Sharpshooter Read Free

spending all his nights cooking grapes in test tubes.”
    Rivka lifted her black eyes. “I wish that was a joke. I’m a wine widow and we aren’t even married.”
    Sunny whistled. “The M word! That must have been some date.”
    Rivka tied the strings of a long white apron around her waist. “Actually it was pretty low-key. Cheap food, worthless movie, no sex. If it wasn’t for his sweet face, it wouldn’t have been worth the time.”
    “No sex?”
    “Rule number three. No sex after ten o’clock unless I’m drunk.”
    “I’ve never understood that one,” said Sunny.
    “Too sleepy. Conditions not conducive to optimum performance.”
    “At least you have the option. Why is it the date-free zone every weekend at my place? I have another hideously wholesome weekend planned. Sports, Riv. I have been reduced to the mind-numbing practice of sports. Why don’t I live in the city?”
    Rivka looked incredulous. “You mean San Francisco? You’ve got to be kidding. The numbers are better up here in the sticks. You just keep channeling all that romantic frustration into the cooking and it’s all going to work out fine. Thirty-two is old, but not that old. There’s still time.”
    “Excuse me? Thirty-two is only old if you’re a twenty-fouryear-old lassie all full of ‘tude. These things are relative.”
    “Maybe so, but you’ve gotta get it in gear one of these days. Use it or lose it.”
    Sunny reduced a mound of parsley to a heap of tiny bits with expert precision, the knife moving at terrific speed. “Why don’t I live in Alaska, where the man-babes are plentiful? I hear they’re falling off the man-babe trees, lying around on the ground just going to waste by the basketful.”
    “Because you would freeze your ass off,” said Rivka. She slipped into the walk-in and reappeared with an armful of white tubs covered in plastic wrap. “I probably shouldn’t tell you this.”
    “What? Tell. Don’t toy with me, Chavez, I’ve been up since four.”
    “Not again.”
    “Yep. Dish, please.”
    “Okay. Alex told me that he would have asked me out a long time ago, but he thought”—she stopped to laugh—”he thought you were my partner.”
    “He thought we were a gay couple.”
    “Yes!” Rivka bellowed with laughter.
    “Well, I guess that explains it.”
    “There’s more.”
    “Oh, good. I can’t wait.”
    “He also thought Wade Skord was your boyfriend. That’s how he figured out we weren’t a couple.”
    “That’s lovely. And do we have any idea how widespread this concept is?”
    “No idea.”
    “Not that I don’t love Wade.”
    “I hear you.”
    Sunny stood over the sink in back and pulled the rough skin off a steaming-hot roasted beet, revealing the slick sanguine flesh underneath. Beet juice stained her fingers and purpled the calluses lined up across her palms at the base of each finger. Blood-red splashes hit the white sink. The back windows stood open wide in front of her, framing a view of the lush vineyards and sea of green, gold, and red leaves that stretched to the east behind the restaurant. Up valley she could see a portion of Howell Mountain. Gusts of cool air brushed her face while she worked, and soon she was lost in thought, remembering previous harvests. The first time she’d worked a harvest, reaching overhead to pick clusters of Sauvignon Blanc for eight hours that felt like sixteen, then the all-night party…The old black phone on the wall behind her jangled. Very few people had the kitchen number; it had to be either her mom, Monty, or Wade.
    “Hello?” she said cautiously.
    “Sunny?”
    “Wade?” Sunny cradled the receiver and rubbed at her stained hands with a towel.
    “Hi, Sun. Listen, do you think you could come over here to my place?”
    “Right now?”
    “If it’s not too much trouble.”
    “Are you okay?”
    “Yeah, I’m fine. I just want your opinion on something.”
    “What kind of something? Are you sick? Are you okay?” Rivka gave her a