One Fine Day

Elizabeth told the woman she wanted to die. She had no family anymore, only distant relatives whom she didn’t know well. “I promise you,” said the woman. “Where you’re going you will form a new family, and when you continue your work, you will find a new purpose. Your family will not have died in vain. You will live on and grow strong, Elizabeth. The name Mbeki will live on because of you.”

She had been living in Sara’s home now, for four weeks. She was still kind of shy around Sara and Frannie, but she had come to trust them.

Sara gauged her success by the number of smiles on Elizabeth’s face each day. She knew that from personal experience, the only thing that could vanquish suicidal thoughts was a reason to live, a purpose. That’s why she’d recently written Eunice and told her that the organization needed to find Elizabeth a job at a local hospital, preferably a job in which she would be working with children. Elizabeth was going to become a pediatrician before her life had been turned upside down.

That morning, when Sara checked her mail on the organization’s site, she had found a message from Eunice saying that everything had been arranged: Elizabeth’s new identity papers were ready, and she would begin work as a nurse’s aide the following Monday. Eunice also added that it was taking longer than she had anticipated, but she had it on good authority that in a couple of months, Elizabeth would be admitted to the University of California College of Medicine on full scholarship.

Sara had the pleasure of relating all of that to Elizabeth over breakfast this morning. The expression of pure joy on Elizabeth’s face made Sara tear up. Elizabeth immediately leaned forward and grasped Sara’s hands in her small ones. “Don’t cry, Miss Sara, you and Frannie have brought me back to life these past few weeks. Last night, I didn’t dream about the fire. It was the first time I didn’t dream about it. Instead, I dreamed my family and I were having dinner together on a Sunday, and we were all happy to be together like it was when I would return home from being at school for a long period of time. We all held hands and Father said the prayer. Then Mother served us all, herself last, as she always used to. Finally, Father looked us all in our faces and said, ‘This is heaven to me.’ Then, I woke up with such a warm feeling inside. I know, now, that they want me to go on. They want me to live well so that one day, hopefully when I’m old and worn out, I’ll join them in Heaven.”

Frannie got up to get paper towels for herself and Sara. Handing Sara hers, then sitting back down, she said, “How would you like to go shopping with us after work? Melissa Sutherland’s turning sixteen, and we’re going to help her celebrate.”

“I would love it,” said Elizabeth, her eyes shining with pleasure.

Jason got a rude awakening that day. He and Claude were in the southern vineyard pruning the vines when Claude, working several feet ahead of him due to the slowness with which Jason worked, uttered an expletive.

Jason looked in Claude’s direction. He didn’t think in all the years he’d known Claude Ledoux, that he’d ever heard him swear. Squinting against the bright sunshine, in spite of wearing shades, Jason said, “What’s the matter?”

Sweat rolled down the sides of his face. It was seventy degrees today. Nice for October, but he was sweating like a horse ridden hard and put up wet.

Claude was speaking rapid French now, and holding out his hand with withered grapes in his palm. Jason didn’t know what he wanted him to do with a handful of dried-up grapes, but he walked over to his foreman and took the grapes from him.

Claude began walking around the vines in the area where he had been working pointing out the raisining of several other grapes on the vine. After a while, Jason started seeing what Claude was seeing: the vines in this area were characterized by stunted shoots, dwarfed leaves, wilting and shriveled grapes hanging listlessly from them. They were sick.

Jason’s heart skipped a beat.

Root rot. He’d heard of it, but as far as he could remember, his parents had never had a major case of it. Dead or severely damaged grapevines would have to be dug up and replanted after the soil had been completely cleared of the infected roots.

The problem was, it was extremely hard to get all of the root, and if any survived at all it could thrive and reinfect the healthy vines.

He was trying not to panic here, but all he could think about was the fact that his parents had run the winery without losing it for many, many years and he’d been in control for under two years and could possibly lose everything.

He looked at Claude, who was still muttering in French. “What do we have to do?” he asked plaintively.

“Root collar excavation,” Claude said with a dire expression on his dark brown face.

“Do I need to rent equipment for that?”

“No, you’ve got a mini backhoe in the storage shed.”

Jason had done an inventory when he’d taken over, but he didn’t know what half of the equipment was called that he’d encountered in his look around the place. “Then, let’s get started.”

Claude shook his head in the negative. “No, first we need to dig up a test root and have a plant pathologist diagnose which kind of root rot we have. Then we’ll know how best to eradicate it.”

“A root pathologist?”

“Yeah, it’s kind of like CSI for plants. They can tell you what killed it.”

“Oh, my God,” said Jason. He had a lot to learn. “You mean I’m going to have to take the infected root up to U.C. Davis?”

“That would be your best bet, yes,” said Claude.

“Okay, I’ll go get a shovel.”

Melissa took a photo of Sara, Frannie and Elizabeth as the three of them were sitting at a tiny round table in the food court. She quickly sent the photo via her phone to her nosy father. He was on the line now. She was standing around the corner near the restrooms where she’d told her friends she was going when she’d gotten up five minutes ago.

“Satisfied?” she asked sarcastically.

“The other two work at Sara’s bookstore?”

“Yes! Now, I’ve got to go.”

“Melissa, don’t you have any white friends?”

“If you must know, no I don’t. And those kids you’ve invited to my party tomorrow night will only come because you’re filthy rich, not because they’re my friends. The only person coming tomorrow night who is my friend will be Frannie.”

“It’s not healthy for you to hang out with black people all the time, Melissa. Do you have something against your own race?”

“You don’t get it, do you?” Melissa asked, exasperated. “Unlike you, I don’t care what color my friends are, just that they’re my friends. I’m ashamed of you.”

Erik sighed on his end. He really stank as a parent. Now his daughter thought he was a bigot. “Melissa, don’t you think you’re going to be ostracized by the white kids in town if you’re always hanging out at that black bookstore?”

“I really don’t care, and Sara sells all kinds of books at Aminatu’s Daughters, not just books written by black authors. Maybe if you’d come in sometime you’d see for yourself, but all you want to do is complain. I’m going now. Bye!”

She hung up quickly and stuck the phone in her jacket pocket.

Rejoining her friends, she asked, “What did I miss?”

Before she had gone to the bathroom, they had been boy-gazing. The mall was packed with teenagers. They were theoretically picking a boyfriend for Melissa.

Two tanned boys who looked like they might be high school seniors were sitting on a bench near the waterfall a few feet to the left of them. “The boy in the blue football jersey is very cute,” Sara said. “Do you know him, Melissa?”

During their selection process, Melissa had known several of the boys by name. They went to her high school. They totally ignored her as a matter of course, but she knew them from class or by reputation.

The boy that Sara had pointed out was in her advanced Algebra class. He sat in front of her, and he’d never once turned around to say hello to her. She could have been a piece of furniture for all he cared.

“The boy in the football jersey is Danny Keener, the other guy is Tyler Gaines.”

“Is Danny smart?” Sara wanted to know. He had the kind of dark good looks that reminded her of the actor who portrayed Clark Kent on Smallville.

“He makes A’s in Advanced Algebra, so he must be,” said Melissa.

“Do you think he’s handsome?” Elizabeth asked. She had never played this game of observing males simply for their beauty. When she thought of dating a fellow student she wanted to know if he was a good student, if he was a good son, and if he was a spendthrift or not. Dating, to her, was a means to an end. The end was marriage.

This notion of dating for fun was intriguing, though.

Melissa’s face turned red when Elizabeth asked her if she liked Danny’s looks. She had secretly been in love with Danny Keener for two years now. She held out absolutely no hope that he would ever notice her. He dated girls like Sherry Newcastle who was beautiful and a cheerleader. Plus, she had thighs that didn’t touch. Thighs that were trim and toned. Melissa knew she’d never have thighs like that. Therefore, she would never be noticed by Danny Keener.

She didn’t lie to her friends, though. “I think he’s adorable,” she said. “But he’s never even looked my way.”