“Bobby told me about Luc’s talk. Why is Mick buying California wine?”
“Someone put him on to a good deal.”
She nodded and I was glad, suddenly, that Bobby hadn’t come along tonight because the reason I was traveling out West was indirectly linked to Paul Noble’s death—at least in Charles Thiessman’s mind. I didn’t want to lie to Kit and I sure as hell couldn’t lie to Bobby, especially if there turned out to be some truth to what Charles had said.
I sipped my wine and changed the subject to wedding talk, which Kit easily and willingly fell into. The deejay changed generations, switching from Stevie Wonder to Sinatra crooning “Fly Me to the Moon.” I leaned back against the stone arch, letting the music and candlelight and animated voices and laughter wash over me.
Tomorrow I’d be in California, on the other side of the country, ostensibly to do an errand for Charles Thiessman and to accompany Pépé. But deep down I knew the real reason I was going was Quinn.
Eli and I once threw dice to see whether we’d keep the vineyard or sell it after Leland died, and I won. Seeing Quinn felt like another all-or-nothing gamble. Did he miss me the way I missed him, and would he come back to Virginia or stay in California for good?
I tilted my head and finished off my wine. By tomorrow at this time I’d probably know one way or the other.
I fought off the feeling of foreboding that our meeting wasn’t going to go well and went back to discussing flowers and table linens with Kit as though I didn’t have a care in the world.
Chapter 10
I bolted upright in bed when my alarm went off at three thirty A.M., disoriented until memory kicked in. Our flight left at seven; I’d booked a town car for just after four o’clock. Across the hall, I heard my grandfather stirring. Maybe he’d never even gone to sleep. Forty-five minutes later a sleek black car waited outside the house, dashboard lights and GPS glowing eerily as the driver got out to put our bags in the trunk. Pépé and I dozed as the car sped off in the inky darkness, waking as the swooped gull-like wings of the main terminal at Dulles came into view against a rosy sky.
The direct flight to San Francisco International arrived just before ten A.M. Pacific time. The Bay glittered like crushed dark diamonds as we began our final approach, and then the silvery blue city appeared from the thin haze of the marine layer, tip-tilted through the airplane window, a modern-day Atlantis emerging from the sea.
Pépé had booked us at the Mark Hopkins, where he had often stayed after the war when the embassy sent him to the West Coast on business. The half-hour taxi ride zipped along a highway that hugged the Bay, passing an enormous white-lettered sign embedded in the side of a mountain that read SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO, THE INDUSTRIAL CITY. Pépé narrated our route as we drove by the stadium and reached the beginning of the Embarcadero where the driver turned up Market Street and cut over to California.
American and California state flags snapped in the wind as we pulled into the hotel’s circular redbrick drive. A valet opened the cab door, letting in an unexpected sharp, cool breeze. Perhaps I imagined it carried the mingled exotic scents of nearby Chinatown spices and the salt tang of the Pacific, but whatever it was, the air smelled different here, nothing I recognized from home in Virginia.
The hotel lobby was old-world opulent, alive and buzzing on a Sunday morning. I waited under a massive beaded crystal chandelier while Pépé sorted out our reservation for adjoining rooms with a Bay view, and then we took the elevator to the fourteenth floor. The first thing we did was open the curtains all the way and Pépé pointed out landmarks: the endless toy-sized bridge to Oakland, the TransAmerica pyramid, rows of piers jutting into the slate-colored water like an unfinished puzzle on the Embarcadero, and, peeking through holes in the marine layer, glimpses of Alcatraz, Treasure Island, and the round-shouldered mountains where Oakland and Berkeley lay on the other side of San Francisco Bay.
I touched my grandfather’s arm. He looked pale and drawn in the cool morning light.
“Would you like to lie down? We didn’t get much sleep last night.”
For a moment I thought he was going to be annoyed with me for mothering him like Dominique did, but he nodded. “I might do that. What are your plans,
“Neither did you,” I said. “I’m not really hungry, but you ought to eat something. Anyway, I promised Quinn I’d call him when we got here. I’m sure we’ll grab a bite to eat together.”
“Quinn,” he said. “You have not spoken much about him. Is everything all right between the two of you?”
“Of course it is. Why would you even ask?”
“He has been gone awhile, hasn’t he?”
“He’s coming back, Pépé. Don’t worry about it, okay? He’s just taking a break to sort out the sale of his mother’s house. I don’t know why everyone is making such a big deal about him being gone for a few months.”
I shouldn’t have snapped at him, or sounded so defensive.
“I apologize,” my grandfather said with stiff formality. “But it wasn’t ‘a big deal.’ Merely a question.”
I laid my head on his shoulder. “I know and I’m sorry for being an idiot. I shouldn’t take my frustrations out on you.”
“It’s all right.” He stroked my hair. “No apology necessary. But I guess you really ought to call him now,
I nodded, still feeling guilty, and went to get my phone, accidentally dialing Kit. I punched End Call before it rang, took a deep breath, and called Quinn’s number.
Before I saw him later today, I needed to get my head screwed on right.
Quinn’s phone went to voice mail. I left a message that I was in town and tried not to let my disappointment show. Pépé, who hadn’t gone to sleep after all and had ordered nothing more than a pot of coffee from room service, finally told me in the nicest possible way to quit wearing a path in the carpet and suggested maybe I ought to be the one to take a nap. Or pour myself a good strong drink from the minibar. I glanced at my watch. Eleven thirty here, two thirty in the afternoon at home. Was Quinn still helping out his friend at his vineyard? On a Sunday morning?
My phone rang fifteen minutes later and I pounced on it.
“Hey,” Quinn said, “what’d you do, take the red-eye?”
“No.” My heart was pinging like a small hammer against my rib cage and I felt light-headed. “Nonstop that left Dulles at dawn.”
“Huh. That was fast. Where are you staying?”
“The Mark Hopkins.”
He whistled. “Nice, veeerrrry nice.”
“It is nice,” I said. “The view is to die for.”
“Great. So what are your plans?”
“Oh, nothing. Just … uh … getting settled.”
“You up for a cup of coffee, maybe something to eat? Or you want to relax at your swanky hotel first?”
“I’d love to get something to eat. And some coffee.”
“All right, how about the Buena Vista? Best coffee in town. It’s dead easy for you to get there from the hotel.”
“Sounds lovely. Is it a famous coffee shop?”
He chuckled. “Oh, boy. This is gonna be fun. You’re not in Kansas anymore, sweetheart. You’ll find out when you get here.”
“Real funny, Toto. Just give me directions and I’ll meet you, okay?”
“The full San Francisco experience. Cable car. It’s the fastest way. Your stop is about a three-minute walk from the hotel. Walk down California to Powell and take the Powell and Hyde line to Beach Street. You get off at the
