Georgia’s dumbass plan—supported by civic groups, churches, and school PTAs—would stop vineyards from selling wine directly to restaurants and stores, forcing us to go through wholesalers as middlemen. It would be the death knell of the little vineyards—family farms, when all was said and done—whose profit would be wiped out if they had to add one more link to the distribution chain.
But Georgia had invoked Prohibition, claiming it meant less “demon alcohol” out there for our children to get their hands on. In my humble opinion, most kids’ choice of beverage was ruled by their wallet, not their palate. I wasn’t too worried about a fifteen-year-old with Mom or Dad’s credit card trying to con me into selling him a case of twenty-dollar-a-bottle Pinot Noir over the phone. Shutting down vineyards that made pricey boutique wines wasn’t going to change teenage drinking habits. They’d still drink whatever cheap rotgut they could get their hands on.
“I don’t think she’s going to win,” I said. “Not after what she did to Noah Seely.”
“It was a pretty stupid move,” Quinn agreed, “going after Santa Claus.”
“Generations of voters sat in his lap and told him what they wanted for Christmas. He fixes up that nursery like you always imagined the North Pole would be when you were a kid. The only thing worse would have been attacking motherhood or the flag.”
“Didn’t seem to bother Hugo Lang. He just endorsed her.” Quinn poured more coffee into his cup. “Wonder how she pulled off getting a U.S. senator to do that. Wait until Hugo gets the VP nod at the convention in August. He’ll have coattails from here to the moon.”
“He stopped by tonight.” I turned on my high beams so I could see in the inky darkness as we went off-road toward the fields. “Right before Harry went nuts. God, that was embarrassing.”
“Who cares? Good old Harry. The only vineyard owner around here smart enough to put in turbines.” Quinn finished juggling the thermos and cup and leaned his back against the door of the small car so he was facing me. “Where was Ross? Wasn’t he around to defend his wife’s honor?”
“He left early. Medical emergency. One of his patients went into premature labor with twins. Was that another dig about the turbines?”
“Would I do that?” he asked unconvincingly as I pulled over by the Riesling block and parked. “Here. Have some coffee. It’s going to be a long night.” He handed me his cup and unscrewed the bottom cap from the thermos for himself.
“Thanks.” I warmed my hands on the cup and blew on the steaming liquid. “Hugo spent a long time talking to Georgia. He didn’t look too happy about it, if you ask me. They left together, too. It was odd. The whole endorsement thing is odd.”
“Odd, how? You think they’re screwing?” Quinn perked up. Sex interested him. “Georgia’s a knockout even if she is a bitch, but I don’t think Hugo’d bang a married woman. The guy’s a Boy Scout.”
“You can be so vulgar sometimes, you know?” I said. “You never knew Hugo’s wife. No one could take her place. He’s definitely not…banging…Georgia. Or anyone else.”
He laughed, unrepentant, and set the thermos on the floor. “She’s doing it. You can tell. She puts out vibes. If you ask me, she’s got something going with Randy.”
“No way.” Our body heat and the steam from the coffee had fogged the windows so it was like being in a cocoon. I turned the defroster on high and raised my voice to be heard over the gusty roar. “Randy could be her son. He’d be more likely to go out with Mia than Georgia.”
“Sweetheart, this may come as a news flash to you, but there are some men who sleep with more than one woman at a time. He could still date your sister and have a little on the side with Georgia.”
“Georgia shops at Saks and Tiffany’s. She and Ross have a Picasso in their living room. Randy’s an Elvis-on- velvet NASCAR kind of guy. Sorry. I don’t see it. He could be sleeping with ten women, but she wouldn’t be one of them.”
Quinn made a bad job of whistling “The Devil Went Down to Georgia,” then said, “That phone of his goes off all the time. And the song is no coincidence. It’s hard not to overhear sometimes. I think he’s been talking to her a lot.”
“She got him the job playing tonight. Why wouldn’t they be talking?” I turned the defroster down, since it had worked its magic.
“Where there’s smoke there’s fire. You heard it here first.” In the newly quiet darkness, one of the sensors went off and we both jumped. “Damn! First one to go. I’ll check it out. You stay put. I’ll be right back.”
I watched his dark, solid figure disappear in the star-filled night. The waxing quarter moon’s silvery light caught the tops of the nearby vines so they already looked frost-covered. Hopefully only an optical illusion. Otherwise it would be the beginning of the end. Quinn opened the passenger door a few minutes later, bringing frigid air into the car.
“Show time,” he said. “Thirty-two degrees and it’s not even three a.m. I called Chris and woke him up. He’s on his way. We’d better turn on those flashlights.” He reached in the backseat and picked up what looked like two sets of earmuffs, handing one to me. “Here. These are from Chris. Make sure you wear them or you’ll go deaf.” He paused, then said, “You know, it’s going to be really hard to see in the dark. Maybe I should call Hector.”
“No. He hasn’t been looking too well lately. I’m worried about him. Let him sleep and he can take over in the morning.” Hector Cruz, our farm manager, had been with us ever since the first vines were planted twenty years ago. Now he and his wife, Sera, were the only ones left among our employees who remembered every one of our harvests.
“You sure?” Quinn asked quietly.
I appreciated the fact that he didn’t glance down at my feet, even if we both knew what he was talking about. It had been nearly three years since a car driven at high speed by an ex-boyfriend plowed into the stone gate at the entrance to the vineyard. Only one of us walked away from that accident and it wasn’t me. In fact, I did not walk again for a long time—and the reason I did was due, in no small measure, to Ross Greenwood. Even so, after I got out of the hospital there were months of therapy, then a wheelchair, walker, and finally graduation to the cane I will need forever because of a now-deformed left foot. Quinn and I rarely discussed my disability, and though I knew he thought my knowledge of wine making could fit on the head of a pin—with plenty of room left for the dancing angels—he’d never, ever said I wasn’t physically up to the job.
“I’ll be fine.” I put the Mini in gear. “Are you positive we’re going to be okay with the helicopter stirring up all the air and that pesticide next door in the new fields?”
“Of course I am.” He sounded annoyed. “I told you already. We’re in no danger. The guy from Lambert Chemical even called his head office in Roanoke to double-check. We’ve got tarps on the fields and we’re more than three hundred feet away from them. Technically we’re safe at anything beyond a hundred feet.”
“I hope you’re right.”
“I know I’m right. He’ll be back Monday to haul away his equipment. You can talk to him yourself.”
“I thought he took everything today.”
“Nah, by the time he finished it was late. So I told him he could leave it out by the fields. No one will go near it. His next job is in Haymarket, so since he’s saving money on gas he cut me a break on our price.”
“Really? That’s good.”
“I knew you’d be happy.” Quinn got in his share of jabs about my Scottish thriftiness. Or, as he called it, penny-pinching.
Thanks to me, though, the vineyard was now once again running in the black. I ignored the crack, as usual. “I hear the helicopter. Let’s go.”
Chris had told us he’d only be flying fifteen to twenty feet above the vines, so if we valued our heads, we needed to stay well away when the helicopter hovered over the fields. Under normal circumstances the higher the altitude, the colder the air. Sometimes, though, the opposite situation—known as an inversion—occurred and the cold air sat next to the ground with a layer of warm air above it. That’s what we had tonight and why we needed Chris. The helicopter could push the warm air down so it was next to the vines where we needed it to keep the fruit from freezing.
For the next few hours, as the cold seeped into my fingertips and toes, Quinn and I grimly hopscotched across the fields, calling to Chris, who trained the helicopter’s large searchlight on us, tracking us like a couple of fugitives on the run, as we led him to the places where beeping sensors indicated the temperature had again slipped into the danger zone. Once every hour Chris set the helicopter down to reorient himself. Twice he and his partner refueled.
