Sweeter Than Wine (23 page)

She swallowed her resentment and filled glasses.

A burst of masculine laughter came from the corner of the room. There was
Siegfried, the center of attention, gesticulating with his free hand as he accepted
profuse compliments for Montclair's wine.

Never
her
wine. Never
her
property. Never
her
dream.

Alice told herself to be reasonable. Siegfried was not a newcomer to Sonoma.
Of course he would be remembered and celebrated. She smiled until her cheeks
ached, and dispensed more wine, but after a short interval, she began to feel
invisible. Men who had formerly been pleased to give her winemaking and winery
management tips were thanking her for her hospitality, promptly dismissing her,
and drifting over to talk shop with her husband.

Mrs. William Roye, who had spent the last four years negotiating with wine
brokers and trading bits of farming lore with her neighbors, vanished as if she had
never existed. In her place was Mrs. Siegfried Rodernwiller, keenly feeling her
demotion from independent widow to a husband's appendage.

Siegfried, in an exalted state, was now immersed in conversation with Kanaye
Nagasawa. The old man was tasting the wine between mouthfuls of a ship's
biscuit fished from his vest pocket. "The best I've tasted in years!" he
pronounced.

She couldn't look at Siegfried anymore. She seized a full bottle and began to
circulate through the crowd, refilling glasses and accepting her neighbors'
compliments on old Mr. Roye's wine.

Galling though that was, she was not prepared for the chance comments she
heard as she came up behind a couple of the Healdsburg-based grape
growers.

"You mean he actually told you that her Traminer spoiled?" one asked.
"Dammit, Hugh's a cad to do that!"

"Yeah. Poured it out at dinner, cool as you please, then made a big fuss about
how his grandfather put so much work into that place. Of course, we all told him
shame, her being a war widow and all, but--"

"But he's never had a good word to say about her. He's been bellyaching'
about losing that property since his grandpa died, and just gotten worse since Bill
died Over There."

"Now, from what I hear, Bill's widow
did
let the place go to seed. Stands
to reason her wine'd spoil."

Alice stood paralyzed with shame and rage.
I thought Hugh was my
friend!
He had been her ally in the dark months after Bill's death.
How could
he do this?

She hoped she could creep away before the two men saw her. The one she
stood behind was tall and broad, and might hide her escape even as he obscured
her presence. But before she could turn, a heavy hand fell onto her shoulder.

"I hope you do not mean to imply that my wife has been mismanaging the
Montclair vineyards," Siegfried said coldly.

Where had he come from?
How much had he overheard?

The men started guiltily and Siegfried continued. "I have walked the vineyards
every morning since I arrived in Sonoma. My wife is a conscientious farmer, and
Montclair's vines are both healthy and well-tended."

Why was he defending her? She did not know whether to smile gratefully or
run away in humiliation. His hand anchoring her, she ended up doing neither.

"I wasn't impugning Mrs. Roy--er, Rodernwiller's farming," one of the men
protested. "But that Traminer--"

"Who among us has never had a cask of spoiled wine?" Siegfried interrupted,
his eyebrows raised exaggeratedly.

Both men offered sheepish grins.

"In any case," he finished, "I am Montclair's vintner now, and I have sworn to
carry on my grandfather's tradition, to make only the finest of wines."

"Yeah, well, as I was saying, Hugh's had a chip on his shoulder for a long
time." The big man nodded at Alice. "My apologies, Mrs. Rodernwiller. Didn't mean
to distress you."

"Not at all," she lied, practicing hard-learned lessons in courtesy.

"Excuse us, please. I want a word with my wife," Siegfried said, nodding to his
fellow vintners. He steered her blindly toward the refreshment table. "Poor Ah-
lees," he said kindly, patting her arm. His anger toward her had obviously vanished
in a haze of triumph.

"What did you come to tell me?" she inquired distantly.

"I wanted to tell you--to share with you--" She could feel his pulse leaping in
his fingertips. "Baron Nagasawa--" He could barely speak, who had been so
eloquent on her behalf.

"I heard how much he liked the wine," she said for him, so he wouldn't have to
stumble over it.

But he went on as if she hadn't spoken. "He called it 'verra excellent.'"
However badly his accent mangled the Scots burr, the significance was clear, as
was his deep satisfaction.

"I'm not surprised," Alice said. "After all, Mr. Roye was a great vintner, and this
was his final vintage."

Siegfried came back to Earth from that far place of victory where he had
strayed. "Of course. Of course he liked it." He seemed to see Alice for the first time
since the meeting had adjourned. "You look quite done-in. This has not been a
comfortable day for you."

She blinked, the half-full bottle of Grandfather Roye's Burgundy trembling in
her hand. How dare he pity her? He had married her to gain Montclair. She did not
need him, specifically. Any vintner would do.

He was smiling tenderly at her now and her response proved her a liar.

"Excuse me," she said, and stumbled away from him, her fingers cramping
around the bottle. She resumed mechanically refilling glasses and responding to
comments with a smile pasted on her face. She would not look back at him. She
bit her lips, to stop their tingling.

The last drops of wine went into Louis Kunde's outstretched glass as he
continued telling his plans to Walter Bundschu. "I'm going to raise beef cattle on
my land. It's the wave of the future, mark my words."

"Yeah, Samuele Sebastiani is the lucky one. If Prohibition passes, at least he'll
stay in the business, selling grapes and wine to La Fontaine," Mr. Bundschu
commented, taking a sip of wine and rolling it across his tongue to release the full
flavor.

"Charles La Fontaine of Fountainview?" Alice demanded. "What about
him?"

"Oh, we just heard. He got the sacramental wine license for Northern
California."

Her chest hurt, a stabbing pain that made it difficult to draw enough breath to
speak. "H-how--?"

"He's a friend of the Archbishop in San Francisco, Mrs. Rodernwiller," Mr.
Kunde said, shaking his head. "There are many of us who wish we were in his
shoes!"

Mr. Martini, a vineyardist of Santa Rosa, chuckled. "I bet plenty folk'll be
religious soon!"

La Fontaine got the license? Alice felt the bottle of wine slipping through her
numbed fingers. The refreshment table was nearby--she had just enough strength
left to put the bottle down before it fell.

She was clumsier with her dream. It slipped through her fingers and shattered.
It's over. I've lost everything.

Santa Rosa

Wednesday, June 25

Everyone loved the wine!
Siegfried thought triumphantly as the meeting
finally began to break up.

He was saying good-bye to Mr. Schmidt in German, happy to be speaking with
fluency again, freely connecting thought and word, when he saw Alice run from the
meeting room.

After a hasty excuse, he pushed through the doors leading to the interior of the
courthouse. Alice was leaning against the corridor wall, her arms wrapped tight
around her as if she had been gut-shot.

Instantly, battle fury gripped him. "What happened? Who did this to you? Is
this more of Hugh's mischief? By God, I will break his bones when I find him!" He
started to open the door to the meeting room, but stopped when Alice shook her
head. His own gut twisted. Except for ragged breathing, she was utterly silent
while tears cascaded from tightly closed eyes.

All his residual anger evaporated. He closed his arms around her, stroked her
hair, content that he had a strong, whole shoulder for her to hide her face against.
"
Schatz,
" he murmured, wishing he knew what to do to help her. She felt so
fragile under his hands, so soft.

Against his will, with blithe unconcern for the circumstances, his desire for her
rekindled.

He tried to stifle the quiver that shook him, but she shoved him away and
disappeared into the marble-floored sanctuary of the ladies' room.

Idiot
, he cursed himself.
Next time, do not chase her away.

* * *

Alice's first reaction when she recognized the damp, prickly wool of Siegfried's
suit had been to let him comfort her; but the thought that he was witnessing her
complete breakdown was intolerable. She wrenched away, ran, and threw herself
onto a chaise longue in the ladies' room, curled up in a nest of dusty red plush,
and cried until only the concrete foundation of despair remained.

I'll never be able to make wine for the Church
, she admitted at last to
herself.
I'll never atone that way for my mother's sins
.

She pushed herself up and tottered to the gilt-framed mirror hanging over the
marble sink. Red, swollen eyes and puffy, splotched cheeks reflected back at her.
A thick dusting of rice powder might have made her presentable, but respectable
women didn't wear cosmetics, so she had only a comb and a handkerchief in her
small purse. With a sigh, she took out her handkerchief, opened the faucet, and
began to bathe her eyes with cold water.

Siegfried doesn't care what you look like anyway, as long as he has
Montclair.

She tried to shake away the miserable thought, then had to unpin her hair,
which had come down in messy wisps. She re-twisted it into a neat, painfully tight
chignon. Then she trudged back to the meeting room, feeling ugly and empty.

Only Mr. Price remained, scribbling in his meeting ledger. "Your husband is
waiting for you outside, Mrs. Rodernwiller." He paused. "Are you feeling all
right?"

"Fine," she lied. His gaze was speculative, and Alice knew what he was
thinking.
Newlywed...delicate condition...
"Good day, Mr. Price," she said
firmly, and stalked away.

"Thank you for bringing your excellent wine," he called after her. "See you at
the next meeting."

Siegfried was busily fastening down the empty wooden cases in the truck bed
when she emerged from the courthouse. Alice braced herself for his flood of
questions, unable to bear the thought of telling him the truth.

"They drank all but three bottles," Siegfried reported after a swift assessing
glance at her. He tactfully avoided any mention of her tears. "We should be able to
sell all our stock at a premium price to the sommelier at the Bohemian Grove."

Alice reached for her driving coat. Shafts of afternoon sunlight pounded dull
nails into her forehead. "That's fine for the cases we have in storage," she replied
listlessly. "But what happens when they're all gone? We can't raise Grandfather
Roye from the dead to make more."

"I have a confession to make, dear
Ah-lees
." Siegfried opened the car
door. He stood too close to her, disjointing her thoughts. She heard him say: "The
wine is mine."

She slid behind the wheel and grappled with the concept while Siegfried
turned the crank to start the engine, but her thoughts were so slow and scrambled
that she didn't fully understand what Siegfried had said until he climbed into the
passenger seat.

"
You
...made the wine?" Alice whispered, relieved that the hot leather
car seat gave her support. She swallowed jealousy like vinegar.

"Seven years ago I was
Opa
Roye's apprentice. He gave me an acre's
worth of grapes on which to practice." Siegfried's brief smile was as brilliant as the
sunlight. "I made the wine we drank today, Ah-lees. I can make more. I can make
as much as we need. You see, I
am
a good vintner."

Without the license, it doesn't matter how good you are,
she thought
despondently. It took three tries before she got the Model T into gear. Her hands
were trembling as she drove through Santa Rosa into the open countryside.

Ironically she was trying to avoid yet another pothole on the rutted road near
Glen Ellen when a tire blew. She wrestled with the steering wheel as the wheel rim
hit gravel. The truck shimmied and swerved wildly and noisily over a shallow ditch
into a nearby orchard. They stopped inches away from the gnarled trunk of a plum
tree. The engine snarled one last time, then died. Quiet ruled.

Feeling bruised in spirit and body, Alice took a shuddering breath and thanked
God there was nobody else on the road for her to run into.

"Ah-lees, are you all right?" Siegfried sounded unhurt, merely worried about
her.

She pried her fingers from the steering wheel. "Get out." She remembered
politeness. "Please."

Siegfried grinned like a maniac, already half down from the truck. "Do not
worry. I will fix it for you!" he said, shucking off his coat with disgusting
cheerfulness. Then he took off his shirt, as well, revealing the cabled muscles in
his pale arms, set off by the cut of his sleeveless undershirt.

He opened her door and extended his hand. She was reminded of his strength
by the ease with which he helped her down. The hot air was motionless. Soon the
sun would sink behind the Sonoma Mountains, leaving this side of the valley in
cooling shadow, but for now, straight beams of light penetrated the canopy of the
orchard, gilding his skin in a fine layer of gold.

Her knees were weak. She resented having to depend on him and she truly
did not expect him to lay his coat on the oat-brown weeds at the base of the plum
tree, or to make a sweeping courtly bow and gesture her to sit down.

"Do you know how to change a tire?" she asked suspiciously.