Page 61 of Before We Say Goodbye
Otis almost dropped the phone. “What?”
“Yeah, he came by to taste my wines. We’re all doing dinner at Hamilton’s tonight, a bunch of winemakers. Want me to see if I can get you in?”
Otis could have cried. He felt exactly the way he felt during lunches in the cafeteria as the new kid in Bozeman. Three hundred cowboys and cowgirls and one lonely English bloke with a funny accent.
“Nah, thanks, though. Have fun and tell everyone hello.”
Otis set down the phone and stared at it for a while. Never had he felt more like a fraud.
Otis hated lying to Rebecca, but she was keeping far too close an eye on him. The whole recess thing wasn’t the end of it. She seemed to always be watching when he refilled his glass of wine or if he got a second helping of food. It was her bloody fault for learning how to cook so well! Either way, it was not like his body showed evidence of overindulging. He was still in fine shape. He had a bit of a belly, but good God, all he’d done on the road for years was eat and eat and eat. Foie gras for breakfast, a big fat burger for lunch. Why wouldn’t he order the bone-in rib eye for dinner?
Truth was, he knew to keep certain things from her. Like a man of days of old who left his village to fight enemies or to hunt for meat, it was best he do his work and not speak of it afterward.
Tonight he drove away from Lost Souls Ranch with the excuse that he was going to meet Carmine. She loved the man, loved how the old Italian had the right things to say, so she wouldn’t think twice.
In reality, Otis beelined it straight to Sonoma Plaza. He slid his truck into a spot a block down. Stepping out, a small part of him thought,Nothing good will come of this. Get back in the truck.
A larger part of him screamed,Oh, c’mon, don’t be a coward!
The maleficent Otis won, and he marched down the sidewalk till he reached a polished front window withHamilton’sprinted in gold letters. It was the best steak restaurant in the valley, certainly Otis’s favorite. They even had his wine on the list.
He pressed his back up against the wall and took a guarded look inside. It didn’t take him long to locate a table filled with Otis’s competition. Sam Bedwetter sat at the end, in the middle of telling a story. He looked even more smug than he did in the cartoon drawing of him that always accompanied his repulsive writing. There must have been ten men there, and twenty open bottles, everyone’s hard work from the previous harvest. Bedwetter spun a red wine in his right hand while telling a story that must have been funny as hell, because every winemaker there laughed like he was Johnny Carson.
Otis pulled back out of sight.
Of course, there was something else at play. Bedwetter held the keys to the kingdom. More and more, people were letting critics tell them which wines were good. People sought out the wines that Bedwetter mentioned in his articles. Same with the new fellow in Maryland, Robert Parker, who scored wines with a number.
Why were Americans so impressionable when it came to wine? With music, people liked what they liked. Same with food and even art. But wine had become intimidating in recent years. Maybe because so many had lost access to it during Prohibition. They didn’t grow up with it the way Europeans did.
Otis looked again. Paul, with his hair pulled back into a ponytail, sat next to Bedwetter and kept touching him on the arm. Almost as if they were best friends. Otis loved Paul, but how could Bedwetter find Paul’s wines more intriguing than that of Lost Souls? Actually, Otis knew every winemaker at the table. They were all decent men, but their wines weren’t any better than Otis’s.
Excuse him for saying so. His thinking was presumptuous, but it was true. He knew the methods of these men, and in comparing them with his own, Otis made truer wine. Of course, Bedwetter didn’t know that because he didn’t know a thing about Otis and his practices.
He wasn’t sure what to do. There was one empty chair at the table. Had that been destined for him? Not that Bedwetter had asked him. Paul had asked.Want me to see if I can get you in?
No. Otis didn’t want to be squeezed in. He wanted Bedwetter to invite him with a handwritten plea delivered with a goddamn coat of arms on the letterhead. Bedwetter should be begging to hear Otis speak of his farm and his wines and his miraculous climb to fame. Who else had their wines in the World Trade Center and Delmonico’s? None of those guys.
He pondered what Rebecca might say, knowing she’d tell him to race back to his truck and get out of there. But this was his department. She oversaw the boys and the rest of the farm. The vines and wines were his.
He smoothed down his trousers and readied to enter. He’d pop in and pretend like he was taking a seat at the bar.And, oh, I didn’t realizeyou guys were here. Ah, Ledbetter. Nice to finally meet you.Who knew what would happen from there? Otis might offer to buy a bottle, or perhaps present a nice uppercut to the jaw. Or a jab in the abdomen. Then he’d say, “No, thank you, I don’t care to join. Just here for a filet and a glass of a taut Haut-Brion.”
Every step he took threatened to take his breath away. He opened the door and readied for war.
Then he saw a man coming out of the restroom, and he froze.
The gorgeous Lloyd Bramhall was wiping his soft wet hands on his pleated khaki pants. That empty seat was his. How had Lloyd not mentioned that he was in town or that he’d also been invited to join Bedwetter for dinner? Of all people, Lloyd knew exactly the issues Otis had with the writer. It did make sense that Lloyd would be invited, what with Paul there, but still ...
All these thoughts came in a rush a second before Otis started to turn away and make a run for it. It was too late, though.
Lloyd caught his eye and said, “Otis!” Loud enough for others to hear. Loud enough for the whole table of winemakers to hear.
Otis spun around and darted out the door. He didn’t look back as he passed the large glass windows that he knew were filled with the gawking eyes of the other winemakers. He wanted to turn around and face them, but it was too late now. All he could do was disappear. He raced back into his truck, clamoring for the keys. People in the plaza were laughing, pushing baby strollers, licking ice-cream cones, tossing Frisbees. They couldn’t possibly know the wine wars being fought out here.
As he backed up, he saw Paul standing outside of the restaurant with his hands held high, looking at him. His friend waved for him to come back, but Otis did the only thing that occurred to him. He offered a middle finger of defiance, and then spun away in a trail of dust.
Chapter 15
Zin and the Art of Implosion
