Playing for Julia (10 page)

I can barely concentrate on anything but
that woman in pirate boots all the way back to the Marina.  I’m sure my distraction is apparent to Mr. TV Station who continues to talk about boats and his job for a while.  When I barely reply, he finally stops talking and we both watch the lights of San Francisco grow closer and closer against the night sky.

Chapter Fifteen

Ali is floating on a cloud.  Never mind that it is a typical chilly San Francisco summer morning socked in with fog.  She is glowing—she could heat our little cottage by herself.  She never glowed with Drew, but now there is Tony and she looks happier than she has in a while.

“What did you think
of Ned?” She asks as she spreads butter on a slice of toasted cinnamon bread.

“Who’s Ned?”

“That guy next to you at dinner.  The one that works for the TV station.  He’s a friend of Tony’s from high school.”

“Oh
, him. I didn’t catch his name.  He seemed nice. Did you know he goes kayaking in the Sacramento delta?”

“Maybe you should go kayaking with him.” 
She smiles and wiggles her eyebrows at me.

Hmmm.  I wonder if last evening was a set-up.
Ali seems determined to find someone else for me.  Maybe I was supposed to meet Ned without it appearing to be a blind date.  He was alright, but…  Then I think of seeing Austen with that woman in pirate boots.  No, no, no. It’s all too much for me to sort out right now.

“Maybe.”  I gulp down the last of my coffee. “I have to get dressed.  Austen should be here in a few minutes.”

A half hour later we are heading north on Highway 101 over the Golden Gate Bridge, and he keeps on going past the Sausalito exit.

“What’s up with your roommate?  She actually was friendly this morning.”

“Oh, she met someone new. She’s all happy, happy now.  More like she used to be in Seattle.  She broke up with that lawyer she was dating for a while.  He turned out to be sort of strange, not what he seemed at first.  He was more involved with antiwar effort than with her.  It’s all just girl stuff.”

He chuckles.  Neither one of us has said a word about last night.  I still wonder who that black-haired woman in the pirate boots was, but I wouldn’t dare ask.   I don’t want to act like some jealous, possessive girlfriend even though that’s exactly how I feel.  Who is she?
Is he dating her? Is he taking her to bed? Does he have a harem of girlfriends?  Am I just one among many?  The weekend girlfriend?  I have to act normal—no jealousy showing.

“Where are we off to today?”

“Healdsburg.  Up in wine country.  Luke, the guy who owns that restaurant in Sausalito, has an uncle who owns a vineyard and winery near there.  That’s where we’re headed.”

I almost blurt out that we were drinking the uncle’s wine last night,
then catch myself.  I don’t want to draw attention to my being there with a group that didn’t look much like business and him being there with that black-haired woman with her pirate boots—it’s like two big silent elephants sitting between us that we both are ignoring.

“Wine tasting sounds like fun.”

“Not exactly wine tasting, but we can do that too.”

I decide to change the subject and tell him about the change at
Voices
and that a lot of the staff is already looking for work elsewhere.

“Are you thinking about getting another job?”

“No.  Eric stopped by and talked with me briefly.  He seemed to be interested in my background at
TV Weekly
.  I don’t know why, though.  As long as I will still be working for Dan everything should be okay.  If it’s not okay, well, I’ll make that decision when the time comes.”

“
Luke’s brother Tony is a good man to know.” Austen says. “He apparently knows everybody at every magazine, newspaper, big department store—every business in the Bay area that uses printing. Luke told me that Tony does that boat trip out from the city a couple of times of year.   Before he passed away his father did it regularly for his customer and potential customers.”  He grins. “I think you are in the latter category.”

Pop.  One of the elephants vanishes.  I thought of th
at boat trip and dinner as social with some business.  Austen looked at it as primarily a business dinner for a group of printing customers.  No wonder he didn’t stop by to say hi to me.   Hmmm…maybe I should have spent more time talking to more to people in the magazine business, making new business contacts, instead of talking with Mr. Ned TV Station about kayaking and canoeing.

The further north we go the more beautiful the countryside around us becomes.  Old
, dark green oak trees dot the rolling, golden hillsides.  More and more vineyards stretch out in bright green rows away from the Redwood Highway. It is warm like a real summer should be. I’m so glad I wore my new yellow sundress with spaghetti straps.  Austen turns off the highway onto a narrow two lane road that winds over the hills, then turns into a long drive leading uphill to Luke’s uncle’s winery.  The sign at the entrance to the drive reads: Free Wine Tasting.

The first thing I notice is the old stone building that seems to be half-dug into the hillside.  It looks ancient, like pictures I’ve seen of European wine cellars.  It must be where the wine casks are stored
while they are aging.  The house, nearby, is a modern ranch style home with a big picture window looking out toward the vineyard. The trees around it are massive old oaks that cast dark shadows beneath them.

Salvatore, the uncle, is expecting Austen.  He is in his
late 50s with a full head of steely gray hair and is as friendly and warm as Luke and Tony.

“Call me Sal,” he says as I am introduced.

It becomes apparent quickly that this is a business visit, not wine tasting.  Sal leads us on a tour of the facilities, quoting figures and facts about acreage and yields, then goes into more detail about the equipment.  Austen asks questions and more questions.  I am surprised at how much he knows about the wine business until I remember a book and pamphlets about wine making I saw on his bedside table. Finally we sit at a weathered wooden picnic table under the shade of an oak tree near the sprawling house and Sal opens some bottles of wine. We taste each of them.  It feels like sharing a few glasses of wine with an old friend on a lovely summer day.  I wish this could go on forever.

Austen wants to
take home a mixed case of the wines, and Sal insists that he accept the case as a gift and carries it to the Mustang.

“How do you like the car?”  Sal asks.

“It really hauls,” Austen answers as he opens the trunk.  Sal stows the wine inside. And they talk about cars for a few minutes.  Men and their machines, I think.  How they love them no matter what their age is.

“Well, send the information to my accountant,” Austen says as he hands Sal a business card.  “We’ll take a look at it.”  Then adds almost as an afterthought:  “It’s beautiful country up here.  And Julia probably likes the warm weather.”

I smile and nod my head.

As we head back toward the highway
Austen asks:  “What did you think of it?”

“
It is a beautiful area and it was interesting to hear what he said about wine making.  Are you thinking about going into the wine business?”

“No.  Luke told me his uncle was looking for an investor so I thought I’d come up here and check it out. 
John’s interested in it, too.  The wine business has good long term growth potential from what I’ve been reading, but his facilities need upgrading.  We’ll see what he has in mind.”

Austen the investor.  That’s unexpected.  I am definitely not going to ask him about his money—that would be rude
. But I don’t have to ask.

“Rock ‘n roll may not be forever, Julia.
I love it and I’m going to ride it as far and as long as I can, but back in Texas and Louisiana I saw a few of those old guitar players, scratching around for money to pay rent and buy groceries.  I don’t want that future, so my accountant and I have been looking around for investments.  I like the idea of being part owner of a winery, but I’ll have to see what kind of figures Sal comes up with. If it makes sense, I might do it.”

Lunch in Healdsburg stretches out to be a long, lazy afternoon of good food and good wine, followed by a slow stroll around the park-like square at the heart of this old Victorian
farm town.

The fog has rolled in by the time we get back to Sausalito, but after a day of warmth and sunshine it feels like a comforting white blanket
.

Austen orders pizza delivered from Luke’s restaurant and turns on the TV.  We watch
The Dating Game
for a few minutes, then he turns it off.

“A bunch of idiots.  I’d rather watch the boats on the Bay,” he says
as he walks over to the floor to ceiling window facing the Bay and Berkeley.  “I’ve seen some really big ships out there at night.  I don’t know if they are commercial oil tankers or the Navy.  There are a couple of Navy bases on the Bay. Maybe they are sneaking in and out in the darkness—that would be about right for this damned war.”

The doorbell rings.

“Ah, food,” he says as he strides to the front door.

Then, from where I am sitting on the brown leather couch, I hear a woman say: “Hi
, Austen.”  She has a breathy, almost little girl quality to her voice.

“Hi
, Mirabelle.  What do you want?”

“Can I come in?”  Her tone is very sweet.

Instantly I know who it is.  The black-haired mystery woman with pirate boots I saw him with last night.  Sparks of jealousy stream through me and I almost stop breathing as I listen to them talk.

“No.  I have company.”

“Oh.  That’s too bad.”  She sounds pouty.  “Well, maybe another time, Austen.”

“No, Mirabelle.  Don’t bother to come back.”

“Are you sure you don’t want me to come in?  It could be fun for the three of us.”

The three of us?  Pigs will
sprout wings and fly and I’ll walk back to the city in bare feet before I do that.

“
No.  Goodbye, Mirabelle.  Don’t come back.” Austen is clearly ticked off.  His voice is icy cold.

I hear the door close and
the lock click.

“Shit.” he snarls as he sits down on the
leather couch beside me. “That woman is one of those trophy hunters.  She attaches herself to one guy in a band so she can have bragging rights or something.  When another band comes into town, she moves on to one of them.  She’s got a reputation a mile long.”

“It sounded like she was after you.”

“Yeah, maybe.  She showed up at Luke’s last night.  God only knows how she found the place.  Somebody over at Tommy’s told her, I guess.  She was hanging out over there, but probably didn’t get any takers.”  He tilts my face up toward him.  “Are you worried about that, Julia?  Jealous a little?”

“No.”  I lie.

“That’s too bad.  I’d like it better if you were jealous.”

“
Oh, in that case I’m screaming mad with jealousy.  Can’t you see my green eyes?  I want to tear out her black hair and throw her and her pirate boots off the Bridge.”  We both laugh.

I feel better now.  I guess there was no reason for my attack of jealousy.
At least I hope there was no reason.  I hope he is telling me the truth—that she just showed up at the restaurant, uninvited, that she wasn’t his date.  The other elephant has vanished.  It was all in my mind.

The doorbell rings again.  This time it is the pizza.

The thin film of dust that covered us after driving around all day in the convertible swirls down the drain.  The shower feels warm, heavenly. The English cucumber soap smells so clean and fresh. We don’t do sex in the shower—just little touches here and there.

In bed Austen wraps his arms around me and pulls me tight against his body. 
Skin against skin.   Oh god, how I want him. All it takes is to feel his naked body against mine.  I wrap my arms around him.  His skin feels so good, so smooth.

He pushes my hair away from my face and kisses my earlobe and then trails kisses down my neck. 
His tongue circles around one of my nipples and his hand squeezes the other and both of them grow harder.  I gasp.  I can feel it down between my legs, that aching feeling, that need for him to be inside me.  His hand runs down my body and slides between my legs.

“Oh
Julia, you feel so damned good.”

He b
egins caressing me down there, turning me on even more than I already am. My heart is already beating faster. My hips begin to move responding to his fingers circling, then thrusting inside me, moving in and out.  I wrap my fingers around his erection and squeeze gently and move my hand up and down, stroking it; it gets harder.  He kisses me tenderly.

“Want me now, babygirl?”
  His voice is thick.

“Yes
. Now, Austen. Now.”

He pushes my legs far apart and slides into me,
stretching me, filling me then he pauses. His face is above mine and he is smiling. Then he pulls out slightly, then pushes back in.  Then he does it again.

“Want more?”

“God yes, Austen.  You know I want more.  You know I want you.  Please, baby.”

He kisses me and our tongues swirl and dance with each other. 
I push my fingers into his soft black hair and hold his head as our kiss gets deeper, more intense.