Aged to Perfection

Harold had a lot to do today. The first being that he had to pick up his suit from Terry's Drycleaner. He’d been going to them for years, but the new kid Terry had hired made Harold nervous. She seemed nice enough, but her electric green hair looked fried. Anyone that didn’t protect their own hair from heat damage were probably not that careful with fabrics either.

Thankfully, after he’d exchanged his ticket for the suit, he didn’t see any damage. The girl smiled brightly while smacking her gum.

“Got a hot date tonight, Harold?”

He smiled, making his crows feet crinkle. “You could say that. Take care, Lacey.”

He usually loved to stay and chat, but he was kind of running behind today. He’d retired years ago, and had stepped down as a partner long before that. He supposed he’d gotten too used to not wearing a watch anymore.

After making a quick trip home to shower, change and grab his overnight bag, he made one more stop at Bernie’s favorite flower shop to pick up a bouquet of her favorite flowers: white gardenia’s. They meant purity, peace, and harmony. The only reason he knew that was because of Bernadette.

Ever since they had met at a party his fraternity was throwing back in college, he’d been besotted. He would never forget how he felt when he saw her look back at him over her delicate shoulder before leaping out of the second story bathroom window and into the swimming pool below in order to escape the cops that had been hurtling up the stairs. The impish grin and ‘peace’ sign she’d flashed before disappearing through the window had made time slow, and his only drunken thought was, I want to marry you, as he took a blind leap after her just as the cops busted through the door behind him.

He checked his reflection in the rearview, smoothing and adjusting the part in his salt and pepper hair carefully before reversing his classic 1970 Chevy Malibu out of the driveway. Even though he was running late, he had thankfully missed rush hour, and was winding through the scenic countryside to the vineyard while the sun hung low in the sky. Everything was bathed in luminous yellows and golds. The greens of the trees were made more vibrant by the glow.

Despite having spent special attention to his hair earlier, he rolled the windows down to feel the wind. He sighed happily as the soft summer breeze that reminded him of soft fingers caressing his face billowed into the cab. He couldn’t help but bask in such a beautiful afternoon.

Etienne’s Chateau Vineyard and Winery was Bernie’s favorite, most romantic place, she’d ever been to. They’d celebrated their 10th wedding anniversary there by sheer accident, and she had become the vineyard's biggest fan. She sheepishly had admitted, years later, that she loved it more than the trip to Paris they’d taken on their 20th. Somehow, he’d just found her more endearing than ever at the confession.

Hell, anything Bernie did was endearing to him.

He still remembered when they’d found it. Completely by chance; exactly like how he’d met Bernadette. Their rental car had broken down while they had been house hunting in the area.

Bernie had fallen in love with it instantly, exclaiming it was like a fairy kingdom with all the soft lighted string bulbs crisscrossing over lanterns above them, and of course, the candles dotting the lichen infused brick walls and floors.

“Do you think Stevie would like it?” She’d asked, looking around in awe.

He smiled indulgently and answered softly in her ear with an arm wrapping around her waist that, yes, Stevie Nicks, Bernie’s idol whom Bernie did not know personally but Harold was half convinced she had a secret shrine to the music artist somewhere in the apartment, would definitely love it here. Bernie giggled, and her telltale blush that she always got whenever he got close to her neck crept up her cheeks. He’d nipped at her ear before releasing her to pull her chair out for her like the gentleman that he was.

The evening had been magical and perfect. So much so that their son was born nine months later.

Stephen was grown now, and Harold’s twin granddaughters ,Nicki and Ria, were about to graduate high school. After the vineyard, it was off to visit the rest of their family and see the girls off for one of those weekend college tours that felt eerily like sales pitches.

He still held his wistful smile he always got when thinking about his family as he pulled into the main gate of the vineyard. The acreage on either side of the paved road was striped with rows and rows of grapevines. The same vines that Bernie and Harold had visited every year for the last 36 years since discovering this place.

She had chatted about Etienne’s for weeks after; telling all their friends that they just had to go experience it for themselves. Harold hadn’t had the heart to tell her that he personally thought the small vineyard in the middle Missouri, although quaint, could never compare to the vineyards he’d grown up around in California, even less than the ones they had visited in France and Italy.

He kept it to himself, of course. She’d never said it, but he knew she must have thought him occasionally a bit snobbish over the years. He couldn’t blame her if she did. He’d been the only child of two successful lawyers while she was the youngest of seven, born in a commune in the middle of the desert. A free spirited hippy who had hitchhiked to Woodstock when she was fifteen didn’t marry a square like him without thinking he was stuck up at least once.

However, she wasn’t wrong in saying that there was something magical about the place. The red bricked patio they had for outdoor seating separating the owner’s house and the winery gave it the rustic, gothic beauty of the ruins of a forgotten church; unchanged for centuries. Hundreds of bare candles set wherever there was a safe space. Surrounded by even more roughened brick walls covered in ivy, and even grape vines purported to be the original cuttings that had started the entire vineyard. The stark ambiance of the outside was offset by the sleek modernization of the inside of the winery and restaurant itself.

On their fifth or six visit, Bernie had surprised him with scheduling a private tour with the owner and they’d got to see all the latest improvements he’d been making. It wasn’t until he’d seen the state of the art equipment that he truly appreciated the place like Bernie did. He talked shop with the owner whenever they came to visit every year now. She had appealed to his practical nature, and that somehow made it easier to see it through her eyes. He saw them. The coupling of the wild and untamed with organized and mundane was the most profound, poetic epiphany he’d ever had.

Again, he’d had Bernie to thank for awakening the fledgling artist within.

“Harold! You’re here early. How’ve you been?” The waitress, Callie, had been working at the winery for the last six years and remembered the older couple due to the fact that Harold had reserved the same table on the same date and time for the indefinite future years before she’d started. He tipped well over forty percent, and they always seemed to know all the waitstaff’s names-even the kitchen staff.

“I thought I was late.” he admitted with a sheepish expression as he attempted to smooth his windswept hair back into a neat part once more. “Am I too early? If our table isn’t ready, I’m happy to wait in the winery until then. I don’t want to be a bother.”

She waved away his formal politeness as if batting away a fly. “It’s clear, sweetie, go on and take a seat and I’ll get your glasses. You want to try the new Merlot?”

He beamed. “Yes, dear, thank you so much.”

He found their table, placed his flowers and one other item down at the place setting across from him before taking his seat.

A delicate stemmed glass of Merlot appeared in front of him. Harold smiled at Callie as she poured the second glass for the empty chair across from him.

She set the bottle in the ice bucket, and lit the candles in the center of the table. She paused for a second, seemingly uncertain of something.

Before either of them could disprove her lack of professionalism, she leaned forward and gave him a quick, hard hug before letting go quickly before rushing back to the swinging doors that led to the kitchen doors. Harold noticed absently that two children were seated at the table next to the door had looked at Callie with concerned looks as she’d whooshed past.

His eyes misted over as he stared at the stemware. He took a shaky breath, smoothed his hair once more, and raised his glass in a small toast.

“To you, Bernie...I miss you every single day.” his voice cracked as he stared at the lone glass on the table. Dammit, he’d told himself he wouldn’t cry again. Bernie had told him that she didn’t want to see him sad. And she would be able to see him, she’d promised. She also promised that if she did, in fact, see him sad, that she was going to ‘knee him in the jewels’.

“To our first date...after. I promised you one last dinner here…”

He’d tried to keep the sob that was bubbling up in his throat swallowed down, but the memory of his Bernie in that hospital bed...so frail and vulnerable as life seeped out of her. Maybe one day he’d be able to laugh about the fact that she threatened to haunt him if he did anything so morbid as to actively mourn her, but right now, a mere four months after her funeral...he just wasn’t ready to laugh at her being gone.

I’m not gone, dipstick. Stop being dramatic, eat, then spread my ashes in the vineyard.

He swore he could almost hear her say it. In fact, it was so clear that his gaze widened and he focused on the urn he’d set down near the table.

An unexpected laugh burst from him. It sounded like a dried out sea lion’s bark, but it was a laugh.

He may be losing his mind, but he didn’t care. He figured he was allowed to at his age. A part of him knew it was insane to bring one’s dead wife’s urn to an anniversary dinner she was no longer alive to attend.

But the other part of him? The one that Bernie had brought out in him without Harold even realizing? That part of him saw her clear as crystal sitting across from him rather than the sleek urn that contained her ashes.

She was beautiful. Blazing white streaks in her pale red hair stood out against a blue paisley dress, her favorite, added with multiple spangled bracelets on her wrists. Clear, blazing blue eyes that hadn’t changed a day stared through to his soul and made his heart thud in his chest.

Bernie smiled up at him with that toothy grin as she raised her glass to clink it against his.

“Nice wine choice, babe.” She brought the glass to her lips and her eyes widened in appreciation. “Very nice. This has to be the best glass of Merlot yet.”

His watery smile met hers, and he took his first sip. She watched him carefully from over the rim of her glass.

He paused dramatically for affect, knowing she would get a kick out of the theatrics, and whispered in a conspiratorial tone, “Stevie would very much approve.”