Miranda
It was also the first time anyone had referred to her as Mother.
Mama. Mom. There was so much fortification in that word.
What would she do without her own mother?
Joan had done so much for her, including assuring her that she’d be able to come back from France with “some scoundrel’s baby” and no one would know any different, especially after what would look like a terrible breakup with Tom that had sent her running to another country.
“There is no point to purchase clothing for a baby because they grow so fast,” said Claudette, the oldest of the siblings, whose children were eleven and eight, “although I had to make many purchases because I was the first to have children. My siblings added to the trousseau, and you are the great beneficiary.”
“She’s lovely,” the woman said, smiling warmly.
Everyone was always smiling at Dawn; she was one of those round-headed babies with Kewpie-doll lips, expressive blue eyes, and wispy golden curls coming in at the sides of her mostly bald head—hints that she likely was Lincoln’s, since he was so fair and the Hartley women were all brunettes with brown or hazel eyes.
“Those two hooligans are mine,” the other woman said of the boys on the seesaw. “Twins,” she groaned.
“Oh goodness,” Miranda said. “Twice the fun?”
“Ha.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s alright. At least Rupert was a gentleman and got the snip-snip so we don’t have to go through it ever again. I’m Sydney, by the way.” She held out her right hand, and Miranda shook it.
“Nice to meet you. I’m Miranda.”
“Don’t see many Yanks around here. Especially women with babies.”
“Unwed women with babies.”
“True. You may be in a group of one there.”
Sydney clearly expected some information in exchange for her friendliness, so Miranda added, “My mother knows Paul and Vivienne Lemoine, and so little Dawn and I are spending some time learning about French wine while I…get away from the situation at home.”
“Paul and Vivienne are such stars. Lucky you. Though it can’t be easy raising a child on your own. My Rupert inherited a vineyard just down the road. It’s in shambles, but he’s determined to make a go of it.”
“How long have you been here?”
“Got here three months ago.”
“So you’re right at the beginning. It’s a lot of hard work, but it can be done. My parents rehabilitated a vineyard out in California.”
Sydney gasped theatrically with pleasure. “California! It’s my dream to go there someday. I want to see the Golden Gate Bridge, you know? And Hollywood.”
Miranda had found it was pointless to explain to people how far away from each other those two destinations actually were, so she said, “Both are pretty spectacular.”
“And I’m sure the boys would like to see Disney, but all our money’s sunk into the vineyard. We’ll be lucky if we’re ever in the black again. You said your parents did it? Turned a vineyard around? How?”
“Well, it took a long time. Twenty years of hard work. But I should think it would be easier here. My father had to rip out plum orchards to plant the grapes. If your vines are still healthy and just need a little TLC, you could be up and running in a few years.”
“From your mouth to God’s ears,” Sydney said, glancing up at the sky.
The next day, a shaggy young man named Rupert turned up at the winery and greeted Paul with kisses on both cheeks, in the familiar way.
“Rupert is going to be doing the season all the way through crush with us so he can learn for his own vineyard,” Paul explained.
“Hello!” Miranda said warmly, holding out her hand to shake like the American she couldn’t seem to stop being. “I met your wife Sydney just yesterday.” He shook her hand firmly, and Miranda felt as though a party had begun.
Rupert and Sydney and their twins Emile and Colin became regulars at the chateau and fixtures at the lengthy Sunday lunches where their boys got right in the mix with the Lemoine grandchildren, and within weeks, Sydney and Miranda were kitchen-cackling friends, and Rupert had cleared the weeds from his entire vineyard and identified all the vines that needed help.
Miranda helped him in the long rows while Sydney minded the children.
“You couldn’t pay me to work in sun like that,” she said, which suited Miranda fine.
She found she was a more loving, patient mother when she could work outside part of the day.
In May of 1976, Paul asked Rupert and Miranda if they wanted to travel with him to Paris to view a wine tasting hosted by “that Monsieur Spurrier, a snob I detest, and he’s organized it in the hopes of putting the California upstart wines in their place.
It’s a ridiculous competition, but we may learn a few things, and secretly I am rooting for California wines to show Spurrier up. Would you like to go?”
“Oh, I don’t think so,” she replied. “I’d rather watch from afar, but thank you for asking.
” Miranda already knew about this competition put together by the English wine merchant Steven Spurrier because Joan had written to say Hartley Chardonnay was one of the wines chosen to be entered.
She also said she’d heard that Tom might go and watch, which had made Miranda feel allergic to going.
Though her life in France had been so different, so all-consuming and far away from her life in California that she rarely thought about Tom; in fact, Tom seemed like a dream from another life entirely.
Seeing his name in her mother’s letter made the idea of him achingly real, and she experienced her first big waves of grief-stricken longing for him.
For a week, everything seemed to make her sad, particularly the sight of Sydney and Rupert stealing a tender kiss when one of their sons fell asleep on his father’s shoulder.
Her mood shifted, though, when she read in the local paper of a 1973 Hartley Chardonnay, a wine she’d made herself, every molecule of which was suffused with years of work that had started with her father, keeping company in Paris with the legendary Batard-Montrachet and Meursault Charmes Roulot.
Her vineyard had made it, deemed worthy of competing with the finest French wine by the most Francophile of palates.
When the Judgment of Paris was published, and California wines ranked number one in both categories—Mike Grgich’s Chateau Montelena Chardonnay in white and Warren Winiarski’s Stag’s Leap Cabernet in red, with Hartley Chardonnay finishing a respectable fifth ahead of three venerable French vineyards and two other California wineries—Paul and Vivienne called everyone to the chateau for a celebration.
Miranda was elated. Everything she’d worked and sacrificed for had been rewarded.
As soon as she heard the news, she kissed Dawn on her smooth, chubby cheek, and the little girl’s pure, delighted laughter was the perfect expression of her own joy.
Vivienne made three of her remarkable roasted chickens, along with potatoes from the cellar roughly mashed with rich local butter and salt from the Brittany coast, plus what seemed like the entire contents of her early-season garden: tender lettuces, pea shoots, garlic scapes, and a few ripe beets.
Miranda set Dawn up in a high chair with a plastic bowl and wooden spoon.
While Dawn mouthed the hard kitchen tools to assuage the sensation of her baby teeth coming in, Miranda made a good old-fashioned American chocolate cake.
She let Dawn, who loved solid foods like mushed apple and pear, lick some of the icing off her finger, and with wide, excited eyes her daughter made the sign for “more” that Vivienne had taught her by touching the index fingers and thumbs of both hands together.
Miranda laughed and obliged. They were talking now! How marvelous.
While the cake was in the oven, Miranda once again tried calling her mother; she’d tried a few times but the line was always busy. Reporters, she assumed—what terrific free press for the vineyard! This time, though, Joan picked up. “Mom, congratulations!”
“It’s not me, dear, but you. And Emilio and Raul of course. Your years of hard work have finally paid off.”
“Do you think things will change now?”
“Well, we’ve already sold out of our back stock, and presold all of next year’s.”
“Wow. Sounds like you’re very busy over there!”
“It is busy, but Emilio and Raul are keeping on top of things. I myself could use a break, though. Would you like a visitor? I would love to see you and little Dawn.”
“Yes! We would love that.”
“I’ll look at tickets to come in July.”
“I can’t wait. And, Mom, I don’t think I’ve really told you yet—you were right about Paul and Vivienne. It’s wonderful here.”
Miranda could picture her mother’s self-satisfied grin. “I’m glad” was all she said.
As the Lemoine children and grandchildren arrived for the celebration, along with Paul and Sydney and their boys, everyone drank champagne. “Because this is a celebration!” Paul said with gusto.
Miranda brushed a tear of bittersweet joy from her eye at this man’s unfettered happiness for her, his robust joie de vivre.
If only Dad…
No.
Dad was Dad. He couldn’t have been anything else.
When at last they were gathered around the bountiful and beautifully set table, all the adults with a small pour of the Hartley Chardonnay in their glasses—they’d had to spread it around thinly because they only had a few bottles left from the case Miranda had brought with her—Paul stood with his glass raised, and all thirteen adults quieted down.
Thankfully, Dawn and the other small children were asleep, and all the older children, already fed, were watching a movie that was showing on the television a few rooms down.
“I’d like to thank my beautiful wife for preparing this meal to celebrate the wine of Miranda Hartley, which won fifth place in the Judgment of Paris!
” A surge of cheers went up around the table.
“And I’d like to thank Miranda herself for bringing her knowledge and passion here to Chateau Lemoine.
I have benefitted greatly from your expertise and your appetite for experiment.
We French like to think of ourselves as great lovers, of wine and food and family and the carnal arts, but we must respect that there is more than one way to love.
I hope my countrymen here in the Loire will open themselves to new ways. ”
He raised his glass theatrically, and said, “Vive la Californie! Vive le Hartley!”
“Vive la Californie! Vive le Hartley!” Everyone cheered and clinked their glasses together as far as their arms would reach, and once everyone had taken their first sips, compliments rippled like a wave up and down the table. Miranda felt entirely happy and at peace.