Page 33 of Red Mountain Burning
Hidden Agendas and Eye Patches
As if Brooks didn’t have enough on his mind, Carmen had chosen today to show her true colors. She’d been surprisingly agreeable and even upbeat since she’d started a week ago. In fact, Brooks had settled into the reality of her working at Lacoda and didn’t mind the little changes she was making in the tasting room, like new stemware, more elegant art on the walls, even the smaller touches like vases filled with flowers. And when they crossed paths, she was more than civil, sneaking past polite into outgoing territory, which was not typical for her.
After Adriana had dropped him off back at his house, he’d ridden his bike to the winery and spent the morning walking the vineyards with his assistant winemaker, Pak, focusing mostly on a few rows of sangiovese, a red Italian variety that grew surprisingly well on Red Mountain when harvested early and made in a moresaison,or session, style.
The only issue they were still trying to work out was the grape skin’s vulnerability to sunburn in the sweltering summer sun on Red Mountain. They’d first tried spraying a clay mist on the grapes, but there wasn’t enough rain some years before harvest to wash the clay off the grapes. The last two years, they’d been experimenting with different canopy techniques, which presented their own challenges. Too much canopy, and they risked mildew and pest issues. Too little, and the grapes would bleach in the sun.
This year, they’d committed to testing a different idea on each row—various levels of pruning, different training techniques—and they were eager for August, when they’d be able to confirm their tests. That’s all farming was, facing one challenge at a time, and Brooks had found his calling in taking on these challenges with eager resolve.
What he didn’t love seeing was Carmen walking up the row. To Brooks, she looked like a raised gun in a church. As she drew closer, Brooks wondered what it felt like to live in her skin, to be so bogged down by darkness.
“Good morning,” she sang with her best attempt at optimism, the new and sober Carmen trying to shake the past.
After a moment of small talk, she said, “Pak, could I steal Brooks?”
“Yeah, sure.” Pak, who largely kept to himself and was happiest running numbers in the quiet of the lab, looked relieved to be set free from Carmen’s web. His name was short for Pakkapong, and he’d originally moved with his family from Thailand to Seattle during his high school years. Brooks had hired him four years earlier as an intern, and Pak had worked his way to a full-time position.
Pak jammed his pruners with orange handles into the holster on his belt and sidestepped as if he’d been given a few seconds head start before the wolves were unleashed. Walking to the end of the row, he climbed onto his ATV and fired up the engine.
Brooks turned to Carmen as Pak sped down the hill back toward the winery. “What’s going on?”
“I have a favor to ask of you.” She looked over her shoulder, as if to make sure no one else could hear. “I’m worried Emilia might try to stay on the mountain after the summer. I think she misses it here.”
This was not news to Brooks, but he feigned surprise. “And leave school? What makes you think that?”
“She’s mentioned it a few times. I don’t think she loves NYUorthe East Coast. She hasn’t said anything to you?”
Brooks had talked to Emilia several times about how she hadn’t quite found her place in Manhattan. She was almost a sister to him, and he knew that her problem was more than just NYU, New York, and the East Coast. Brooks figured she still hadn’t found her purpose, and that’s what had been bugging her. Living under her parents’ shadows was a burden she carried like a cross, and she so desperately wanted to be someone valued for more than the looks she’d inherited. As hard as she searched, her purpose kept eluding her.
Last time Brooks had talked to her, his almost-sister had said, “I actually feel like I’m moving further and further away from who I truly am.”
When she’d asked Brooks if he had summer work for her at Lacoda, he’d instantly said yes. Anything for her.
Keeping these thoughts from Carmen, Brooks continued as if all this was new news. “She hasn’t come out and said she’s not going back. I know she was struggling a little at first, but she’s just trying to make her way.”
Carmen nodded and then dropped the truth like a boulder at Brooks’s feet. “I don’t want her to stay.”Oh, here we go.The old Carmen was suddenly back, the woman full of agendas and selfishness. He could taste the bitterness in the air, and he wondered if the vines had constricted like his veins.
“Why not?” Brooks asked, sincerely perplexed. Even after knowing Carmen for so many years, he still wasn’t able to guess the whys behind her actions. She played life like a chess player, and Brooks was no match for the female Magnus Carlsen of Red Mountain.
Carmen paused to think about her answer, clearly not sure whether she wanted to divulge the whole truth. “As much as I’d love to be close to her, I don’t think it’s good for her. After all that happened two years ago, she needs to break free and come into her own.” Carmen was referring to Emilia’s brief affair with one of her teachers during her last year in high school.
Though Brooks agreed that Emilia needed to break free, he wasn’t about to guess how she might do that. Emilia was almost twenty. She could do whatever she wanted. And if she wanted to come home, why stop her?
Carmen clasped her hands together in front of her. “I don’t even know why she’d want to stay. What is there here for a nineteen-year-old? What is there for anyone?”
Ah, the bitterness of a city woman forced to live out here in the wilderness. Brooks could only imagine how much anger Carmen had unleashed on Jake for dragging their family out here from Seattle almost four years ago.
For a moment, he felt a need to stand up for Red Mountain. Hadn’t he just had this conversation with Adriana? There were many reasons why Emilia was looking forward to coming home, and perhaps even staying.
Trying not to sound patronizing, Brooks looked from left to right at the vines running in zigzags across the face of the mountain. “I guess there are worse places to be.”
“My point is, Brooks, that I don’t want you to do anything to coerce her into staying.”
Who in the hell did Carmen think she was? For that matter, what was the real reason why she didn’t want her daughter to stay?
Before Brooks could protest, she continued, “That’s fine if she works for you over the summer, but I don’t want you offering her a full-time position if she asks. There’s more to the world than Red Mountain, and I want her to see that.”
Brooks tried not to let the anger show on his face, but the cynicism in his voice gave it away. “You’re the boss, Carmen.”
