Sweeter Than Wine by Michaela August Page B

wheel,
reminded anew of the indignities she had suffered. He stowed his valise in the
truck bed next to the groceries and man-handled the crank until the Ford grumbled
to life.
    When he settled himself on the passenger's side, she thanked him without
looking at him and stepped on the left floor pedal. After putting the car in first gear,
she moved the gas lever on the steering column, and drove cautiously away from
the train station, through the neighborhood of pretty houses on the outskirts of
town.
    Fifteen miles an hour seemed too fast as the Model-T jounced, each pothole
and rut in the eucalyptus-lined road reminding Alice of her abused nether region.
As they passed the turn-off to the neglected Buena Vista winery, the truck
emerged from shade into a vista of gold-green pastures. Siegfried was silent,
staring at the landscape. Alice saw the beauty, too: the pinkish-white creeper
blossoms climbing over the wire fences and a scattering of shocking-orange
poppies left over from springtime's great flowering.
    When they arrived at the entrance to Montclair, Siegfried jumped out,
unlatched the gate, opened it so she could drive through, and closed it again
afterward. He stood for a moment, looking upwards, before returning to the
truck.
    Alice followed his gaze, remembering her own first sight of Montclair, and what
it had meant to her. The narrow graveled road leading through the main vineyard
rose gently towards a cluster of buildings perched halfway up the gentle hillside.
The centerpiece was a tall, square house trimmed in gingerbread with a
wraparound porch. A line of dark-green fruit trees nearly hid the modest foreman's
cottage and other outbuildings further up the hill behind the house. The
whitewashed stone winery was set at the top of the drive, just at the point where
the line of northerly hills curved around to the west.
    "We're home," she said when he returned to the truck, unable to keep the note
of pride from her voice.
    "It looks just the same," Siegfried said wonderingly.
    * * *
    "What are you doing?" Siegfried asked. He held on to the edge of the door to
stay in his seat because Alice performed a three-point turn, put the Model-T into
gear, and lurched--backward--up the hill.
    "The truck has a gravity fuel feed." Alice craned her head out the window to
see behind the vehicle.
    "So?" The truck jounced and he held on tighter.
    "The first time I drove it straight up the hill, it stalled well before I reached the
house. Peter had to help me turn it around."
    "Peter Verdacchia?"
    "Yes." She glanced at Siegfried for an instant before returning to her driving.
"He's never let me live it down."
    Siegfried was relieved that she seemed willing to talk with him again. He had
been so angry with himself--and those rowdies--for offering her an injury. How
protective of her he felt, even on such short acquaintance. And now at the mention
of Peter's scolding her, he felt that way again. "He has not changed at all!"
    "He's been an excellent foreman. I don't know what I would have done without
him these last few months," Alice said, twisting the steering wheel for the last turn.
"He mentioned that you had been friends."
    He seized the opportunity to remind her that he was not a complete stranger to
Montclair. "When we were boys, he and Bill and Ernst and I played forts and
castles in the wine caves. We used to get into terrible trouble together. Once, Opa
Roye forbade us to eat any of his ripe pears--he wanted them for schnaps--so
Peter suggested that we climb the tree and take a single bite out of each hanging
fruit. We would have gotten away with it, but Ernst fell and broke his collarbone, so
we were discovered. Peter never forgave Ernst for the whipping we older boys
received."
    "Ernst? Grandmother Tati mentioned him, too."
    "My younger brother. He died at the beginning of the War." The five
intervening years had burned away the rage, and he had locked away the grief so
that he could remember happier times.
    "I'm sorry."