Page 53 of Gone With the Wine

“Oh my God.” I sink onto a kitchen chair. “I can’t believe this. I just thought it would be nice to see an old friend for a drink.”

She wrinkles her nose. “I didn’t know he was like that. He didn’t used to be.”

“And now everyone in town is pissed at Jansen,” Jake adds.

“What! Why?”

“He’s the new guy. I mean, Mark’s a bit of a screw up, but he’s lived here his whole life and everyone loves his family. Of course they’re going to support him over another stupid rich guy who thinks he can run a winery and who’ll be gone before the year is over.”

I pause. “Wow. Is that what you think of Jansen?”

His mouth thins. “Not me. That’s what other people are saying.”

I bite my lip as guilt pokes me in the chest. It’s also what I thought, when I first met him. “Wait. How can everyone in town be mad at him? This just happened last night!”

“You know what this town is like.”

Oh yeah, I know what this town is like. “He was defending me.”

“I know that,” Rosa says. “But rumors start.”

“This is ridiculous. Nobody got hurt, right?”

“It sounds like Mark might have some bruises.”

I cringe. “Yikes. I have to go talk to Jansen.”

Rosa’s eyebrows shoot up.

“I mean, I had to talk to him anyway,” I say quickly. “Business. Wine business.”

“Uh huh. Well, you can make sure he didn’t break any bones.”

“We need to talk about those barrels.”

Rosa frowns. “I thought we did already.”

Ordering new French oak barrels was part of our team meeting discussion with Allegra.

I haven’t told Rosa about my discovery of the qvevris. I’ve been reading about making orange wine and I’m pretty sure I can do it. I just want to be sure before I broach the subject. We’re already on different pages when it comes to barrels.

“We did, but I…think we’re going to need more, and I prefer oak over stainless.”

“They’re expensive. You know we don’t have a lot of money.”

“But we have some. We just have to prioritize.”

She rubs her forehead. “Okay, we can sit down and go over the budgets and see if there’s somewhere we can cut.”

I’d rather run through the streets of Oak Creek Canyon with my naked body smeared with bacon fat. But I have to make my case.

I finish my oatmeal. As I’m rinsing my bowl in the sink, I gaze out the window at the clear blue sky, the sun blazing down on the ripening vines. Birds swoop and glide above the vineyard. Starlings.

I straighten to attention and watch more birds gather. “Look!” I point.

Rosa and Jake glance at each other. “What?”

“The birds!”

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