A Taste of Chardonnay Read online

  Chapter 11

  Sunday, June 15

  “And today’s attendance is seventy-two,” announced Father Ed.

  Chardonnay fidgeted in her pew, hyperaware of the eyes trained on her every move. She glanced sideways as discreetly as possible. And fifty of them are crowded around us. How could Meri and Savvy sit there so serenely?

  It was always this way the first Sunday they came home in the summer and on holidays. It unnerved Char sometimes. How on earth did the word get out? Being gawked at in the shops and on the streets just because she was the daughter of a famous—rather, infamous—vintner made her feel uneasy. Undeserving.

  But even with the stares, she’d always found solace at the little adobe church.

  Of the three, Char was the seeker. Meri was absorbed in her art, and Savvy had chosen the law as her guide to life. Yet they all found common ground in the observance of mass. Its tradition provided a comfortable structure that they were missing in their broken home. Char never had to coerce the others into going. Following months apart at their respective schools, it was a ritual that teased them back into something almost like a legitimate family unit.

  If not for the devout French au pair who’d first brought the girls here as toddlers, they’d never have discovered Saint Joan’s; no one else in their family was remotely spiritual. Cousin Patrick was serving time for dealing coke. Another cousin, Paul—though only thirty—had already spent his way through a fortune and now preyed on rich, married women. And Uncle Phil had an upcoming court date for tax evasion.

  As far as Char remembered, the only time Papa had ever gone to church was to attend his wife’s funeral. Neither he nor Maman had ever talked to the girls about God or religion or the concept of giving something back of their tremendous fortune.

  Then, as now, Papa was always either working, partying, or traveling. His absences were the norm. In fact, it was a novelty when he showed up for a weekday meal.

  But Char, unlike Papa, was home to stay. She couldn’t wait for the day when she could walk into mass without any fanfare whatsoever.

  Ryder sat with his family toward the right rear of the church. He tried to pay attention to the priest, but his eyes, like everybody else’s, kept wandering to the beauties up front and left.

  Bridget followed his line of sight. Leave it to her to never miss a trick.

  “Who are they?” she whispered loudly into Ryder’s ear.

  “Who?” Ryder feigned ignorance.

  “Those girls everyone’s looking at,” she hissed.

  Thankfully, Mom’s “shhh” lips put a lid on Bridget’s questions for the moment.

  During the sermon when there was a break from the rhythm of kneeling and standing, Ryder studied the St. Pierres from his rear pew. Only very recently, down in LA, had he ever known people who had what they called in the business “star power.” Like the rare actor, those three girls also possessed that indescribable “it” quality—whatever “it” was. Must be genetic. With no apparent effort, they exuded some magnetic, unself-conscious cool. What was it about them? The only answer was everything. From the way their long hair curved around their slim shoulders and how the simple lines of their clothes skimmed their bodies, to the identical tilt of their heads when they talked and the intoxicating scent of flowers that hung in the air around them. It would be easy to explain away as the smell of money. But lately, he’d brushed shoulders with enough women with similar trappings—absent the class—to recognize true chic when he was in its presence.

  “We look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen,” intoned the priest.

  Inexplicably, at that moment Chardonnay’s head swiveled and her eyes caught Ryder’s.

  His totally unprepared heart cartwheeled. Had she felt his eyes caressing her?

  Recognition flashed warmly on her face, curving her lips up a centimeter before she turned back around.

  The whole thing had taken two seconds, but to Ryder it eclipsed his whole morning.

  Over his sister’s head, his mom gave him a dark, warning look. Maternal overprotectiveness. It’d gotten more intense after Dad died. He supposed it had something to do with shouldering the entire weight of raising four kids all by herself. He and Bridget and the twins were pretty good at tolerating it. Fortunately, neither he nor his siblings were prone to troublemaking. That would’ve pushed Mom over the brink.

  When the last hymn closed, the way his mom herded her brood out of the building would’ve put a border collie to shame.

  “Jeez, Mom!” complained Bridget, twisting her neck backward as her mother planted a fingertip between her shoulder blades and nudged. “What’s the rush? I wanted to look at those girls some. Hey! One of them looks just like the girl in the picture with Ryder . . .”

  “Don’t stare, Bridget. Let’s give them their privacy. For heaven’s sake, this is mass, not a fashion show.”

  Ryder turned wistfully too, trying to come up with a good-enough reason to lag behind and talk to Char, but the St. Pierres were now surrounded by a knot of people. Besides, there was his family to consider. Ben and Brian had bolted out the double doors ahead of them, and his mother was ready to go. Opportunity lost.

  For a quarter of an hour, Char and her sisters were held up in the sanctuary, cornered by parishioners who wanted a word. Some were genuine friends, anxious to welcome them home. A few were brazen enough to introduce themselves for the first time. All were on their best behavior, and there was no good excuse not to be gracious.

  Finally, Father Eduardo, his tummy nicely disguised by his white robes, took Char’s elbow.

  “Excuse us, will you?” Miraculously parting the hangers-on, he guided her toward an interior door.

  Savvy peered over the heads of the throng that had swallowed her up, and Char wiggled her fingers good-bye.

  “Thank you,” Char whispered to Father Ed as they made their way down the familiar rubber-treaded steps leading to the church basement.

  “Welcome home,” he said. “And congratulations on your degree. Public policy, isn’t it?”

  Char smiled, pleased he’d remembered. She’d be willing to bet that Papa didn’t know what subject she’d majored in. “Mm-hm. How are donations these days?”

  “Up, I’m happy to say. Spring cleaning, you know. We must have a dozen trash bags full of clothing that needs sorted.”

  They’d come to a room lined with shelves full of odds and ends: a toaster, lamps, some mismatched dishes. The floor was stacked with plastic storage bins, their lids marked with sizes.

  “Our usual deal? I help sort, in exchange for a few bins for my friends?”

  Father nodded. “Fine by me. I took a cursory glance—mostly outgrown school clothes, still in good shape.”

  Char opened a bag and pulled out a wrinkled, child-sized shirt, then dropped it back in.

  “I think I’ll go ahead and sort these now. I told Meri and Savvy I might stay after to do donations. We drove separately.”

  “Suit yourself. The sooner they get sorted, the sooner they’ll be available for distribution.”

  While her sisters drove home, Char dove into the bags, distributing the items into the appropriate bins. For the hundredth time, she thought back to freshman winter break, when she’d gone home with a friend whose parents taught her the meaning of the term “noblesse oblige.”

  Like Char’s family, Candy Golberg’s parents were well off. They had the big glass and steel contemporary in Chicago, the sprawling A-frame in Vail they called the cabin, and the “cottage”—the gingerbread Victorian on the shore of Lake Michigan. But unlike Maman and Papa, the Golbergs made it their policy to give back. Dr. Golberg spent every January in Honduras operating on children’s cleft palates, free of charge. Char had seen pictures; it was no picnic. He lived in a tent, paid his own airfare, and came back covered with mosquito bites.

  Mrs. Golberg sat on several boards and ran the daycare at the Y in one of Chicago’s poorer neighborhoods, donating back
her small salary. Every Christmas she hauled her kids to the soup kitchen to serve up meals. They were used to it, even made an event of it, laughing and talking with the regular “customers.” And if the Golbergs happened to have company for the holidays, guess what? They went, too.

  Mrs. Golberg said, “I always told my kids: What you do with your money tells as much about you as how you earned it—if not more.”

  Candy was no slouch back at Hollyhurst Academy, either. On their free days, when they had no schoolwork between breakfast and evening vespers, she volunteered at a local nursing home. Char even went with her a couple of times.

  Char never forgot that. From then on, she made it her mission to help out whenever and wherever she could.

  Helping others—in any capacity—never failed to warm her heart. But when she started focusing in on migrant kids, she knew she’d found her true passion. Those kids couldn’t help where they were born or that their parents didn’t speak English. Here were people who put her own problems into perspective. This wasn’t just random charity. This was her raison d’être. Her life’s work.

  Happiness spread through her as she anticipated the looks on the children’s faces when she distributed the clean, good quality clothes, over on El Valle Avenue. It always took a few weeks until people caught on to the fact that she was there on summer Wednesdays. That’s why it was so important that she establish a permanent, year-round identity.

  She was dying to get inside that building, to check on the layout. She’d been making notes of her questions as they came to mind, and now they filled up several pages. Only three more days till her next appointment with Bill Diamond.

  Chapter 12

  Monday, June 16

  “Remember, no canvassing until Saturday! The rules only allow a two-week period to collect donations.”

  “I remember,” called Char.

  Following her meeting at the McDaniel Foundation, Char closed Nicole Simon’s office door behind her, juggling her heavy cardboard box full of challenge paraphernalia.

  Yay! The long-awaited event was finally here.

  Her first official task was to find donors of auction items for the gala, and in her head, she was already listing prospects—even if she couldn’t actually contact anyone yet.

  Her mind was racing with the restaurants she’d ask to donate dinner certificates, spas that might contribute treatments, and wineries that could offer free tours.

  She knew of several farm markets that could be persuaded to provide baskets of produce, and she visualized how colorful they’d look, wrapped up in ribbons on the auction tables at the culminating gala. Attractive donations like that would be sure to draw bids.

  But timing was key. She had to get to the big donors first or risk losing out to the other competitors. She could hardly wait to rush home and prioritize her list of contacts.

  She crossed the reception area and was in the midst of squeezing herself, her handbag, and the cardboard carton through the exterior door, when deep within her bag her phone rang.

  With difficulty, Char freed up one hand and dug for it.

  Its display said “County of Napa.” Commissioner Jones. She’d been waiting for this.

  But as she raised her cell to her ear, the box slipped through her arms, sending papers, jerseys, brochures, and pens tumbling down the concrete steps.

  Worse, trying to salvage one particularly thick file that was about to spill, Char dropped her phone. The sickening clatter as it bounced down the steps made her wince as she foresaw the hassle of getting a new one. There went the whole afternoon. If she hadn’t been in such a god-awful hurry . . .

  To make matters worse, who should be strolling across the street but Ryder McBride.

  “Let me help.” He jogged toward her, retrieving some papers off the sidewalk.

  Char scooped her phone from the ground. The screen was blank. She hit some buttons. Nada.

  Ryder eyed her with concern.

  “Is it okay?”

  “The screen’s blank.”

  He reached for it. She hesitated, then handed it over. While he busied himself over it, she lowered herself to the ground to scoop up the rest of her papers.

  But a frisson of suspicion settled on her. Because nothing was simple when it came to Ryder McBride.

  “What brings you downtown?” she asked.

  Ryder’s attention was still focused on her phone.

  Char peered up at him from where her hands and knees were planted on the rough pavement. A strolling couple stepped out of their way to avoid her, then tittered over her awkward position.

  “Same thing that brought you here, by the looks of things,” he replied, still absorbed.

  Her skepticism mounted.

  “I’m here to pick up my stuff for the Napa Charity Challenge. Where are you going?” she said, her wariness unavoidably creeping into her voice. The McDaniel offices were on a commercial street, next to some other small businesses. He could be headed to any one of them. All the same, a bud of dread unfurled in the pit of her stomach.

  Ryder smiled then and gestured with her phone toward the door she’d just come out of.

  “Like I said, same thing.”

  A gust of wind sent a brochure fluttering down the street, and he lunged for it.

  Char’s mind spun as she began to piece together the puzzle.

  He’d been interested in Nicole Simon last Friday night at the party.

  He knew a lot about local government statistics and underserved members of society.

  And—uh-oh—only serious runners did junk runs.

  Please, god, no. The bud of dread sprouted a leaf.

  But Ryder couldn’t possibly be participating in the challenge. He was nothing but an actor. A self-serving, publicity-seeking actor. They were all the same.

  Through the doorway of the foundation, out stepped Nicole Simon, brow furrowed.

  “Chardonnay! I saw you drop your box from out my window! Are you all right?

  Greaaaaaaat. Pasting on a smile, Char scrambled to her feet.

  “I’m fine,” she said breezily, brushing dirt off her knees. “I’ve got it under control.”

  “Is your phone broken?” Dr. Simon asked.

  “Nope, it’s fixed,” said Ryder, handing it back.

  Char squinted in the bright sunlight. Her familiar screen saver blinked on.

  “Thanks,” she said, surprised by both his kindness and his knack for technology.

  In the awkward moment that followed, as she checked to see if the commissioner had left a message, Dr. Simon cleared her throat, and Char looked up.

  The professor had a youthful twinkle in her eye.

  So that’s why she’d come to the doorway. She’d seen Ryder from her window, and she was waiting for an introduction.

  “Dr. Simon, I’d like you to meet Ryder McBride. Ryder, Dr. Nicole Simon, chair of the McDaniel Foundation.”

  The doctor extended her hand and smiled like she was sixteen again and Ryder had just showed up in a convertible to take her to the prom.

  Ryder took her hand in both of his.

  “I’ve been looking forward to meeting you for years.”

  Huh? Only seconds after he’d impressed her with his tech skills, he was showing his true Hollywood stripes again, sucking up to Nicole Simon?

  Char looked from one to the other and back again.

  “Oh?” Dr. Simon all but swooned, right there on the stairs. “Now, how could that possibly be?”

  “I was once registered to take your class at San Jose State—before I had to take a leave of absence,” said Ryder.

  “You don’t say!” Dr. Simon’s hand fluttered to her breast. “You were a student at San Jose?”

  Ryder grinned and lowered his eyes modestly. “It was three years ago, before I started acting. You were the most popular professor on campus, and your course in economy and sociology had finally opened up.”

  Then, before she could reply, he changed the subject.

 
“I was just on my way in to see you, to pick up my materials for the challenge.”

  “Pardon me?” Dr. Simon looked confused.

  And all at once, her whole face lit up.

  “Why, you must be R. McBride! President of the Firefighters’ Relief Fund! Of course! You’ll forgive me for not making the connection earlier. I noticed you just the other night at Chardonnay’s affair and had so hoped to make your acquaintance, but there were so many people bothering you already, and I didn’t want to be too forward . . .”

  Graciously, Ryder extended his arm toward the door to indicate that Dr. Simon should precede him inside, and then he followed.

  “Well, this is very exciting! The Ryder McBride, a participant in the challenge . . .”

  Their voices trailed away as the two disappeared back inside the office.

  Caught up in their mutual admiration, they had left Char standing alone on the sidewalk, evidently forgotten.

  The nerve of Ryder McBride!

  The man was a walking, talking roller-coaster ride. She’d been wary at their introduction. Inflamed by his kiss. Indignant at the photograph. Giggly at seeing him on the run . . . even disappointed that he hadn’t kissed her again. And now, again, she was so furious she could spit.

  She didn’t know what to react to first—or rather, next: that Ryder had just upstaged her with the very woman she wanted as her advisor, or the fact that he was about to become her biggest competitor in the first public endeavor of her professional life.

  How was it that a man she’d first set eyes on only three days ago could be turning her world upside down?

  Char used a knee to boost up the heavy box again, lugged everything to her car, and called back Commissioner Jones. Who confirmed the stats Ryder had tossed off Friday night. Apparently, Ryder really knew his stuff.

  Char pulled out of her parking spot. She had a lot to think about.

  She headed north toward home, not seeing the vine-covered ridges and pale yellow mustard plants combing the valley on both sides of the two-lane highway.

  How did Ryder McBride know so much about orphans? Why would an actor give two hoots about demographics?