Blush, p.1
Blush, page 1
Also by Jamie Brenner
Summer Longing
Drawing Home
The Husband Hour
The Forever Summer
The Wedding Sisters
G. P. Putnam’s Sons
Publishers Since 1838
An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC
penguinrandomhouse.com
Copyright © 2021 by Jamie Brenner
Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.
Hardcover ISBN: 9780593085752
Ebook ISBN: 9780593085769
Book design by Elke Sigal, adapted for ebook by Maggie Hunt
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Cover design: Vi-An Nguyen
pid_prh_5.7.0_c0_r1
Dedicated to Jackie Collins and Judith Krantz
Contents
Cover
Also by Jamie Brenner
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Epigraph
Prologue
Part One: Bud Break
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Part Two: Bloom
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
Chapter Twenty-six
Chapter Twenty-seven
Chapter Twenty-eight
Chapter Twenty-nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-one
Chapter Thirty-two
Chapter Thirty-three
Chapter Thirty-four
Chapter Thirty-five
Chapter Thirty-six
Part Three: Fruit Set
Chapter Thirty-seven
Chapter Thirty-eight
Chapter Thirty-nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-one
Chapter Forty-two
Chapter Forty-three
Chapter Forty-four
Chapter Forty-five
Part Four: Crush
Chapter Forty-six
Chapter Forty-seven
Chapter Forty-eight
Chapter Forty-nine
Chapter Fifty
Chapter Fifty-one
Chapter Fifty-two
Chapter Fifty-three
Chapter Fifty-four
Chapter Fifty-five
Chapter Fifty-six
Chapter Fifty-seven
Chapter Fifty-eight
Chapter Fifty-nine
Chapter Sixty
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
About the Author
To make a great wine, a winemaker has to put all at risk, and walk a fine line between complexity and spoilage.
—Louisa Thomas Hargrave, The Vineyard
Prologue—1985
Cutchogue, New York
Spring
It was the time of year known as bud break, that late-spring moment when the entire vineyard turned green.
She looked out at the orderly rows of plants as far as the eye could see. The knotty wood trunk of the vines gave way to a lush canopy of leaves that her father tamed with wire, and little nubs of the fruit poked through with the promise of abundance. It was Leah’s favorite season, the moment before everything changed.
The sun began to set, but her father showed no sign of slowing down. Her older brother had lost interest and wandered off long ago. Her father patted her head, saying, “At least one of my children is paying attention to what’s important.” The praise thrilled her. “See here, Leah—we don’t need all these shoots,” he said, indicating where he had clipped away at the plant tied to the trellis wire. “This is the primary shoot, and we can’t have others competing for the plant’s resources.”
Her father had been bringing her out into the fields from the time she could walk. The winery was her home, and the acres of surrounding fields were her secret garden. This made her feel special; it made her feel like she had a destiny, and no matter what happened at school or with her friends, she had something bigger to hold on to. Here, she belonged.
A young man emerged from the row of Syrah plants. Javier was her father’s most trusted field hand.
“Javier, tomorrow we’ll start at five thirty,” her father called out to him.
“Yes, Senõr Hollander.”
Javier had black hair and black eyes and long limbs that made her watch his every move with fascination. When he disappeared into the distance, the fields suddenly felt a little less alive. She was twelve years old, Javier was her first crush, and her feelings made the vineyard seem even more magical.
At dusk, she and her father walked silently back toward the sprawling eighteenth-century farmhouse that her parents had converted into a winery. She heard laughter from the back deck, an assembly of women in which her mother held center court.
It was the last Tuesday of the month, and that meant book club.
Her father walked past the group with a small wave to Leah’s mother, following a path around to the front of the building. Leah lingered, hoping to remain unnoticed for even just a few moments so she could watch them. The women all looked glamorous, in their dresses by Halston, Nolan Miller, and Escada, their hair teased and sprayed into style, their lips bright with gloss. But the standout in any crowd was always her mother, with her ash blond hair, blue eyes, and sharp cheekbones. She looked like the actress who played Krystle Carrington on their favorite television show, Dynasty.
Their glasses bubbled with the sparkling version of Hollander Estates Winery’s pale pink wine, the one called blush. Leah’s brother, Asher, had snuck a sample for them both one day when they were helping out in the bottling room. It was sweeter than she’d expected, better than she’d expected—especially since her father dismissed it as “swill.”
“Then why do you make it?” she’d asked him. Her father was the winemaker, and if it was swill, it was swill he had created on purpose. He was a third-generation vintner, a family tradition that had begun in 1910, when her great-grandfather was gifted a winery in Mendoza, Argentina, as payment for a debt. Her father had told her the story many times.
“Because it sells,” her father said.
It was a calm, windless evening, and a honey-like scent hung in the air, a promise of the summer to come. The women took seats around one of the cherrywood tables, carrying their wine and books. They were already flipping through pages, whispering and pointing at certain passages. Occasionally, one of the women would glance over to make sure Leah didn’t hear what they were saying.
“Leah, time to run along,” her mother said. “We’re going to begin.”
Leah did not want to run along. She yearned to be included in the group, to get dressed up and sit by her mother’s side and talk about books.
“When you’re older,” her mother had said when Leah shared this with her. What she hadn’t confessed was that she’d been reading the books with them all along, sneaking her mother’s copy when she wasn’t around. The pages were filled with sex.
Leah had been tempted to admit her secret to the winery’s sales rep, Delphine, who had recently joined the book club. She’d spotted Delphine reading Scruples in the tasting room just a few days earlier. Delphine herself seemed to Leah like the heroine of a novel: beautiful, exotic, and endlessly knowledgeable about wine in a way Leah hoped to be when she grew up. Delphine was French. Leah’s parents constantly had to remind Delphine not to smoke in the winery because it would “blunt the palate.”
Now, looking around the veranda, it seemed the entire book club was assembled except for Delphine. She lingered until her mother placed a cool hand on her back.
“Leah, you must go,” her mother said, consulting her diamond Ebel watch. “And where is Delphine? I have half a mind to start without her.”
She looked around, but the only new arrival was Leah’s father, breathless and red in the face.
“Vivian, I need to speak to you,” he said.
“Can’t it wait, Leonard? We’re about to begin.”
“Absolutely not.”
What could this be about? Her father never went anywhere near the book club, and Leah knew that that was exactly how her mother liked it.
Vivian excused herself from her friends, patted her perfectly coiffed hair in irritation, and followed her husband down the stairs a discreet distance from the deck. Leah followed them and ducked behind a flowering shrub.
“Delphine is hysterically crying in the office. I need your help dealing with this.”
“What happened?”
“What happened is—she’s been sleeping with our accounts, and now one of our biggest is dropping us.”
“Dropping us? Why?”
“Because Delphine broke up with him. This is why women shouldn’t work at a winery!”
He stormed off, leaving her mother clutching the Bulgari necklace at her throat. She spotted Leah, who tried to slink away. “For the last time, get to the house, young lady,” her mother said. “You don’t belong out here.”
Of course she did. No matter what was happening, Leah knew it was the only place she’d ever belong.
Part One
Bud Break
Girls may start out smart, but not all girls stay so damned smart.
—Judith Krantz, Lovers
One
New York City
“I’m looking for something decadent,” the woman said, leaning over the counter and squinting at the menu board. “Something to impress.”
She was not one of Leah’s regular customers, the ones who stopped in every week to buy cheese for their weekend charcuterie boards or just to stock their fridge. Those people Leah had come to know over the years, as they debated the merits of tossing a good Castelrosso into salad instead of feta.
“Are you looking for a soft or hard cheese?” Leah asked. Typically, she would ask for more information: What other food would be served? If wine would be part of the meal, what varietal? But lately, she was distracted.
“Either one,” the woman said. She had brown hair shimmering with gold highlights and wore a chic, lightweight trench coat.
“I’m a big fan of the Kunik,” Leah said. “It’s a triple cream cheese. Very silky texture and truly delicious. Try this—like butter,” she said, passing the woman a sample of the soft white cheese.
The woman tasted it, and her eyes widened. “You know what you’re talking about.”
Yes, she did. Leah had opened the cheese shop eighteen years earlier, when her daughter was just three years old. The small space on the corner of Seventy-Ninth Street and First Avenue had stood vacant for a long time. Every day, passing it on her way to buy groceries at Agata & Valentina, she fantasized about turning it into a cheese shop. She even had a name for it: Bailey’s Blue, an ode to her love of blue cheese.
The door opened, and this time it was a regular, a party planner named Roya Lout who had talked more than one hostess into using Bailey’s Blue instead of a larger purveyor. “I like your style,” she had declared, and Leah knew she wasn’t talking about her clothes. Years earlier, before it was popular, Leah had made a commitment to feature locally produced cheese, and her shop consistently showcased northeastern artisanal varieties.
There had been a time when she thought about expanding her space to include the location next door if it became available. She taught wine and cheese classes in the cramped back room of the shop, and she could use a dedicated space for that. At just around eight hundred square feet, Bailey’s Blue had one long counter, and one display case filled with wheels of creamy Brie, Camembert, Comte, and Gruyère. She also had one case for her beloved blues: Roquefort, Stilton, Gorgonzola, a few wedges of the classic Maytag, Pur Chèvre Bleu from Illinois, and Bergère Bleue from upstate. The shelves behind the counter brimmed with jars of assorted olives, figs, chocolate-covered almonds, artisanal crackers, and jam—the accoutrements to tease out the nuanced flavors of fine cheese. Her husband had recently added a mounted display of cheese knives and serving boards for sale.
“It’s getting cluttered in here,” she’d said. But Steven, recently retired and now working beside her in the shop, was eager to make his mark.
As it turned out, there would be no expanding next door: the landlord was selling the entire lot to developers, and they would be losing their lease in six months. It was happening all over the Upper East Side neighborhood known as Yorkville, once a haven of mom-and-pop bakeries, hardware stores, boutique pharmacies, and beauty shops. Now entire city blocks were being razed to build high-rises, the small businesses replaced by CVS and Citibank.
Steven saw it as an opportunity to start fresh with a bigger, better space.
“Change can be a good thing,” he said.
Leah, who had been in business for nearly two decades, felt like maybe she needed a moment to catch her breath.
“Congrats,” Roya Lout said. “I read your daughter’s story. To be published in The New Yorker before she even graduates college? She’s a genius.”
A genius who had not answered any of Leah’s texts or calls for the past few days.
“Thank you,” Leah said, brushing the concern about Sadie out of her mind. “And I think you’ll love this Hudson River Valley blue. It’s mellow, but you’ll notice a bit of tanginess.”
Roya slipped the sample into her mouth. “Mmmm,” she said. “There are some tropical fruit notes in here. Right?”
Steven walked in, his arms laden with shopping bags. He gave the customers a nod of greeting before joining Leah behind the counter.
“Mission accomplished,” he said, unpacking the special cheese wrapping paper and bags from Formaticum she’d run out of. Her delivery wasn’t due until tomorrow, so Steven had made a trip to Brooklyn. She smiled at him.
Steven Bailey was tall and lean, his thick dark hair threaded with silver. His intense eyes appeared green-gray, except in the sun, when she could see they were, in fact, blue. He was as handsome as he had been the day she first saw him. She had been fresh out of college, working behind the counter at the legendary shop Murray’s Cheese in the Village, where Steven was the assistant manager. It was supposed to be just a summer job, a last hurrah in the city before she returned to the Hollander winery to take her place in the family business alongside her father.
It hadn’t worked out that way.
Another customer appeared in the doorway, and Roya and the trench coat woman had to squeeze in to make room.
“Good morning, Mrs. Fryer,” Leah said. The woman had lived in the neighborhood for sixty years and had been widowed for half of that time. She kept busy with her four Dachshunds and local gossip.
“Tell me it isn’t true,” Mrs. Fryer said.
“What isn’t true?” Roya asked.
“I’m going to take the Kunik and the Brie,” said the trench coat woman.
Leah nudged Steven out of the way so she could reach into the cheese case. The place really was not big enough for the two of them.
“She’s closing the shop,” Mrs. Fryer announced to the whole store.
“No one’s closing anything,” Steven said.
“Who’re you?” Mrs. Fryer asked.
Steven and Leah exchanged a look. She shrugged.
“I’m Leah’s husband, Steven. We met last week.”
“Well, you can’t fool me, husband. The landlord sold to developers. This entire block is going! They’re putting up a big condo.”
Outside, Mrs. Fryer’s leashed dogs began to bark. “I’ll be back this afternoon for my Gouda.” The door stuck as she left, and warm air wafted in. The trench coat woman reached to close it. When she paid for her cheese, she handed Leah a business card.
“My name’s Anouk Jansen—I’m a real estate agent.”
“Anouk. What a lovely name. Swedish?” Leah said.
“Dutch. If you’re looking for a new retail space, feel free to be in touch.”
“We’re definitely looking for a new space,” Steven said, taking the card from Leah.
“At some point,” Leah said, shooting him a look.
Everything was moving way too fast.
A few months earlier, in a corporate restructuring, Steven’s company had offered senior management—including members of the in-house legal team—the option to take a package and retire early. Steven had jumped at the chance. He’d never enjoyed being an attorney. It had always been a means to an end: supporting his family. But now that Sadie had only one year left of college, the pressure was off.
