this bitter, humorless wench I see before me?” She holds up her glass. I know she’s been super excited to finish weaning and start drinking. She’s one of our best customers now. “Can I at least tempt you with some yummy, yummy wine?”
I bark out a small, humorless laugh. “If Aunt Fernanda heard you describe her precious nectar as ‘yummy’, she’d give you the evil eye. Then again, she’s never speaking to any of us again, so big deal.”
“I know that bad things happened with…” Her voice trails off. We’ve agreed to avoid all mention of the man I am technically still married to. “But you’ve got a lot to be happy about. Your sales are climbing every single week, right?”
“Sales are excellent. Your marketing company is worth its weight in platinum.” My words march from my mouth in a dull monotone. I am such a drag right now. I don’t even want to hang out with me.
“So, is that a no on the wine?” She waves her wine glass in front of me enticingly, then sets it down and nudges it in my direction.
Amelia has fallen asleep in my lap. She’s letting out tiny, adorable snores.
“I feel like my mood would just ruin the taste.” I push the glass towards her. “I don’t know whether I should keep looking into this Ferguson thing or not, Pamela. Carrie’s the one who put the bug up my butt about it, and of course she’s hardly rational about the subject. The only thing that keeps my mind off of Mr. Lying Liar-faced Lie-hole and my missing maternal unit is working every waking moment. Out in the vineyard or in the office. And the work is paying off and things are really turning around for us, so maybe I’d just be wasting my time.”
My phone, which is stuffed in my purse, bleeps with a text message sound. I ignore it.
“All I can tell you is that I’ve looked over the contract, and it’s well written and also air-tight. They can’t back out for any reason unless you violate the conditions that you agreed to. And they did put up two million to hold onto the property, so that’s a sign of good faith on their part. If they don’t sign on the dotted line on September 8, they lose the retainer. I’ve done some searching, and I didn’t find any more information about their company than you did, but then again, I just checked what was easily accessible on the internet.” She shrugs. “If you want to do more research, let me know. I have an investigator who can dig deeper, but I’d have to give him a retainer.”
My phone bleeps again. “Are you going to get that?” Pamela asks.
“Nah. It’s probably just bad news, which I do not want more of. Did I just end a sentence with a preposition? Do you see how far I’ve fallen?”
“These are dark times indeed.” Pamela takes a sip of her wine. “You really should have a glass. It’s impossible to be in a bad mood when you’re drinking Ribaldi wine.”
Outside the window, I spot Jamie walking around with a tour group. She’s still wearing her deely-bobbers. “She’s really committed to her crazy,” I say to Pamela listlessly. “You’ve got to admire that in a person. Commitment.”
“You’re killing me here, Gloomy-guts.” Pamela huffs an exasperated breath. “When the Fall-fest is over and the property sale goes through, I’m going to kidnap you for a girls’ weekend. I think you need a change of scenery. Don’t say no.”
I lift one shoulder in a half-hearted shrug. Maybe I’ll have recovered some of my mojo by then. “We’ll see. Thanks for the thought.”
My phone bleeps again. “Oh, for heaven’s sake, Sienna!” Pamela leaps to her feet and snatches it from my purse, and looks at it.
“Huh. Message from Sara. You know how you mentioned that your aunt would never speak to any of you guys again? Apparently you were wrong, but that isn’t necessarily good news. You should go over to your uncle’s house right now. You should probably run.” She snatches her daughter from my lap. Amelia wakes up and lets out a wail of protest.
“Dang it!” I bolt out the door, not even bothering to ask her what she means. Could we have one disaster-free week around here? Just one?
I jog past the vineyards, over our fields, and onto the dairy farm’s property. I make it to Uncle Vito’s house in just a couple of minutes, panting