Secrets of the Vine
The vintner held up a glass. Pure light shown through pale, golden wine, refracting, then exploding into starlight cast on the wall. “Chardonnay?”
Christie nodded and stepped closer. In that solemn moment, they would celebrate the opening of her wine cellar, with its damp aromas of fermented grape wafting up the stone stairwell to the tasting room.
She took the glass from his hand and held it to the light, examining its purity. “Welsley would have loved this, wouldn’t he?”
What he said startled her. “Don’t talk of him. Please. Not today.”
“But why, Pierre? I thought… weren’t you and Welsley friends?”
“We were friends like a sheath and dagger. One keeps the other from doing damage.”
She set her glass on the marble countertop. What kind of talk was this, with Welsley’s grave still fresh? He had been a man of honor. A retired general. Her voice cracked as she spoke. “Pierre, what are you talking about?”
He poured his own wine, then spoke in clipped cadence “Mrs. Bradford, Welsley was…..”
The door opened and the security guard stepped in, raising his eyebrows. Christie waved him away then turned back to Pierre. “Continue.”
Pierre looked out the tasting room window. “He was preparing to sell all this to developers.”
Christie followed his gaze to the 50 acres of vineyard, her family legacy. Then she thought of Welsley’s shocking death from heart attack, when he had been so lean and fit. And she knew.
Pierre handed back her glass. “Toast?”
Thank you for reading my 250-word micro-fiction story. I struggled with this story, trying to decide what to reveal, how to reveal it, and when. I believe that is one of the most interesting and befuddling challenges of the fiction writer. Of course, tackling that issue in a longer story or novel is even more of a challenge. I love micro-fiction as an exercise in writing and re-ordering ideas and sentences until they feel just right. Your comments are welcome!
I wrote this story when I ran a weekly micro-fiction writing contest, and I would also often contribute my own piece, just for fun. This story was my piece for the prompt, “wine.”