love Lucy
episode where Lucy and Ethel stomp grapes for a laugh. My mind wandered further as I thought about how I might use my other part-time crew members for the wine-tasting event. Gamer/computer whiz Duncan Grant could DJ and help out with the entertainment I’d planned, which included grape stomping, barrel rolling, and of course, a wine-tasting contest. Berkeley Wong, rising indie filmmaker, would videotape the event for my Web site. And I could always use TI security guard Raj Reddy. You never knew when you might be dealing with intoxicated guests, especially at an event like this.
As for Brad, I’d bring him along for personal use.
The six of us, all with offices on TI, had become friends over the past year. Everyone seemed to enjoy helping out at my bigger events—but then, who wouldn’t want to go to a cool party
and
get paid? Amazingly, after several recent headlining functions, my Killer Parties event-planning business was growing like a well-tended grapevine. Good thing, since the rent was rising on my office space, my condo, and my mother’s care facility.
When Delicia’s motor finally ran down, I asked her to book a few rooms for the crew at a bed-and-breakfast near the Purple Grape.
“Seriously?” she asked, lighting up again. “You’re comping our weekend?”
“Of course,” I said, feeling magnanimous. “That’s one of the perks you get when you work for a party planner like me. Besides, the Christophers have offered my mother and me a room at their ‘villa,’ but I’d like to find a place nearby for you, Duncan, Berk, and Raj.”
“What about Brad? You shacking up with him at the winery—in front of your mother?”
My mother was no prude. She’d had a series of love affairs in between marrying five husbands. In fact, even now as her Alzheimer’s slowly progressed, she seemed to be getting more . . . amorous. She apparently had an endless supply of paramours.
I wasn’t a thing like my mother in that department. I’d had one long relationship with one of the professors at San Francisco State, where I’d taught abnormal psychology. But I dumped him when I found out he’d been cheating on me with a cliché—one of his students. When the university had dumped me—budget cuts—I met Brad. He was the only other guy I’d really been with since then. And I was taking that relationship very slowly.
“Hmm,”
I said, “that could be awkward. I was planning to sneak him into my room. But maybe you should get him a room, too, just in case.”
“I’m on it!” As an underemployed actress, Dee spoke mostly in exclamation points. “This is going to be so off the hook!”
With the party only a month away, much of the preliminary work had been done, but I still had lots to do. I pulled out the Killer Parties planning sheet I’d been working on and read over the entries under the who, what, when, where, and why sections. That was the fun part—brainstorming ideas to match the theme and then watching it all come to life.
Ahhh, a wine-tasting party in Napa, an “adventure” for my mother, and a romantic weekend with Brad. I couldn’t wait to get my party on.
I spent the next few weeks juggling the wine-tasting plans with several other parties I’d been hired to do, including a “Come as Your Favorite Author” party—a fund-raiser for the San Francisco Library—and a “Red Hat Funvention” for a group of women who wore red hats and purple outfits and liked to party. By the end of the month I was more than ready for a peaceful break in serene wine country.
Early Friday morning I picked up my mother at her care facility. Although the party wasn’t until Saturday, I’d been invited to join the Christophers and Rocco and Gina for a preparty dinner at the California Culinary College, and meet a couple of their neighbors. Brad couldn’t make it, so I’d asked if my mother could join us.
“Oh, Presley, dear, I’m so looking forward to this,” she said, after I stuffed her two suitcases into the minibackseat of my MINI Cooper. I pulled up the directions on my iPhone’s GPS, we fastened our seat belts, and off we went for what I hoped would be a tasty and relaxing evening, with lots and lots of wine.
The sixty-mile drive passed quickly, thanks to my mother’s tour-guide lecture about the Napa Valley. As a native San Franciscan, she knew the history of nearly every place within a three-hour radius. The breathtaking view of mustard fields and perfectly aligned vineyards offered eye candy, along with rolling hills, fields of wild flowers, and wineries in every style of architecture, from modern to medieval. My mouth watered as I thought about the bottles of wine those vineyards produced.
“Presley?” I heard my mother say, and retreated from the recesses of my brain. “Are you listening to me? You were such a distractible child with your ADHD, and you haven’t changed.”
“I was listening, Mother,” I lied. “You were talking about the history of Napa.” I’d heard the speech before during the several trips we’d made over the years when she had hosted her own parties there. My mother, the grande dame of San Francisco café society, had planned events for such resident luminaries as the Smothers Brothers, Pat Paulsen, and Francis Ford Coppola, who all had wineries in the area.
“So, as I was saying,” she continued, “when Prohibition came along, it hurt the industry terribly.”
While she talked on, I thought about the evening ahead. Although Rob and Marie had meant for it to be a thank-you evening, I figured it would give me a chance to go over last-minute changes and nail down final details, as well as make sure Rob would be donating a percentage of the money he raised selling wine at the event to my charity of choice. I’d picked Alcoholics Anonymous this time, since my third stepfather had died of the disease and it seemed appropriate.
But most of all, I looked forward to another preview of Gina’s amuse-bouches. Everything sounded better in French. Merlot, cabernet, chardonnay . . .
“. . . then many of the wineries shut down,” I caught Mother saying. “But after the Second World War, they picked up again, and that was the beginning of those big monopolies like Napology that now produce large quantities for less money.”
Rocco had mentioned something about how the large wineries were changing the Valley, causing “rumblings” from the smaller boutique wineries as well as from environmental groups. “Rob said there have been protests,” Rocco had told me, “from a group called the Green Grape Association. They’ve been complaining about all the special events, the noise and traffic, the crowds and litter. They claim these events are harming the environment.”
“Are they protesting smaller wineries like Rob’s?” I’d asked, thinking of the Purple Grape.
“They’re going after any winery that isn’t green enough to suit them.”
Rocco had mentioned a woman named JoAnne Douglas, president of the Green Grape Association. He said Rob had called her a “fanatic” for her radical methods in trying to stem growth in the valley. Although she owned a neighboring winery, she had not been invited to the party like the other neighbors.
“. . . and today,” Mother said, interrupting my thoughts again, “more than five million people visit the three hundred wineries here.”
The personal audio tour stopped when we pulled up to the Purple Grape estate. Mother was finally speechless—thank God—as she gazed at the Tuscanstyle mansion nestled in the Napa hills and surrounded by rows of vineyards.
“My goodness,” she whispered. “We’re staying here? I feel like I’m in Italy.”
Before I could comment, a tall, good-looking man in jeans and a dark blue golf shirt appeared at the doublefront doors a few yards from the circular driveway. He smiled pleasantly and waved, then started toward us, following a stone path that wound through an impeccably landscaped flower garden. Noting his graying temples and his lean but muscular shape, I guessed him to be a young fortysomething. Out of habit, I checked his shoes as he reached the car. Brown leather Ferragamo loafers. Italian shoes to match the villa?
“Welcome to the Purple Grape!” he said, opening my mother’s car door. “You must be Presley,” he said to me, “and this must be your charming mother, Veronica.”
He lent her a hand to help her out. She blushed—I thought she might swoon—and fell instantly in love. I recognized the symptoms.
“Yes, I’m Presley, and this is my mom. You must be Rob. Thanks so much for putting us up at your beautiful home.” I took in the sprawling single-level house, from the red tiled roof and wrought-iron fence, to the circular fountain surrounded by four marble statues of children wearing crowns of grapes and holding goblets. The place was breathtaking. I almost swooned myself at the thought that we’d be staying in such an incredible home. As I started to open the trunk to retrieve my small suitcase, I heard someone call, “Rob!” from the house.
A woman came running toward us from the home. She also wore jeans, plus a champagne-colored knit top. Her dark hair was swept up and caught by clips. On her feet were slip-on black leather flats—Clarks or Rockports—simple, practical, comfortable. But unlike Rob, the look on her face wasn’t at all pleasant.
Rob’s smile turned to a frown as she approached. “Marie? What’s wrong?”
Marie’s flushed face and wild brown eyes made me tense up.
Uh-oh
. All was not well in Napa’s Camelot. It probably had something to do with the upcoming event. Such was my party karma.
“It’s JoAnne,” she said, breathless from the short run to my car. Even though she was in her early forties, I doubted this trim, attractive woman was out of shape. No doubt stress was causing her to hyperventilate.
Rob sighed, and his shoulders drooped. “What’s she done now?”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw two other people appear in the doorway of the house. A woman—blond, younger than Marie, wearing tan shorts, a tight tank top, and leather sandals—was leaning against the doorjamb, her arms crossed in front of her midriff. I wondered if this was the JoAnne they were talking about. Next to her stood a man, nice-looking, thirty-something, dressed in a black suit in spite of the warm spring weather. I couldn’t make out his shoes from this distance, except that they were black and probably expensive, judging by the suit.
I thought I saw a look pass between the two of them.
“She says we have to cancel the party!” Marie cried.
“What?” Rob said, shaking his head. “She can’t do that. There’s no way—”
“Yes, she can!” Marie said, cutting him off. “She’s threatening to call the police!”
Great. The party hadn’t started and already the cops were involved. I had a feeling the fizz in this event was already starting to go flat.