Do your freaking job, Rosie,she thought. It’s now or never with this guy. She had dealt with reluctant clients before. Usually she was on the other end of this transaction, trying to sell the wine she represented to a retailer or restaurateur, but in many ways it was a similar dynamic.
“Please, just hear me out. Two minutes of your time?”
Jérôme sighed, but nodded.
“My boss, Hugh Small of Small Fortune Wines, specializes in importing from small family wineries. We currently represent a very high-end champagne, but are in the market for more affordable wines to be served by the glass. We’d like to introduce Americans to smaller French wineries, to make champagne more of an everyday pleasure.”
He studied her for a moment. “That sounds like a practiced speech.”
She shrugged. “It’s my job, Monsieur Comtois.”
“Why?”
“Excuse me?”
“I wonder why you are in the wine business, why you are here, shivering in the cold, when everyone’s out of town.”
“Oh, I, uh...”
“You love champagne—is that it? Went into the business because it sounded like a romantic Hollywood film? Wine making is not romantic, madame. It is standing out in the cold, checking on plants, fighting frost and hail and bugs and wind. It is a cycle of never-ending neediness of the vines. The reason no one is in town now is because this is the only time in the entire year they can leave for a week or two. It isnotromantic.”
“I never thought it was. I went into this business because I needed a job,” she said. “My...” Her voice caught, and she stopped, afraid of breaking down in tears.My husband died and left me in terrible debt, and I needed a job. Everyone says it’s a dream job, I’m so very lucky, but I hate it. I hate my job.
Tears stung, but did not fall. Rosalyn had promised herself after Dash died that she would not be ashamed of crying. And she wasn’t—she cried in grocery stores, in her car, in public restrooms—but she despised how tears brought conversations to a halt, especially with men.
And crying was hardly professional behavior. If she couldn’t get a grip on her emotions, she really would have to find another way to make a living, and where would that leave her? Back to waiting tables? If she had to move back in with her mother, even temporarily, she would shrivel up and blow away on the dry wind.
Grief brain.She forced herself to focus on the situation at hand.
“I apologize, madame.” Comtois looked alarmed, and a muscle worked in his jaw. “I did not mean to upset you. My ex-wife tells me that sometimes I am brusque to the point of rudeness.”
“It’s not your fault, and I’m not upset.” Rosalyn cleared her throat and joined him in staring at the rows and rows of grapevines planted along the rolling hills. She knew that the vines nearest the forest would produce grapes with a unique flavor, just as those grown on the hillside would be distinct from those grown on the flats.Variation within a vineyard was especially pronounced in France, where vintners did not irrigate the vines. Instead, they believed the struggle of the roots searching through layers of chalk and limestone to find water improved the taste of the grapes and, eventually, of the wine.
“I mean, I obviouslyamupset, but not because of anything you’ve done or said.... I’m at something of a crossroads in my life, I guess you could say.”
The moment she blurted it out, Rosalyn cringed.
A moment of silence passed between them. She stared at his mud-covered boots, wondering why she felt so comfortable standing in the fields with this gruff farmer.
“Look, this is silly,” she said. “I reallywouldlike to try your champagne, and possibly rep your wine in the United States, but I also wanted to return your money, and to ask a favor.”
“Another favor?” Comtois said, and she could not tell if he was serious or teasing.
“Emma Kinsley is a friend of mine, and she would like very much to access your family’s collection. It’s a long story—and certainly a long shot—but she’s looking for some letters from World War One, and thought there might be something tucked away in your collection, in some corner of your caves....”
He nodded slowly. “She’s been in touch, but I told her I don’t think I have anything like what she’s searching for. My father collected artifacts, such as corks and winepresses. There are a few books from the World War One era in the library, but I haven’t seen any personal paperwork or correspondence.”
“Well, I said it was a long shot.”
A crinkle showed between his eyebrows when he frowned. “Emma Kinsley sent you here to ask me that?”
“I’m honestly in the area scouting for small champagneproducers. But she asked me to mention it if I saw you. You’re... a little hard to pin down.”
“You seem to catch me in the fields rather frequently.”
“I suppose most people aren’t out at five in the morning.”
He gave her a ghost of a smile, his tongue playing with his cheek.
