Eau de Vie: chapter one
Pas de deux
The Saturday I first met Vie was in early April. That morning the Valley was bathing in a soft cascade of sunbeams, which were coaxing open blooms and encouraging dormant grapevines to break bud and begin their labor of leafing out.
My whole body, for the first time in years, was free of pain, and I drank in the morning’s brightness and warmth gratefully. From my backyard Adirondack, I nursed a mug of black coffee and made an appraisal of my gardening spaces, the compost heap, and beehives. What was needed, and where did things need filling in? The gardens for two years had lain fallow, and when I was at my worst, I grieved about that, imagining I would never be able to grow things again. Through these difficult months, I watched nature take over; at first, I was sad to see common weeds and amaranth populating what had been my vegetable patch. But that first fall after the garden went to seed, my sadness seemed selfishly inappropriate as a steady stream of goldfinches and sparrows gingerly perched on the fuchsia fronds of wild amaranth, feasting on the seeds. Their high-pitched trills and mordents filled me with joy. It seemed everything was exactly as it should be and that maybe there was a purpose to all this pain.
On that Saturday, once my body was sufficiently warmed through and infused with caffeine, my new hip felt ready to tackle a day of walking and gardening. I had my life back – my body waking up from a long hibernation. It was time to return to the world and a good start would involve a trip to Burke’s for supplies and starts for my vegetable garden.
The first person I saw when I arrived at the gardening center was Vie. We were the early birds, cued up and ready to go the minute the gates opened. Vie was wearing a rough-looking pair of cargo pants – frayed at the hems, the side pouch zipper broken, and the back right pocket slightly ripped where once there had been a rivet. A triangular hole revealed bright pink undies beneath. One had the impression the woman intended to be buried in these pants because faded and worn as they were, and clearly beyond value as even a second-hand garment, they had been lovingly washed, and an attempt made to eradicate dirt stains, which instead left faded blotches everywhere. To their credit, the pants had a pleasant, soapy lavender smell, something I noticed as I bent down to add a flat of Russian kale and rainbow chard to my now overflowing cart of veggie starts.
With muscular tan arms and broad swimmer’s shoulders accentuated by a bright, bleached white men’s tank top, my soon-to-be friend gave the impression she didn’t care if someone mistook her for a dyke. Her bristly peppered hair, a short, textured pixie, was wanting for a cut, having grown unevenly, with a cowlick at her neckline in need of taming by an expert pair of shears. She had a strong neck, a beautiful, long one that elevated her above the riff-raff. It was from there, on high, that she surveyed the spring vegetable starts, refusing to wait patiently for the growing crowd of doddering older women. Most were probably her same age, though unlike her, they seemed mentally checked out as they went about their self-important selecting of plants, white visors emblazoned with the name of the local golf club.
These women were fixated on the most boring plants – beefsteak tomatoes and bell peppers, red leaf lettuce if they were feeling adventurous, and then the usual zucchini, green beans, and cucumbers – slicing and lemon cucumbers, which they invariably parked too close to one other in the garden, the cross-pollination resulting in leathery, inedible fruit. Vie was intolerant of their gardening ignorance and disappointed by their refusal to try even one heirloom variety, especially when it was so easy to pull up a recipe online if, in fact, one had no clue what to do with a rutabaga. Her scowl said it all. Why didn’t they bother to try something new? Why did they fill their carts with things readily available at every grocery store in town?
I was at Burke’s that Saturday for the free entertainment, though between acts, I’d managed to snag a few interesting plants for my backyard and for the three culinary gardens I was now tending at restaurants in town. I could have come on a weekday, really, it’s just that this spring feeding frenzy was most interesting on Saturdays. In a couple of weeks, these crazy ladies would have grown tired of gardening and be back on the golf course, putting back Arnold Palmers between holes, while their caged tomato plants bit the dust back home.
Vie, to whom I’d not yet introduced myself, looked my way and glanced at my cart, ascertaining, in the process, that we were both, indeed, from the same planet. She then gestured with rolling eyes and a slow headshake her annoyance at the throngs of women bickering over white and purple alyssum. They were blocking our path to the herbs. Her gesture was my cue to do what I do best: stir shit up; “Any chance those of us not in the market for Alyssum could make our way through?” The response: not one cart moved, followed by the passive-aggressive averting of eyes by the lot of them. Vie and I were trapped in the Alyssum asylum.
This was the drama I’d waited all week for. I took the cart closest to mine, the one blocking both sides of the aisle, picked it up by the back end, and tightly wedged it under the elevated plant shelving, blocking all of the alyssum in the process. Bingo! When the cart user finally acknowledged my presence with a “How dare you move my plants,” I responded with, “Those plants aren’t yours until they’re paid for,” then I proceeded down the now-cleared aisle assertively. Vie followed in my wake, grateful to be exiting the fray.
The herb aisle beyond was full to the brim with fragrant and exotic selections, some of which were in bloom, the Vietnamese coriander and lemongrass in particular. Large pots of Genovese basil with fat, curved leaves sat amongst 4” terra cotta pots of lemon, Thai, and Greek basil – one could fill an entire herb garden with basil varieties if inclined. And though I did think to do that, and a real Martha Stewart move that would have been, most recipes called for additional herb types and I wanted fresh everything on hand, as I love cooking.
What I really needed was to replenish the thyme on my borders, which had grown tired and woody. And I was looking to add in a patch of French herbs – tarragon, chives, chervil, and curly parsley. It was spring, and I had a hankering for a cassoulet with lamb shank and a nice herb-roasted chicken – something I could nosh on all week. My last boyfriend had been the executive chef at a local bistro, so I was well-versed in French cooking and had successfully nailed several Provençal dishes, all of which paired beautifully with the local pinot noir. That romance was short-lived, sadly – as Adam had moved in with his restaurant’s pastry chef, who was not 11 years older than he, as I am. They promptly got pregnant and you know the rest of the story. Nonetheless, the recipes, which are spot-on, have endured, and I enjoy recreating them and reminiscing about the great sex. The man was a cordon bleu of cunnilingus.
But a lot of good those recipes did me, as I now, sadly, dine alone nearly every night of the week. There are currently zero boyfriends in the queue, and all my non-boyfriends (male and female) are happily married or in a relationship and are generally too busy to meet up with me. Add to that my now empty nest status, which is still in phase one - the trying to figure out how to shop for one person phase.
So here I was at Burke’s, losing myself in a gardening reverie, Tom Petty’s “Wildflowers” blaring through my AirPods. Then, out of the corner of my eye, I spotted my new friend doing the same, but without the musical accompaniment. Vie considered carefully which starts she needed, setting pots next to one another on an empty shelf to assess the aesthetic effect of height, leaf shapes, and color. These would be the herbs for her kitchen window. She then gathered entire flats of dill and mustard, lovage, marjoram, and oregano for her garden, which were to go with the two fat shrubs of bay laurel she’d already muscled onto the wagon. I would love to see the garden these were destined for.
Having collected up a nice assortment of my own, mainly French herbs, I shimmied my cart up to Vie’s wagon and cooed over her selections; all those flats of herbs. Did this foretell the size of her plot or the scale of her entertaining? Or perhaps these were the components of a vanity garden. There were a lot of these in the Valley. Usually, those shoppers were obvious, the fake green thumbs that is – in their crisp white tennis skirts and a BMI hovering around 17. No one was cooking in those households. Nor gardening, for that matter. A good-looking Hispanic gentleman was willing to take care of everything (and I do mean everything) – all those ladies needed to do was point their expertly painted gel nails in the right direction, and Rudolpho would see to making their dreams a reality. Was that really his name?
I pulled my AirPods out of my ears and pocketed them, then pretended to have an interest in sorrel, an herb right next to Vie’s cart. “Curious what’s in store for all those herbs of yours,” I blustered, a mediocre attempt on my part at opening up a conversation while trying not to sound like the judgmental old biddies in the Alyssum aisle.
Vie kept her gaze down, then turned her head ever so slightly in my direction to see who I was, while not so discreetly giving me the once over. With a snarky half-smile, she asked, “Who wants to know?” The real question, the unspoken one, based on her expression, was, “What the hell are you wearing?” Now there was a question. My intuition would have me believe that if I didn’t address that concern up front, any potential friendship would peter out before it even got started. A simple fact: I looked weird. I don’t have any full-length mirrors in my house, so Vie’s expression was my first indication that perhaps my ensemble was a fail.
“Ah, yes – what am I wearing? Good question that,” I chuckled. Alrighty, I opened this door; now I had to go through it. Making a Vanna White hand gesture from shoulder to thigh, I said, “This would be my decades-old Calvin Klein nightshirt, which last night, appropriately, served as pajamas, this morning as a dress, which you can see pairs beautifully with my Reef flip-flops – and soon, all of this will transform into gardening attire.” “And yes, I am wearing underwear,” I noted, though I was not. Vie laughed, then tsked me severely, shaking her head. “Fortunately, there’s not a stiff breeze this morning dear, so your secret’s safe with me,” she laughed. Did I detect a German accent? And was it that obvious, the not-wearing-underwear thing?
I think we were both a bit shocked at hearing ourselves flirt, and our mutual arousal was confirmed by flushed cheeks, mine an especially deep crimson. I am one of those people of Scottish descent who cannot hide feelings – even the slightest chemistry with a person and I blush from head to toe. So what the hell was I doing making sexual banter with this complete stranger? And what was she doing volleying it back? I can count on one hand the number of times I engaged in this sort of repartée and it most certainly was not with a woman. Judging from Vie’s expression, this was new territory for her, as well.
We laughed nervously, awkwardly turning the subject back to our gardens, then moving on to converse about where we lived, this in the context of the types of gardens we kept. Vie described living on a large ranch, an expansive fenced plot on the side of the house with a north-south orientation perfect for herbs and veggies. My tiny bungalow in town sat on a large lot, which back in the day, had been part of a larger estate, replete with a well, curious clumps of Victorian perennials that still pushed up each spring, and then there was the occasional found horseshoe, and other artifacts that pointed to the property’s provenance as a farm. Also – the property had some ancient, though productive fruit trees, namely persimmons, mission figs, and apples.
My property also had a small barn and two sunny areas on either side of the house that were perfect for vegetable patches; one for taller plants, the other for herbs and low-growing veggies. I also kept bees and had long ago made a deal with them whereby I provided ready access to water, nectar, and pollen year-round in exchange for them not stinging me while I tended the gardens. And we shared the honey, as both had contributed to its manufacture and there was more than enough for all.
Vie described having horses, cows, and chickens and then, there were the hundreds of acres of pristine wilderness and all the creatures that came with that. Might I like to come over and take a hike one morning, she posited. Well, of course. I had a lot of making up to do in terms of getting out and about and this sounded to be a perfect opportunity. I had a new pair of hiking boots and walking sticks to go with my new hip.
Our spontaneous and animated conversation continued through checkout and while we loaded plants and large bags of manure and soil into our cars, which happened to be parked next to each other in the lot. We found ourselves having difficulty wrapping things up, as having ventured down so many roads of common interest we had lost our way. Vie’s husband, Carl, was out of town for the weekend, so I suggested that if Vie were available, we might meet up valley for dinner and to continue talking. There was a place I loved that had wonderful wood-oven roasted pizza – it would be great to share a pie with someone – might Vie be interested? What a shame to eat a meal like that without company as I had done so many times over the last few years – sort of like playing a Bach partita flawlessly when no one was within earshot.
Vie was down for it, so we settled on 7:00 p.m. and it was there we met up.
I’d not socialized for months – truth be told, it had actually been over a year and a half, as the lead-up to my hip surgery had been excruciating. I’d been canceling more engagements than I was actually attending.
This evening’s dinner plans represented a powerful moment—I was fully recovered from my surgery and had successfully shepherded both of my kids into adulthood. Free and clear of major worries and responsibilities, I was ripe for indulging in food, adult conversation, and whatever else might transpire. It was a time to celebrate and fill my emotional coffers.
I took the afternoon to rest, listened to some Rachmaninoff and Dvorak, and then immersed myself in my preparations, starting with a hundred laps at the outdoor pool, so I might be sun-kissed and invigorated. Then, on the way home I stopped to get my toenails painted. Back home, I laid out my favorite cream crochet-knit dress with a stylishly faded, azure cambric shirt. How much better I felt in my favorite colors and fabrics, ready to conquer anything. I pulled my silvery hair up in a clip, put on some burgundy lip rouge, and added basic silver hoops. I looked exactly as I wanted. No mirror was needed.
At 6:30 p.m., I began making my way up valley via Silverado Trail. The setting sun’s golden glow lit up the eastern slopes, which were alive with fresh spring vegetation. Across the valley floor was an ocean of vineyards, bright green with new foliage, and beyond the vineyards were the deep greens of redwoods, which populated the western slopes and which were now immersed in the shadows cast by the mountains as the sun began its descent. This feast for the eyes had been my solace on many a difficult day.
This time of year, spring’s magical force fills every nook and cranny in the Valley’s landscape with prominent blossoms and a riot of new leaves. Even trees whose flowers are typically spare and subtle, blossom abundantly and colorfully in this Valley. The region is famous for its perfect combination of elements: rich soil, pristine water, consistent sunshine, and ocean-blessed moisture, which is pulled into the Valley via the evening tide, gently cooling the grapes and giving them an overnight respite in their development. All tributaries in the region connect to a mainstem that runs the length of the Valley, then fans out to tidal estuaries that connect to the Pacific Ocean. Evenings in the Valley are consistently cool and moist, ensuring a good night’s sleep and for all living things, much-needed hydration.
The rhythm of this life-giving moisture parallels the flood and ebb current of the tide and is as constant as the gravitational forces of sun and moon.
It was as though Vie and I had stepped onto a dancefloor and were ever so gently pulled into a luxurious bossa nova, the laws of physics and nature conspiring to bring us together.
My favorite pizza spot was up Valley, and though I disliked the overall vibe of St. Helena with its wealthy retirees and the landed gentry who shoved out those who would have made it a more colorful and vibrant community, I did love the local pizzeria and the big park on the south end of town, so much so that I might have moved there just for those two amenities. The Pines of Rome had, hands down, the best pizza in the Valley and there were many worthy competitors. The Pines had been the first, however, all others were just imitators.
I had not been to The Pines since before my surgery, so this felt a bit like coming home. As I pulled up, a rush of memories filled my head… my kids’ birthday parties, dates with San Francisco boyfriend, Jim, and then the numerous times I brought family and friends. The Pines was wonderfully exotic to those Midwesterners.
Weather permitting, it was always my preference to eat outside under the vine-covered trellis, which at this very moment was pregnant with big clusters of musky-smelling wisteria. Vie had not yet arrived, so I ventured in to request from the maître d’ a table for two under the trellis. He recognized me as the person tending their culinary garden and was happy to seat me in a prime spot, then sent over the sommelier to organize some complimentary wine.
Vie arrived shortly after 7:00 p.m. and was delivered to my table, which by now had a lovely bottle of Pinot Noir ready to enjoy. She looked relaxed, wearing a soft purple knit dress with a deep scoop neckline accented with a simple, medium-length strand of black onyx beads. Her arms and hands, bronze after many hours in the garden, were a lovely contrast to the gold of her thick wedding band. She had spruced up her hair with a bit of mousse, the peppery strands coyishly standing at attention, the silver bits glistening playfully. She needed no makeup and thus had none, her face distinctive on its own with high cheekbones and soft blue eyes.
We glanced briefly at the menu, more anxious to talk than concerned about what to order. I suggested my favorite wild mushroom pizza with a side of fiddlehead ferns, a specialty in the spring, both mushrooms and ferns emanating from wooded areas outside of Halifax, Nova Scotia. This choice of ingredients seemed to intrigue and perplex Vie. In short order, our waiter arrived, jotted down our selections, and from then on out, it was nonstop banter, though in the midst of it, we somehow managed to snarf down the entirety of a large pizza. Our feast was rounded out by a generously served Valrhona brownie with house-made vanilla soft-serve, one order enough for a small family. But armed with two spoons, these alte Frauen polished it off without incident.
Both Vie and I had been famished, Vie understandably so after a full day’s gardening activities. My hunger had more to do with the exhilaration of our connection and the celebration of my re-emergence into the world, this time as a whole person, both mentally and physically, though some of the parts were now cobalt-chromium. And without men present, neither of us hesitated to enjoy our food with abandon.
Unexpected and unplanned was our first encounter at the nursery. The depth of this new friendship, after one day: like the ocean.
Our evening concluded with a hug in the parking lot, Vie’s muscular, lean, though somewhat brittle physique cautiously melting into my ample curves. As we embraced, her large hands spread across my shoulder blades like protective wings, my hands warming the small of her back. As we released our embrace, I gently held Vie’s shoulders, leaning in for une bise, while discreetly enjoying her smell of pomegranate.
Plans were made to ride horses at the ranch the following Saturday.
Yummy depiction of Napa Valley and Vie❤️