A Year on Ladybug Farm - Donna Ball [107]
She went into the pantry and returned after a moment or two with a bottle of red wine, brushing the dust off of it with her apron. Cici said curiously, “Where did you get that?”
“Mr. B always let me put some by every year for my fruitcakes, back in the day,” replied Ida Mae defensively, holding the bottle close as Bridget came to look at the label.
“Good heavens,” she said, “this is Blackwell Farms wine. Ida Mae, can I see this for a minute?”
Ida Mae surrendered the bottle reluctantly. “Don’t you go thinking about chugging it down,” she warned. “It’s for my fruitcakes, and I’m getting low.”
“Don’t worry,” Bridget assured her. “Look at this.” She showed the label to Cici. “Blackwell Farms Shiraz, 1967. Can you imagine?”
“I never claimed to be a wine expert,” Cici said, wrinkling her nose, “but doesn’t it go bad after forty years?”
“I read somewhere that they found a goatskin of wine from ancient Greece in a cave and it was still drinkable,” Bridget said.
“Well, I think the grapes of ancient Greece might have been a little more durable than the ones in Virginia. This probably turned to vinegar twenty years ago.”
Ida Mae snatched the bottle away. “It did not. People used to pay good money for this wine.”
“Oh, I’m sure it’s fine for fruitcakes,” Cici said quickly.
Bridget added, “I’d love to have the label when you’re finished with the bottle. Maybe Lindsay could frame it. It would look nice in the foyer along with the newspaper clipping and the landscape map, wouldn’t it?”
Ida Mae shook her head and muttered something about city women hanging newspapers on the wall, and that was when the phone rang.
Cici answered the phone. Her daughter, with the frank lack of guile that Cici so adored about her, said, “Mom, I’m really mad at you right now.”
And Cici replied, “I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Daddy said he wants me to spend Christmas with you this year. He says he has to do business over the holidays and I wouldn’t have any fun if I stayed here. But I don’t think that’s it. I think you two had a fight, and I ended up losing. I always end up losing, Mom.”
Cici winced. “Lori, you know I never meant—”
In the background, Ida Mae started fussing about something to do with where Bridget had put the measuring spoons, and Bridget held up a hand for silence, her face turned in concern toward Cici.
Lori said, “Didn’t it occur to you that I might want to stay out here? Maybe I have friends here, things to do, a life—even if I don’t get to go to Aspen for the holidays, thank you very much! What’s the point of going away to college if I don’t get to make my own decisions? I’m grown-up now, Mom. You’ve got to let go.”
Cici ground her teeth together, and squeezed her eyes briefly shut. In a moment she managed, “Honey, I never meant to deprive you of a good time. I want you to have different experiences while you’re away. You’re right, that’s part of the point of going to college.” With the very greatest of efforts, she said nothing about Italy. “But the other part is learning how to make mature decisions, and I’m just not sure that you’ve been making very good choices lately.”
“So?” Lori challenged. “The point is, they’re my choices!”
“Sometimes,” Cici said carefully, “when we’re in a new place, doing new things, it’s easy to forget who we are. I just think it might be good for you to spend a little time away, thinking about things.”
“I can think about things just fine on the ski slopes, thanks. And you don’t have any idea who I am. What makes you think you can judge me?”
Cici could feel herself losing the battle to be reasonable. “I’m your parent. When I see you about to make a decision that could ruin your life, it’s my job to pull you back.”
“I’m not going to ruin my life! And who are you to talk about making bad decisions, anyway? You gave up a great career, a gorgeous house, an entire life to go live in the backwater of Virginia and raise goats!”
“Sheep,” Cici corrected shortly. “And I