Chapter 15 Zin and the Art of Implosion
Zin and the Art of Implosion
Otis had stomped around the vineyard all morning, unable to stop thinking about how he’d embarrassed himself. Even now, he couldn’t stop wondering what they’d said about him after his humiliating retreat from Hamilton’s.
That was when the bell rang. That god-awful bell.
He could feel Bec rattling it with a big smile on her face, ready to see Otis come scurrying back to the house.
She was sure that this recess thing had been his salvation, but you know what?
Today he wouldn’t come running at the ding.
He was fed up. Fed up with all the misfortune.
Fed up with Bedwetter and Lloyd and all the plays being made behind his back, and with being called like a fucking dog by a dinner bell!
Otis took one last look at the house and then continued his work digging a hole to put in a new post. Each jab of the dirt was a stab into Bedwetter’s chest, not dissimilar to the stabs in his back from both the writer and Lloyd. He couldn’t believe—
“Your boys are waiting.”
Her voice came at him like his father’s.
“Not today. I’m not feeling well.” Another jab in the dirt.
Though she still walked around barefooted most of the time and still clung to her sixties and seventies mindset, Rebecca had started to shed some of the hippie attire of her youth.
In her mid-thirties she wore skirts or pleated pants with button-down shirts, often accompanied by light wool sweaters—all in either stark white or pastels.
Even her jewelry had changed. She didn’t have the time to make her own anymore and now wore a series of thin gold chains around her neck and a Cartier watch with a thin leather band around her wrist.
She crossed her arms. “Did you drink too much with Carmine?”
“No, I did not drink too much. We were just tasting and spitting some of the new wines.”
“Since when do you and Carmine spit?”
He still hadn’t made eye contact. “Oh, I spit.”
“Uh-huh. Well, it’s time to take a break. Your boys want to throw the football.”
Otis set the shovel down. “Bec, I can’t help but feel a little exhausted by these games. I am not your child. I can’t keep running to you when you ring the bell.” He finally looked up. “Don’t you see how awful it even sounds, you ringing a bell for me to come, like an obedient dog?”
“I’m not belittling you,” she said, her face crinkling in insult. “Until you buy us a mobile phone, how do I get in touch with you? We both know you get lost in your work and lose time. I have to stick to a schedule, for the boys’ sake. We have math at eleven.”
“I’ll buy walkie-talkies.”
Bec saw right through him. “I hate to psychoanalyze, but the bell is a metaphor for your frustration.”
“Here we go. Want to go grab Sparrow so you guys can do a soul reading?”
“Hey, I wish you’d learn your lesson. You had a heart attack at thirty—”
“A mini heart attack.”
She ignored him; rightfully so. “You still have a hard time slowing down. More than that, your boys are growing up right before your eyes, but you don’t see it.”
“That’s bullshit. I have played with them every day. Most fathers are at offices all day. I’m right here.”
“I know, and I appreciate it, but it’s because I’m making you. You’re not giving me a choice. I love you too much to lose you, and I’m worried.”
Otis swallowed.
“I don’t know how else to drive it home. You’re working too hard, and I wouldn’t be surprised if you brought on all this bad luck as of late, including the phylloxera, and the tax hike. Heck, even the press breaking down. I think you might be creating this reality for yourself.”
A sigh escaped him. “Here we go again. You’re right. I brought a disease down upon us. Because I am God, Bec. I have the ability to spread plagues in the vineyard.”
“That’s not what I’m saying, and you know it.”
He jabbed the shovel into the earth. “Then what are you saying?”
“That you’re not living with any joy. You’re so damned focused, and you’re forgetting what you have. You’re marching around as if the whole world is coming after you.”
He looked around. Couldn’t she see it? “Well, it is.”
“If you think it, then it will be true.”
“Please don’t spit this New Age mumbo jumbo at me. The only reason we’re here is because I pushed when I had nothing left.”
“If I remember correctly, the reason we’re here is because I pushed you to come see the place, to believe we could have it.”
“Yeah, with the help of your boyfriend. At least I know I’m messed up.
Sometimes I think you forget that you’re human too.
You’ve never been the same since you found out about Jed, always feeling like you have to make up for leaving.
Why not, for a minute, focus on yourself?
Why do you have to fix everyone around you?
Why can’t you stay in your own lane for a . ..?” He pulled back the reins.
She cut him with angry eyes, and he knew he’d gone too far.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to say that. You’re ... you’re the rock in this family. Despite all you’ve been through.”
“No. I’m done here.” She turned and marched away, her bare feet padding on sacred soil.
Otis grabbed the shovel and smacked it against the post till the handle splintered in two. He huffed and puffed for about five minutes before he realized that he was in the wrong in all ways. He had no right to speak to her so.
Returning to the house, he saw his boys tossing the ball and picked up the pace. Burying his frustration, he attempted to appear light and airy. “Hit your old man with a long one.”
Breaking into a grin, Cam reeled back and tossed a beautiful ball to his father.
He now played wide receiver for a flag-football team in Santa Rosa, and he’d asked if he could attend school in town so that he could join the seventh- and eighth-grade football team.
It was only a matter of time till Rebecca gave in.
After twenty minutes of football with his boys, Otis had come back down to earth, his anger settled, and he was about to climb the steps to apologize to Bec when the familiar sound of Lloyd’s Ferrari came purring through the Glen Ellen hills.
Otis’s fists clenched. He had hoped Lloyd would return to San Francisco without a word spoken about last night.
The boys had taken a liking to Lloyd, for multiple reasons, and they raced over to welcome Sir Shitbag.
Dressed in shiny leather shoes, gray suit pants, and a tailored blue shirt, Lloyd sprang out of his fancy car with a white bag for each of the boys.
It was either doughnuts or candy. Was it any wonder the boys liked him?
He bribed them with sugar. Then, of course, Lloyd took the ball and sent it long to Mike.
Mike and Camden stared with eyebrows high at Lloyd’s extraordinary spiral.
“How do you do that?” Cam asked with enthusiasm that crushed Otis’s heart.
“All in the legs and waist, kiddo.” Lloyd retrieved the ball from Mike and twisted back and forth, showing the motion.
“You’re the best I’ve ever seen,” Mike said with admiration that should be reserved for superheroes, running up to him, staring at him as if he were Joe Montana, the quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers, whose poster occupied a spot on Camden’s wall.
The front door swung open, and Rebecca descended the steps and joined Otis. “What’s he doing here?”
Otis shrugged his shoulders.
Lloyd broke away from the boys and approached. “Good morning, guys. Thought I’d stop by on my way back to the city.” He kissed Bec on the cheek, and Otis was pretty sure he took a big sniff of her, too, taking all of her in. He still barely tried to hide his infatuation with her.
Otis almost didn’t shake his hand but accepted after letting Lloyd wait for a few seconds, his arm suspended in the air.
“What happened last night?” Lloyd asked. “I thought you might join us, but you disappeared?”
Otis’s shoulders tightened.
Bec swiveled her head to Otis. “You didn’t tell me Lloyd was at Carmine’s too.”
A dog knows when he’s destined for the doghouse, but he must try to evade his owner’s wrath first. “I don’t always report when Lloyd’s in town.”
Whether Lloyd detected the issue, he didn’t attempt to bail Otis out. “We were at Hamilton’s with Sam Ledbetter—I was there with Paul—and Otis showed up.”
“At Carmine’s?”
“No, at—”
Otis jumped in before he got in even more trouble. “I stopped by Hamilton’s. Just for a drink.”
Rebecca’s eyebrows curled. “By yourself?”
Otis squirmed. “Carmine wasn’t home and ...” He let his words trail away. What could he possibly say now?
The following minute carried a serrated edge that could have sawed down a tree.
Finally, Lloyd cleared his throat and changed the subject. “I had an idea I wanted to run by you.”
Never was Otis interested in Lloyd’s ideas until right now, when it could provide such a welcome distraction. “Oh, yeah, what’s that? Why don’t we sit down on the terrace?” Otis wiped the sweat off his brow.
Lloyd pulled back his sleeve and glanced at his Patek Philippe watch. “I have to get back for a meeting in the city but wanted to put something out there. It was the heavy topic last night.”
Otis could only imagine.
“White zin,” Lloyd said.
“What about white zin?” Otis asked with a bitter taste coating his tongue. White zinfandel was made by limiting the amount of time zinfandel grapes spent on the skins and then stopping the fermentation with sulfur to keep some of the sugar content, making for a slightly sweet, pink wine.
“As you know, it’s the new rage.”
“Because people are idiots.”
“Maybe so, but there’s money to be made.”
Otis pointed to the last of his old vines. “Let me guess. You want me to use our babies to make a wine that has less soul than Sprite?”
“I was thinking bigger than that. I was thinking we buy bulk and make a shit ton of wine. This is an opportunity like none I’ve ever seen.”
“You better go,” Otis said, praying to God Bec wouldn’t get behind the idea.