Blind Tasting, a short story
September 20, 2005

Blind Tasting
By
Alice Feiring

“May I please speak to Ms. Cardwell?” The girl’s southern somewhere accent, hovered in the higher registers, her cadence respectful, her attitude reverential. Henry signaled his love to the phone, whispering to her, “I have no idea who this is.”
“This is Lily Cardwell,” Lily said, sounding a bit clenched as she was half expecting bad news from out of the blue; her mother dead, her brother with cancer, something like that.
The girl introduced herself. The name, Jessica James was musical but unrecognizable. Being utterly efficient, Jessica wasted no time and explained that she was currently taking the Rainbow Room Wine Course, under David’s tutelage, (first name basis, assuming Lily knew who David was) but was looking for something deeper. She wanted to be Lily’s student. “While David’s course is good, I want to kick my education up a notch. You are the one to do it. I really admire you,” she said.
“For what?” Lily asked. Few people knew about her and if they did she was merely the lady who ran The Wine Master School. She might as well have been a ballet teacher for pre-schoolers.
And so, you could have knocked her out with a magnum of La Tache when Jessica James came back to the question, “Why do I admire you? I’ll tell you why. You’re a woman running the most respected wine school in the God-damned universe,” she gushed. “ Do you know what a super accomplishment this is? If this country only understood they would give you a television show. You’d be the Sister Wendy of wine.”
Ignoring the flattery, Lily continued. “Your work with me would be quite menial.”
“No problem,” Jessica said.
“You would open up all the wines before class to make sure they are in good order. Could you do that? Do you know the flaws?”
Jessica listed the top wine traumas; the moldy smell of a ‘corked wine,” the sheepy smell of brettanomyces, the sauerkraut smell of sulfur. She went into each with details, was stumped on whether or not ‘brett’ was a flaw, she gave both sides of the argument. “As long as the wine doesn’t smell and taste like you’re walking in a freshly manured field, as long as it is all in balance, it sounds good to me.” For sure, Lily thought, this girl was a Virgo with aspects of obsessive-compulsive disorder.
You know, Lily, may I call you Lily?” She didn’t wait for Lily to answer. “I find the flaws in wine so interesting” she said, “and to quote you, ‘I almost hate a thoroughly perfect wine. Learning the flaws of a wine, like looking for the flaws in an oriental carpet, is a bit of a game, and there’s so much to learn.’ ”
Lily nearly dropped the phone. “When did you hear me say that?”
Jessica heard it on a National Public Radio spot a few years ago and it stuck with her.
Even though there was a nag of suspicion, Lily was sold.” For all of the opened bottles, emptied spit bucket and washed glasses, you can attend all classes, taste all of the wines and take the qualifying exam for wine educators. Please remember to bring your own corkscrew.”
“Super,” the girl said. Lily noted that the word came up for the second time in the conversation.
“There’s no money. It’s work study.” Lily cautioned.
“Of course.” She said so sweetly, “I am so excited to be working at your side. It’s really been a dream of mine for a long time.”
“I’m curious,” said Lily, “Will you still be taking David’s course?”
“Oh yes, “ she said, “Is that a problem?”
“Not at all,” Lily said, knowing that she very much minded.
Lily was confused. Though she could see that Jessica James was not just some femme who wanting in to use the wine world as her personal ‘singles’ scene, there was something not quite right in Kansas. Getting off the phone Lily felt slightly queasy. Accolades made her feel guilty. Flattery made her suspicious. David’s name made her feel nauseas. Admittedly neurotic, it was just the way she was—sensitive, “A delicate flower,” her mother used to say.
Lily related the phone conversation to Henry. ”She’s taking the David course,” she said.
“Well, bully for her,” Henry said, eyes still fixed on his paper, he swirled an empty glass that had 10-year old Lapharoig in his hand.
“Why would she study with me when she’s with him? It makes no sense.” She asked. “It’s like buying wine –in- a- box in addition to a case of Chinon. It’s a combo that makes no sense.”
Every one has that special someone who sticks in their psyche like aphids on tomato plants, and David was Lily’s. David thought nothing of showing up to a lecture all doused in Aramis, or whatever that scent he wore was. Bordeaux loving Wall Street Investment bankers gave David three thousand bucks for his four-week class, given on the spinning dance floor of the Rainbow Room, (instead of the more thorough and economical one she taught in a storefront basement). David had been Lily’s student, a miserable one and there had been one unfortunate night that Lily really would rather have forgotten about.
David was at the beginning and in the end, a short blowhard of a man with a cigar and Aramais tainted palate. Lily’s dear Henry had explained it to her with a measure of acid, "Honey, you don't have the guy thing going on for you. That’s what these jerks on the ‘Street’ need, someone who can stick a fat cigar in his mouth, talk dirty and tell them wine comes in three weights, skim milk, full fat and cream.“
Henry watched as Lily progress from a woman on the rise to someone who started to hide inside of her school. He never really drew a connection to David. But he did know that he didn’t want Lily to crawl into a corner and shake. He thought, as he did when he met her, that she was like a John Singer Sargent woman, on the verge of exploding into magnificence. Of course the violet eyes caught him and held him tight when he first saw her, but what cemented the deal was her spunk. She had this ability to insult people with such charm, no one caught it. He encouraged her to take her hypersensitive palate and make it plurist. But something happened a year before they started to live together. She retreated into a teenage shyness.
“What’s the girl’s name?” He asked.
“Jessica James,” she said.
Henry’s expression eclipsed, struggling to remember. He asked her if she knew anything about this young woman like her age and what she looked like. She said no, and then asked the obvious nagging thought, “Do you know her?”
“Maybe. I can’t place her but she sounds familiar. Just watch your back,” he said.
Lily prodded but she could not nudge his memory. For some reason he just repeated that she should watch her back.
“Jesus honey, I’m a wine educator, not a movie star. I’m no Bette Davis and this young thing is no Eve Arden.”
“And I’m no George Saunders, but I have a nose for creeps.”
“What’s the danger here? That she takes my school away from me?”
“No sweetie, your thunder.”
“You know I have no thunder.”
“You have thunder, Lily. You have thunder and lightening inside of you. You have to believe in yourself.”
“ I have a school. I have no thunder.”
“Come on, Lil,” he tried to interrupt. When she entrenched herself in with this ‘I’m no good stuff,” he wearied.
“People say that once a lover starts to remind of a parent, the romance is over. And you’re definitely sounding like my mother. Can’t you do better than I should believe in myself? Empty words, ‘Lily, you’re a pretty girl, but you don’t do anything with yourself,’ she mimicked her mother’s nasal suburban voice. “ I’m officially depressed.” She fell into a moment of panicked silence. “I might not have thunder, but I have you. Is that what you mean? She wants my famous Henry?”
“Come on, Lil,” he said again. But again before he could continue she grabbed his empty glass and walked out of the room. She refreshed his drink and poured one for her. She sniffed its peaty smokiness and took a sip. Lily walked back into their living area and sat the full glass for him on the side table. She then sat in his lap. But he was deep into the Wine Spectator and didn’t even much notice her. She found this soothing. If he had ever been involved with this Jessica, she thought, he would be letting on in some way.
“Julio Gallo died in the weirdest way,” he said, “do you think he was knocked off?” Ah, Henry, her Henry. She was crazy about him. And she was still nervous that he was screwing around at times. Henry was five years younger--36. The fact that he had premature gray hair made it a little easier to feel safe. And she was likewise pleased that while still thin he was just a little less. His lifestyle of being wined and dined at the best and the new, with too many unbidden courses of foie gras being tossed his way, had just started to take its toll.
**
As advertised, Jessica James was nothing if not enthusiastic. She arrived with a cockeyed umbrella, dripping wet at 5:45, fifteen minutes early. The skies had pulled apart at the seams and rain fell like heavy ammunition. The girl had thin hair in drenched spaghetti-like strands and eyes as big as black grapes. She had a distinctive look of a high strung hound, a whippet complete with upturned nose. Lily laughed, hard, as she handed the girl a clutch of paper towels to dry herself off. “I’m sorry I’m laughing,” Lily said, “you look like a poor, shivering wet dog. How old are you? Are you old enough to drink?”
Blotting the drops from her cheeks and forehead Jessica said, “Of course, I’m really much older than you think.”
“Well, how old?”
Jessica finally answered, “Twenty-six.”
As Jessica dried off, Lily could see the girl more realistically. She thought, not a chance, the girl had to be at least thirty.
Through the next months, the girl showed up not just on time, but early. She dressed like a waif waitress with a plentiful supply of vintage black acetate crepe dresses. Baggy darts flapped around her flat chest. Waif or not, beneath the widows weeds was a totally perky, perky southern belle. She soaked up lessons like a human loofah, from varietal characteristics to cold fermentation techniques. During classes Jessica was fidgety. When she knew the answers and no one else did, she squirmed and twitched her mouth shut as if correct answers were going to fly out. But she stayed quiet and let the paying students raise their hands. What was striking, even skillful, was that she no longer flattered Lily giving Lily room for curiosity. It was the dance known by many lovers, the approach and the mistrust, the retreat and then the intrigue. Lily started to linger after class, helping Jessica clean up, talking wine gossip, discussing the over-eager pupils. Jessica voiced her anxiety that she would not do well on the blind part of the Wine Master exam and in response, Lily drilled Jessica on the leftover wines, made her blind taste and pushed her to identifying them. She was surprised to find that like David, Jessica was not an intuitive taster. When it came to having a palate or a nose you either had it or you didn’t. There where many ways of compensating and learning how to analyze and intellectualize color and smell and taste. But like a musician, you either had perfect pitch or used an electric tuner. Like a dancer you either felt the rhythm or learned to count.
One week fairly close to the exams, Jessica showed up while Lily was madly throwing papers off of her desk looking for the list of wines she selected for the blind tasting portion of the exam. “Hey Jessica, did you see a list of wines on a yellow pad of paper?”
She said no and asked, “Don’t you have another copy?”
There was something in Jessica’s question that made her cautious. “Of course. Yes, I do have another copy,” she said. But she didn’t and Lily didn’t really know why she lied.
“Well, there you go. No loss.” She was clutching Henry’s New Yorker story on illegal foods. “Tell Henry this is a fantastic story,” Jessica said while slapping the title page of the article. His section on eating orlatan’s, those poor birds, is hilarious,” she said. “He’s such a devastatingly good writer.”
“Yes, he is,” Lily said, wondering why she never noticed Jessica’s gummy smile before. “My boy is a very talented man,” the emphasis was on the ‘my.’
After that class, after the cleaning they both sat down to polish off the remains of a bottle of a Burgundy from a tiny vineyard called En Rue Le Vergey that tasted and smelled like crush rose petals. Jessica sat down on a wine crate, sniffing at the wine as if she were a pig snorting out a truffle and asked Lily how she met Henry. It was the first personal question. Lily hesitated. Jessica flashed that southern sweet smile and looked at her so seriously with those globe eyes that Lily was almost coaxed and courted, “I was invited to interpret for writers on a press junket; pinot versus nebbiolo, are they really similar? We started in Alba and ended up in Bouilland, a tiny town right outside of Beaune. Not a wine town, but full of white cows and lots of berry bushes, right above Savigny.”
“Falling in love over two of the best wine regions in the world. I want a wine romance, too. You couldn’t have plotted it better. I love that.”
Lily couldn’t have plotted it better, indeed. She met Henry and yes it was exciting and passionate and yet, when they came home, she thought it would end. He was involved with someone else and she wanted no part of it. Their affair, she told him was over. That was that. She wouldn’t return his calls. She was good at that boundary. But then came the day he when showed up at her doorstep, his typewriter and a suitcase in hand. She took him in. He never left. She did not tell Jessica these things. In her heart she believed if Henry could leave someone for her, he could keep that cycle up every five to eight years. He could leave her for the next woman. Could it be Jessica?
When Henry got home from Italy researching the dying authentic parmigiano artisans in Reggiano, Lily tried to catch him up on the new girl. “I’m not interested in her,” he said.
“Why don’t you like her?”
“Because this kind of ambition has no place in your world. Tell her to go back to the Street.”
“You know her? “ Lily asked, suspiciously.
He told her that he wasn’t sure it was the same girl but he remembered the ‘J’ alliteration and he remembered the personality. Last year when he was giving a reading from his book of food essays, a girl named Jessica, he believed, approached him. She told him she had a collaboration idea. Would he call her? She palmed him her card. She was dressed in a suit and looked like the Christian right and couldn’t see why he should call. “Frankly if it’s the same woman, she is a bit off putting.”
“I don’t think it is,” Lily said, “this Jessica doesn’t seem to own anything but black vintage dresses and she is anything but corporate. I don’t even think she washes her hair.”
In the ways these things happened, there was no seeming transition from Jessica and the Christian right to Henry’s next move. He took off his little round black James Joycian glasses. He then unzipped his pants, removed his briefs, and he stood in the living room naked and tumescent. Lily instinctively motioned to the unshaded windows. “Stop looking, let them watch. Come here,” he said, cocking his finger towards her. She never the less, shut the light, came closer, until they were both lit by the blueness of the street lamps. “It’s all right, I’ll give you camouflage.” He pushed her down to her knees and then afterwards finished her off with the skill of a sushi chef. Henry was not a terribly verbal man. He kept his communication skills for his writing and sex, where his style was surgically efficient. They lay on the floor, now Henry on top of her, she developing a rug burn on her bum, but said nothing. His body felt too much like home. She’d put up with the discomfort. “Henry,” she started, “I know I haven’t been very good, I’ve been sluggish in spirit, and I haven’t been much fun. But I’m going to try to come back.”
“That’s a good girl,” he said kissing her forehead so sweetly, “There’s nothing the matter with you that a 1937 Pommard can’t fix.”
“Do we have one?” she asked excitedly.
“No, my sweet ferret, a 1985 will have to do.” And he sweetly slid out from under her weight, getting up, he now fluttered down the shades and returned with bottle, glasses, corkscrew and a disk of cheese that smelled of moist belly buttons. It was momentary relief, a short acting Prozac of a balm. And it was good.
Two weeks before the final exam, Jessica showed up early, still in her black acetate and stringy hair. She was not an unattractive girl, as Lily’s mother would have said, she just didn’t do anything with herself.
Jessica mumbled some apology about being early and hoped it was all right, she wanted to nail down the thirty –two grand crus, the crème de la crème of the vineyards of Burgundy. Lily almost blurted out, “You had them all memorized last week.” But she saw the girl was fibbing. Even if Lily had had cataracts on her eyes instead of on her instincts, she could tell the girl had been crying. Her eyes were red rimmed and cheeks, usually ghostly white were splotched with feeling.
“Are you hurt?” Lily asked.
Jessica closed her lids very tightly squeezing wrinkles into the chinks of her eyes and shook her head no.
“Do you want to talk?” Lily asked very softly. Jessica burst into tears.” Lily said, “I’ll get someone to fill in for you.” Jessica kept on shaking her head no and sobbing. She asked for the bathroom key, disappeared into the stall for ten minutes and when she emerged she had brushed on lipstick, powdered her face, lined her eyes and pulled her hair into a twist. Her eyes were still little red but the fragility was vanquished. It was an amazing transformation and tapped into Lily’s panic as she began to wonder if Jessica was inhabited by aliens.
The class went as usual. The eager students lapped up Lily’s comments, took medical school worthy studious notes, the atmosphere was punctuated with glasses scraped and swirled, wine burbled through puckered mouths and wine spit into spittoons. Throughout the class Lily was preoccupied with the girl’s secret. Jessica seemed to stuff her emotion into the grip around the bottle’s neck, around the pen she took notes with, into the fine, narrow forceful stream of her spit into the bucket. She tried to get the girl to talk, but Jessica’s mouth was closed. “Here, Lily said, “let’s drink the rest of this together, like how often do you see a 1975 Musar? No spitting allowed,” Lily said.
Lily poured for the both of them, they sat down in the little cozy area Lily had fashioned with stainless and leather chaise, great big warm bookcases and scattered oriental rugs, cases of wine just about everywhere, like some wine- mad shrink’s office. Teacher and student simultaneously stuck their noses in the glass and inhaled the perfume, “Roses and cinnamon,” said Lily.
“Absolutely!” Agreed Jessica.
“What would you pair with it?” Asked Lily.
Jessica confessed to ineptitude in the kitchen. She had no idea how to pair flavors. Lily urged her to change that. Cooking was really important to wine exploration. Then Lily went on to spin a fantasy of an extravagant Moroccan meal resplendent with pomegranate seeds and cumin and harissa, a dish where the cooking perfumes grabbed all who smelled it by the soul. Pair it with a spicy and animal sweaty Cornas with an edge. It is in the edgy pairings, you know.”
Jessica seemed mesmerized, “That’s super. I love the way you can pull out those pairings.”
Lily confessed that one day she’d love to have a television program, maybe with Henry, something called “Wine Pairing to Shock your Senses.” Food like popcorn would be paired with Hermitage, shmaltz herring with alvarinho, sparkling saumur with tuna sandwiches. A wine and food thing that everyone could relate to.”
Jessica dropped her mouth like a shark and squinted as if her eyes were chewing up Lily’s words. “That is a fantastic idea. You have got to do it.”
“One day, yes. I’ll do it.” And then she asked Jessica how, as she had so little food knowledge, was she interested in wine. Her answer was surprisingly simple, “It seemed way more fun than investment banking.”
It was true, then. She had to ask. “You’ve met Henry?”
Jessica was surprised. She purred. Had Henry really remembered her?
“He said he wasn’t sure but he remembered someone named Jessica giving him a card.”
“That was me. He never called."
“You were trying to pick him up?” Lily was used to it, she didn’t like it but that is the way of the world.
“Can’t blame a girl for trying, right?” She said, flashing her dimples on cue.
Satisfied, Lily asked again if she wanted to talk about the earlier disturbing incident. Jessica said that she merely heard that her aunt had passed away. But the way she locked her eyes onto Lily was just as telling as a distant glance. The girl was fibbing. Jessica added that even though it wasn’t a close aunt, she found herself over emotional about little things because she had heard the blind tasting portion of the exam was quite tough. She was petrified of not passing. She said as a deep confession, “I always excel at what I do. I know that sounds like braggatry but that’s just the way it is. I don’t think I can handle not doing brilliantly with any grace.”
“You’re very talented,” Lily said, but she then lied. “I wouldn’t worry. You’re a terrific taster.”
“From your mouth to the heavenly kingdom.” And like the rabbit in Alice and Wonderland she looked at her watch and said she must be on her way. She moved in to hug Lily, which was odd because as warm as Lily was, she was not the sort of person you touched without invitation. As Jessica closed in on her, close enough to provoke the static from their sweaters, Lily was struck by a peculiar smell, like fabric softener with fresh top notes of that Aramis.
Lily moved away from the smell, slowly as not to raise any suspicions. But not only was she suspicious, she started to thoroughly dislike and mistrust Jessica. The memory of that first oozing flattery. Henry’s warning about watching her back. The phony vulnerability. The lies. The smell of David’s scent.
“Thank you so much for taking care of me,” Jessica said, impervious of the change in Lily’s sincerity. “I really want you to know I think you’re the greatest and if I get anywhere in this wine world, it will be because of you and what you gave me here.” Jessica again started to get her coat. The phone rang. They both flinched as if the phone were a intruder. When Lily picked 4up she wasn’t surprised to hear David’s voice on the other end. She shot a look at Jessica, a look that if the girl’s face not been turned to the door, would have revealed Lily knew the secret, she knew everything. Jessica slowly turned around to show her waif-like face, but no dimples this time. She shook her head ‘no’ as if to say, I’m not here. But she didn’t leave. She clutched her coat to her body and watched the conversation as if it were happening on a big screen. Lily put it together feeling the unspoken conspiracy.
In David’s oily voice, he said he was calling ‘just like this.’ Lily didn’t buy it. It was that intense time of night for planning rendezvous. David sounded awkward, spitting out some pleasantries, nonsense as far as she was concerned. “Will I see you this year at the Wine Council dinner?”
“We’ll be out of town this year.”
“I’ll miss seeing you there.”
“Why?” Lily asked. Something was cracking in her, but this was a good crack. “You miss me so much?” She asked. David stuttered a bit and said some things like they don’t see enough of each other. “Really? I think we see way too much of each other, are you sure?” But she said it so sweetly, he almost didn’t notice.
He droned on, he and asked about Henry. He didn’t like Henry. He probably wanted to be Henry. Henry had talent. David did not. Case closed. The pleasantries were getting inane. He then asked Lily,” How is it working out with Jessica? Talented little sprite?”
Ah, the talent word again. “Yes, she is talented. A very talented little, as you say, sprite. More like the soda than the spirit.”
When Lily put the phone on it’s cradle she said to Jessica, “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Jessica once again looked fragile and pale. “Because you don’t like him.”
“Well as it turns out I don’t like him. What difference does that make?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do you know why I don’t like him?”
“Well...”
“Because he is a vile predator. Did you know that?”
“Yes,” she started to cry again.
“He has absolutely no palate on top of that. An utter phony. Are you in love with him?”
“Of course not.”
“That’s good because God help you if you were. Did he force you?”
“Not exactly.” Jessica told Lily that it was a mistake. A big, big mistake. She also said that she agreed with everything Lily said and she too detested David, though she had had a crush on him early on, but now the thought of him nauseated her.
“I know what you mean,” Lily said.
“I know you do,” Jessica said.
“You do?” Lily asked, loudly. What do you know?”
“I know you were in love with him,” she said softly.
Some people rise to the height of their career because they are sociopaths, meaning they can charm the juice out of an under ripe pineapple. However, given the right provocation, sociopath can turn psychopath. And devastation can power the change. David had been devastated with his performance on the blind tasting exam. The night he got his failing grade he called Lily and asked whether he could come over, he had two bottles of wine. One was the 1976 Quintatrelli Amarone another was its polar opposite, the 1987 Bartolo Mascarello. He thought a little wine and conversation would help ease his sorrow. He tried to joke.
“David, I know you’re upset, but really there’s nothing I can do. The blind part of the exam is quite important. You’ll pass the next time.”
Maybe, he said, but he still wanted to visit and drink. The wines he bought to console himself were too good and he needed help to drink them. He was right. She couldn’t say no. The wines were indeed too good, and Lily, if the truth be known, was a little needy as that was during the time she was refusing to see Henry. David came over and they drank and talked and Lily almost liked him. He was intense. He was flattering. He was vulnerable. But she really wasn’t the least bit interested in David. Anyway, his hands were too small and soft and he wore monogrammed shirts. He said he had no intent of taking the exam over, he was just going to forge ahead. He had been asked to design a course for Wall Streeters, and thought that was a good idea, no?
“That’s a great idea,” Lily said. “Better you than me, I can’t deal with those sort of people, they’re the wine equivalent of people who buy art to match their couch. But, you’ll do well. I know you will.”
With her blessings as fuel he leaned in to her and stuck his tongue in her mouth at the same time, as quick as a viper, slid his hand down to her nipple and she pushed him away. If he had tried a subtle seduction, maybe that would have worked, but this hurry up, whip it out, stick it in, hump-hump stuff, when really all she could think of was how bad he smelled and how good that Amarone was, well, was revolting. She bit his tongue. He backed away like a bull. Then he went at her full force. Taking some control, she grabbed his steeled penis before penetration, and wrapped her mouth over it. With her finely tuned mouth, from years of sharp-shooter expectorating, she made him come and was done with it. After it was over, feeling the steel wool of his hair all over her body like a hair shirt, she ran to the toilet where he followed her. He caught her spit into the sink and then much to both of their horror, she vomited.
“You have a serious problem there, Lily,” he said.
She sat on the floor, near the toilet, believing him.
Lily asked Jessica, moving her hand to her mouth as if still wiping the vomit from her mouth, “In love with him, is that what he told you? That man has a serious problem.”
It was near midnight when Lily walked home and into the lobby of her loft building. She and Henry had moved here after he signed his contract with Vogue. She opened the door. The apartment had a tinny sound, reminding her that they hadn’t been spending much time there together. It is terribly easy to skate past the person you love, falling into patterns and parallel play until there is nothing left. She lay in bed wrapped in anxiety and fear that she would depress herself her out of the man she loved who sometimes she didn’t know why she loved, but she knew she needed. What had been the moment that drew them together? The way she smelled her soup before she brought the spoon to her mouth? The way he smelled a clump of tiny, tiny strawberries, as if he could fan the perfume to his nose? Was it his own (similar to her) violent reaction to patchouli? It was the way he held her at night. Are those the elements love is based on, smell and focus? Intangible signs of love? Could she live without him? She didn’t think so. Ah the miracle of love. In its moment and passion and dissolution, it breathes an unimpeachable truth and necessity. Yet for all of its truth, she knew the reality: the passion and need, given the right circumstances, could burn off as fog in the hot sun. She vowed not going to let that happen with Henry. She was greatly relieved when Henry crashed in, dropping books and shoes and change on the floor, at three in the morning. Lily snuggled up to him, watered in the love and feel of his skin, “Henry, isn’t it all a trivial and a bit fall of Rome-like? All of this obsession with food and wine and what did it really matter?
“No it’s not, ‘lil Lil. It’s just another form of art, it’s just liquid art and a lifestyle and it’s good for all souls. I wish you had been there, they had a pile of winter truffles. The perfume was almost too much. The wine stunk. Piper. ”
She whispered to him that she thought Jessica James was going to do miserably on her tasting exam. He kissed her and told her he missed her. Lily started to cry and in the intimacy of feeling his body next to her in a way that seemed new, she told him about the David incident. At first, Henry didn’t react much and then quietly said, “I can’t believe he did this to you.”
“It wasn’t that bad,” Lily said, “it was uncomfortable but it didn’t do me terrible harm. I’m a big girl. What is torturing me is this conspiracy. As if they were sent to torture me. What do they want from me?”
“You give too much, Lily. You take this mentor thing too far. You did not become a wine expert to hole yourself up in a kindergarten for wine nerds. And if that’s the case, the school must go. Keep your knowledge for yourself and your future public.” And then Henry did something asinine, he got out of bed and smashed his hand. “I knew it, she thought. And instead of him taking care of her, she had to get the ice and hold his hand as he sat there, feeling impotent. In the morning over their coffee Henry snuck around her and clutched her, “I want to do something really awful to that cocksucker pissant,” he said.
“There is nothing to do,” she assured him and kissed him.
“There is something to do,” he said. “And that something is to put you back on your throne where you belong.” He then laid out the plan for them to be the king and the queen of the wine world. It had been where they were headed before Lily’s personality was derailed. They were going to put together the television series, write the proposal, get the deal, give up the school and change the world. “If anyone can do it,” he said,” we can.”
“You love me, don’t you Henry,” she stated. It was fact.
***
Jessica messed up her exam with some bizarre answers. She pegged the fifteen-year old Bordeaux for an Australian shiraz. The Bourgogne Cremant, she thought was a Champagne. She thought a freshly minted Finger Lake Riesling was a five-year northern Italian chardonnay. It was after the riesling Lily realized, these were the wines she had initially chosen for the exam, the list that they were on that had mysteriously vanished. Jessica James was as demented as David, capable of anything. To succeed she’d be ruthless. Lily sent out the grades. Ninety for the written, a devastating fifty-four points out of one hundred on the blind tasting portion.
For the next twelve months there was no news. The gossip mills turned up nothing about Jessica James. Lily’s new assistant, Andre, was a young man in the mold of the new brand of wine guy; tattooed, side burned, pierced with a patch of fur above his lip, a‘flava sava,” as he told Lily the smudge of facial hair was called. As edgy as he was he always got pink in the earlobe when he saw her, and Lily brushed off as a young pup who would hump a snail. But still, she thought it was sweet. The ennui, the elemental forces that had pulled her seemed to be lifting. Like a fever breaking, she was in a sweat. It was finally over. Perhaps it was Andre’s harmless flirtation, perhaps it was just that David’s slime had been finally washed off, or the mystery of Jessica awaking the fire of competition. Lily started to write her television proposal. “Food and Wine Pairings to Shock Your Senses.” She and Henry would take viewers all over the world pairing street food with wines, meeting honest passionate wine growers, getting viewers to understand why wine is art and why the little guy farmer should be exalted. She would push her cleavage, get lasix, get her teeth bleached. Henry would get cooler glasses and a personal trainer and lose the foie gras gut. They would look great but more than that, they would educate the world about the dangers of globalization in wine and they would save wine from industry. And she would sell the school and thus save her life before she turned forty-five and the world left her for younger, bonier, sassier women. She still had time.
Energy begets energy. Henry came home and Lily jumped him and started to unbutton and cup him with hormonal rage she hadn’t felt in years. Alive. It felt damned good to be alive again. But Henry had another plan. With her hips still gripped and wrapped around his, he lifted her up, and walked over to the couch, picking up the remote control along the way.
He sat her partially naked, on his suited up lap and clicked on the television. The program was already in session. What Lily saw sliced into her, “Oh my God.”
There in front of her was Jessica James, with a sleek little blown dried bob that pointed in on her chin, make up, lipstick; probably collagen as her lips now looked bee-stunk instead of wasp-tight. Jesse James, as she now called her self was the co-star of Jesse and David’s Wine Stomp. At her side was indeed David. The made-over girl flashed a media-primed smile, winked and said, “And now, people, I’m going to show you the perfect match with popcorn,”
“That’s my idea she’s got there, that bitch!”
“The arts section had a feature today. They called her the Katie Couric of wine,” Henry said.
Jesse went on, flashing a gummy smile at David, “I just love that little bit of edge of herbal in this sauvignon, don’t you, David? Some people may think it’s a flaw, but it is that little something extra that makes wine exciting.”
Lily’s thoughts were on fire. She stole my lines. She stole my idea. How did the bitch do it? And she’s so damned insipid. Oh, what a mole she is. Oh, what a mouse I am. Oh, fuck them both.
Like animals, people sense vulnerability and it’s a dangerous signal to send. Henry had been right, she should have watched her back, both with him as well as Jessica. Lily was no longer in a sexy mood.
Sometimes timing is such that one feels compelled to run to the corner astrologer to conjure what in hell is going on. And such was the day when Lily’s life changed. She got a call from Hans at the European Wine Council who delivered an excellent opportunity in to her lap. He asked her to give out the honors for this year’s award dinner. The recipient was public television, for the program that made it safe for popcorn eaters and Kentucky Fried Chicken, Jesse and David’s Wine Stomp. Lily said it would be a great pleasure. And that night she and Henry who had finally found their way back to love, conceived of a plan. Lily wasn’t sure she could do it; a sort of interactive game of wine Jeopardy, with great potential for all sorts of things. But Henry bullied her into it. “If you love me, you will do this.”
“I don’t know,” she said, aware of the whine in her voice. “Yes they deserve it, but in front of all of those people?”
“You will be brilliant. Do it.” He dropped to his knees, “Sorry to ask in this way, but if you do it, would you marry me?”
“This is a proposal?”
“Yes.”
“Could you get a little more romantic then putting me up to a dare?”
He took some moments to think of it. Then he told her she was the first and last love of his life. He wanted to marry her and if she would do this thing, this great thing at the dinner, it would make him so proud. But if she didn’t, he still loved her, and would want to marry her, but would she please?”
“Let’s see what happens Henry. I’ll try.” But inside she was joyous. And it embarrassed her that getting married mattered so much. Somewhere in the backdrop she could hear her mother saying, “Lily, you’re such a slob no one will marry you. Who would ever marry a woman who smells everything before she eats it?”
The morning of the dinner, the doves cooed their melancholic call. The early April day seemed more like May. There was a sweet smell of pollen in the air, as if randy trees were having rampant wild sex. Newly engaged Lily walked down to Chambers Street Wines. She spent about $200 on a 1975 Chateau Musar from Lebanon and $106 a 1987 Bartolo Mascarello Barolo. She thought it was money well spent. She had her hair blown, very odd as she was never big on the grooming thing. It was a Lana Turner smooth and wavy, her dark hair had the softness of new grass in the breezes. She put on her new gown. Ruby silk, with a plunging neckline, plumped her breasts as if they were sliding in egg cups, pleasantly rounded. Lily seemed to be blooming.
At the aperitif, the smart folk stocked up on the Pommery Cuvee Louise champagne. Jessica was pert, perky, wearing a dinner suit with rhinestone buttons, looking like a Stepford newscaster. The lipstick was pinker, the hair blonder. All hints of the little vintage waif were gone and she was back to her investment banker roots. She headed right over to Lily. Pointed to her and said, “You are one woman we owe a lot to, don’t we David?” A swelling of a bosom where before she had been as flat as a CD, she lay her hand on David’s hairy fingers. Lily hadn’t heard of David’s divorce. Well, she thought, people make their beds, and sell their soul, but if ever there were two people who deserved each other, here they were. Lily took the woman in who was with them. She liked her. She wore Prada, the new spring line, “I’m Lily and this is Henry. You are?”
The Pradesque woman introduced herself as the producer of the wine show,
Lily said, “Great. I was hoping to meet you. Do call me, call us. Love to chat,” and she slipped her the card. She said to David and Jessica, “We’re going to have a good time giving you the award tonight, congratulations.” Henry took Lily’s elbow elegantly and sweetly led her away as she whispered to him, “I really must be more tolerant, really.”
After the first course Hans introduced Lily, “Grown from passionate sommelier to the grower and tender of the best wine educators in this country.”
In truth, Lily felt jittery. She blushed. She stood up at the podium with Eden Roc girl grace. She took a minute to suck back the emotion, stand taller, remembered to have eye contact with the audience, no time to be shy, time to shed the marm and time to consider and prepare for the move she still didn’t know she had the nerve to go ahead with.
“Hans,” she started. “Thank you. I am thrilled that you have chosen me to bestow this honor on these two who have taken America by storm. Tonight we honor new talent as well as one who has been around the block a few times, hope you don’t mind that David,” she said. David yelled out, “Love you too, babe!”
“David and Jessica, sorry Jesse, that’s your name now, correct? Come on up, I have a little something for you.”
The two rose to enthusiastic warm applause. They did look a little concerned when a white clothed table was produced and on it were four tapered tasting glasses. Lily motioned to the waiters. They approached with formality, carrying two decanters filled with brick colored wine. She poured a little wine in each of her glasses, sniffed them, nodded her approval and then sent the waiters over to David and Jessica. The wines were poured.
“When the network took a great risk on presenting a wine show to the world. they couldn’t have found two better hosts, populists who can make any wine friendly to the masses. In your student days, I drank wine with the both of you. Even when you knew so much less than you know now, tasting with the both of you was always a revelation. Whether or not you guessed the wine, you always had some interesting insight. Here, for old time’s sake, I thought it would be fun to have you taste two wines anonymously and then give us a little assessment of their region, grape and age. Don’t worry, guys, I’m not expecting an exact call on the wines, I just want you to show off what you are really capable of. I want you to conjure something pretty for us, even if it turns out one wine is a twenty year old Hearty Burgundy.”
The crowd was eager and with a growing ripple they chanted and clapped, ‘Go. Go. Go. Go. Go. Go.” The couple of the moment didn’t have a chance to get out of it. And so they started. First they swirled, they sniffed, and then they conferred. David spoke into Jesse’s ear. Jesse shook her head, she said no. She took a note. And then she stood up, ready.
“All right,” Jesse said, “Wine number one is packed with jammy fruit that pops right out at you. I think this is a new world wine because it’s so all about what Australia can do. Ripe but still fully structured. It might be a totally beautiful shiraz, one that doesn’t have too much oak. Judging by the color it is about three to five years old.” She looked at Lily who was encouraging her on. “The second wine is French. It is probably an eight- year old burgundy, I know I’ve had this before, but I just can’t remember the producer, Jadot?”
“And David?” Asked Lily.
“Come on Lil, you know I was always brain dead when it came to blind tasting. I can tell you this though, these are all red wines and they are damned good too.”
The audience adored David. Just adored him. There was a heckle. “Come on, give a guess.”
“Night Train?” He said, “And it would be perfect with a spam on rye?”
Once again the crowd applauded and Lily was so happy her feet didn’t even hurt in the three-inch heels.
“Let me tell you a little secret,” She said lowering her voice and leaning into the audience conspiratorially, “emotional weather has a tremendous impact on the way taste perception. In love? Well, a Mouton-Cadet can taste great. Terrified? Nothing will taste right. Remember that: emotions make a difference. But what if you can’t listen to a wine, what if you don’t have soul. I go on, I digress. Here, this is the point. Jessica tasted one of these wines shortly before she flunked her blind tasting portion of my exam and David drank one of these with me one night, after he failed his exams. Do you remember that, David?”
David did not answer. Jesse looked at him carefully and then said, “Yes, he remembers. He told me all about this wine. It was very memorable. Well, within reason.”
Laughter.
“ Look,” Lily said. “I’m the last person to say test scores mean anything, so I’m not insinuating anything here. Great wines like these always appear young, even though they are both almost 20 years old. The first one was from Lebanon, the phenomenal 1975 Chateau Musar, and I’m afraid there’s no syrah in it. And the second one, well sometimes it seems that every wine guy in the world says that nebbiolo is the pinot of Piemonte. Personally, I never really knew what they were talking about, but what the hell, I don’t know everything. This is a fabulous wine.“ She stopped for a moment to take a sip,” it’s Bartolo’s 1987. I worship this wine with its spice box, sandalwood and truffle. Gorgeous. Ladies and gentleman, colleagues, friends, relations, acquaintances, these two lovely wine people are the perfect example of how you really don’t have to know about wine to bring it to the people in this country. In fact the country almost is afraid of knowledge. Really, all you need is shtick and guts. Both David and Jessica were crack students when it came to book knowledge, but here you go. They’re perfect for what this country desires from the media whether wine or news. I’m very proud to give this years wine awards to a very resplendent couple. As long as you speak with authority, it doesn’t make any difference how good you are.”
The audience was not exactly sure what they heard. Lily was poised and beaming. The tuxedoed and gowned folk shuffled and ahemed. Henry, damned proud of the woman he was going to marry, had reinstated his queen. He clapped his hands with boom box power and dragged the crowd with him until the room stood up in standing ovation. Not knowing why they were clapping or who they were applauding, they did so and did so with a fever. David and Jesse James took their medals from Lily. They readied their words of thanks. Because, after all, what else could they do?