Blush - Jamie Brenner Page 0,101

even fully unpacked.”

“I have unpacked. That’s just my dad’s old wine journals in there. I’m not sure where to put them.” She bent down and lifted the books out of the bag. A beetle scuttled from the edges. “A stowaway,” she murmured, brushing out the bottom of the suitcase with her hand. She carried the notebooks to the window and opened them, looking for any other creatures who might have crawled between the pages. She pulled out the hardback of Mistral’s Daughter and shook that out just to be sure. An envelope wafted to the floor.

The handwritten address was to her mother. The seal was broken, the postmark international. Curious, she reached into it and pulled out the thin slip of paper.

Mon chère Vivian, it read.

Leah looked up to find Steven, but he’d left the room.

She tucked the letter back inside the pages of the book and stood up. Some intuition deep inside of her told her she needed privacy. With the book in her hands, she headed to the bathroom and locked herself inside.

Leah leaned against the vanity and pulled the letter out from the book.

Mon chère Vivian:

I cannot rest with our affaire inachevée. One afternoon of passion is not enough. It is, as you Americans would say, a tease. If you will not take my calls, at least respond via post. As I’ve said in my phone messages, I will meet you anywhere in the world. I hope you will consider this. If not, I’m afraid I will have to reconsider my considerable investment in the joint winery.

Yours, Henri

Henri? Who was Henri? Leah checked the front of the envelope; it was postmarked December 1985. It was international, from France. Who did they know from France?

Henri de Villard. The letter had been written by the baron?

She reread the letter with growing disbelief. What on earth was he saying? Had her mother had an affair? She envisioned the bully of a man she had just recently met and tried to comprehend how beautiful, vivacious young Vivian could possibly have found him attractive. Worse, how could she have betrayed her father?

The bathroom felt airless, and she fumbled with the doorknob. Somehow, the bedroom was unchanged even though her entire world was upended. Steven sat on the bed eating ice cream from a takeout container, watching a ball game. The minutes still clicked forward on the cable box. Her cup of tea was cooling on the nightstand where she had left it.

She stepped in front of the television and turned it off.

“Are you okay?” Steven said.

She handed him the letter, trembling with anger. As infuriating as her father could be sometimes—a lot of the time—she never doubted his devotion to her mother. He didn’t deserve this.

All summer, she’d viewed her mother as the victim of circumstance. Now it was clear that her father was the one with the most to lose: his vineyard, and also his pride. He couldn’t possibly know about the affair if he’d agreed to sell to the baron. Leonard would sooner go down with the proverbial ship.

Was there any possibility they were still involved? No, absolutely not. Her mother could be dramatic at times, but she wasn’t an actress. She was miserable about the sale, and miserable about who they were selling to. Her distress at the dinner table the other night had been genuine. And the night they’d talked in the kitchen after the book club. Leah could still imagine the tormented look on her face when she told Leah the news.

No. Regardless of what happened in the past, her mother did not want that man in her life now.

Leah started throwing clothes back in her suitcase.

“What are you doing?” Steven said, looking up from the piece of paper.

“I’m going to stop the sale of the winery.”

Part Four

Crush

Losing your innocence has very little to do with virginity, you know. Loss of innocence comes when you have to deal with the real world by yourself, when you learn that the first rule of life is kill or be killed.

—Shirley Conran, Lace

Forty-six

The book club from Sag Harbor arrived in the late morning as scheduled. What had not been scheduled, however, was Leah’s absence. Three days earlier, Vivian had awakened to a text from Leah reading: Sorry—had to run back to the city.

Vivian called her immediately, concerned, but all Leah said was something vague about the shop and Steven and needing to be more available—that she would try to make it out again soon. Vivian could hardly complain: Leah had