Page 37 of Blush
“You know what our greatest asset is, Vivian?” Leonard had said one night. “It’s not out in that field. It’s right here, in front of me. It’s you.”
Suddenly, the decision to send their children to school in the Hamptons wasn’t so crazy. The Hamptons were filled with influential Manhattanites.
“I need you to network,” he told her.
It sounded simple enough, but she soon found that the Hamptons social scene was, in the 1980s, as closed to her as it had been to her parents in the 1950s—not because she was Jewish but because she was an outsider. The Freudenbergs were long gone from the Hamptons; they had sold Woodlawn and their townhouse on Fifth Avenue and moved to Palm Beach. Any remaining connections from her parents’ generation were too old to help her. The parents of her children’s friends were cordial but clannish. If Leonard and Vivian were going to make inroads socially, she’d need to follow her parents’ model with Woodlawn.
“Okay,” she said. “I can do that. But we need to start entertaining. And that means renovating this house.”
The pool had been built during that remodeling. As Vivian oversaw the house renovation, making countless decisions large and small, she remembered her love of night swimming as a child. And so one of the design elements of the pool was dozens of fiber-optic lights that looked like the reflection of the stars at night. Looking at them now, she wishedshe could transport herself back to the optimism of the 1980s. She hadn’t appreciated it at the time, but they were the happiest years of her life. She had her children, the winery was flourishing, she was young and beautiful and in love. She believed their family and business would continue to flourish. She had no idea what was just around the corner.
Vivian heeded Leonard’s request that she make inroads in the Hamptons social scene. Invitations came their way sporadically, but none had brought them any closer to connections that might help them crack the Manhattan restaurant market.
And then one night, the mother of one of Asher’s classmates invited them to a dinner party she was hosting in East Hampton along with her husband, an investment banker. Vivian’s expectations for the evening were low; by that time, they’d been to a few such parties, driving down dark streets lined with hedgerows so tall you could only imagine what was hidden behind them. The evenings were pleasant, full of fine food and small talk. But nothing had ever come out of them.
Vivian felt out of place at the parties. A decade of working in the field pulling leaves and setting out bird netting and pruning vines had left her more comfortable running around with her kids barefoot in the backyard than slipping on heels and a Norma Kamali dress for cocktails at a waterfront mansion. Ironically, if she had followed the path her parents had wanted for her, she would be living in a house just like the ones she visited as a guest, hosting parties all summer long instead of worrying about sour rot.
Security greeted them at the foot of the drive and directed them to another gate at the side of the sprawling front lawn. They followed a stone path to the poolside terrace. A bar was set up on the terrace, and another on the lawn. The entire area was strung with small, decorative lights. Beyond the pool, a long table set for forty with arrangements of roses and lilies and twinkling with countless votive candles. Music played from outdoor speakers, Elton John’s hit “Little Jeannie.”
Their hostess wore a cream-colored, flowy knee-length dress, a silk flower in her upswept hair. She smelled faintly of marijuana, and it washard to reconcile her with the plain mom Vivian mostly knew from drop-offs and pickups and bake sales. She took Vivian by the arm and said, “I’m glad you’re here. Someone wants to meet you.”
“Meet me?” Vivian echoed, turning to look at Leonard. But he’d already made his way to the crowd of men smoking cigars poolside. Vivian followed her hostess to the terrace, where she immediately noticed a pretty blonde, a Cheryl Ladd look-alike who stood out from the crowd in a ruby-red tunic dress that reached the ground.
“Vivian Hollander, meet Baroness de Villard. Baroness, this is the friend I was telling you about—with the winery.”
The woman stood from her seat and extended her hand. The name de Villard sounded familiar, but Vivian was certain she’d never met the woman before.
“Alors,” the woman said. “Please—call me Natasha.”
“A pleasure to meet you,” Vivian said.
“The pleasure is all mine, Mrs. Hollander. I’ve heard so much about you.” The woman was clearly not French, but American. And not just American, but—judging from her accent—from Brooklyn or Queens.
“Natasha’s husband, the Baron de Villard, owns a winery in France,” their hostess said.
“Oh, lovely,” Vivian said, trying to get her bearings in the conversation as she realized why she recognized the name. The de Villard family was a famous name in wine. Their vineyard in Bordeaux wasgrand cru classé—the highest classification in France.
“I’m from New York,” Natasha said. “But I can’t imagine growing grapes here. I understand that you and your husband were the first.”
“That’s right,” Vivian said. “We came out here over a decade ago. It was just potato farms.”
“How impressive,” Natasha said. “I’d love to see your vineyard sometime. And of course, you must come to France and meet my husband. He doesn’t like visiting the States. The only thing he likes about America is that it produced me,” she added with a wink.
And then she drifted away. Vivian couldn’t recall if she’d spokenanother word to her the entire evening. Certainly, by the end of the summer, the particulars of that party had faded to a dim memory. So she was surprised when, in September, she received an invitation to Château de Villard in the mail—along with two first-class plane tickets to France.
There had been no question that they would go. It was a decision they would both come to regret.
Vivian’s limbs became heavy with the last few strokes, and she swam to the side of the pool and grabbed hold of the ledge. How long had she been out there? She wasn’t ready to go inside, but then Leonard appeared. He was dressed in his robe and looked tired.
“I’ve been looking all over for you,” he said. “What are you doing out here at this hour?”
“I’m trying to tire myself out so I can sleep.”
Leonard walked to the pool’s edge.
“Things went well with the buyers today,” he said. “They increased their offer.”
“Is that my cue to be happy?”
