Chapter 11
THE (SECRET) OFFICE
Declan
Early evening, while I’m at my hotel splicing together video of me trying my hand at being a firefighter for a day that I recorded last week before the wedding—and debating if I should call Alex and see if he knows he’s going viral again while also waiting for the news that my documentary is canceled—I get a text from Mabel requesting that Shade and I return to the winery.
I ask if I can bring Flow, my Bernedoodle, who’s been extra neurotic lately.
She doesn’t like the doggy daycare I found for her while we’re here and I’m tied up during the day.
And she doesn’t like when I’m struggling.
She likes it less when I’m struggling but pretend like I’m not.
Mabel tells me the dog can come as long as she’s not likely to eat cats or chickens, so I load her up, and the two of us leave the hotel to head back to the winery.
And now Shade, Flow, and I are being led through an underground barrel cellar that we accessed through a nondescript door in the fermentation building above. Dori and Cricket are with us too.
And I’m playing like I’m not expecting this to be a trap where I’m kicked out.
Or worse.
“How do you get the barrels in and out of here?” I ask.
Shade’s filming as he follows us.
“There’s a lift that goes up to the bottling floor,” Mabel replies.
“Where’s that?”
“Other half of the fermentation building.”
“Ah.”
She pauses in front of a stone wall at the far end of the cellar and tilts a wall sconce.
“No fucking way,” I breathe as part of the wall shifts forward and then swings open.
“Are you for real right now?” Dori whispers.
“Oh my god,” Cricket says reverently.
Mabel steps aside and gestures us in. “Congratulations. You now know something about this winery that Aunt Pip does not.”
“Seriously?” I ask.
“That she doesn’t know? Positive. If she did—well. I expect it would look different inside. More glitter and feathers and neon pink.”
I follow the ladies down a half flight of steps into the dimly lit hideaway, taking in the rows of wine bottles lining two of the stone walls in diagonal wooden racks, a sideboard with a bottle chiller and an array of upside-down wine glasses in a variety of sizes and shapes, the iron light fixtures dangling from the ceiling, the spiral staircase leading up to a small loft, and the mahogany desk that has what looks like an old ledger open on top of it, and a full-size wooden statue of a guy in a bowler cap in the corner.
“This place is epic.” Dori heads to the spiral staircase. She’s in her mid-twenties, with short purple hair, round cheeks, wide brown eyes, and a mischievous grin, wearing ripped jeans and a faded Bon Jovi T-shirt. “How did you find it?”
Mabel adjusts her glasses. “I was in my Nancy Drew phase the first time my parents brought me here to meet Aunt Pip.”
Cricket glances at her. “You were a kid?”
“Everyone was a kid at one point. Even me.”
“When you found this room,” Cricket says.
Mabel smiles. “Yes, I was a kid when I found this room.”
“If I’d found something like this when I was a kid, I never would’ve left.”
“Seriously,” Dori agrees from above. “You never told anyone?”
“Do you know any thirteen-year-olds who don’t need a secret place to hide?” Mabel replies.
“You didn’t meet Pip until you were thirteen?” I ask. I’m treading as lightly as I can with the questions—I’m either being played right now, or I’m being let in deeper, which seems so incredibly unlikely after this morning. I don’t want to push anything that will trigger a real order to get away.
“My dad married her niece when I was young,” Mabel tells me.
“She didn’t come to the wedding?”
“Aunt Pip was the black sheep of her family, and she preferred not to attend family functions. She did send a set of flamingo yard ornaments as a wedding gift though.”
I smile. “Did your dad and stepmom like flamingos?”
“While they didn’t dislike flamingos, they also didn’t have any particular affinity for wanting to decorate with them.”
Cricket giggles.
“Sounds like Pip,” Dori says.
Even Mabel smiles a little, which I’ve realized is relatively rare. “Aunt Pip ran away from home to be a Vegas showgirl the minute she turned eighteen.”
“Seriously?” I ask.
“Yes. It’s nothing she wouldn’t tell you herself—she did it to piss off her parents, and it worked. Then she met Dean, and they hated him too, so she married him.”
“Hell of a reason to get married.”
“I suspect there were other reasons too.”
“The nice home?”
She rolls her eyes. “No. The sex. Living at a winery in a princess house was a bonus. Living with Dean when they weren’t in the sack was the trade-off to both.” She glances at Shade. “That’s not going in your documentary.”
“It’s relatable,” he replies dryly.
Cricket pulls a bottle of wine from the rack, her eyes going round. “Is this really a bottle of pinot noir from 1983?”
Mabel glances at her. “Yes.”
“And—oh my god. This one’s labeled 1962. Are all of these super old?”
“Yes. I haven’t taken full inventory, but I believe there’s one of every vintage that Makepeace made from the time Dean’s grandfather opened the winery until the year Dean’s father died.”
“Did Dean know about this room?”
“Nearly positive that he did not.” Mabel tilts her head toward the wooden statue. “If he did, he would’ve replaced the statue of his grandfather with one of himself.”
“Why are you showing us this now?”
“Because certain short people around here who like to explore buildings when no one’s watching will be tall enough to reach the sconce before long.”
Cricket winces.
“I need better light,” Shade says to me.
“We’ll wait,” Mabel replies.
Flow pads along with me as I head to the desk and lean over the ledger, pulling up my phone to turn on the flashlight so I can see it better. The dog settles at my feet.
The last entry is dated forty years ago.
I glance up, having a clear view of Shade leaving, and ask a question that I probably shouldn’t. “Ginny know about this room?”
“Everyone will know before the day’s over,” she replies. She glances at Cricket. “Except Lav. Talk to Heath and let me know if you’d like cameras or a security alarm put on the door.”
“How much are these worth?” Dori asks. She’s still in the loft area.
“Depends on if we can make the winery a true success,” Mabel replies.
“Are we selling them?” Cricket asks.
“Not unless we have to.”
I swallow hard against the urge to say that Ginny should be here.
Samantha and Olivia too. Heath.
But Ginny first.
No one’s mentioned how she’s doing.
Or where her mother is now.
“You gonna show Freida too?” I ask Mabel.
“Freida has decided to take a spa week in Sedona to recover from this morning’s trauma.”
I squeeze my eyes shut briefly.
Flow whines up at me.
“Have you met Freida before?” Cricket asks me.
“Few times.”
“Isn’t she the best?”
“No.”
The answer flies out of my mouth before I can stop it, and Flow climbs to her feet, whimper-whines, and noses my hand.
Cricket, meanwhile, grins at me. “Just checking.”
“How’d you get her to leave?” Dori asks Cricket from above.
“I listened, I affirmed, I got her coffee with Baileys in it, put a cat in her lap—did you know she’s allergic to chickens and cats?—and then I texted Ten and told him if he didn’t handle his mother, I’d tell everyone he ran that Cheeky Beaver channel on .”
I open my mouth, then close it.
Don’t want to know all of what that means.
It’s enough that I saw the video that made Cricket go viral, and that I know that the internet nicknamed her the Cheeky Beaver, and why, which I will not be mentioning to anyone here.
Especially Heath.
You don’t tell a guy that you saw his girlfriend flash her muff to the world, even if you weren’t prepared for it either when you were scrolling your socials.
“You’re a gem, Cricket,” Dori says.
I squint at her. “You’re a gem? How old are you?”
She grins back at me. “Twenty-four, but my grandparents raised me, and their grandparents raised them. My soul is generations older than my body is.”
That explains the Bon Jovi T-shirt.
“Also, I’m never having kids, since apparently getting to raise your own kids skips a generation in my family,” she adds.
“Both sides?” I ask.
“Yep.”
“When Shade gets back and is set up, we’re having an emergency meeting about the winery being in the news several months earlier than we’re prepared for,” Mabel tells me.
“You’ll be invited to stay on property so that there’s less reason to run into any tourists who might recognize you and wonder what you’re doing here. ”
“You and Shade can each have your own spaces,” Cricket adds. “Heath’s basement has a full apartment with its own private entrance, and the mother-in-law house across the garden from the main house is newly renovated.”
“In the interest of keeping you out of town as much as possible, we’ll be happy to provide meals in the event space for you,” Mabel continues.
“So we’ll be trapped here?” I ask while that damn mosquito in my head buzzes an excited so we’ll be close to Ginny?
“No. Come and go as you want, but we’d appreciate it if the current attention could die down.”
“Plus, if you’re here, you’ll be ready at a moment’s notice whenever the grapes are ready for harvest and crush,” Cricket says. “Winona, our neighbor, says it could be any day now for the chardonnay and zinfandel. You missed the pinot noir—we got that last week.”
“Being here would be convenient,” I concede.
“We’ll also be discussing if we want to open the gift shop sooner to take advantage of the unexpected visibility the winery suddenly has,” Mabel says. “The answer is no, but feel free to offer ideas.”
“Scripted reality TV, hmm?” I say.
“We’ve agreed to let you participate in the ups and downs of our journey. But it’s more complicated since half of our residents don’t want to be on camera. Or acknowledged as living here.”
“Sure.”
“Don’t mention Ginny.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it.”
All three of them stare at me.
Flow whines again.
Yay. The complicated, messy parts.
“I will forget I knew her name,” I say.
More scrutiny comes my way.
If Ginny still turns to oatmeal walnut chocolate chip cookies when she’s stressed, they all likely suspect I don’t hate her now.
I spread my hands. “I just want to do my shit and get back on the road.”
It’s not the full truth, but it’s what I need to want to do.
“Did you post any of the videos of her at that wedding?” Mabel asks.
“No.”
“Did you share them?”
“No.”
“Privately?”
“No.”
She studies me harder.
Dori’s resting her arms on the iron railing above, watching.
Cricket’s eyes bounce between Mabel and me.
And the silence lingers.
“She’s been through enough,” I say as Flow whimper-whines and nudges my hand again. “I don’t want to hurt her. Or make this any harder on her than it has to be.”
Mabel glances at Flow.
Then at me.
Goosebumps creep up my spine.
Possibly telling Mabel how well I used to know Ginny was a mistake.
“Good,” Mabel finally says. “Because we’re big fans of malicious compliance around here when we need to be.”
“Message received.” They’ll make my life hell within the boundaries of the contract we have if I push anything the wrong way.
Shade hustles back through the door with two lights and a second camera. “Make yourself useful and set one of these up,” he says to me.
“You always make the talent work?” I reply.
“Talent is debatable.”
“I like you,” Cricket says to him. “Don’t make me regret that.”
Shade grins at her. “Who sent you video of Freida Rhodes getting attacked by chickens and then deleted all of my copies?”
She grins back. “Keep earning brownie points, and I’ll keep liking you.”
Honestly?
I like him too. Dude amuses the shit out of me. Reminds me of my brother.
I help set up the lights while he positions the cameras.
Cricket and Dori disappear, then return with the most god-awful fruit -shaped ottomans so that we all have somewhere to sit.
I’m assigned a pear.
Dori takes the cluster of grapes.
Mabel leans on the desk, and Cricket sits on her knees, resting her elbows on an orange.
We have an emergency meeting about what it means that we’re trying to film a secret documentary when the world’s attention is suddenly on Makepeace Cellars because of a celebrity wedding that was hosted here last weekend.
Cricket’s charming and funny.
Dori’s dry and funny.
Mabel’s the straitlaced glue.
I’m the guy learning the ropes.
The guy who asks all of the questions that sound stupid—why not just tell people I’m here?—and doesn’t ask the question I want to ask.
How much more will I get to see Ginny if I’m living on the property?
Flow knows it too.
She knows I’m getting worked up at the idea of getting to see Ginny multiple times every day.
Excited.
Nervous.
Hopeful.
Everything. All with my heart hammering harder than it should be.
My dog’s whimper-whines at me get so loud they’re near howls, making us stop for me to take her out before we finish the staged meeting.
And I hate every minute of it.
I want to see for myself that Ginny’s okay.
I’m worried Mabel will tell her that I like her, which means I need to do it first.
I’m curious what kind of malicious compliance plans Mabel will have for me if I fuck anything up.
How Ginny will react to Shade and me moving onto the property for the duration of filming.
Because we’re doing it.
Stupid not to be right here for everything, regardless of why we got the invitation. And it’ll be easier than bringing in trailers.
Better on the budget too.
“I didn’t tell you this,” Cricket whispers while she loves all over Flow just outside the secret room when we’re done filming, “but there are a few boxes of wine in the tasting room and gift shop. All of us have been known to sneak over and get one or two after a hard day.”
I have a few bottles of my own that I’ll be bringing over from the rental house, which won’t take long for me to pack up tonight. “You sell box wine here?”
“Cases. Not boxes. Cases of bottles.”
I smile at her. “Nice job with Freida today.”
Her eyes half cross as she grimaces. “Thank you.”
“You gonna be hitting some of that wine too?”
“No, I think Heath has something better in mind for me.”
“You all really don’t mind talking about everyone’s sex lives, do you?”
She grins. “Welcome to the Five Minutes of Shame Commune, where we have none.”
Must be nice.
I still feel shame at how I treated Ginny those years that Alex dated her.
And a little more shame that I’m not telling Alex what I’m doing.
But this is my job now.
So that’s what it has to be.
Just a job.