With her head against his soft sweater and hard chest and his flaccid penis tucked between her thighs, she tugged off the sweat-soaked ribbon and threw it to the floor.
She’d leave. As soon as her legs stopped shaking.
But she fell asleep and so did he and when her ringing phone woke her up in the middle of the night, she was confused about the warm body beneath hers. Then horrified. She stumbled off, away, snatched on her dress, then answered the call.
The only reason she answered it was because the caller was Mateo.
When she hung up, she could see Aish staring at her, still and wary, in the dim light of her phone. He was probably as shocked by her grin as she was.
“It’s time, Aish,” she said. And knew, gratefully, they’d soon be too busy to fixate on dead friends and stolen songs and not-quite sex that shouldn’t, couldn’t, wouldn’t happen again.
Relieved, she grinned wider. “Harvest has begun.”
September 22
Sleep was disregarded and laughed at during the next several days in the Monte del Vino Real. Those whose lives centered on the fields and fruit—the growers, vineyard workers, and winemakers—were joined by friends and family who made their living other ways. The former mandate from dictatorial Monte rulers that every man, woman, and child work in the fields one day per harvest had softened to a tradition; during the height of harvest, every villager chipped in, even if it was only to deliver cold water bottles and hot coffee to the tireless workers. Curious tourists learned quickly not to stop and gawk unless they wanted to spend the morning carrying grape bins.
Those few souls who tried to sleep found it almost impossible. Chatter and good-natured ribbing constantly floated in from the fields, trucks hauling fruit to the wineries rattled continuously by, and lights from the village square shone all night long as restaurant owners stayed open twenty-four hours to provide hearty, simple meals to anyone needing quick sustenance.
The superstar interns suddenly found that this lark they’d embarked on two weeks ago, an all-expense-paid trip to a pretty corner of Spain with front-row seats to a sordid celebrity romance, now mattered to them. The princess they’d doubted had gotten under their skin with her steadfast beliefs, grandiose ambitions, and refusal to play the game the way everyone thought she should play it. They’d abandoned all objectivity in their desire to help her. The training she’d given them made them feel fit to serve.
The twenty interns were split into two groups. Half were deployed to the fields in the middle of the night, when the flavor compounds of the grape were stable, to cut off grape bunches gently but quickly with razor-edged shears. Although they would never be as quick as the hyperexperienced vineyard workers, it still was a matter of pride how many bins they filled and how fast they raced them to the end of the rows to dump their bins into the truck that would deliver the grapes to Bodega Sofia.
The other half of the intern corps helped to weigh and process the grapes arriving on flatbed trucks at dawn. The cavernous processing side of the winery, so long dim and quiet, now roared with noise, its bay door letting in sunlight and eager bees as forklifts drove bins into the winery and carefully tipped the fruit into the sorter. Interns stood over the sorting table, their eyes growing dry and backs aching as they watched eagle-eyed for leaves, bunches that shattered, or grapes that had raisined in the heat wave. They removed this detritus before it could spoil the batch in the crusher-destemmer. This machine ejected the stems and lightly broke open the berries, releasing the juice so that it could start to mingle with the skin and seeds, giving the future wine color and tannins.
It was here, in the organized chaos of crush at her winery, where Sofia reigned, relying on Carmen Louisa to oversee the picking and delivery of harvest. As she tasted samples of the grapes and lightly pressed juice, she made her first decisions about the wines that would define her legacy: Would she ferment the juice, skin, and seeds in steel, wood, or concrete tanks? Did she jumpstart fermentation in the tanks with cultured yeast or did she rely on naturally occurring yeast from the grape skins? After fermentation, the two to fourteen days when the sugars transformed into alcohol, how much time did she give the juice on the skins and seeds, which provided color and tannins?
She discussed these questions and decisions with her interns and staff, sought their input or made sure they understood her reasoning. Or sometimes, in dirty overalls and a kerchief tying back her hair, she’d stand with them in the bay doors as they waited for the next load of grapes and chat, joke, or dance along to whatever music they were adding to the playlist that boomed through the winery. It was in the arms of a Chilean grower hopelessly trying to teach her the bachata that the woman told her they were listening to a Young Son song. Seconds later, Aish confirmed it when he came running from inside the winery, wide-eyed denial on his face. Sofia had smiled, nodded without saying anything, and let the song play on.
Now, the interns, those scamps, seemed to be playing Young Son every third or fourth song, caught up in the same #Aishia excitement as the rest of the world at the easing tensions between the couple.
The fates that had been lined up against her now seemed to be directing things her way. Her growers were storing the shade cloth for future years’ use and praising her for its performance. A well-known documentary filmmaker wanted to produce a
