Sour Grapes Read online

  Sour Grapes

  ELIZA LENTZSKI

  Copyright © 2022 Eliza Lentzski

  All rights reserved.

  This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to events, locales, or real persons, living or dead, other than those in the public domain, is entirely coincidental.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, re-sold, or transmitted electronically or otherwise, without written permission from the author.

  ISBN: 9798833166796

  Imprint: Independently published

  works by Eliza Lentzski

  Don’t Call Me Hero Series

  Don’t Call Me Hero

  Damaged Goods

  Cold Blooded Lover

  One Little Secret

  Grave Mistake

  + + +

  Winter Jacket Series

  Winter Jacket

  Winter Jacket 2: New Beginnings

  Winter Jacket 3: Finding Home

  Winter Jacket 4: All In

  Hunter

  http://www.elizalentzski.com

  Other works by Eliza Lentzski

  Standalones

  Sour Grapes

  The Woman in 3B

  Sunscreen & Coconuts

  The Final Rose

  Bittersweet Homecoming

  Fragmented

  Apophis: Love Story for the End of the World

  Second Chances

  Date Night

  Love, Lust, & Other Mistakes

  Diary of a Human

  + + +

  Works as E.L. Blaisdell

  Drained: The Lucid (with Nica Curt)

  CONTENTS

  Chapter One

  1

  Chapter Two

  15

  Chapter Three

  29

  Chapter Four

  37

  Chapter Five

  47

  Chapter Six

  56

  Chapter Seven

  70

  Chapter Eight

  79

  Chapter Nine

  90

  Chapter Ten

  97

  Chapter Eleven

  108

  Chapter Twelve

  122

  Chapter Thirteen

  141

  Chapter Fourteen

  155

  Chapter Fifteen

  172

  Chapter Sixteen

  180

  Chapter Seventeen

  188

  Chapter Eighteen

  202

  Chapter Nineteen

  214

  Chapter Twenty

  224

  Chapter Twenty-One

  232

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  242

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  247

  260

  Dedication

  To C

  Chapter one

  My in-car navigation system and the directions on my phone’s map application didn’t match. My phone told me to continue driving straight while my car’s navigation system said I needed to turn around. I’d never possessed a talent for navigating from Point A to Point B, and reliance on technology had only made my sense of direction worse. Alex used to say that I couldn’t find my way out of a paper bag. It was one of the things we’d routinely fight over after I’d managed to get us famously lost even with the use of a smart phone.

  I slowed down and peered beyond the lazy back and forth of my car’s wipers at the stretch of indistinguishable county highway before me. I touched my forehead against my steering wheel and sighed in defeat; I was lost. This, combined with the fact that it was a rare rainy day in Napa County, seemed to signal that maybe I was making the wrong decision.

  I pulled over at the next gas station along the empty rural roadway. At first glance, the business looked abandoned—the name on the sign was a person’s instead of a corporation, and the gas pumps had no option for credit card transactions—but the gas prices affixed to the analog sign reflected current rates. I heard the distinct sound of a bell as my car wheels rolled over a black hose stretched across the rain-soaked concrete.

  I intended on going inside the small shop, but before I could even unfasten my seatbelt, a figure in a yellow rain jacket, its bright hood covering the person’s head, hustled outside and approached the driver’s side door. I rolled down the automatic window and kept my car running.

  The gas station attendant, an older man with a tan as deep as his well-earned wrinkles, leaned his head toward my open window. “Fill it up?” he questioned.

  “Sorry, no,” I apologized. “It’s electric. I’m just looking for directions.”

  The man leaned back and sucked on his teeth. “A winery,” he guessed.

  I felt simultaneously ashamed of my electric vehicle and of my destination.

  “Your high-tech car doesn’t have navigation?” he posed.

  “It does. And I’ve got a phone,” I said. “But they can’t agree on where I’m supposed to go.”

  The man grinned, slow and wide. “The robots are fighting. Or maybe they’re working together to drive you off a cliff.”

  His teasing caused me to bristle. It pained me to ask for help in the first place without being the target of ridicule. “I’m sorry to have bothered you,” I said tightly. “I’ll figure it out myself.”

  The man held up a finger. “Hold on, sweetie. Just a second.”

  He turned on his heels and trotted back towards his store. He threw open the glass-pane door and disappeared inside. My car continued to idle while I stared out my still-open window. Errant raindrops splashed on the window sill and ricocheted in my direction. I wanted to close the window while I waited for the man’s return, but it seemed like an obnoxious move; he was the one in the rain, not me.

  The door of the gas station shop opened again and the man in the yellow rain jacket reappeared. He shuffled back to my car, still smiling despite the persistent rain.

  “What you need is a time machine,” he announced. He sounded proud of himself.

  “Time machine?”

  He tapped a thick stack of multi-colored paper against the open window sill. “This, my dear, is called a map. Back in the Dark Ages, this is how people traveled.”

  I stifled the urge to roll my eyes. Despite my desire to drive away, maybe splashing the gas station attendant in the process, I needed this man’s help.

  He unfolded the accordion-style paper map to a close-up of Napa County and spread it across the window sill. “Where are you trying to go?” he asked.

  I had to consult my navigation app. I hadn’t yet memorized the address. “Lark Estates. It’s supposed to be just off the Silverado Trail.”

  The man peered at the details on his paper map. “Bachelorette party?”

  “Pardon?”

  “The vineyard,” he noted, “are you going to a bachelorette party or something? Seems to be all the rage these days.”

  “Oh,” I said, catching on. “No. No bachelorette party. I, uh, I just bought the place.”

  I internally winced. God. I sounded so pretentious with my electric car and my San Francisco parking decals, driving to the vineyard I had just bought.

  The man looked up from the map. I watched his eyes travel from my face to the back of my vehicle, which was packed high with luggage and whatever household items I didn’t think I could survive without. “Fancy.”

  I wanted to launch into the complicated history of how I—June St. Clare, a forty-year-old graphic designer from the Bay Area—had come into possession of a twenty acre micro-winery in Napa Valley. But it was a long story, and the man in the yellow jacke
t was still standing in the rain, which was progressively getting worse.

  I smiled mildly instead. “How about those directions?”

  The gas station hadn’t been very far from the property. A few more turns off of the county highway, and a handful of miles down narrow paved roads, led to the property that had only recently come into my possession. The purchase was so recent, the For Sale sign was still visible on CA-128. I put on my blinker even though there were no other vehicles on the road and turned onto the long driveway that served as the entrance to Lark Estates.

  I’d only been to the vineyard once. We’d been staying at a Napa bed and breakfast that had included a complimentary tour and tasting at the micro-winery. I’d never heard the term before that day, but it was exactly what you might expect; the property only produced about 10,000 cases of wine each year. The big producers in the area spilled more wine in a year than what this vineyard created. But that was exactly why Alex had wanted it.

  I leaned forward in the driver’s seat to get a better view of my surroundings. A thick fog had settled across the road; without the morning sun, the cloud cover had gotten trapped in the valley. Gravel churned beneath my tires. I drove slowly, yet the treads still spit up small rocks that pinged off the bottom of my car.

  My eyes swept back and forth across the lean landscape as I continued down the long, vacant driveway. The grounds looked much different in April than in the idyllic late summer when Alex and I had made our first and only visit. I remembered tall, blooming, wild flowers and ample sunshine. But the sky was currently grey, and the native flowers hadn’t yet bloomed. The valley was immersed in a thick fog, and instead of lush, green vines crowded with tight bundles of grapes, the vineyard was barren of all life.

  A few hundred yards into the property was a large barn that doubled as a tasting room as well as the production site for the wine itself: crusher destemming machines, a juice press, and giant steel fermentation tanks. Like many of the smaller wine producers in the area, access to the tasting room was by appointment only. The parking lot adjacent to the barn was empty. On a drizzly, overcast Tuesday in April, no one had apparently scheduled a visit to the winery.

  I didn’t stop at the barn. I continued to slowly drive down the bumpy gravel road and beyond more acreage of hibernating grape vines. The dormant vines were neatly spaced from each other like rows of solemn soldiers awaiting their orders. I’d never been this deep on the property before. The public tour had brought us into the corrugated metal barn that served as the public-facing space and production room, and we’d also been taken into the subterranean cellar where hundreds, if not thousands, of French oak barrels sat, each at their own stage in the wine-aging process.

  At the edge of the property sat a white farmhouse. The previous owners hadn’t lived on the vineyard, and the dilapidated structure was evidence of that fact. Alex had been excited about the prospect of us fixing up the farmhouse together. I didn’t know the first thing about home improvement apart from the HGTV shows I watched. I’d always lived in apartment complexes and condos. When something broke, I called the property manager. I didn’t even know how to operate a lawnmower.

  Alex hadn’t let my lack of homeowning experience dampen her excitement about the property though: “Don’t worry about it, babe,” she’d told me. “I’ll take care of everything.”

  I pulled to a stop and parked in front of the farmhouse, mildly aware that I’d have to arrange for an EV charger to be installed on the property, otherwise my electric car would be useless. I exited my vehicle and shut the driver’s side door behind me. I scanned the horizon for something—I didn’t know what—for some sign of life, maybe, for some indication that this was the right choice. But the landscape offered me nothing. No joy. No life. No sense that I’d inherited more than a strange forest of bald, miniature trees or perhaps rows and rows of old men, bent over their walking sticks.

  I opened the back hatch of my vehicle and began to unpack the back of my car. I expected a small moving truck to arrive later in the week with the rest of my belongings. If I’d been more organized, my things would have been waiting for me at the farmhouse. But Alex was the organized one, not me. If she had a spreadsheet for everything, I had post-it notes clinging precariously to various unstable surfaces.

  I grabbed a small table lamp and a piece of luggage and carried them to the front door. My best friend Lily had offered to help with the move, but I’d stubbornly refused the kindness. I didn’t know what I’d been trying to prove, or to whom, by insisting this was something I needed to do on my own, but now I was regretting not having the extra set of hands or at least a friendly, familiar face amongst these unfamiliar surroundings.

  I cried out in surprise, but not pain, when my foot landed on the first step of three that led to the farmhouse’s front porch. Instead of a solid foundation, my foot went straight through what turned out to be a rotten board. I stared down incredulously at my right leg, half of which had disappeared into the step. I didn’t linger for long, however, as I immediately considered all of the creepy crawly things that might be living under the front stoop. I wretched my foot free, miraculously unhurt.

  I was more careful ascending the final two steps; the boards were more generous than the first and thankfully didn’t fail me. I looked down to the first step and the new foot-shaped crater. A mental To Do list began to take shape in my mind: Fix the front stairs. Install an EV charger.

  I sighed, struggling beneath the weight of my luggage and my new reality. “What the hell have you done, Alex?”

  After unloading the boxes and luggage in the back my car, I went to bed early. It was only a two-hour drive with traffic from San Francisco to Calistoga, but I was fatigued from more than the rainy drive. I didn’t bother to unpack any of the moving boxes or my luggage; there would be plenty of time for that later. I’d had the foresight to pack a small bag with toiletries, along with pajamas and clean sheets so I hadn’t needed to rummage through every box to find what I needed for bed.

  I claimed the downstairs bedroom for myself. The upstairs had two additional bedroom-shaped rooms and a larger bathroom than the smaller three-piece bathroom on the ground floor, but I wasn’t ready to spread out and claim the entire house as mine. I’d never really lived someplace on my own. Alex and I had lived together nearly as soon as we’d started dating, close to twenty years ago. Before that I’d had roommates in college and before that I’d lived with my parents.

  Being alone in the San Francisco condo I’d once shared with Alex hadn’t felt too out of the ordinary. Alex often traveled for work, especially over the past few years as she tried to make as much money as possible for our ‘early retirement.’ Plus, I’d been surrounded by my belongings, which fostered familiarity. But now I was in a strange, empty home, on a property that I didn’t know, in a part of California that I’d rarely visited. It made me feel like an uprooted plant, ripped from the soil, with my raw and vulnerable roots left to dangle in the wind. The metaphor was appropriate, perhaps, considering my new location. I needed to find a soft place to land, somewhere to re-establish my life, a place where I could recover and eventually thrive.

  + + +

  I woke up the next morning feeling disoriented. I’d slept without dreaming with a little help from my new best friend melatonin. I hadn’t been able to fall asleep lately without the assist. I was looking forward to going into town for a strong cup of coffee and a preliminary grocery run, just to get the lay of the land, but a shower beckoned me before I could make that happen.

  The pipes in the walls of the downstairs bathroom made a disgruntled noise when I first turned on the shower. The old metal groaned and loudly clanged. After a worrisome lag, hot water shot out of the showerhead. The vacant farmhouse reminded me of a grumpy old man who’d been sitting in one position for too long and was now being asked to move. Everything in the house creaked and groaned and complained when I pushed a button or twisted a knob. The hot water stayed hot for the duration of my shower,
however, so I considered that a victory.

  After showering, I inspected my naked figure in the foggy mirror above the bathroom sink. I’d lost weight in recent months; without Alex to cook for, I hadn’t found the energy or inspiration to prepare a real meal. Cereal, salad in a bag, and the occasional sandwich had served as dinner as of late. But I hadn’t resorted to frozen TV dinners—yet.

  I twisted in the bathroom mirror and continued my appraisal of the woman who stared back at me. Despite having recently celebrated my fortieth birthday, my skin was still youthful with minimal lines or wrinkles. My breasts were full and firm, although not quite as perky as they’d been in my twenties. My stomach was flat with some definition, although my hips had definitely become more full since my college years.

  God, I reflected with a wistful sign, college felt like a lifetime ago. I’d secured a graphic designer position at a marketing agency in San Francisco straight out of college. I’d gradually worked my way up to Creative Director of the agency after a dozen dedicated years filled with late nights and truncated vacations. At the time I’d told myself the sacrifices would all be worth it. But then I’d given all of that up for Alex’s master plan.

  I frowned and made a face at the blue eyes staring back at me. The woman in my mirror’s reflection wasn’t quite a stranger, but she was different. Everything these days was different.