Chapter 20 Land Sharks and the Wrong Bull #4
Otis sat and took a long sip of an absolutely mesmerizing chardonnay, a bottling with stunning vibrancy. “Yeah, but I’m ... I’m tired. I don’t want to start over. We raised our boys there. Planted and replanted so many of those vines. It’s where I started to find that whisper, you know.”
“Oh, I know.”
“Imagine if you had to say goodbye to this place,” Otis said.
“I am saying goodbye.” Carmine looked at the closest vineyard block, a hodgepodge of varieties that had made some of the best and truest wines Otis had ever tasted.
“I know you see it. Blackberry bushes taking over, more oak trees coming right out of the rows. The vineyards overgrown and starting to swallow me. I suppose I’ll die doing this thing, pulled right back into the earth, swallowed up by my terroir. ”
A pain hit Otis, thinking about how he hadn’t been there for Carmine since the whole mess with Heartbreak. “I’m sorry I’ve been so distant lately. I’ve been busy. Not only lately but for years.”
Carmine stubbed out his cigarette in an ashtray full of butts. “Don’t worry about me, but it is nice to see you. How are the wines? How’s this early pick?” Another grin came. He clearly enjoyed what Otis had done.
“It’s drinkable.”
He slapped his leg. “You son of a bitch. You fell in love with her, didn’t you, the wine life? That’s the only way. You have clusters swinging between your legs, ragazzo . Whatever happens, don’t let it eat you up. You fought the good fight.”
Otis stared into the wine, scents of apricot and green apple wafting up out of the glass. “Would you sell if you were me?”
“Take the money and run? I might. Some people you can’t fight. Lloyd Bramhall’s one of them.”
“I wonder if I ought to step away from wine. We’ll have some money. It’s been a lot, all-consuming. Maybe it would be better that way.”
Carmine lit up another one, contributing with each puff to the yellow of his beard. “I suspect a man knows when he’s farmed his last vintage. Is that how you feel?”
Otis took a moment to ponder the question. “Not by a long shot. I just don’t know what to do.”
“Go back to where it all began. Find the fun again. Somewhere along the line you got pulled in by distractions. Who could blame you? The money you’ve made doesn’t come by most winemakers. You read the trends. Broke some hearts with that Heartbreaker.”
“Nearly killed myself in the process.”
“But you’re alive.” His words came out with smoke. “You’re alive, Otis. Start again. Shake Lloyd loose. He’s been eating at you way too long.”
Otis reached for a cigarette. “You mind?”
“You smoke now?”
“No, but it seems like a good time to pick it up.” He didn’t wait for approval. Popped one into his mouth and lit it. “I hate letting him get the best of me.”
Carmine leaned forward. “You’re still doing it, letting that ego sneak in.
If I’m being honest, I still taste it in your wines.
They’re good, Otis. Miles ahead of most out there, but I still taste you trying to make something of yourself.
Even after all you’ve done, you’ve still got something to prove.
I know it’s coming off as you being a martyr, but all this rebellion.
Warring with Lloyd. What about love ? This thing we’re doing, communicating with the earth, breaking bread with the divine, it can’t be done while we’re at war.
What do I know? I’m shriveling up like a forgotten cluster on the ground, but the recipe for that celestial sauce, the holy muck we bottle .
.. the best is always done when we’re at peace with ourselves and others. ”
The man’s words fell heavy in Otis’s heart. “If it were only that easy, Carmine. I guess you’re right. I still do have something to prove.”
“You got nothing left to prove, which means you can go make the wine you’re meant to make now.”
“With the farm I’m about to lose.”
“The place I grew up in Italy, an island off of Naples called Ischia. Only reached by boat. There was a saying. C’è sempre un altro traghetto . There’s always another ferry. Same goes for wine; there’s always another piece of land.”
What could better sum up the wonder and beauty of the wine business than a long lunch on the farm?
Otis had dined in some of the finest restaurants in the world, but there was nothing like joining Bec in the kitchen, putting together a meal amid the sounds of Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young, then spreading it out on a long table and throwing anchor for an hour or three.
Otis wore his shades and looked at his bride across the table. “Tell me about you.”
Her eyes grew wide. She cupped her glass in two hands, the way only she did, and she sniffed into it, and he wished he could slip into her mind and see what she was thinking.
“Oh, I don’t know. I’m with Carmine. I’m tired of the fight. I feel like we have our heads in the guillotine, waiting for the blade to drop.”
Otis breathed in his chardonnay. The citrusy spine rose gracefully into the floral overtones.
Notes of guava and mango danced on the tongue.
Only the slightest hint of vanilla smoothed out the tremendously wonderful acidity.
He fell back through the years, landing squarely in the time when they were celebrating how they’d come upon this land, this ranch that had changed their lives.
He clinked her glass. “Ah, my love. So long as I’m always close to you, nothing else matters.”
“Do you mean that?”
“You know I do.”
The phone rang inside.
“Let it ring,” Otis said, soaking in the beauty of Rebecca Till.
“I think I could let it go, too, Bec. Perhaps we buy a simple place, a three-bedroom, two-bath, in a neighborhood. Take a break from farming. Maybe it would be better for Mike, to have some other kids around. You have a little garden with a few tomatoes and carrots. We don’t need any more kale.
In fact, I’d be good if I never had kale the rest of my life. ”
“Oh, I am perfectly aware that you’d be fine on the bacon-only diet.”
He laughed. “If only there were bacon plants; that would be heaven.” He took a long sip, thinking how he’d nailed the picking date that year, how the balance of this wine could be studied at Davis.
“I think we go travel for a while after Mike goes to school,” Otis continued. “Let’s go live in Beaune for a year, or Alba. Or take a Viking cruise through the canals or the Norwegian fjords.”
Bec suppressed an I’m-trying-not-to-get-too-excited look. “Could you really give up making wine?”
“I nearly have,” Otis proclaimed.
She looked marvelously happy. “I guess so. The grand overcorrection of Otis Till. That’s the name of your book. You went from absolute obsession to redefining minimalism.”
Otis spread his lips wide. “It’s been nice.”
“Only you could get away with it.”
He cast a glance up the hill to the trellised vines. “It breaks my heart, Bec, to think of saying goodbye, but we can’t keep going on like this. Do we really let go of the dream we carved out twenty years ago? Just when the new vines are starting to sing?”
Bec stabbed a marinated giganté bean with her fork. “Like Carmine said, there’s always another piece of land. Let’s talk to a Realtor, get them looking. We could find something better.”
He let his thoughts wander. “I’d need one last vintage to say goodbye. One last Lost Souls.” Otis circled the table and sat beside her. He slipped his arm around her and then raised a glass.
“One last vintage,” he said. “Who knows from there?”
She sealed the toast with a kiss. “There’s something nice about the idea, the unknown. Just like all those years ago on the purple bus.”
“I think the answer’s out there. Let’s be open to—”
The phone rang again.
“I should get that,” Bec said.
“No,” Otis pleaded. “I don’t want this lunch to end. Whatever it is, reality is on the other line. Leave it alone.”
“What if it’s about the boys?” As soon as she said that, he knew lunch was over.
Rebecca stood and kissed the top of his head and disappeared inside. Minutes later, she came back out onto the terrace and yelled, “Otis, get in the truck!”
“Why didn’t you tell us?” Bec asked Mike with a poor attempt at hiding her frustration. They’d picked him up from the police station where he’d been booked for truancy.
“Why would I tell you?” He spoke with all the teenage attitude in the world.
“Because we’re your parents,” Otis said, one hand on the wheel, the other on Bec’s lap.
“I don’t want to bother you.”
“Oh, my God. Teenagers.” Bec turned to the back seat to face her son. “When did she do it? How did she do it?”
“She had a friend tell me.”
“What?” Otis said, turning down NPR. “Annette broke up with you through a friend?”
“She said we didn’t have anything in common.”
“When was this?”
“Last week.”
The pitch of Rebecca’s voice rose. “And you didn’t tell us. You just start skipping school. You haven’t been once since then?”
Through the rearview mirror, Otis saw his son shake his head.
Otis and Rebecca knew that getting angry wasn’t the answer; they’d agreed on their approach on the way over.
“I still don’t know why the school didn’t call,” Rebecca said.
“I called in and said I was sick.”
“They believed you? For four days in a row?”
Mike shrugged.
Otis jumped in. “Mike, you have to let us guide you. You can’t always bear this stuff on your own.”
“But I knew how much you liked her. I knew you’d be mad at me.”
“For her breaking up with you?” Rebecca asked.
Nothing could hurt her heart more than her children struggling.
“Honey, this is what happens. It’s no reflection on you.
You guys are young. It was bound to happen.
She was a nice girl, but more than anything, we liked what she did to you.
She helped you see how special you are.”
Mike fell back against the seat. “Oh, that’s right. So special. That’s exactly how being dumped makes you feel.”
The next morning Otis and Rebecca called their lawyer and asked to move forward with the sale of Lost Souls.