Eight Hundred Grapes (23)

He put the baby on his chest, reaching for Jen’s hand. “You okay?” he said.

She sighed. “I gave up,” she said. “I gave the kids a bag of cookies.”

“That was smart of you,” he said.

“Each. Each their own bag.”

He smiled, looked at her.

“Did you sleep at all?”

“Yes.” He nodded, meeting her eyes, so she wouldn’t worry.

“Liar.”

She closed her eyes, about to fall asleep herself.

“We need to take the offer,” he said.

She opened her eyes.

“I can get my job back at the university,” he said. “I just got off the phone with Bill and he said they’d be glad to have me. And the real estate agent can get our money out of this. She knows a guy who’s interested.”

“That’s what you’ve been doing instead of sleeping? Making that decision?”

“That’s what I’ve been doing.”

She paused, and he could see her relax. They would move to San Francisco. She could get a job as a studio musician. They could have salaries and buy the purple Victorian home they’d driven past in Pacific Heights. They could get help with the kids.

She looked at him and smiled. He loved that smile, and was willing to move mountains when it appeared. He had made it appear now by giving them both a break, by giving them a way to turn it around.

Then her smile disappeared on him. “Did you call anyone else?”

“What?”

“Did you call anyone besides Bill? To tell him the plan?”

“No.” He shook his head. “Why do you ask?”

She moved closer to him for a second, one hand on him, one on her baby. Then she stood up, leaving the baby with him, sleeping quietly on his chest.

“I’m just trying to figure out who I need to call back.”

He looked at her, confused.

“To tell that we’re staying.”





The View from 8 A.M., the Last Sunday of the Harvest This was what I dreamed. I was getting married under the Eiffel Tower. The sun was coming up over Paris. Ben was by my side, wearing a green suit, smiling. It didn’t feel like a dream because of that suit, which we’d bought together at a flea market in South Pasadena shortly after Ben moved to Los Angeles. The pea-green suit was intoxicating to him. He wore it every chance he had, so it added a verisimilitude to the dream to see him in it. It actually felt like we were getting married, the two of us reading our vows. But when it was time for Ben to put the ring on my finger, he threw it toward the tower’s iron stairs, the ring landing somewhere high in the tower. “Go!” he said.


We ran toward the ring and the stairs. Ben started to climb, before I even reached the staircase. He was climbing the first of three hundred stairs, which would take him from the ground floor to the first level, the second three hundred stairs, which would take him from the first level to the second. He explained this mid-run so I’d understand where he wanted to go, even if he didn’t want to explain why.

Just as I got to the base of the tower, I got drenched. I woke up to find my father and Finn standing over my bed. Finn was spraying me with water from my mother’s self-created spray bottle, which she used to water her vegetables.

“What the hell?”

“I could ask you that,” Finn said.

“You guys scared the crap out of me,” I said.

My father smiled. “Mission accomplished. Let’s go.”

“Where to?”

“The Tasting Room,” Finn said.

He pulled up the window shade and bright light streamed in. I tried to cover my eyes but it was no use.

My father motioned toward the back of my closet door, where my wedding dress was hanging, clean and hemmed. My mother must have done her handiwork while I was sleeping so it would be the first thing I’d see when I woke up.

He nodded. “Pretty,” he said.

I ignored that, sitting up. “Why are we going to The Tasting Room at eight A.M.?”

“Why are you still sleeping at eight A.M.?” he said. “Is that what corporate lawyers do these days?”

My father had been up for five hours already. He had already had breakfast and lunch. It was time for a drink.

“Don’t you know what today is?” Finn said.

It was Sunday, the last Sunday of the harvest. Five days until the weekend of my wedding.

I deserved more than water on my face to wake me up. Had I forgotten everything that mattered around here? There was an order to things during the last weekend of the harvest.

The official kick-off was the Sunday morning winemaker’s tasting, when my father opened the previous year’s vintage for the first time, sharing it with local winemakers. Tonight, we had family dinner in the wine cave. Then, on Tuesday night, we had the ultimate celebration: the harvest party.

Most years, the harvest party was the following Saturday night—the weekend after the harvest ended—but this year they had changed the plan. They had changed the plan because the next Saturday night they were supposed to be at my wedding.

“Let’s go!” my father said. “Get out of bed.”

“Can you guys just give me a few minutes?”

“No,” my father said.