Sideways Read online

  As Graham finished sweeping up the broken glass, arms reached indiscriminately for the remaining bottles. The Farrell rep, realizing that she had lost control, quickly filled a glass of the Rochioli for herself and hoarded it in her corner. Graham, aspiring to be the wine mensch of

  The rep looked stricken for a moment, but she reluctantly reached down and unzipped her wine satchel and emerged with a second bottle. Raucous, but genial, cheers welcomed the sound of its uncorking. Glasses were refreshed all around and the ooh-ing and aah-ing started all over again.

  Soon, I felt a warm glow spread through me. Voices overlapped and muddled into one another. As evening crept up on us, the light grew soft and the faces shadowed. Then, as if entering through the backdoor of a dream, Dani, a statuesque Aussie with a runner’s physique—graphic designer by profession—came bounding down the back stairs, her braless breasts rising and falling inside a tight, midriff-revealing T-shirt. She circled into The Bullpen, a smile on her ruddy, sunburned face, eager to sample.

  “Dani,” I called out, happy to see my favorite regular.

  “Miles!” She shoehorned her way through the throng and greeted me with a tight hug. With so much woman pressed against me, I nearly fainted. When she finally released me I had the presence of mind to right a clean glass and fill it half full of the second Chardonnay from a new, cold bottle the rep had also uncorked.

  “I’m taking you right to the Allen Vineyard. None of this mediocre wine for you,” I said.

  “Oh, you are, are you?” she said, cocking her head coquettishly. She accepted the glass, took a sip, closed her eyes gently for a moment, and savored the wine. “Thanks, Miles. I needed that.”

  “My pleasure.”

  Carl, inebriated enough now to test the waters, had drifted over and was making small talk with the blond laughed at what the dentist was saying. I turned away. A wobbly Eekoo was staring bleary-eyed over Malibu Jim’s shoulder at his laptop, critiquing his wine-tasting notes, stabbing a finger—which Jim kept shooing away—at his screen. The Farrell rep, having long since worn out her function as a pourer and explicator of Gary’s winemaking methodologies, retreated deeper into her corner with a second—full (!)—glass of the Rochioli, resigned now to the pleasurable fact that she might as well get looped with the rest of us. The Bullpen had, in its inimitable way, collectively reduced our zeitgeist to a tribal low common denominator.

  I leaned into Dani’s apple red face. “Do you think it’s unreasonable not to want to date anyone who doesn’t like Pinot? It’s the burning question for me this afternoon.”

  “Who’s that?” Dani asked, her antennae tuned now to the horde in The Bullpen. She grabbed a fistful of my shirt and maneuvered me over to the bottles so we wouldn’t have to keep reaching through the crowd to refresh our glasses.

  “Dark-haired one over there talking to Jerry,” I said, nodding in their direction.

  Dani squinted and glanced over my shoulder. She shrugged. “You’re too critical, Miles.”

  “Someone’s got to have standards around here.”

  She laughed and we touched glasses. “Where’s Jack?”

  “Should be here any minute.” I reflexively checked my watch. An hour had disappeared like the flare of a match. Have to slow down, I cautioned myself.

  “Are you leaving from here?” Dani asked. Her voice sounded a little like it was trying to reach me from underwater.

  “Yeah. I’m getting an early start.” I raised my glass to the impending trip, the promising news from my agent, and the feeling of warmth that had by now blanketed me. “I’m taking a week off and doing nothing but tasting wines and breathing fresh air.”

  “Sounds like fun. Wish I could come.”

  “When are you and Roger getting married?” I asked, referring to her handsome investment banker fiancé.

  “This December.”

  “Really? That’s great.” I tried to offer my congratulations with conviction, but even I could faintly make out a tinge of disappointment in my voice. Maybe I was infatuated with Dani because the only times I ever interacted with her were when I had a wine buzz going, but even on paper she was something special: wine lover, athlete, gourmet cook; what more could a guy want?

  “Yeah,” she was saying, her words coming back into my consciousness, “we’re going to take the plunge.” Without looking, she reached around for more of the Rochioli and topped both of us off, eliciting a snort of disdain from the beleaguered rep. We ignored her and carried on.

  “Like this Pinot, Dani?”

  “Mm hm.” Dani made a face that underscored her pleasure. Her attention was drawn over my shoulder again. “Some woman keeps looking over here.”

  “Really?” I didn’t bother to look. “Probably because she thinks I’m with you, her interest has rekindled.” I stole a quick glance at the blonde Carl was chatting up. “Carl’ll try to seduce her with his ’97 Caymus Special Selection. If premiers crus Bordeaux.”

  Dani threw back her head of short auburn hair and laughed hard. “So, what’s happening with your novel?”

  “Thirty-five rejections and counting. They just keep pouring in.”

  “No,” Dani empathized.

  “But thirty-six might be the charm. Just spoke to my agent. Editor at some small publishing house expressed serious interest. He’s passing it upstairs to the buttonpushers as we drink.”

  “I want to read it,” Dani insisted, a weekly refrain she never followed up on.

  “She’s got a good feeling this time,” I said.

  Dani bent closer to me until our faces were almost touching. Her breath smelled piquantly of wine and stinky French cheeses. I misinterpreted her gesture and turned my mouth toward hers for the kiss that I delusively thought she was offering.

  “He’s going for the kill,” she whispered instead, thwarting me mid-kiss.

  I threw a backward glance and glimpsed Jerry the dentist brushing the dark-headed woman’s hair back off her forehead and gazing into her eyes in a way that could only be described as adoringly. Next to them, roly-poly Carl appeared to be making headway with her blond cohort. I flashed to a vision of a frolicking foursome, whisked off to Carl’s nearby condo to partake of his small, but wellstocked, cellar. As if it hadn’t been clear already, now it was a fait accompli that I was out of the picture. No doubt Jerry had already informed his mark that I was a chronically unemployed writer, which was usually about all it took to get desirable women to steer clear of me at all

  I turned back to Dani, shaking my head scornfully. “Amount of wine those guys have been drinking, I doubt either of them could get an erection.”

  Dani poured off more of the Rochioli, filling our small tasting glasses to the rim, before the others could get their mitts on it. As the tastings drew to a close, and the bottles grew depleted, selfishness became the common mantra of the afternoon.

  “I’m happy for you and Roger,” I heard myself say. “But if it doesn’t work out, I want you to call me, okay?”

  Dani dipped her head to one side and smiled.

  “I’m serious,” I blundered on, aware that I was spewing drunken nonsense, feeling that cavernous loneliness welling up in me again but oblivious of the consequences and determined to hurtle forward with abandon.

  Dani placed a sympathetic hand on my shoulder. Then, unexpectedly, she planted her lips on mine and held them there for what seemed like an eternity. I felt her tongue hot and moist inside my mouth. It wasn’t an affectionate kiss, but rather a showy display to flout propriety and draw attention.

  From behind me, a chorus of rowdy, counterfeit hoorays erupted. On cue, Dani unstuck herself and chased the kiss with the last of her Rochioli. In one movement, she reached indiscriminately into the field of dead bottles to grab one that had anything sloshing around on the bottom. She fished out the Allen Chard, veering recklessly backward in the order—my girl! I held out my glass and she topped me off. I was light-headed from the wine, the unexpected

  I was eager for Jack to
arrive and call it a tasting when, out of nowhere, Jerry the cavity filler directed something at me he probably intended as a harmless joke. I didn’t exactly catch all of it, what with the riot of competing voices and my diminishing auditory faculties, but I was in a mood just askew enough, inspired by the swell of laughter that followed his remark, to whirl around and retort: “Where’s your wife this week, Jerry? We miss her.”

  His goofy, mirthful face instantly imploded into a bilious scowl. The dark-haired woman, whose head he’d been filling with more than porcelain, broke into an aghast hand-to-the-mouth-oh-my-God! expression. She mouthed something to the dentist while simultaneously starting to back away. Out of earshot one could reasonably assume it was a follow-up to my derogatory comment. Gesticulating a little wildly and visibly flustered, Jerry was clearly trying to explain away my remark. He held up his left hand to show her he didn’t wear a wedding ring, but that was hardly convincing to a smart woman at a wine tasting where lies flowed freer than Chardonnay.

  A few moments later, the three newcomers regrouped and fled The Bullpen, vowing no doubt never to return. Carl held up two empty arms to me as if he had fumbled a pass in the end zone, an innocent victim of collateral damage.

  Jerry the dentist, ditched and publicly humiliated, stormed out of The Bullpen into the main part of the store where he paced the Italian section and glowered at the Brunellos. Our eyes locked for a quick, spiteful moment. He straightened his middle finger and shook it in and out in front of his scowling face. That ignited me.

  “Hey, Jerry,” I called out, cupping my free hand around the corner of my mouth. “Get a bottle of the Muscadet, it’ll pair perfectly with your wife’s pussy!”

  The Bullpen exploded into laughter. The mood was once again giddy and arms crisscrossed the ledge to check for dregs in the few remaining bottles. The Farrell rep quailed in her corner and sipped her wine, resigned to the carnage. The two tittering office assistants, totally liquored up, bumped hips to a tune only they heard.

  I turned away to refresh myself with more wine when the dentist charged into The Bullpen and shoved me backward. I lost my balance and a half glass (damn!) of the Chard went flying.

  “Hey, hey,” I heard Dani soothe as though she were calling from another room. I was semiafraid for the dentist that Dani was going to physically come to my assistance. She owned a brown belt in martial arts and would have kicked his ass, only adding to Jerry’s humiliation.

  “That wasn’t funny,” Jerry screamed, his face malignantly red with bile and tannin.

  “It’s because of lecherous jerks like you that more single women don’t come to these tastings,” I shot back.

  Jerry was the type in whom alcohol raises the level of violence. He rushed at me and wrapped his arms around my

  As I grappled with the hysterical dentist, Dani, in an inspired move I don’t think Gary Farrell had in mind when he vinified his ’99 bottling, hoisted the silver spit bucket aloft—full from a long afternoon of tasting—and upended it on Jerry’s head.

  A fetid mixture of wine and cheese-infused saliva splattered everywhere. Jerking erect, Jerry flailed at his face, his arms scissoring back and forth like windshield wipers gone berserk.

  “Try the Meritage, Jerry,” I said, getting to my feet. “Fruit forward and drinkable now!”

  Graham elbowed his way into The Bullpen. “All right, everybody, the tasting’s over.”

  A scowling Jerry, his polo shirt stained with wine, started to advance on me again, but the heftier Graham stepped in between us. “Come on, Jerry,” Graham warned. “I don’t want to have to ban you from coming here.”

  Jerry brandished his middle finger at me again as Graham coaxed him out of the tasting area.

  The buzz in The Bullpen gradually quieted. Dani, Carl, and I made small talk as the Farrell rep started to gather up her brochures and tote bags. A moment later, as if on

  “Miles,” he declared.

  “Jack! You made it!”

  Jack was outsized in every way. When he broke into laughter, it rattled the shackles of your unconscious and demanded that you join in. When he walked into a movie theater he swallowed the entire aisle. He was the guy who got hired on the spot because of his infectious charisma, the guy who didn’t have to work to get the girl. Unlike me, any weaknesses he had were secreted and any negativity painted over with broad strokes of optimism. Truth for Jack was what he could touch and smell and taste at any given moment. Self-reflection was generally too deep for him. He was a meat eater, a problem solver, a spirit lifter after a tough day, the guy everyone would want to rub shoulders with in a foxhole while mortars rained down. He seemed an unlikely candidate for marriage. Given his personality and looks, opportunities for long nights with the opposite sex were limitless, and another man not so endowed would wonder why Jack wouldn’t want to live the Casanova life until his privates gave out. But Jack had a sentimental side, too, and I could—if I tried hard enough—envision him with a brood of children, sprawled in a La-Z-Boy with a six-pack on ice, spinning anecdotes about his colorful past.

  Jack came down the stairs and wheeled into The Bullpen with his familiar swagger, which always lightened the

  A few minutes later everyone was laughing again. Graham returned, having successfully shooed Jerry out of his store.

  Jack was getting up to speed on the melee. “The guy’s married,” I was explaining, “and he knew I was hitting on her.”

  Jack looked at me dismissively. “You overreacted, Miles.”

  “I made a little joke and the fucker got physical,” I said.

  “So what’s the problem between you and Jerry?” Graham asked.

  “I’ll tell you my problem. A couple of weeks ago I brought a date here. He chats her up. That’s cool—I know she’s not going to go for him. Middle of the week he tracks her down on the set of a film she’s working on, flatters her with a load of poppycock, then asks her out.”

  “What’s wrong with that?” Graham said.

  “What’s wrong with that?” I echoed. “The guy tried to do an end run around. The woman thinks I hang out with creeps. You ought to ban him from these tastings.”

  Graham just screwed up his face in response.

  Jack, bored with the argument, picked up one of the remaining bottles, but only managed a few dribbles of wine when he upended it. “Hey, Graham. How about opening another bottle? I need a glass for the road. Miles and I are officially on vacation.”

  “Where’re you going?”

  “Santa Ynez Valley,” I answered. “Do the winery tour, then stuff Jack in the monkey suit and get him hitched a week from Sunday.”

  “It’s a little bachelor week blowout,” Jack elaborated. “Miles is going to educate me on wines and I’m going to educate him on life.”

  “Someone should call the cops,” Graham said. Everyone laughed. “All right,” he said. “What’re you guys in the mood for?”

  “Let’s sample some champagne,” I said. “Get in the matrimonial mode.”

  Graham beetled his brow and thought for a moment. Then he slapped his thigh. “I’ve got an idea.” He strode upstairs, where he kept his private stash, and reappeared a minute later with a cold bottle of ’92 Byron sparkling wine.

  I set four clean glasses on the terrazzo ledge. Graham expertly uncorked the bottle and poured them foaming half full. We all toasted and sampled. It had the beautiful gold color of an aged champagne, appropriately yeasty and rich on the palate.

  “What do you think?” Graham asked.

  “Luscious,” I remarked, taking another sip. “I didn’t know Byron made a sparkling wine.”

  “Hundred percent Pinot Noir,” Graham said. “I figured since you guys are doing Santa Ynez and Miles is a Pinot freak, this would be right up your alley.”

  “Why do you call it a sparkling wine and not champagne?” Jack asked.

  “The term ‘champagne’ is trademarked by the French, and if it’s not from the Champagne region of France, then it can’t be c
alled champagne—at least not on the label,” I explained. “But because I’m sick of the French and their proprietary ways, Spumanti, Cava, California sparkling, they’re all champagne to me. Right, Graham?”

  “Whatever you say, Miles.”

  Jack nodded thoughtfully. “I’ll remember that.”

  “I’ve only got one case left,” Graham said. “They don’t make it anymore. Two forty a case.”

  I looked at Jack with widened eyes and nodded vigorous approval.

  “All right, we’ll take it,” Jack said.

  Dani drained her glass. “I’ve got to be going. Roger’s supposed to call.”

  “No, come with us,” I said. “Roger won’t mind. Take a week off.”

  Dani wagged a finger at us. “You two guys in the wine country for a week. Sounds like a hen’s night out. Bye.” She waved as she made her way out of The Bullpen. “Thanks for the champers.” And then she was gone, leaving a rectangle of harsh orange sunlight in her wake.

  Jack shook his head in an exaggerated manner. “Man, that chick’s got it going on. Would I ever love to strap her on.”

  “Hey, don’t talk about Dani like that. She’s a good girl,” I said.

  “Yeah, right,” Jack said, laughing. “Good to the bone.”

  “Hey, I saw your ex in here the other day,” Graham said, referring to Victoria, the woman I had been married to for eight years. I hadn’t seen or talked to her in some months.

  “Oh, yeah?” I said, my mood changing abruptly. “What was she doing on the West Side?”

  “Came over to fuck me,” Graham replied, deadpan.

  “Yeah, right. She’d remarry me before she’d mount you. Fucking goat.”

  Graham and Jack both laughed.

  “Was she with anyone?” I probed.

  “Yeah, some guy I’ve never seen before. Tall, good-looking, well dressed. Pretty much your opposite.”