Miranda
Until, of course, they couldn’t.
At some point it dawned on her that all her father’s and sister’s other moods—angry, frustrated, sad, even effervescently happy—seemed to lead to one place: the musty cotton of unwashed bedsheets, the stifling closeness of rooms that needed airing.
And it was her job to coax them out of it, to convince them that there was life and fresh air and even fun beyond those walls.
But today wasn’t the day to think of things like that.
Today was for being in that outside world, for enjoying sun and music, and her sister and best friend.
The music did not disappoint. She and Winnie and Rachel stood up and danced for Rodger Collins and sang themselves hoarse along with Dionne Warwick, especially “What the World Needs Now,” which Miranda thought every single person in the place also sang, so it sounded and felt like bobbing along in a thundering ocean of voices.
Even Winnie sang, though she kept her eyes closed and didn’t seem in tune with the enormity of the community moment.
Miranda could have killed Lincoln for pulling her sister away and into that unreachable world.
Winnie opened her eyes for The Doors, though.
And she stood, along with every single other person at the base of Mount Tam that day, though the sun warned everyone to stay down and preserve strength.
When Jim Morrison said hello and greeted the crowd in that honey-hive voice of his, Miranda felt as aroused as if he had slid a hand down her jeans.
This was better than seeing the Beatles for the first time on TV, better than all the concerts where she’d sat closer to the performer at the Greek or the Fillmore.
This was Jim Fucking Morrison, and he was sexy beyond belief, and when he sang “Come on baby, light my fire,” she could close her eyes and feel his lips on hers.
And why not Jim Morrison? She didn’t have a Lincoln. Sure, there had been Ben, her professor at Davis, but he was no Jim Morrison. Nothing Ben had said or done could do to her what this man’s voice did.
She wanted something that would give her life meaning like this. But not a man. No, what she wanted was something more like what music was to Jim Morrison.
She loved the vineyard, loved the science and art of striving to achieve the perfect bottle of pinot that tasted distantly of the Prohibition plum trees on the other side of the crest and smelled faintly of the roses that helped warn of phylloxera.
She was learning to make wine that called forth the warmth of the sun as well as the chill of the fog that left dew on the fruit.
She was still trying to make the bottle that would capture Spring Mountain and all its mystery and magic in a single sip.
Somehow, though, the vineyard did not give her life that kind of meaning.
She heard “Break On Through” for the first time that day and kissed Winnie on the cheek and said, “Thank you for bringing me to this.”
Winnie kissed her back and said, “I love you, sister.”
“I love you, too.”
When The Doors played their final chord and waved as they walked offstage, the crowd went absolutely berserk. She and Winnie and Rachel clapped and shouted and jumped up and down.
“One. More. Song!” Ten thousand—twenty thousand?—feet stamped and begged the band to come back onstage.
It went on so long Miranda began to lose hope.
But finally Jim and his band came back out, and the applause got louder, which Miranda wouldn’t have thought possible.
“This is a brand-new song,” he said. “We haven’t even recorded it yet. It’s called ‘People Are Strange.’ Thank you for being such an amazing crowd.”
Initially no one could sing along, because no one knew any of the words until the final chorus, which everyone sang as they rocked and swayed on buoyant legs. No one remembers your name…When you’re strange…
When they couldn’t use their voices or red-palmed hands a moment longer, Miranda and Winnie and Rachel collapsed onto their blanket.
“I can die happy now,” said Rachel.
“Me too,” Miranda agreed, though she didn’t entirely mean it. Something inside her had been kindled. She was only twenty-four. The same age as Jim Morrison. What was her fire, and what—or who—would light it?
While Miranda was tempted to join Winnie for the Monterey Pop Festival the weekend after Magic Mountain, she felt she should really get back to the vineyard.
No matter what she might have been thinking as she listened to Jim Morrison sing, or told Winnie in a weak moment on their way home from the first day of concerts, she had responsibilities.
She couldn’t simply get out her old paints or buy new ones just to see how they felt in her hands.
She wasn’t about to start disappointing people now.
After speeding up 80 through the Bay Area, she slowed way down once she got on Route 29, then Spring Mountain Road, which was twisty and treacherous with just inches of grassy shoulder between the narrow road and a steep drop, but it afforded the most remarkable views of the hills and valleys.
No matter how many times she did this drive, she never wanted to miss the little snapshots of perfection that winked between the redwoods on either side of the truck: hills of green vines aglow in the yellow morning light, distant snowcapped mountains, meadows of orange poppies and purple lupine.
The redwoods themselves were something to behold all on their own, their remarkable height shooting like thick arrows from the earth into the sky, towering over the cypress and eucalyptus that dared take root nearby.
Sunshine flickered into her vehicle, and Miranda gripped the steering wheel tighter as her old Chevy truck climbed the hill and her anticipation grew. Views toward the crest became wider and more expansive.
Until.
There it was.
She pulled over, got out of the truck, and crossed the empty road to take in the view from the widest clearing.
The Vaca Mountains in the distance were graceful, abundant protectors of Napa Valley, which spread out in a patchwork quilt of vines and orchards edged by long, straight roads and sprinkled with homes and clusters of other simple buildings.
All around, she heard the breeze whistling through grasses and rustling leaves.
The whole thing took her breath away every single time.
Her dad always made a point of stopping here.
She’d be in the passenger seat trying not to yak up her breakfast as she tagged along with him on whatever errand he was running in St. Helena or Santa Rosa, and he would always, without fail, stop at this very spot.
Then for a few precious minutes, her stomach would settle and she would lean against him as they gazed out at this view.
Leo Hartley was tall and broad, and he was always warm to the touch even when it was foggy and drizzly outside.
Her back would be against his legs or stomach, depending on how old she was, and his arms would be around her, so she always felt his reassuring heat.
When he spoke, she could feel his voice vibrate through her body.
“I remember the first time I saw this place,” he once told her.
“I’d been living abroad, in Europe, for a long time, learning about food and wine and generally worrying my parents that I’d never use my chemistry degree from Stanford.
But it was the 1920s and everyone wanted to live in Paris, so I did, and that was where I decided I wanted to make the kinds of wines I was drinking.
People told me I could if the government ever repealed a law that had made wine illegal.
I learned that my very own home state of California had once made great wine and that our vines had even saved French vines from a deadly bug a long time ago.
So while I was over there, I worked on eight different vineyards and learned as much as I could so that when the law here changed, I could come home, work hard, and save every penny I made to buy a place on this mountain and live here with your mom and you and your sister. ”
“What kind of deadly bug?” Little Miranda had been worried that it could find and bite her.
He laughed. “It’s called phylloxera. You don’t have to worry about that until you’re much older and overseeing the vineyard yourself. If you want to. And anyway, our vines are tough. The bugs don’t like them because they are chickens.”
Miranda giggled. “Daddy, bugs aren’t chickens.”
He laughed, too. “No, I suppose not. Chickens eat bugs.”
“Do they eat phyllo—phyll—”
“Phylloxera. No, chickens are too smart for that.” He hugged her tighter to him. “This beautiful place is where you’re from. No one can take this from you. When things are hard, I come here and breathe this in, and I feel better.”
Miranda inhaled deeply along with her father, and they exhaled together.
When they got back into the car, Miranda would still be buzzing with her father’s words, the view, and their shared love of the land.
It helped her to come here, now, and renew her commitment to his dream—it was her best and most substantial connection to him. She hoped he’d be proud of what she’d done and planned to do.
Her mother often told her he would be, and that made everything she’d given up worth it.
Miranda was good at making wine, maybe better than she’d been at drawing and painting—though, of course, Winnie would say she’d never really given art a chance. “If you studied art like you did grapes, maybe you’d be famous for that,” her sister would say.
Winnie didn’t get it. She couldn’t, because of what she didn’t know, or rather what she’d mercifully forgotten, and Miranda intended to keep it that way.