to catch.
Until then, lots of hugs,
The Candiest Kane around.
I'd never flown business class before, and I had to say that I could get used to it. I'd always associated traveling as a cramped and stuffy affair that needed to be tolerated by all the people that were heading anywhere beyond their hometown.
Sure, I was still stuffed into a flying metal cylinder, but it was certainly a plus if I was given adequate leg room and a three-course meal on the overnight flight.
I had no idea where Aunt Moira had come up with the kind of money that it took to buy business class tickets, but if that had anything to do with her owning a vineyard in Romania, it could end up making things a little more palatable.
There were no strings attached, of course. I knew absolutely nothing about owning a vineyard. I had a feeling that the place likely had some caretakers that would not appreciate some random gringo chick showing up and telling them how to do their jobs.
At worst, I could just sell the place and head back to New York after a short vacation.
The flight out of JFK landed in Paris first, and after a short layover, there was another hop of a flight over to the Transylvania International Airport, in Târgu Mureș, a name of which I had no chance of pronouncing correctly.
It was interesting, I had to admit. I'd never felt relaxed and rested after a long flight. Maybe there was something to this whole 'traveling in style' thing after all.
There was a rental car already waiting for me at the airport—also a new feeling—and I climbed in, putting myself in the driver seat. The place was almost straight out of a medieval fantasy book, even with the airport behind me. There were rolling hills with forests over them, all merging together with small farms that seemed to smoothly connect with a small baroque looking city that was spreading out from the airport. But I left all that behind me and soon drove on a quiet road surrounded only by beech and oak trees. Giant things that looked as ancient as this landscape.
A quick picture was required. It had the interesting sort of thing that I could feel was going to need a photo if I was going to talk about it. Pictures really were worth a thousand words. In this case, I could probably make it spread out for two thousand words if I was really putting some effort into it. I pulled over quickly and snapped photos of enormous oaks from the car. Then I was off again.
The location of the farm was already put into the car's GPS. From the looks of things, there wasn't too much for me to learn about how to drive in Romania. And it didn't really matter, since the little silver Corolla hatchback was one of the only vehicles on the road, aside from a couple of tractors, and there was even a wagon hitched to a single brown nag. They were all staring at my car like I was somehow an invader, bringing a modern car and shattering the illusion that they wanted to keep up of simpler times. I jostled about in the car, the poor suspension straining on the bumpy roads.
Not quite the sort of place that I imagined my aunt settling in, but then, I knew so little about her. If she did live in a place like this, how the hell would I know?
I turned down a side road from the main road and followed that. No signs or even markings on the road. Just gorgeous lofty trees. I’d read a bit on the plane about the area to know some big predators lived here. Wolves. Bears. Lynx. Not the place for the car to breakdown.
The GPS beeped and told me that I had arrived at my destination, with a small wooden sign with 'Cloris Vineyard' carved into it to confirm just up ahead, and yet it wasn't quite what I expected. The fact that the air was fresh and refreshing was about the only good description that I could come up with, and I had spent a few years as a copywriter to make ends meet. I knew how to put a positive spin on shit. The only problem was that there needed to be some positives to spin.
I inched the car forward to where the trees thinned and before me an open land spread out.
The whole of Cloris Vineyard