Easy to Like by Edward Riche

appropriate anyway. It’s not
authentic.”
    â€œAuthentic? Christ sakes, Elliot, how
can anything be authentic in a Rhône blend made in California?”
    â€œCan we not go through this again.”
    â€œThis isn’t the South of France,
Elliot.” Walt paused and drew a breath. “I was going suggest we make a Zin.”
    â€œUnder the label?”
    â€œHowever you want to do it. A Zin is
about as authentic as you can get here.”
    â€œI don’t think so. Anyway, I am more
convinced than ever that the solution is adding Matou to the blend.”
    Walt spun on his heels, his heavy boots
kicking up dust. He could not look at Elliot.
    â€œThat’s crazy talk, Elliot. It’s
wishful thinking. You’ve got all your hopes wrapped up in a grape people stopped
growing fifty years ago. After a certain point you gotta get realistic about
this.”
    â€œWe have to strive, Walter, and if
you’re going to say that, there also comes a point when you accept that this is
the best you can do . . . We’re not there yet.” Elliot
reached down and picked a grape that looked to be ripe from the bunch.
    â€œI’m saying that there comes a point
when you learn that what you were chasing was never there in the first place.
Imagine if you actually found some Matou stock. Your false hope could end your
best excuse.”
    Elliot forgot what Walter said as soon
as he bit into the grape. “Fuck sake!” It tasted like Sweet’N Low.
    â€œIt’s been so goddamn hot that some of
the grapes already have all the sugar we need, and some others, because of the
uneven véraison, are weeks from being ripe. We’ll have to pick before they’ve
developed and there will never be enough acidity.” Walter paused. “We could make
a nice sweet Zinfandel, butterscotched up with American oak, zebra on the label,
that lots of people could enjoy. ‘Zebra Zin.’”
    Elliot looked past his vines, over
rolling country, land that begged to be covered on horseback, out to the other
wineries that had sprouted in the area. Most of them, heeding the desires of the
consumer, were going from strength to strength. Elliot, making decisions
impulsively, half aping his French heroes, ignoring California viticultural
orthodoxy and the public taste, was going from bad to worse.
    But Elliot couldn’t shake his
conviction that giving consumers what they “wanted” was to fail to respect them.
To his mind it was limiting their possibilities, diminishing their capacity to
grow and change, and so holding them in contempt. There would come a time, he
supposed, when all the other winemakers would realize they’d made a terrible
mistake. But, like Haldeman Labs with their uniform green rows, their drip
irrigation, their approved clones, and their marketing, they hadn’t yet come
around.
    As for Elliot, he would sooner have his
winery go down in flames than produce one fucking bottle of “Zebra Zin.” Feeling
the heat of just such a blaze, Elliot’s reflex was to run.

Four
    PACKING FOR FRANCE back in Los
Angeles, Elliot didn’t even fill his carry-on. He thought this was a sign either
of his essential freedom or of something sad that he could not understand
because it was about himself. He had one stop before the airport. Lucy’s place
in West Adams was out of his way, but the cheque was late. The books said he
didn’t owe her anything. She was doing better than him. He was just too proud to
admit it.
    Lucy’s was now the only Arts and Crafts
house on Victoria Park Drive that hadn’t been restored. She didn’t seem to
care.
    â€œI’m moving anyway.”
    â€œWhere?”
    â€œAscencion and I are going to get a
place in Pico-Union. It’s close and it’s like half the price.”
    â€œThe Peoples Temple — why not?”
    â€œIt’s not far from there,
actually.”
    When they were by