I used that second to survey the bar quickly. Under normal circumstances, I’d never dream of leaving the floor without a qualified somm in charge, but Charlotte was right. There was hardly anyone here, and she was one of my most experienced staff – and I’d only be ten steps away if she needed me.
So even though it went against my most hard-wired, professional instincts, there I was, coming around the bar and taking Fiona by the elbow. ‘I actually have something you can help me with. Come out to the office with me, finish your glass of wine, and give me a hand, all right?’
‘I, um—’
‘Charlotte, come and get me if you need me,’ I said over my shoulder, steering Fiona towards the back. Charlotte gave me a thumbs up in response.
Fiona scrubbed her wrist across her eyes as I closed my office door behind us. ‘So what is this thing I can allegedly help you with?’ she asked. ‘I don’t have many useful skills.’
‘Firstly, that’s nonsense, Ms Copywriter. Youknowhow often I plagiarise from you in my tasting notes. Secondly, if you can follow instructions, you can help me.’
I pulled my glasses down my nose so I could look at her over the top of them like a stern schoolmaster. ‘You can follow instructions, can’t you?’
That made her laugh, just a little. ‘Yes, Satoshi, I can follow instructions.’
My anxiety at leaving the floor started to recede, overshadowed by a different set of feelings. If I lingered too long on the idea of her following my instructions…
‘What do you need me to do?’ she asked.
‘I had a disaster of a blind tasting today.’She’s still half-crying, Satoshi, get your mind out of the gutter.‘Stunningly bad. Songs will be written about what an incredible failure it was. Forget becoming an MS, if this gets back to the powers that be, they’ll kick me out of the Court of Sommeliers entirely.’
She laughed again. My heart swelled so much it was almost painful.
‘So, I need someone to help me study old world white wines – which, coincidentally, is what you’re drinking, that arneis is from Piedmont in Italy. How would you feel about being my study buddy for the evening?’
‘I can do that.’ Fiona thumbed the last of her tears away. ‘What do I have to do?’
I took some blind tasting sleeves from the shelf. ‘Can you grab a tasting sheet from the second drawer of the desk? It’s laminated with six circles on it, with numbers underneath.’
She did. I lined up six wineglasses on it, aligning them precisely with the outlines, and set a spittoon beside them. ‘Now I’m going toturn my back. See those three cases of wine in the corner, next to the fridge?’
‘Yep.’
‘Choose six bottles from them – any six – and put them into these sleeves, so I can’t see what they are.’
I faced the wall. There was some rattling and rustling as she did what I’d asked her. ‘Done.’
I turned back around. ‘If you look in the same drawer as before, there’s a stack of deductive tasting grids. We need six.’
I started opening the wines she’d put in the sleeves, eyes cast up to the ceiling so I didn’t get any hints from the foils or the corks, while Fiona scrabbled around in my desk. ‘Okay,’ she said, ‘here we are – oh mygod, Satoshi.’
‘What?’
She gestured. ‘How can you do that so fast? Without looking?’
‘It’s just practise.’ I discarded the sixth cork and put my wine knife back in my pocket. ‘And maybe a dash of genetics. Strong fingers.’ I waggled them at her.
‘That must make you popular.’
It took me a moment to process what she’d said, by which time she’d covered her mouth with her hands. ‘Oh my god, I’m so sorry!’
She was so mortified I couldn’t help but laugh, despite the flood of extremely vivid images rushing through my brain. ‘Come on, Fiona,’ I said, starting to pour tasting measures from the open bottles into the glasses. ‘We’ve talked about sex before. You can’t scandalise me that easily.’
‘That doesn’t mean you want to be sexually harassed by a woman old enough to be your mother!’
‘You’re only eight years older than me. If you think you’re old enough to be my mother, there might be some significant gaps in your sex education.’
She buried her face in her hands and groaned.
