Blush - Jamie Brenner Page 0,110

night. Quiet. I thought maybe you knew.”

As if she ever had a clue what was going on in that head of his. Her brother was only marginally less frustrating than her father.

“Sorry. Can’t help you there. I actually wanted to talk about social media.”

“You watched the video? This is the bathing suit,” Bridget said, tugging on the string of her top.

“I did watch the video. And I was thinking we could really use your help amplifying Hollander Estates on Instagram.”

Bridget’s face lit up. “I thought you guys would never ask! There’s so much more you could be doing.”

Of course there was. That seemed to be the overriding theme around there.

Leah’s idea for Instagram was to share not just photos of the wine but the story of life on a vineyard. Experiencing the seasons at the winery made every change sharper, more profound. It was a way of life she missed. It was a life she never stopped wanting to return to—not even when she moved on to her Manhattan world.

“Can we start taking some photos today?” Leah said.

“Absolutely! But you know, we should game-plan. Come up with a calendar of posts. I know my account probably looks spontaneous and random, but everything is planned out in advance.”

Leah nodded, kicking herself for not having this conversation sooner. There was still some time to capture the summer, the plants bursting with fruit.

“You know what? We should get Vivian, too. Two generations of Hollander women on the family vineyard. Hashtag WomenInWine.”

It was a good idea. But Leah hadn’t seen her mother all morning. Where was she?

* * *

Vivian stared out the back seat window of the Escalade while her driver steered through the busy Manhattan streets.

“Please just let me out here,” she said impatiently. What with all the double-parked delivery trucks, bike lanes, and traffic, she could get to the apartment building faster by walking.

Since the moment Leonard told her they were in financial trouble, she’d tried to come to terms with losing it all. She could never fully accept it. Now, thanks to Leah, she might not have to. But she didn’t want Leah to lose what was most important to her in the process.

The sidewalk, mercifully, was not crowded. The last time she’d visited the city she’d barely been able to walk from Fifty-Third Street to Fifty-Ninth because of the hordes of pedestrians. But Yorkville was, if not a sleepy neighborhood, at the very least highly livable. She could see why Leah had chosen it as the place to make a home for herself and her family.

Vivian’s childhood memories of Manhattan centered around visits to the Met. Ice skating in Central Park. Shopping with her mother on Fifth Avenue. She had loved the city, had assumed she would spend her entire life there. And then she married Leonard and never looked back.

Marriage was about compromise. Sacrifice. But not, she was finally realizing, only on the part of the wife. She might have failed as a partner in the winery, but she was not going to fail as a mother to her daughter. In her heart, she knew Steven loved Leah. The rest was just details. Steven just needed a little guidance seeing the details more clearly.

The building’s doorman waved her along. Steven was expecting her; she’d called an hour earlier with the improbable story that she was going to “be in the neighborhood” and wanted to stop by.

“Vivian,” he’d said. “Why don’t you save yourself a trip and just say whatever you want to say on the phone.”

“I’ll see you soon.”

He opened the door, and she shrugged off her light cashmere wrap and set her handbag down on the chair beside her. The room was small but filled with southern light. Whenever she visited Leah she had to adjust to the confining space. It was an average-size Manhattan apartment, but it felt like a closet to her. She’d been spoiled growing up in her family’s sprawling Park Avenue home.

Steven put the coffee on—a traditional brewer, not automatic pods—and they sat at the scuffed dining room table. She could envision Sadie as a small child, coloring on the oversize drawing pads Vivian bought for her at State News on Eighty-Sixth Street. Leonard never joined her on her trips to the city. He didn’t like Manhattan, and part of it was passive-aggressive punishment because Leah only visited them once or twice a year. Men could be so good at withholding. Steven was a prime example at the moment.

“You take your coffee black, right?”