Blush - Jamie Brenner Page 0,41

Dad?” Asher said.

“Over my dead body,” said Leonard.

“I think it’s fun that it’s mostly women,” Bridget said.

“Children, I’d like to relax over a nice meal. Enough with the shop talk,” Leonard said.

Leah finished her wine. It was excellent: rich, full-bodied, complex. Her father knew how to make exceptional wine. Her parents had been pioneers. They’d had a good run. They had started it, and now they would have to finish it. Why was she letting this bother her so much? Was it just empathy for her mother? Or had she believed, on some level, that there would be a time when someone—her father, her mother, maybe even Asher—realized that she belonged there?

If she had been waiting for that day, clearly she’d waited too long.

Twenty-one

Vivian pushed through the warm water, then turned over onto her back to see the stars. Make a wish, she thought, the magical thinking of her girlhood.

She had always loved night swimming and wondered now why she didn’t do it more often. Probably because her husband didn’t like swimming after dinner, and she had always adapted her habits to accommodate him.

But tonight, with their entire world turned upside down, a shift in their routine was a luxury she allowed herself. Even if that also meant risking nostalgia, something she found herself indulging in more and more lately.

Although there was no sense in looking back too much. What had her old book club notebook been doing mixed in with the photo albums? Had she mistakenly forgotten to put it away at some point? She couldn’t remember the last time she’d looked at it. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d thought about the club, though she did think about the young woman who’d encouraged her to start the group in the first place.

Enough. She didn’t want to think about that time. Not now. There was too much to worry about in the present.

Vivian moved her arms with disciplined strokes, pushing the water away from her body to propel her back and forth. She blinked, the view of the stars blurring from water splashed into her eyes. Oh, how she’d hated getting water in her eyes when she was little. She’d create a huge fuss and her mother got very frustrated.

As a girl, Vivian spent her summers at her family’s cottage in East Hampton. Aside from horseback riding, the biggest treat was an evening swim, when her parents entertained guests in the dining room or on the lawn and Vivian and her brother had the pool all to themselves with only their nanny watching over them.

The Freudenbergs were Jews, and as such were not welcome at the Maidstone Club or any of the other social institutions in town. Her mother, Lillian, determined to give her husband the social life a man of his stature deserved, made certain that their oceanfront mansion functioned like a club. The house, called Woodlawn, offered three formal meals a day, evening cocktails, tennis matches, swimming, and parties all season long. On the Fourth of July, Woodlawn even had its own fireworks show.

When Vivian and Leonard started the winery, she anticipated that her life would be very different from that of her parents. It was hard to imagine during those early years of fieldwork that she would ever have a moment of luxury again. She didn’t mind; the financial end of things and decision-making was her husband’s business, her husband’s family money. But out in the field, they were equals. Then even that changed. They were able to hire people to do the labor-intensive, day-to-day work. Leonard could focus on the big picture and management, business instead of farming. And, of course, they wanted to start a family.

When Asher was a few years old, she researched schools in the area and found her favorite was in Bridgehampton.

“You’re going to drive him back and forth an hour each way?” Leonard had said. She knew he thought it was crazy, but he also wasn’t going to give her a hard time about it any more than she gave him a hard time about his decisions in the vineyard. Their division of labor had been set.

She became a full-time mother, carpooling her two children, managing their field trips and doctor’s appointments and playdates, leaving the business to her husband. But by the early 1980s, Leonard needed her help. It seemed that a great winery was made not just in the field, but in the marketplace. They had proven they could produce great wines. They attracted customers to the