Page 106 of Love Unforgettable
“Shit,” she says, pulling away from me, eyes averted, lowering her legs to the ground.
I raise my eyebrows at her. “You winnin’ an award?”
“Yeah,” she says with a sigh. “Give me a sec.” She heads over to the phone on the wall to take the call. All I hear is her side of the conversation, but it’s enough to know that she’s won a pretty damn important award and she’s not feeling deserving of it at all. In fact, she’s practically trying to talk them out of giving it to her. She confirms that she will rearrange her schedule to be at the conference this coming weekend and the awards ceremony Saturday night. And yes, she would be honored to lead a panel on winemaking and sustainable winemaking practices.
She hangs up the phone and heads back toward me with her head hung low.
“Sweetness?”
She looks up at me. “I wasn’t planning on attending. I don’t deserve this award. I really don’t. There are so many truly great winemakers out there, all of whom are worthier of such recognition. I just got lucky. I wasn’t going to tell anyone, and I wasn’t going to go. I don’t know why I’m admitting this to you. I’m annoyed with myself as a result. But now I have to go. And worse, you know about it too.”
“Why is that worse?” I ask.
She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath before responding. “Because you’re going to be happy for me. You’ll want to celebrate it, and I just can’t do it. They are sending a photographer for the cover of theWine Educatorfor God’s sake. It’s too much.”
I go to her and pull her into a hug before saying anything. When I step back, I make sure she’s looking at me before speaking. “Who judges this so-called contest?” I ask.
She rolls her eyes and steps out of my embrace to pace up and down the aisle. “The reviewers fromThe Wine Educatoralong with judges from other contests and some of the past winners,” she says, her voice low.
“So, they might know their stuff and maybe they don’t. I mean, my experience with reviewers is that they don’t often know enough to actually do, so they review instead.”
“Exactly!” She throws her arms up in the air.
“And the judges from other contests, how do they get to be judges?”
“I think they are other contest winners and people in the industry that maybe aren’t winemakers.”
“So, a bunch of people who don’t even make wine, and other people who probably got lucky just like you and don’t know what they’re doin’. Couldn’t dot an ‘i’ if their brains were ink.”
“Hey, I know what I’m doing!” Her voice is loud, and her tone is sharp.
“But you got lucky with the award, so it wasn’t evidence that you know what you’re doing,” I shrug.
Her face gets red and she points her finger at me when she speaks. “I have worked my ass off to get to where I am. And I am damn fucking good at what I do!”
“Exactly,” I say quietly.
Her chest is heaving. And really, in this moment, I should be commended for not staring at her tits, ‘cause I’ll bet they are fabulous.
“You’re an asshole,” she says.
“I’ll take it.”
“I still—”
“Quiet, sweetness.”
She doesn’t say anything, just looks at me.
“I’m only gonna say this once. You have earned every accolade thrown at you. Own your talent, you’ve worked hard for it. The rewards that you receive, belong to you and only you. If someone else’s work merits a similar honor, they’ll get it on their own and you have nothing to do with that. Just like they have nothing to do with your successes. And as far as what you deserve, it’s only good things. Really good things.”
“But—”
I put a finger against her lips as soon as she starts to object. “What I need to know now, is if I need to have my tux cleaned for this event?”
“You can’t go!”
“Why not?”
