Winnie
The day before Thanksgiving, Lincoln and I huddled at the back of a bus that took us from San Francisco to Sonoma, where Miranda waited for us at the station, leaning against her old truck—both of them were hopelessly muddy.
As soon as she saw us, she threw her arms in the air and gave me, then Lincoln, tight hugs.
I was relieved, since I hadn’t been sure how this meeting would go.
When I’d told her over the phone that we were living together, all she’d said was, “Be careful.”
It was late afternoon and already almost dark, which I loved about this time of year; the sky encouraged sleep and introspection.
Plus, the crush was all done, and so Miranda couldn’t obsess over the grapes and the vines.
She checked the pH of the yeasty slurry and did myriad other things to the wine I never paid much attention to, but after the crush she was always more relaxed because the nature-and-weather part of the process, which she couldn’t control, was done.
At this stage, everything was entirely in her hands.
“It’s so good to have you home,” Miranda said, giving me another hug. Then, smile still wide, she added, “And it’s great to see you again, Lincoln.”
“You too, Miranda,” he said with that grin, the one that made people feel seen in the way they wanted to be seen, like Nick Carraway says about Jay Gatsby.
I had wondered if Miranda would be impervious to it, but it appeared not, at least at that moment.
The only person who never got sucked in was Bernard, damn him.
He was nice enough to Lincoln, and he didn’t tell me my boyfriend was gay, like he’d said about some of my other crushes, but he was annoyingly immune to Lincoln’s charms. I wasn’t going to think about that today, though.
So far, so good.
With the three of us side by side on the bench seat of the truck, Miranda said, “Just so you know, Mom’s in a mood.”
“Uh-oh. Why?” “Mood” was code for “acting like a total bitch.” But what kind?
Sullen and silent, or ragingly nitpicky?
The longest she’d ever gone without speaking to me when I was still living at home was three full days when I was sixteen—it was in the months after Lincoln left and I’d failed so many subjects I had to enroll in summer school, which rendered me useless on the vineyard.
Plus, I wasn’t eating, which she took as a personal affront to her cooking; gardening and cooking were her ways of showing love, and so when I asked for slivers of cake and ate mere bites of cassoulet or other rich dishes, she took it as a rejection.
Once her feelings were hurt, she would regale me with my shortcomings—lazy, uncaring, and wasteful of food and my own intelligence—as she picked clothes off the floor of my room.
Miranda, who got top grades, ate every bite, and kept a stupidly tidy room, never seemed to catch Mom’s moods.
It was curious to me that Mom could be in a mood when I wasn’t there, since I thought I was the source of all her ire.
Perhaps, though, it was the very idea that I was about to arrive that had set her off.
This thought made my stomach clench, and—sensing my discomfort, as he always could—Lincoln covered my hand protectively with his.
I’d told him everything about my mother.
He knew what “mood” meant, and how I feared her.
“I think maybe she and Emilio had a fight,” Miranda replied. “I haven’t seen him all day, and when I asked if he’d be joining us for Thanksgiving, all she said was no.”
“But he always has Thanksgiving with us!”
“I know.”
“Are the Sullivans and Wilsons coming?”
“Yep. The table is all set, like usual. That was actually my first clue that someone was missing. Mom told me to set the table for nine instead of ten.”
“Weird.”
Miranda nodded. I could tell she wasn’t sure how much to say in front of Lincoln, so I said, “He knows we think Mom and Emilio might be sleeping together.”
“Don’t be crass.”
“Would you rather I said ‘fucking’?”
Lincoln chuckled quietly as Miranda said, “Jesus, Winnie.”
“What? It’s ridiculous. Did you know that Mom said Lincoln and I had to sleep in separate rooms? Even though we live together?”
“Of course I know. I had to put sheets on both beds.” Miranda shook her head, then gave the two of us a sympathetic look. “Just make sure you make both of them look slept in, okay?”
“Our pleasure,” I said.
Miranda rolled her eyes in an exaggerated but good-natured way. “Anyway, I wanted to warn you. When I left, she was making the apple pie. I’m hoping the baking will calm her down a bit.”
I held up my right hand with index and middle fingers crossed.
I don’t know if it was the apple pie or the hour to herself or the open bottle of chardonnay on the counter, but when we arrived, Mom was flushed and expansive, welcoming me and Lincoln with hugs.
Still, I gave Lincoln a warning look: danger.
A mood followed by a rush of what appeared to be happiness sometimes meant that volatility was the name of the game, and we would have to stay vigilant so as not to trigger the negative emotions.
Lincoln knew to play along; his mother was her own kind of dramatic handful, so he knew how to placate and flatter.
“Everything smells amazing, Mrs. Hartley. Winnie hasn’t been able to stop talking about your stuffing.”
“Did she tell you that it’s an old Langley family recipe? Stuffing is one of the few things American cooks have done right. The secret is homemade cornbread.”
“I love cornbread.” He put his hand on his stomach for emphasis.
“I always make a little extra because the girls like to eat it with honey,” she said. “I’m sure they’ll share.”
“Winnie, you didn’t say anything about cornbread!” Lincoln looked at me with mock betrayal.
“Maybe she doesn’t want to share after all,” said Mom with a wink. She was definitely a little drunk.
Playing along, I said, “Mom, that was supposed to be our secret.”
Then I waved Lincoln into the butler’s pantry, where there was a slim hallway of privacy along with a pan of cornbread. He sidled up to me and whispered in my ear, “How am I doing?”
“You’re hitting it out of the park,” I whispered back, and he kissed me.
“You better eat this cornbread,” I said.
“You know what else I’d like to eat,” he growled into my neck.
“Oh no,” I laughed, stepping away. “You got yourself into this mess. Only a big plate of this will get you out of it.”
Then I fixed him a large rectangle of the cornbread, slathered in soft butter and drizzled with honey from down the road. He took it and walked out of the pantry as he lifted a forkful into his mouth.
“Oh my god, Mrs. Hartley. This is amazing.”
Mom beamed and said to me pointedly, “He can stay.” I flushed with relief.
Mom took a bottle of cold, unlabeled white wine from the fridge and handed it to Lincoln.
“Here. You and Winnie and Miranda get reacquainted in the living room while I finish up in here.” I was impressed that she’d given us one of the few precious bottles of unoaked chardonnay, her favorite because they reminded her of the French wines Dad had favored.
“Mom, can’t you take a break and join us?” Miranda asked.
“I need some time to myself,” she replied. “Skedaddle.”
By the time we sat down for our traditional pre-Thanksgiving dinner of cracked Dungeness crab, steamed artichokes, and sourdough bread, we’d drained three bottles between the four of us.
Another stood on the table. Lincoln and I were pretty drunk, and so was Mom, though Miranda seemed sober.
She poured big glasses of water for us to drink at dinner, but Mom asked Lincoln to open the fresh bottle of chardonnay.
“At this rate, we’re going to run out of the good stuff,” Miranda tried to joke.
She hated it when people didn’t appreciate the wine.
To her, drinking “the good stuff” to excess was a waste.
When she wanted to get drunk, which was rarely, she drank the jug stuff.
“Oh please, we can’t even give it away,” Mom scoffed. “We have to sell California wine as a mixer, or as something to put in your stew. The people who know how to drink wine properly still only buy French.”
“It’s all Gallo’s fault,” Miranda muttered. “If Ernest and Julio didn’t make that swill, the rest of our reputations might not suffer so much.”
“Wasn’t the Gallo label on Chavez’s boycott list?” Lincoln asked as he pulled a leaf from his artichoke and dipped it in mayo.
“Oh yes,” said Joan, with a little more than her usual impatience for this subject, “and so of course the brothers had to let the union in, though you should hear what they say about the men who join it at the growers’ meetings.”
“I can imagine,” Lincoln replied, though I could see he was struggling to stay neutral to keep the peace. I’d warned him that Mom’s politics on farm labor was different from ours.
“Don’t worry, Hartley growers are unionized,” Miranda interjected, shooting a glance at Mom, maybe to see how this sideways reference to Emilio would affect her.
Mom remained impervious, but I snorted and said before I could censor myself, “As if we all aren’t part of the problem.” Taking sides against Mom was just muscle memory at that point.
Mom’s reply was fast and cutting: “Don’t talk about things you don’t know anything about.”
“I know plenty,” I replied.
“You’ve never participated in the running of this vineyard.”
“No, but I have eyes. We use immigrant labor to make something none of them can afford. And you don’t give it away.” I just barely stopped myself from adding, And I’ve heard you spew plenty about the workers when Emilio isn’t around.
“I don’t see you complaining about drinking it,” Mom said.
“Hey, Win, I’d be happy to talk to you more about this another time,” Miranda said calmly, ever the peacemaker.
“I’d love to know more, too,” Lincoln pitched in eagerly. “Later.” I loved him for setting his own opinions aside when I couldn’t. I should have loved Miranda, too, but at the time I interpreted her comment as protecting Mom. Once again.
“Fine,” I said.
Then I stayed silent and ate one piece of bread and one crab leg, even though my stomach growled, and the restriction wasn’t about my legs or ass or anything other than pissing Mom off.
She didn’t take the bait, though. Instead, she asked Lincoln a thousand questions about San Francisco and ignored me.
Even when Miranda tried to steer the dinner table conversation to movies, knowing how much Mom and I loved them, I left to do the dishes.
Behind me, the three of them talked about The Graduate, which was set to come out closer to Christmas, as I stood at the sink, my hands getting redder and redder in scaldingly hot water, ruing my self-imposed exile, because I had things to say!
The movie had been shot all over the Bay Area, and even my most counterculture friends had been starstruck at glimpses of Dustin Hoffman and Katharine Ross.
I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised that Mom never said anything to me, didn’t even offer me an apology of her cinnamon-sugar pie crust scraps, which she knew I loved. But of course I hoped.
I always, always hoped—and in Mom’s case, I hoped until it was too late—no matter how many times I was disappointed.
In my life, hope had never been the thing with feathers. It had always been more like the albatross around my neck.