Page 22 of One Last Night

I sigh inwardly and join her on the couch. She heads to the kitchen for another glass, swaying a little on her feet but not stumbling. When she returns, she has a second bottle of wine. I can’t imagine she’ll last long enough to open it, but I don’t say anything. I’m too exhausted to be her moral center.

“Okay!” she says cheerily, pouring the wine. Her pour is outstanding, her hands perfectly steady in spite of the alcohol. I suppose nearly five decades of experience makes up for a bit of intoxication.

She hands me a glass and says, “So karma’s a bitch, isn’t it?”

“So I hear.”

I sip my wine. It’s quite lovely, but I’m not sure I should compliment it since she points out that it’s not one of their wines.

“You make a mistake and you think you can get away with it, and you do. For a while. Hell, for a really, really,reallylong time. Then karma shows up, and”—she makes a popping noise and drops down into her chair—“Everything falls apart.”

I think of my “encounter” with my sister earlier today and nod. “The past has a way of catching up with us whether we want it to or not.”

She chuckles bitterly. “You can say that again.”

She falls silent for a while. I sip more of my wine, then notice that she’s not drinking. She’s only staring moodily into the fireplace. It’s dark right now, and when the silence becomes too awkward, I stand and offer to build a fire.

“Suit yourself. It’s propane, so you just need to add the logs, press the ignition and turn the light. Kind of like a barbecue.”

I place two of the available logs into the fire and soon, a roaring flame is warming the room. Remarkably, it actually manages to soothe me a little.

It seems to soothe Victoria as well, at least enough for her to talk some more. “It wasn’t even that much of a mistake, either. Just a little bit of stupidity in my twenties. It lasted… like seven months, I think?” She laughs. “I can’t even remember.”

I know exactly what she’s talking about, but I can’t let on that I’m aware of her affair with Robert Cartwright, so I ask, “What lasted seven months?”

“Stupidity,” she replies vaguely. “I married Parker young, and I got scared that I had chained myself to the wrong man. I convinced myself that I didn’t love him, that I just wanted hismoney, that the sex was bad. It wasn’t bad. It was good. Not mindblowing, but I mean, it was good enough.”

I sip more of the wine. It’s starting to take effect, which is probably a good thing considering the direction of this conversation. I’m starting to regret letting her talk me into listening to this.

She sighs. “Anyway, I did something stupid, felt bad about it, and never did it again. And I really didn’t. I mean, for the next twenty-one years, I never didanything. I was asaintto that man.”

She finally drinks her wine, swallowing the entire glass in one gulp. Her pour is a little less steady when she refills her glass.

I try for something comforting to say. “So many people who marry young make similar mistakes. It’s nothing to be ashamed of. You realized you were wrong and changed your behavior. You don’t need to feel guilty.”

She reacts differently from what I expect. She points at me. "Exactly. Ishouldn’thave to feel guilty. For God’s sake, it was just a fling when we were younger. Why the hell is everyone—is everything… Why the hell is everything falling apart around me?”

Her words are slurring badly now. I think this last glass will leave her prostrate. “Perhaps you should lie down for a moment, Victoria.”

She giggles at that, laughing until she’s red-faced and tears are streaming down her eyes. “Oh, Mary. You’re so sweet. I’m drunk on purpose. I intend to beabsolutelyshitfaced right now.”

I think you’ve accomplished that, I don’t say.

“Did you know that the wine was poisoned?”

It's a testament to her inebriated state and my frayed nerves that, for a split second, I'm terrified that she means the wine I'm drinking. A powerful shiver runs through my body before I remember the wine from the tasting last week.

“Oh. Which wine?” I ask, remembering that I don’t know about theListeria.

“The Pinot from the tasting last week. Not all of it, I guess. Just three of the barrels. The rest of them were fine. That’s whywe’renot puking our guts up.”

I have my wineglass to my lips when she says that, but the image her words conjure up cause my stomach to turn, so I take it away. “I’m grateful for that,” I reply drily.

“Yeah, me too. Kind of wish wehadn’tgotten ten different prestigious wine critics violently ill, but hey, that’s the price you pay, right?”

“I’m very sorry to hear that, ma’am. Is everyone all right?”

"No one's going to die if that's what you mean. But unless Julian knows where all the skeletons are buried, we're going to deal with a scandal that's going to ruin this vineyard. I mean, thecompanywill be fine. But this vineyard…” She looks out the window at the vines. “Those grapes can trace their lineage back to the very first vines that grew on this estate over one hundred sixty years ago. There’s history here. There’s meaning. We’re not just some pretentious rich family playing at winemaking because it’s fashionable and we can afford it. We’ve been doing this for generations. It’s in our blood. I can’t stand the thought that a youthful indiscretion could ruin all of that.”

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