A Taste of Merlot by Heather Heyford

“Oh! Three-fifty. Better get this in so it’s done by seven. Ryder’s family invited me to dinner, and I’m bringing a potato galette. I know, my fault for claiming I knew how to cook.” Char giggled. “Thank goodness for this stash of French cookbooks Savvy dug out of the back of the cupboard. What’s it say to do now, Sav?”
    Savvy picked up her book, but Meri cut in.
    â€œBecause they don’t expect that you’d know how to cook, do they? And why not? Because you’re a St. Pierre! A fragile little airhead who can’t do anything except dress up and get her picture taken!”
    Char’s head swiveled on her neck, an oven-gloved hand still poised over her casserole, her eyes wide with wary surprise.
    â€œSo what if you can’t cook, Char? You’re a capable executive with a degree in public service! You play forward in field hockey! Your teammates even elected you captain, and that had nothing to do with money or family. Nada . Yet, judging by the media, more people around here still think of you as the daughter of the degenerate Xavier St. Pierre, rather than the founder of your own children’s charity.”
    With concern, Char pulled off her oven mitt and watched her baby sister pace the tiles.
    Meri threw up her hands. “No wonder the media has an orgasm every time one of us shows signs of being human. We’re expected to just exist, like in a folk tale, not evolve into individuals. Yet when we do have the nerve to break out of stereotype, they swoop down on us like vultures on carrion.”
    This time the girls didn’t bother to pretend it away.
    â€œWe’ve all felt the sting of the media, but—” soothed Savvy.
    â€œ Ya think ?” Meri interrupted. “Half the time when we go out to eat or to concerts or even to church, our pictures end up online the next day.
    Meri pointed at the ceiling. “Remember when Papa got arrested for shooting at the bald eagle? The paparazzi heard about it on the police scanners, and bam —there was a photographer, already snapping away outside the police station when we picked him up. And when Char was involved in The Challenge, the paps were literally on her running trail. Sure, they covered the official events, but she also got shot just doing practice sprints. Even here, in our own home, when that waiter-slash-stalkerazzi caught her and Ryder kissing at the dinner party.”
    â€œThat might’ve had something to do with who I was kissing,” Char said dreamily. Meri dismissed her opinion with a wave. Char couldn’t be expected to think clearly. She was in love with a movie star.
    It seemed as if the public wanted Chardonnay, Sauvignon, and Merlot to remain forever as they had been in the ghostly newspaper photos taken at the cemetery after Maman ran away with “the Argentine”—the winemaker who had been vising Napa to pick up trade secrets—and who had died, taking Maman with him, when his speeding car careened off the side of a South American cliff.
    Meri had memorized the grainy old pictures. Three sad-eyed little girls in flowered dresses, clouds of long, baby-fine hair buffeted by the Santa Anas as they watched their mother’s casket go by. Those very public photos of an intensely private grief marked the beginning of a fascination with the St. Pierres that Napa couldn’t seem to let go of. During their school years, things had quieted down some, but now that they were back in Napa, their cachet was blossoming bigger than the full-blown peonies in the St. Pierre gardens.
    â€œMeri, what’s gotten into you?” Savvy appealed to her retreating form, but Meri was already on her way out of the kitchen, taking the marble stairs to her bedroom two at a time, with guilt over causing her sisters grief and embarrassment at her childish outburst chasing her. So much for the pleasant afternoon chat.
    What had gotten into her?
    She fell across