Chapter Twenty-Two Satoshi
Tasting today: MV grande cuvée champagne, Champagne, France.
Traditionally served at the reception where new Master Sommeliers are announced, it’s often said this cuvée tastes like failure, due to the exam’s low pass rate. However, those who pass are usually doing so after several previous failed attempts. This wine tastes like trying again.
‘We’d like you to design and serve a flight for us,’ the Young Somm examiner told me, ‘to pair with the following three-course menu.’
I looked at the menu they’d handed me: scallop ceviche, coffee-crusted loin of venison, chocolate and black truffle pannacotta. ‘Of course. It would be my pleasure.’
There was a message from Fiona on my phone when I got out of the service exam. Just checking in to see how things are going! xx
Quietly confident, I texted back. I’d thought of a better pairing for the venison as I was double-decanting the Priorat garnacha I’d chosen – it would work well, but gran reserva Rioja would have been even better.
Otherwise, though, it had gone perfectly.
I’d opened the sparkling Vouvray I’d selected for the first course so silently that the examiners hadn’t even noticed me do it, one of them blinking in surprise as I started to fill their glass.
Fingers crossed for tasting this afternoon. How are things going with you? xx
About as well as they could be, Fiona replied. The girls took a while to warm up to Nikki, but they’re getting there. And I was positive Lex wasn’t going to say a single thing, but – to my surprise – they’re really making an effort.
I was less surprised. Lex and I had had a conversation in the airport yesterday, when we’d done a drinks run while waiting for our flight to Melbourne. Satoshi, they’d asked, if I try and get along with Dad’s other kids, am I being disloyal to Mum?
I’m not an expert, I’d answered, selecting a couple of juices for the girls, but I don’t think so. It’s not their fault your dad did what he did.
Dr Dell said that too. But it just feels… wrong. Like if I get to know them, then I’m forgiving him somehow.
Have you talked to your mum about this?
Lex shook their head. I don’t want her to worry.
She’s going to worry anyway, pal, so you might as well tell her what’s on your mind. We’d shuffled another step closer to the front of the queue. She’s a strong woman. She can handle it.
‘Satoshi Tsukamoto?’ the exam administrator asked. ‘They’re ready for you in the tasting room.’
Got to go, I sent to Fiona, but tell me all about it later, ok?
She sent back a row of kisses. Can’t wait.
The Young Somm comp had put me up in the hotel where the awards ceremony was being held, and I went back to my room after the tasting exam had wrapped up to get ready.
Fiona and I had decided that it was better if I stayed there while she and the kids – and Elias, who’d arrived back in Australia the week prior and decided to come along as moral support – stayed in the AirBnB Matt had rented for them.
Lex wouldn’t care, Fiona had murmured to me, fingers sketching patterns on my chest as we sat curled together on her couch, but we need to take it slower for the girls.
We’ve only just made the leap to ‘Mummy and Satoshi are going on dates’.
There’s a while to go before we can get to ‘Satoshi is sleeping in Mummy’s bed’.
I’d brushed her hair out of her eyes and kissed her forehead. We can move as slow as you need, I’d told her tenderly, as long as we’re moving.
The knock on my door came as I was finger-combing product through my recently re-bleached hair in the mirror. ‘Coming!’
I took a moment to straighten my tie – a conservative black, although my suit was light pink, the colour of a pinot rosé – then opened the hotel room door. ‘Hi,’ I said. ‘Sorry that – oh, wow.’
Fiona smiled shyly. ‘It’s not too much?’
I shook my head. I had forgotten every word of the English language, and most of Japanese and French as well.
She looked stunning. She was wearing a simple little black dress, the hem hitting just above the knee, her legs made longer by her strappy silver heels.
The sleeves sat off the shoulder, her décolletage unadorned, her cleavage looking fucking delicious.
‘Are you sure it’s not too much?’ she asked again, cheeks flushing as I unabashedly looked her up and down.
‘Sadie helped me pick it out, and she really put the hard sell on me.’
‘I owe Sadie a drink.’
‘I still need to do my makeup, though.’ She entered the hotel room, and I closed the door behind her. ‘I’ve tried about fifty times to get this winged eyeliner right, and I just can’t get it even. Plus, it was too hard to concentrate while the girls were all hyped up after meeting Matt’s kids.’
‘Do you want me to do it for you?’
She blinked. ‘My eyeliner?’
I shrugged. ‘I’ve got a steady hand. And I was pretty good at eyeliner, once upon a time.’
Fiona grinned and went up on tiptoes to kiss me. ‘Show me what you’ve got, Satoshi.’
We watched a YouTube tutorial together before she surrendered her makeup bag to me. ‘So, tell me more about how today went.’ I cupped the nape of her neck, careful not to disrupt her hair as I tipped her head back gently to catch the light in the bathroom. ‘The kids got on okay?’
‘Mmm-hmm.’ She was trying not to move her face, so the words came out between her teeth.
‘Lex really tried, bless them. They sent Elias out on a quest at the crack of dawn this morning to buy books for Micah and Nikki. I don’t think Micah is much of a reader, but it seemed like he appreciated the gesture.
God knows how Lex’ll react if he tries to reciprocate and turns up next time with a football or something, though. ’
‘Open your eyes and look up for me?’
She did. ‘Nikki was clinging to Matt at first. Like, physically clinging. And the girls were… I don’t know if offended is quite the right word, but they didn’t like it.
Rosie in particular is so sensitive about the idea of Matt loving his other kids more than them, and it all nearly ended in tears. ’
‘Close your eyes again?’
The skin of her eyelid was delicate beneath my thumb as I carefully filled in her lash-line.
‘But then one of the babies started crying, and Matt had to pick him up because Laura was feeding the other one, and Georgia twigged that Nikki was upset because she was no longer the centre of attention. So she started firing questions at her about what it was like to have babies in the house, and Rosie joined in. Nikki seemed to find it pretty cathartic to complain, so it all worked out in the end.’
I kissed her cheek. ‘Happy?’
‘I mean, it was uncomfortable. But it could have gone so much worse.’
I tapped her on the end of the nose. ‘I meant with your eyeliner.’
Fiona laughed, opening her eyes. ‘Sorry,’ she said, turning to look at herself in the mirror. ‘And – oh wow, Satoshi. Is there anything you’re not good at?’
With a little practise, I knew I could get it perfect. Some of the lines weren’t as clean as I wanted them to be. But Fiona was happy, and that was good enough for me.
I put my arms around her from behind, stooping slightly to rest my chin against her shoulder. ‘I’m glad it went well.’
‘The real test will be how they react to it over time.’ Her hands drifted up to cover mine.
‘That’s what their therapist told me, anyway.
The excitement will wear off, and they’ll start thinking.
And I really am worried about Rosie. She’s starting to grasp the implications of what Matt did in a way that Georgia hasn’t quite yet, and… ’
She let out a long breath. I kissed the corner of her jaw.
Then Fiona smiled at me in the mirror. ‘But there’s nothing I can do about it tonight,’ she said, a spark igniting in her eyes. ‘Tonight I get to be the date of the sexiest young somm in the world.’
I did not win Young Somm of the Year. ‘I’m sorry, Sato,’ Isamu said, when I called to let him know, ducking outside the hotel ballroom, fingers in one ear so I could hear him. ‘I know you wanted it.’
‘It’s all right.’ I meant it, too. A year ago, not winning might have crushed me, but even though I was disappointed, I was proud of how I’d performed. ‘It would have been nice to win, but just getting nominated is great. And it was good practise for the MS exam.’
‘You’re still going to do what we agreed, though? Just focus on theory for now?’
I rolled my eyes, but it was with fondness rather than irritation. ‘Yes, Isamu. Don’t worry.’
We’d had this conversation after Fiona and I got back together. I’m not giving her up, I told him. I love her. And I’m not giving up on being an MS either – but I want to be sensible about it.
And so, we’d arrived at a compromise. Except in emergencies, I would never work more than four shifts a week at Tsundoku so I could take the time I needed to study; and instead of aiming to pass the tasting, service and theory portions of the MS exam all at the same time, I’d focus on them one at a time over a space of a couple of years.
I could tell Isamu didn’t believe me when I promised to take things slowly with Fiona too – his response to that had been to snort derisively and say, I assume we’ll be hosting your wedding in, what, three months? – but I’d promised anyway.
‘How’s Theo going?’ I asked, switching the phone to my other ear. People were starting to stream out of the ballroom and they were rowdy, carrying bottles of wine filched from the tables as they headed back up to their rooms.
‘He’s solid,’ Isamu replied. ‘I’ve got him running the floor right now – while I supervise, don’t panic. His knowledge of the list needs some work, but that’ll come with time. He’s got the service skills down. You chose well, Sato – he looks like he’s shaping up to be a great junior somm.’
‘Thanks.’ I paused. ‘And thanks for covering for me. I know I’ve been an insufferable diva about it, but – thank you.’
He grunted. ‘Thank Noriko. I’ve got a vested interest in the bar succeeding. She did it for standard hospo wages, two cases of Bibliophile, and gratitude.’
‘Has it—’ I paused again. ‘Have you… been okay?’
Isamu didn’t say anything.
‘I know what it must have cost you, reaching out to her,’ I said. ‘That the wound is still raw. So – are you okay?’
He was silent for a long moment before he replied. ‘I’m okay. I’m – I’m actually seeing someone new.’
I blinked. ‘What? Who? Since when?’
‘Don’t ask me any questions, because I won’t answer them.’ Isamu’s tone made it clear that his word was final. ‘It’s no one’s business but hers and mine.’
Fiona emerged from the ballroom, chatting brightly to some of the people who’d been sitting at our table. She waved at me, eyes creasing at the corners as she smiled. ‘If that’s what you want, then fine,’ I told my brother. ‘But when you’re ready to talk about it, I’m here. Always.’
‘Who do you think it is?’ Fiona asked, as we took the lift back up to my hotel room. She had her shoes in one hand, the other in mine.
‘No idea.’ I set the bottle of champagne I’d swiped on the ground so I could open the door without letting go of her hand. ‘I have no idea where Isamu would even meet someone, to be honest. But I suppose this explains what some of those meetings he kept having were.’
I picked the champagne up again and closed the door behind us. ‘Drink?’
Fiona set her shoes down. ‘Please.’
The cork came out silently – the faintest hiss, pressure released, relief – and I took down the two wineglasses from the minibar. ‘I don’t know why he won’t just tell me who she is. What does he think I’m going to do? Make fun of him?’
Fiona accepted a glass from me. ‘Maybe he can’t bear to tell you because it’s very, very precious.’
I looked at her.
‘I felt like that about us.’ I’d taken my jacket off, and she caressed my shirtsleeve between two of her fingers.
‘There were a lot of reasons I wanted to keep it to myself – good ones, real ones – but there was also this feeling that if I said it out loud, then it got to be… the world’s, somehow.
Instead of ours.’ She glanced up at me. ‘Does that make sense?’
‘Not really.’ I tucked a stray wisp of hair behind her ear. ‘But I think I understand anyway.’
She smiled. ‘Cheers?’
‘Cheers.’
We held each other’s gazes while we drank. ‘How long can you stay?’ I murmured, tracing her neckline with my finger.
Her laugh was a hum. ‘Elias basically shoved me out the door and told me he’d be furious if I got home before dawn.
’ She went up on tiptoes to kiss my pulse point.
‘It’s very disconcerting, being shooed out of the house by your big brother and told you’ll be in huge trouble if you don’t go and spend the night with a boy. ’
I let my lips drift over the sensitive spot behind her ear. ‘Well, I wouldn’t want you to get in trouble.’
Fiona’s hands slid up my chest to loop behind my neck.
‘It’s not going to be sexy, getting this dress off, though,’ she warned.
‘And fuck knows how we’re going to get it back on again.
There’s Hollywood tape and one of those stick-on bras and a whole infrastructure under here. It’s very complicated.’
I undid her zipper. ‘That’s all right,’ I told her. ‘I can deal with complicated.’