Chapter 24 Neighborly Disturbances #3
“Very often you do. Not lately, though. I think Vance has all your attention.”
“Fair enough. I’ll try to forget Vance. Let’s lie in bed till noon and I’ll do nothing but satisfy you over and over. I’ll provide you with things not a handsome German nor a rodeo man could ever muster.”
“What would that be?”
“You’ll see. I will make orgasms like I make wine.”
Michael came home for the summer, and it was enough to keep Otis’s frustration with Vance at bay.
UW had been good for him. If anything, his biggest fault was that he was like his father, always needing to do something, never sitting still.
What Otis and Rebecca loved most was how his heart had grown even more.
How many nineteen-year-olds were eager to ask questions of their parents?
How many were eager to get back into the fields and work with their dad?
With the faint sound of Vance’s metal band creeping into the house one night, Otis asked, “What do they all do for work? Where do they come from? Where are their parents?”
“Dad,” Mike said, “I can barely hear them.”
“But they’re there, and just knowing they’re there is the problem.”
Rebecca and Mike looked at each other and shook their heads. Our Otis, they seemed to say. Always disturbed, forever pursuing the perfect vintage.
It was barely July when Mike met a kind young brunette named Emily, who worked as a nurse in Richland.
He brought her over to dinner a few times, and Otis and Bec would let them enjoy a glass of wine.
Emily would gush over the food, saying that she’d never had better in her life.
Michael would spend most of the meal asking Otis not to embarrass him anymore.
Rebecca also did some connecting on the mountain. She developed a few friendships, joining several like-minded women on morning walks, sharing gardening and cooking tips, and likely expressing their never-ending frustrations with their husbands.
Meanwhile, Otis was trying to wrangle his vines.
He constantly wondered what he’d gotten himself into.
Sure it got cold at night, but those July days were a level of hot he’d never known.
Those first two or three years, it was all about getting the new plantings to take root, which meant overwatering them.
Not an easy task in the desert. His well water would drip out of the tubes and either dissipate in the heat or drain right through the silty soil.
August made July look like a cool winter month in San Francisco. There wasn’t a drop of humidity, such a far cry from the fog of the Bay Area. Otis’s skin flaked. Dust clung to everything, even the sheets.
Cam had come home for a visit, though, and that was far better than even a rainstorm. He adored his new job. A content smile nearly always graced his face. He was still as handsome as ever, long thick wavy hair and skin always brown from being outside.
At the moment, the boys had gone into town, and Otis had just wrapped up for the day. He found Rebecca on the back deck, stretched out on a lawn chair, reading. A slice of lemon floated in a tall glass of ice water on the small table beside her.
“How does anyone even survive in this heat?” Otis asked, wiping his dusty eyes. The lavender they’d planted was in full bloom and wafted off a lovely scent that Otis might have enjoyed had he not felt like an overcooked steak.
“At least there’s no humidity,” Bec said, setting down her book. “Kind of reminds me of that sauna we visited in Copenhagen.”
Otis wondered if it was only him struggling. Not only with the climate, but life in general. “What are you reading?”
She covered it up. “Nothing you would like.”
“What is it?”
“A romance that I picked up at the grocery store.”
“The grocery store? Hold on, did I marry a woman who reads the books found at the checkout aisle in the grocery store?”
“You did indeed. Is there a problem?”
Otis sighed. “I suppose not. You know, I think the world is moving on without me. That’s what it feels like.”
“Then you best catch up.”
She sipped her water, then returned to her book.
Otis stared at her for a while. What a wonder it was that this woman could easily settle into this new life.
Here he was fighting for his terroir, desperately learning, while she was reading a trashy romance novel, not caring at all that her tomatoes weren’t nearly as good as they had been in Sonoma.
“We’ll get ’em next year,” she’d said as she slid a plate of salt-and-peppered heirlooms into the trash the previous evening.
We’ll get ’em next year. Had she really said that? As if they had all the time in the world.
Otis couldn’t wait until next year, and no, it wasn’t about the money. They had plenty. This was about conquering a new land, being part of something bigger than himself. Harnessing the wild beast that was Red Mountain and squeezing juice out of her that would knock the world off its axis.
There was no time to wait. What, could the Allied forces have waited another year to challenge Hitler? Could Monet have set down his brush for a fortnight to focus on his Pilates practice? Could Einstein have paused his work to learn how to fish?
The roar of a four-wheeler stole him from his daydreaming. He turned to find Chaco coming toward them. His vineyard manager leaped off the four-wheeler before it had even come to a stop.
He jogged up to the back deck and called up to Otis, “ Jefe, no hay agua . ”
“ Cómo ? ”
“ No tenemos agua . ”
There was no water. Otis raced off the deck. “ Cuál es el problema ? ”
Chaco switched to English, his silver tooth reflecting in the sun. “The aquifer ran dry. We’re out of water for the season.”
“Out of water? That happens?”
“Sometimes. It’s been a hot year.”
“What do we do?”
Chaco kissed the tip of his index finger and pointed it up to the sky. “Pray to God.”
“I’m not a prayer, Bec.” He kept his voice down so the boys, who were watching television in the living room, wouldn’t hear his frustration. Nothing got under Rebecca’s skin more than Mike and Cam seeing Otis have a meltdown.
Otis sat at his desk; Bec was in the recliner. “That’s Chaco’s answer. Say our prayers. I called Tom Hedges, Jim Holmes. Same thing. There’s nothing we can do. I guess I’ll go fill buckets up from the river tomorrow.”
“That’s silly, Otis.”
“It’s not. This is our livelihood. I swear, I wonder if we screwed up coming here.
It’s the Wild West. I don’t know this land, these people.
Had I any idea we might run out of water, I would have conserved, but we share the same aquifer with Vance, the profligate swine.
He probably used it all up anyway, with his overhead irrigation.
The guy sprays like he’s at a waterpark.
Probably leaves his taps running while he sleeps. ”
“He’s really gotten to you, hasn’t he?”
“That’s what I’ve been trying to say all summer.”
“He lost his brother, Otis. He’s grieving. Maybe he doesn’t have a father figure in his life. Give him some slack.”
Otis sliced a hand through the air. “I don’t do slack.
That’s your department. All I want to do is get these new vines online and make some good wine this year.
But I can’t because there is no water. Hottest place on earth.
Hotter than the Sahara. Why do we even have an oven?
I can roast you a chicken by setting it under the hood of my truck for ten minutes. ”
She smiled.
“What?” He hated it when she didn’t take him seriously.
“I think you’re sexy when you get all fired up.”
“Only you wouldn’t be bothered by drought.”
“Otis, listen to the land. Vance has you so riled up. Be smarter. Connect. We’re where we’re supposed to be. You have to embrace it. Remember the mildew our first year? Remember how the water wouldn’t drain, and it wouldn’t stop raining?”
“It’s the opposite problem here.”
She sighed in defeat. Even the great Balinese princess known as Rebecca Bradshaw Till had her limits. “It’s not a problem. You’re learning a new language. We all are. Give it time.”
Otis shoved his hands into his pockets. “Time? I’m almost forty-four. You see my gray hair. A man only has so many vintages.”
“You’re such an exaggerator. You might have lived half your life, and you have three gray hairs.”
“Four.” He stopped, weary of himself. “I know, I know, it’s just ... I want this place to be perfect.”
“Sounds to me like you’re setting yourself up for disappointment.”
A knock saved Otis from a full-on therapy session.
“Yes?”
Cam pulled open the door. “Hey, Dad, you want to go fishing with Mike and me in the morning? We’re driving east to the Snake.”
“I can’t. I have ...” His unsaid words trailed off to oblivion.
Otis didn’t even have to look at Rebecca to know he was being given a choice right now. This wasn’t about being guilted into something, or about dealing with the vines, or even fishing, for that matter. This was an opportunity to go spend time with his boys.
Otis looked up at his oldest son. “Why, yes, Cam. I’d love to go. What time do we leave?”
Cam looked at Rebecca with golf balls for eyes. She shrugged her shoulders.
“What? I’m full of surprises.”
Cam let loose a smile. “Yes, you are. Shall I wake you or do you want to set an alarm? We’re leaving early.”
“Son, farmers are the ones who wake fishermen. Not the other way around. I will have fed and watered the sheep and will be eating lunch by the time you wipe your sleepy little eyes.”
“How do you put up with him, Mom?”
“They should give me a medal, shouldn’t they?”
Sometimes small victories were all one needed to keep going.
The next evening, fillets of steelhead sizzled on the grill on the back deck. The dark clouds in the pink sky threatened what could possibly be rain, though that would be rare for August. Besides, Otis never got that lucky.
“How’d your dad do?” Rebecca asked, sipping on a kombucha that she’d fermented herself, something she’d learned to do in Bali.
Mike and Cam looked at each other and smiled. Was there anything better than having raised two men who still enjoyed each other’s company?
“He’s getting better,” Cam said. “Still needs more patience. He has to let the line unwind behind him before he moves it forward again.” He stood and demonstrated with a fake rod in his hands.
Otis could see Camden back on the water earlier.
The man had a touch like no other with a fly rod.
While Otis hacked away at it, constantly getting snagged by a tree behind him, Camden made his line dance.
He could set a dry fly exactly where it needed to be with such a light touch it was as if the fly had a parachute.
Needless to say, Cam had caught his limit.
“I’m afraid patience is my Achilles’ heel,” Otis said, feeding a bite of fish to Rosco, who had come up to visit with the humans for a while.
Rebecca showed her teeth.
“What? Do you have something to say, wifey?”
“Oh, I don’t think so.”
“I’m perfectly happy owning my lack of patience.
I don’t want rain now. I wanted it yesterday.
I want Vance and his crew to be gone ..
. yesterday. I want those vines out there to be thirty years old, not little saplings with their white britches on.
” He was referring to the white grow tubes that still protected the trunks of most of his vines, the sign of young vines in any vineyard.
Mike came up and threw an arm around Otis. “We give you a hard time, Dad, but you’re pretty amazing.”
Otis jutted out his bottom lip at Rebecca. “You hear that, doll?”
Mike stood back up and faced Otis. “Seriously, you’re an inspiration. I brag to everyone that you’re my dad, the great vintner Otis Till.”
“Be careful, Mike. You’re going to make an old man cry.”
“Maybe you should. I don’t tell you enough. You’ve shown Camden and me what it’s like to go after something with unbridled passion. Not only that, but you’ve also raised two fine men, if I do say so myself.”
“We both know the only reason you’re fine is your mother.”
“Oh, c’mon. Don’t make a joke. I mean what I’m saying.”
Otis felt the hairs on the nape of his neck stand up. “Michael, you perhaps give me more credit than I’m due, but your words fill my heart.”
“Is that a raindrop?” Cam asked, extending a hand.
Otis looked to the sky and felt one land on his forehead.
He closed his eyes and waited for another.
Was this a dream? Many more came, wetting his face.
Bec had always said it, so it was amazing that it had taken him this long to learn.
The world had a way of making it easy on you when you quit fighting and let the current take you.
His fishing trip today—his choice to be with his boys over working—had been a rain dance.
He pushed himself up and held out his arms. “Come here, my family.”
The four of them formed a circle, arms interweaved. The rain picked up and splattered upon them.
“Everything that I do,” he said, finding their eyes, “it’s all for you three. I don’t know what I did to deserve you, but I will be forever grateful.” With that, he pulled them in tighter, and never had he felt more on top of the world.