Too Close to the Sun (14 page)

Will rattled off the latest on his telecom
and publishing deals, generating the usual aggressive backflow of
questions and comments. He finished with, "We've got a term sheet
with Internco, and I anticipate we'll be finalizing that deal by
the end of the month," which generated nods all around.

He took a deep breath.
Now for the hard
part
.

"With regard to our acquisition plans in Napa
Valley, the Winsted family of Suncrest Vineyards has passed on our
initial offer. However, as we've discussed here before, the winery
is in transition. The only heir, Max Winsted, who's twenty-five
years old, is just back from France to manage the operation. I
remain confident that in the short to medium term he'll find
running Suncrest sufficiently challenging that the situation will
play out in our favor."

He leaned back in his chair.
The End
,
he hoped, but it was not to be.

Directly across from him, fellow junior
partner Susan Amos Jones frowned. She was African-American, a
Rhodes Scholar, and married to a director of the biggest consulting
firm in town. "Are you looking only at Suncrest or are you
considering other opportunities in Napa?" she asked him. "Aren't
there more than two hundred fifty wineries there?"

"Suncrest offers a distinctive value
proposition, Susan." Will leaned forward and steepled his fingers.
"The brand is well known but underutilized. It's focused
exclusively on cabernet sauvignon and sauvignon blanc but could be
applied to a broader range of varietals targeting the same customer
base. In addition, the winery owns significant property in the
so-called Rutherford Bench, which produces superior cabernet
sauvignon grapes. It's extremely difficult to acquire vineyards in
that area, and this acreage has not been fully planted because the
owners have been content to run a smaller operation. And as I've
said before, I believe the family situation is such that given a
bit more time, the Winsteds will be primed to sell."

Omar El-Farouk piped up, from Will's right
hand. Stanford B-School, fabulous New York connections, national
amateur cycling trophy. He was the third young partner, meaning he
and Susan and Will were competing for the one senior position that
might open up over time. "You are looking at other options,
correct?"

Will turned cool eyes in his direction. "Of
course." Looking? Sure. Doing more than that? No. Feeling a bit
queasy about that strategy at the moment?

Yes.

At the head of the conference table, Simon
LaRue cleared his throat. "I believe there's fairly significant
time pressure here. I understand that both Diamond Capital and the
Richmond Group are going to try to buy Napa wineries to bundle them
into real-estate investment trusts and take them public. And I know
of more than one European winery investigating Napa
acquisitions."

Unfortunately for Will, LaRue was attuned to
valley gossip. He and his third wife owned several acres of prime
vineyard in Sonoma Valley, where LaRue played vintner in his spare
time. He fancied himself deeply plugged into California's wine
country, though Will suspected his most intimate connections were
with his fellow vintners' wives.

LaRue focused his hawklike eyes on Will.
"What's your timetable, Henley?"

Getting tighter by the second
. "We'll
have a deal by the end of September," he pronounced, though this
was the first time he'd given himself that deadline.

LaRue put a thoughtful expression on his
face, doing a nice imitation of the firm's absent graybeard, Hank
Faskewicz. "Late September may be fine," he intoned, as if it were
solely up to him and not the firm's entire senior partnership. "But
I'd rather we step up the pace. Once other firms recognize the Napa
opportunity, we'll be looking at auctions. And nobody makes money
when everybody chases the same deal."

Will nodded. Despite his discomfort at the
not-so-veiled pressure, he knew LaRue was right. He also knew LaRue
believed Will shouldn't be putting all his eggs in the Suncrest
basket.

The meeting ended shortly thereafter. Will
beat a hasty return to his office, feeling an urgent need to get an
enormous amount of work done. He found waiting for him eleven phone
messages, twenty-three e-mails, and one festive red gift bag with
white tissue paper poking from the top.

He smiled as he picked up the bag. He knew
who he wanted it to be from. He was almost reluctant to delve into
it for fear he might be disappointed.

He reached inside. First he encountered a
small parchment envelope, unmarked, which he set aside. On his next
foray his fingers closed around a box that just fit in the palm of
his hand. He pulled it out. It was white, with a small gold-and-red
sticker on it proclaiming the name of the St. Helena store where
the item had been purchased. His heart began to beat just a bit
faster.

Carefully he opened the box. Nestled within a
tissue-paper bed was a glass heart the color of the deepest
burgundy. It felt cool and weighty in his hand. He peered at it
closely, puzzled by its unorthodox design. For the heart was meant
to appear broken. The glass was split down the middle, almost but
not quite to the base, with each half sporting a beautifully
rendered jagged edge.

He frowned, slightly worried. Surely the
heart in question wasn't already broken?

He opened the parchment envelope and scanned
the note inside, written in a curlicue feminine hand:
Dinner
accepted, with pleasure and anticipation. From your favorite
bleeding heart ... Gabby

Ah. He chuckled. He understood. Will Henley
stood in his office on that workaday Monday afternoon, and for a
short, happy time Simon LaRue and tricky acquisitions and
impossible deadlines all seemed just a bit less important.

Max had just stashed his mother's bright red
convertible on the pebbled driveway behind the house when he spied
Gabby DeLuca in the employee parking lot a hundred yards away,
getting out of her Jeep and heading for the main winery building.
She strode at a rapid clip across the asphalt, from which he could
see the heat rise in shimmering waves. She wore khaki shorts and a
white U-necked tee shirt and a blue-and-white bandanna that held
her hair back from her forehead. He positioned his hand above his
eyes to shield them from the midday sun and just watched her.

She is a babe
, he concluded.
Look
at those legs
. Long, tanned, and thin, but with enough muscle
to prove she worked out. He let his eyes rove farther up her body,
and a smile he wasn't even aware of curved his lips.

Max could use a piece of that. It'd been a
while. And wasn't it ironic that the female who inspired his ardor
just so happened to be the person he most needed to see at that
very moment?

He called out her name and she spun to face
him. He approached her, helping to close the distance between them,
knowing he needed to exhibit supreme charm to accomplish both items
on his agenda.

He halted a few paces away from her, but
close enough to smell the Coppertone she used to protect that
pretty skin of hers from Napa's scalding summer sun. It was a
favorite of his, reminding him as it did of the bikinied girls of
his youth. He smiled at her, widely, invitingly. "How you doing,
Gabby?"

"Just fine, Max, how are you?"

"Never better." He smiled at her again. She
didn't exactly smile back but Max didn't mind having to work it.
"You know, you're just the woman I want to see."

"Really? Why's that?"

"A little something's come up I want to talk
to you about." He jerked his thumb back behind him. "Why don't we
talk up at the pool? I'll get us some lemonade."

She seemed surprised but then shrugged.
"Sure. Sounds good."

Max allowed her to lead them along the narrow
path back toward the house, which also allowed him to assess her
posterior from closer range. In his opinion, it bore up well under
this closer scrutiny. "I just dropped my mom off at SFO," he told
her.

She half turned as she kept walking. "You
drove all that way just to drop her off at the airport?"

"Oh, it's not that far." He tried to sound as
though to Thoughtful Son Max, it was nothing to go a bit out of his
way for Dear Old Mom. Actually it was a 150-mile roundtrip, but he
couldn't risk her having a last-minute change of heart. "She's
going to Paris for a few weeks." Even saying it made him grin. It'd
taken some expert maneuvering to get her to go, but he'd succeeded.
Clearly he was on an upswing.

Gabby laughed. "You Winsteds must love
France. One gets back and another one goes."

"Well, she's been doing so much around here
lately, she really deserves a break."
See how considerate I am?
Can you imagine just how nice I'd be to you?
"Don't you like
France, Gabby?"

"I do, but I'm more of an Italy person."

"Ah." He paused, then, "
La dolce vita per
la bella ragazza
."

She just laughed, but he felt sure his
compliment hit its mark.

They arrived at the house and he led her
around the side path to the interior yard, where the pool, lawn,
and pergola baked in the heat. Just beyond a low mesh fence,
vineyards stretched as far as the eye could see, hemmed in by
mountains faded to a dull purple by the sun's white-hot light. He
could almost smell the grapes ripening.

"I'll be right back," he said, and returned a
few minutes later to find Gabby relaxing on a white wicker rocking
chair in the pergola's cool shade. Her long naked legs were crossed
and her head was thrown back against the neck rest. She lifted it
when he handed her a tall glass of lemonade and raised his own in
toast. "
Salute!
"

They clinked glasses and then both downed a
good bit of the lemonade. He prided himself on having had the
presence of mind to bring out the whole pitcher. He refreshed her
glass. "You did an apprenticeship in Italy, right?"

"I did. You know what, Max?" She set down her
glass, ice cubes clinking. "I don't mean to be rude, but I've got
tons to do today. What was it you wanted to talk to me about?"

So she wasn't much for foreplay. Fine.
"Well," he started, "I've been talking to some marketing
consultants, very highly regarded folks, and we've come up with an
exciting plan for this year's sauvignon blanc."

"Great." She waited. "What is it?"

"You know those hot new French bottles?
Bordeaux style but twice the weight? Very in these days, the newest
thing. Sell like hotcakes."

She said nothing, just watched him. A little
frown appeared between her eyes.

Here goes nothing
, he told himself.
"We're going to use those bottles for the sauvignon blanc."

"Oh!" She paused. "You mean for next
year's."

That's what the consultants had suggested,
but no, that's not what he meant. Why wait? The time to move was
now. "No, I mean for this year's."

Silence. A bee buzzed nearby. Gabby leaned
forward so that her wicker rocking chair tipped frontways as far as
it would go. "For this year's? You're joking, right?"

He laughed. It sounded funny, oddly fake, in
the thick air. "I'm serious, Gabby. The rebottling will make some
extra work for you, sure, but it'll be so worth it. The sauvignon
blanc will jump off the shelves. We'll break sales—"

"Max." Her tone irked him. It sounded like
his mother's most of the time. "This doesn't make sense. The wine
was bottled back in March. The release date is ten days away. It's
warehoused. It's ready to go. The bottles are fine. If you want to
switch for next year, that's something to think about. But—"

"Gabby." It was not for
her
to tell
him
how the bottles were. "I understand your concern, I
understand it'll make more work for you to rebottle this vintage.
But this is a marketing decision and I don't think you are in any
position to make marketing decisions for this winery."

Apparently she didn't agree. "Have you
considered the implications? The potential damage, for example? A
million things can go wrong during rebottling and any one of them
could hurt the wine. Particularly a delicate white like a sauvignon
blanc."

He had to bite his tongue. Of course he'd
thought about that! Sure, he'd heard horror stories about
decanting, but like all horror stories, they were exaggerated,
overblown. And who was Gabby DeLuca to wonder—out loud—if Max
Winsted knew what he was doing?

But she kept going. "I just want to protect
the wine. That's priority number one. And we charge a lot for our
sauvignon blanc—it's very dangerous to risk a degradation in
quality. Especially when we don't have to."

Max started to get seriously irritated. He
slapped at a mosquito squatting on his forearm. Its corpse left a
bright red blotch of blood on his skin. "There is a very good
reason why I want to do this, Gabby, and I'm taking the time to
explain it to you. Which I certainly don't need to do."

"Have you considered how much this will cost?
And what are you gonna do with the old bottles? Just throw them
out?"

No
, he wanted to scream,
I'm going
to use them for the new rose Suncrest will be making next year!
But he didn't want to get into the topic of adding varietals with
this woman, who no doubt wouldn't cotton on to that idea,
either.

"I have to say, Max, I don't like this." She
stood up and set her hands on her hips. She sort of loomed over
him. He wasn't finding her all that attractive anymore. "If it gets
out that we rebottled, everyone will assume there's something wrong
with the wine." She paused, then, "And why wouldn't they? No winery
would decant unless it had to."

In other words, you're an idiot, Max
.
All of a sudden he stood up, too, and she backed away a step. If
she were a man, he might have punched her, for by now he was pretty
damn pissed off. Particularly because he realized he hadn't thought
about the PR implications of rebottling.