The Vineyard Read Free Page B

behind, or a garden surrounded by lush shrubbery that screamed of color even in black-and-white, the backgrounds of the pictures she sent were entirely consistent with the image of a successful wine-making family.
    No downtrodden migrant crew this one. Of course, these pictures didn’t have the artistic import of one taken by Dorothea Lange,but Olivia had followed the growth of this family for months and was totally involved. The appeal here was prosperity and ease. She had fantasized about being a Seebring more times than she could count.
    Her own story was light-years different from anything she had seen in the Seebring pictures. She had never met her father. Her mother didn’t even know who he was. Olivia had been the product of a one-night stand on a liquor-blurred New Year’s Eve in an alley off Manhattan’s Times Square. Carol Jones, her mother, had been seventeen at the time.
    Feminists might have called it rape, but months later, when Carol finally realized she was pregnant, she was rebellious enough and defiant enough to tell her parents it was love. For those pious folk, the pregnancy was one defiant act too many. They disowned her. She retaliated, predictably rebellious and defiant, by leaving home with nothing of her heritage but her name—Jones.
    A lot of good that did Olivia. There were pages of Jones listings in every telephone directory. There were pages and
pages
of them in New York. And now, not only couldn’t she find her grandparents, she couldn’t find her mother either. Moving from place to place herself, Olivia had left a trail of bread crumbs to rival Hansel and Gretel, but no relative ever came looking. Apparently, no relative cared—and it was their loss. Olivia might be no prize, but Tess was. Tess was a gem.
    Unfortunately, the loss went two ways. This gap in her history meant that Olivia and Tess went without extended family. It was just the two of them—just the two of them against the world. That wasn’t so bad, though; Olivia had come to terms with it. She could cope.
    It didn’t mean she couldn’t dream, of course, and lately she dreamed she was related to Natalie Seebring. Being grandmother and granddaughter was pushing it a little, but there was a woman in some of the early Asquonset pictures who, given a marginal resemblance to Carol, could be Olivia’s grandmother. Olivia hadn’t seen the woman in any of Asquonset’s postwar pictures, but there were easy explanations for that. She might have been a WAC who had fallen for a serviceman and ended up in New York. Her husband might have been a rigid military type who wanted things done his way, or he might have been irrationally jealous, forbidding her contact with her family. Hence, her absence in photographs.
    But if she was Natalie’s sister, then Natalie would be Olivia’s great-aunt. Even if she were only a cousin, the blood bond would be there.
    Olivia glanced at the clock. She had to go get Tess. Time was growing short.
    But the lure of this new package was too great to resist. Opening the clasp, she peeked inside. The scent of freesia was stronger now. She pushed aside a cover letter and saw several dozen photographs. Most were eight-by-tens in black-and-white. Under them was a bright yellow envelope.
    Curious, she pulled it out. Otis’s name and address were on the front, written not in Natalie’s freehand but in a calligrapher’s script. She was giving a
party,
Olivia decided—and immediately vowed to go as Otis’s date. She didn’t care if people snickered behind their hands. She wanted to see Asquonset. She wanted to meet Natalie.
    She laid the invitation on Otis’s desk with his personal mail—then quickly took it back and returned it to the mailer with the pictures. He wouldn’t be in again until tomorrow. She liked the idea of having the invitation in her own house for a night.
    Tucking the package into her briefcase, she