Weddings and Wasabi (5 page)

“We have an appointment with your tasting room manager,” Trish said.

“They
had
an appointment with your tasting room manager,” Edward said. “I told them you’d treat them better, Barry.”

Barry’s eyes narrowed as he surveyed first the women, then Edward. “Why aren’t they at your winery?”

He snatched at the opportunity. “Oh, so you don’t want them here? No prob—”

“I didn’t say that, chump,” Barry replied with a playful chop to his arm.

“Actually, Edward and David are helping us out after our car broke down a few miles down the road,” Jenn said.

He chose to think of it as an act of God that their car got a flat only seconds after he’d passed them on the road. He’d been reluctant to continue on his way after that first startling look he exchanged with Jenn, but he didn’t really relish being flattened by an oncoming car.

And now he had the next hour with them at Armstrong, and hopefully another hour at Castillo. He’d never before felt this kind of urgency to get to know a girl—then again, he’d never before been flattened by a first look from a woman, either.

They all trooped to the tasting room, where Barry served them himself. He also opened a few bottles of reserve wines normally not available for tasting, giving Edward and David an arch look as if to challenge them to be more gracious a host than he was being.

Edward and David ribbed Barry all during the girls’ wine tasting, but Barry gave back as good as he got.

“Hey Barry, your pinot grigio tastes less like lemonade today.”

“Last time, I did give you lemonade.”

“Barry, the zinfandel has finally learned not to bite.”

“The zin learned its manners. I can’t say as much about Castillo’s cabernet sauvignon.”

When they were tasting a rather nice pinot noir, Jenn nodded. “That would taste good with a nice, sharp cheese. Maybe a goat cheese.”

“One of the Castillo pinot noirs pairs well with our farm’s goat cheese,” Edward interjected before Barry could say anything.

“You make cheese?”

“We have both cows and goats, and we make artisan cheeses for our wine and cheese pairing menu.”

Jenn’s eyes lit up like amber jewels. “Wine and cheese pairing?”

Trish turned to Edward. “Maybe we can do that when we come to Castillo Winery after this.”

If he hadn’t been listening to Trish talking about her wedding plans, he’d have thought she was flirting with him. But the quick look she gave Jenn, then moving back to Edward, answered his questions.

Bride-to-be was playing matchmaker with the caterer and the winemaker. Sounded like a nursery rhyme. Except he liked the sound of that—caterer and winemaker.

Barry cut in with a “You’re better off drinking drain cleaner than Castillo’s wines,” but David replied with “They’re saving the best for last.”

“Let’s go,” Edward said. “Unless you’d like to try more of Barry’s poison.”

Barry responded with a hand clutching his heart. “You’re killing me, Edward.”

Maybe at Castillo’s he’d be able to chat with Jenn …

Suddenly two cell phones went off, both with song ringtones. He actually knew them both from listening to the Christian radio station—Trish’s phone played “Fool For You” by Nichole Nordeman and Jenn’s played “Not Gonna Let You Down” by Building 429.

She was a Christian? They were both Christians?

The heavens opened up with an angelic chorus singing something loud and magnificent and probably in Latin. Because Jenn was a Christian. Edward started to wonder if God Himself blew her tire just for him.

“Oh no!” both cousins said in unison into their phones.

It felt like a couple fertilizer bags fell on his shoulders.

The two women looked at each other with identical expressions of dismay. In that moment, they looked like twins.

Trish disconnected first. “Elyssa fell down my parents’ stairs!”

“Is she okay?” Jenn asked, her eyes wide.

“Mom took her to the hospital. We have to go meet them.”

Jenn nodded, but her eyes were distracted even as she shoved her phone back in her pocket.

“Who was that?” Trish asked her.

“Mom.” Jenn had turned white, but her eyes burned with a strange fire. “My one goat … has turned into
three
.”

The good thing about being a cousin was that Jenn had lots of blackmail options in her arsenal.

She’d already called Larry twelve times and left messages on his cell phone, so she resorted to email. But not just ineffectual demands for him to call her about the goat. No, the fact he wasn’t taking her calls required more lethal shots. Luckily, Larry being still in college and living in the dorms presented extra fodder for her devious mind.

She sat at her computer flipping through digital photos until she found a few particularly juicy ones, namely the ones involving the extended family’s trip to Hawaii, Larry showing off for some bikini-clad babes, unaware that the swim trunks he’d borrowed from a cousin had a huge rip in them. She attached them to an email and typed in the subject line:

I will send these to your dorm-mates if you don’t call me

After she sent it, she cocked her head and regarded her sent folder. Making threats wasn’t anything special coming from, say, Lex or Venus, but she knew she lacked a certain amount of fear factor in her cousin’s eyes.

She sent another email:

I mean it!!!! Call me!!!!

She knew he was on his computer because she got onto Facebook and saw he was online and “available to chat.” However, mere seconds after she had signed into Facebook, he signed off of chat.

Coward.

Ten minutes. He was deliberately ignoring her. Even the picture of him with the Polwarth sheep hadn’t been enough to force him to call her.

Jenn glowered at her laptop screen, then stood up and paced her bedroom, avoiding the pile of cookbooks on the floor and also the box containing new baking pans she’d bought to make Trish’s wedding cake.

She didn’t really want to send the pictures to Larry’s dorm-mates. Which Larry probably knew. If Venus had sent the email, Larry would have been dialing before the last picture even downloaded. Maybe Jenn should have asked Venus …

No, this was her problem. She had to stop relying on her cousins all the time to help her and be her “muscle.” She needed to develop some “muscle” too.

Fine. He’d called her bluff. She’d up the ante.

She called his mother, Aunt Glenda.

“Hi Aunt Glenda!”

“Oh, hello Jenn.” A little guarded in her tone. Was Jenn really surprised? The news that Jenn wasn’t going to work at the restaurant had probably reached Aunt Glenda within seconds of Jenn getting off the phone with Aunty Aikiko last week.

Jenn put on her brightest,
I’m such a properly obedient Asian niece I’ll scrub your bathroom floor with a toothbrush
voice. “Aunty, I’m going to San Jose State this afternoon, and I know how much you hate driving in downtown San Jose, so I wondered if there was anything you wanted me to take to Larry at his dorm?”

It earned her a grudging, “That’s very nice of you, Jenn. In fact, I do have a load of laundry Larry needs right away.”

“Great! I’ll come by and pick it up in a few minutes. Is there anything else?” She gave a thoughtful pause. “Any special memento Larry might have forgotten in his room that he might need?”

Aunty always treated Larry, her only son, as if he still couldn’t feed himself with a fork if she weren’t there to help him. Now, Jenn counted on it. “Is there any kind of memento Larry might need for exams next week?”

“There are exams next week?”

“My cousin Mimi said they were soon.” If “soon” meant six weeks away.

“Oh, he always gets so stressed when there are exams. Last time, he bought so many pizzas for all-nighters that he needed to borrow money.”

Pizzas, huh? More like drinkable sustenance. “Is there anything I could bring him to help him?”

“Oh, I have the perfect thing. When he was in high school, he’d lie on his yellow pony rug in the living room to study.”

“Wonderful.” Even Jenn hadn’t known about the yellow pony rug, although Larry had let slip once that he had a lucky charm for when he had to study for finals in his senior year. “Aunty, why don’t you call him and let him know I’ll be by this afternoon with his laundry and the yellow pony rug.”

“I’ll do that right now. Thanks, Jenn.”

Jenn hung up her cell phone and counted the seconds. Fifteen seconds for Aunty to ask how he was doing, another twenty seconds while she rambled on and Larry tried to get her off the phone, then ten seconds when Aunty remembered why she’d called her darling boy and told him about the laundry. And the yellow pony. Five seconds for Larry to realize what Jenn had done and give some excuse for needing to get off the phone right away—maybe a fire drill or an email from his professor.

Her phone rang. Caller ID: Larry

“I was thinking of draping the rug across the couch in your dorm’s common room,” Jenn said. “Maybe with a note pinned to it saying, ‘This is Larry’s study partner.’”

“Jenn,” he said with false heartiness, “you’re not like that. You wouldn’t do that to me, would you?” She could almost hear the sweat dripping down his face.

“Of course I would. I would consider it ample repayment for the
goats in my backyard.”

“Aw, but Pookie’s awful cute, isn’t he?”

“Pookie is a she, and she tripled yesterday.”

“Tripled? Uh … congratulations?”

He was a little too unsurprised by that. “Did Brad know she was pregnant?”

“No, of course not.”

“You are going to call him and tell him to come get his goat today.”

“Today? That’s too short notice—”

“Today or else the little yellow pony is going to be galloping through the front door of your dorm.”

He gave a painful groan into the phone.

Mom’s soft knock on her bedroom door.

Jenn stood up but finished her conversation with her cousin before opening it. “I mean it, Larry! That goat is eating me out of house and home. If Brad doesn’t get it from me today, it’s going to the humane society and Brad’s mother will blow like an aerosol can in a microwave. And you know what? I don’t care if they are Yips. I’m not keeping their goat another day.” She disconnected the phone just as she opened her bedroom door.

Aunty Aikiko stood next to her mom.

Jenn’s jaw clenched. Well, what did she expect? On the phone, Aunty had
said
“You should do whatever is best for you, Jenn.” But what she
meant
was “I’ll let this go for now and then snipe in with a new argument later to break down your defenses (you puny human).”

Jenn tried to smile but it felt like her face cracked in half. “Hi, Aunty.”

“Jenn, I’m so glad I caught you at home. I have a favor to ask.”

Jenn felt like she was waiting for a soufflé to collapse. “Why don’t we go out into the living room?” Jenn made to move past her, but Aunty stood her ground.

“No, why don’t I speak to you privately in your room?”

No way would she be secluded with Aunty in her bedroom. That was like inviting a tiger to sit down for a comfortable chat in a confined space.

Besides, this was
her
house. She’d paid the majority of the mortgage payments since Dad was gone, and she could dictate who she entertained where.

“Aunty, I was just on my way out. Let’s talk in the living room.” Jenn forcibly thrust herself between Aunty and Mom and led the way to the living room, leaving them no choice but to follow.

They sat. Maybe Jenn should have likened Aunty to a spider rather than a tiger. She looked at Jenn as if she were a fly. “What did you need?” Not,
What can I do for you?
She hoped Aunty got the hint, but probably not.

“We haven’t had a vacation in years
,
and we’d like to take the boys to Disneyland.”

Jenn cleared her throat. “Aren’t they a little old for Disneyland?”

“Ryden is sixteen,” Aunty said blithely of her youngest.

“Er … and so Daniel, Jared, Rick, and Ryden all want to go to Disneyland?”

“Oh, yes, they’ve been cooped up at the house for too long.”

Actually, Daniel traveled extensively for his engineering job and was only living at home because of his recent divorce. Jared had gotten laid off so he’d been out to employment agencies and interviews for the past several months, and Rick was a senior at the University of California at Berkeley and was only home every third weekend. Jenn had to breathe through her nose slowly and carefully before she could unclench her teeth. “What about Mimi?”

“Oh, she doesn’t need to go.”

The wording made Jenn frown. Aunty was always that way with Mimi. Was it any wonder the girl had become a little wild? At least she and Lex had been roommates for a couple years, but that ended a year ago when Lex eloped with Aiden.

“So what was the favor you wanted to ask?” Jenn already knew, even before Aunty jumped at the question.