Page 14 of Blush
“In the vineyard,” Bridget said, smiling. “Asher got down on one knee right there in the dirt.”
Soil, Vivian thought, her jaw tightening.It’s soil, not dirt.
She again looked at her husband, and he seemed to shrug, as if this were all news to him. But someone had made that ring possible.
Vivian could barely breathe for the feeling of betrayal. How could Leonard know about this and not tell her? But she knew how. He’d always indulged their only son, granting him far more latitude than he did anyone else. She didn’t think it was necessarily kindness that made him view Asher through rose-colored glasses; it was wishful thinking. Sometimes even delusional thinking. Oh, she loved Asher. But that didn’t make her oblivious to the fact that he was lazy, and entitled, and had been born far too handsome for his own good.
“Well, then I suppose congratulations are in order,” Vivian said evenly. “But if this is why you called me up here, I need to excuse myself.”
“Please sit down, Vivian,” Leonard said. “That’s not what this is about.”
“Well, what then?” She was impatient. Irritated. She’d been having such a lovely time with Leah, and she wanted to get back to her. Her time with her daughter was fleeting. She didn’t want to waste a second of it. And the sooner she got out of that room, the sooner she could try to stop thinking about the disastrous step her son was taking.
“Decisions have to be made,” Marty said. “Difficult decisions.”
“Yes, well, that’s often the case in this business,” Vivian said, glancing at Leonard.
“This is different. The winery is hemorrhaging money,” Marty said.
Hemorrhaging money? She resisted the impulse to roll her eyes. Vivian didn’t appreciate hyperbole.
“We know how to deal with ups and downs,” she said. “Right, Leonard?”
Together, they had overcome countless problems over the decades. The August when the yellow finches destroyed their entire crop of Pinot Noir. Losing power for a week after Hurricane Gloria. The seasonswhen they’d gotten caught up in trendy varietals and failed to anticipate them falling out of favor. The year mold consumed their top-tier Chardonnay grapes.
Every challenge had proven, in the end, to be a learning experience. Every failure had made them stronger. All except for one: the catastrophic, short-lived partnership that changed her family forever.
“I’d like to speak to my wife alone for a minute,” Leonard said.
Vivian followed him out of the room, the sight of the diamond burned into the backs of her eyelids like a sunspot. She stood near the stairwell banister, rubbing her forehead.
“I can’t think about the winery whenthat womanis sitting there. How could you not tell me about this absurd engagement?” she said.
“I have more important things on my mind than Asher and that girl.”
Vivian was about to get indignant, to ask what could be more important than their son marrying a gold digger. Good lord, she could only hope the woman wasn’t pregnant yet. But something in Leonard’s voice silenced her. She had known Leonard Hollander since she was a teenager and had only one other time heard him speak so low in volume but at the same time trembling with the effort of restraint.
“Leonard, we’ll figure out whatever it is. If you saw how full the veranda was yesterday instead of sitting in here holed up letting Marty get to you...”
“We’re going broke, Vivian.” His face flushed with stress.
Okay, that got her attention.
“So we’ll tighten our belt. We’ve done that before.”
“It’s different this time,” he said.
Vivian knew things were changing in the wine industry. Global competition made it difficult for a small family winery to hold its own. Leonard had been complaining for years that the big corporations could sell at a lower price point because they made their money by volume. Hollander Estates couldn’t increase production—they had a finite amount of land.
“Okay. So what can we do?” she said.
“We’ve been going over our options,” he said. By “we,” she knew he meant Marty, Harold, and Asher. Asher, the heir apparent, even though the only hoe he’d ever picked up was the type who latched on to wealthy young men. She loved her son. They both did. But sometimes it felt like she was the only one who saw his weaknesses.
“I should have been included in those conversations,” she said. After all these decades, it was still frustrating that while Leonard respected her completely as the matriarch of the family, she had become a second-class citizen when it came to the business. She’d built the vineyard by his side, with her bare hands—literally. And yet she’d made one bad hiring decision years earlier and he’d never let it go—despite the fact that he’d made plenty of mistakes of his own.
“I’m including you now,” he said. “I waited as long as I could because I didn’t want to needlessly upset you. But, Vivian, we have to sell.”
She froze. “Sell the winery? That’s not happening.”
