The Truth is in the Wine Read online

  Dear Reader:

  Everyone knows that when alcohol goes in, the truth usually comes out. In his latest novel, The Truth Is In The Wine, Essence bestselling author, Curtis Bunn, puts that theory to task. When a couple struggling to decide whether to remain married or not decides to take their dream vacation to the Napa Valley in California, along with both of their mothers who cannot stand to breathe the same air, anything is likely to happen…and it does.

  Happiness and pain in a marriage are often interchangeable and when two people truly love each other, things can change in the blink of an eye…or a roll in the hay. This novel could be a much-needed therapeutic aide for a lot of couples trying to make a decision about whether to stick it out with each other or part ways. It is an intense at times, humorous at times, portrayal of why family and love trump everything else. I am sure that readers will be engaged in the characters and storyline from the first page. Bunn is a prolific author who never tells the same story twice, a godsend in today’s literary climate.

  As always, thanks for supporting the authors of Strebor Books. We always try to bring you groundbreaking, innovative stories that will entertain and enlighten. For a list of complete titles, please visit www.zanestore.com and I can be located at www.facebook.com/AuthorZane or reached via email at [email protected].

  Blessings,

  Zane

  Publisher

  Strebor Books

  www.simonandschuster.com

  For my Felita, who is sweeter than any wine.

  And that’s the truth.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Always, I give honor and praise to God for his unlimited blessings. He certainly carried me through this book. Thank you, Lord.

  My family, which I love so much, remains to the core: my late father, Edward Earl Bunn, Sr.; he was not much of a wine-drinker, as I recall. Scotch was his drink of choice; my mother, Julia Bunn, who is simply wonderful; my brothers, Billy and Eddie and my sister, Tammy. My grandmother, Nettie Royster, remains our spiritual foundation.

  Curtis, Jr. and Gwendolyn (Bunny) are my children, my life-blood, my heartbeats. My nephew, Gordon, has always been like a second son. And my niece, Tamayah (Bink Bink) and nephew Eddie, Jr. are blessings that I love so much. My cousins, Greg Agnew and Warren Eggleston, are like my brothers, as well as my brother-in-law, Deryk. And I am grateful for cousin Carolyn Keener and uncle Al and aunts Thelma and Barbara and Ms. Brenda Brown, who has been like an aunt/second mom much of my life.

  Additionally, Felita Sisco Rascoe is my wife-to-be, foundation, heart and soul, super-duper closest friend and beacon of hope.

  Again, Zane, Charmaine Roberts Parker and the entire Strebor Books/Atria/Simon & Schuster family have been great, and I am eternally grateful for you. I’m proud to be a part of the wonderful, talented Strebor family.

  I enjoy listing by name the supporters because you all mean so much to me: My ace, Trevor Nigel Lawrence, Keith (Blind) Gibson, Kerry Muldrow, Randy Brown, Sam Myers, Ronnie Bagley, Tony Starks, Darryl Washington, Darryl (DJ) Johnson, Lyle Harris, Monya Bunch, Tony (Kilroy) Hall, Marc Davenport, Tami Rice-Mitchell, Brad Corbin, William Mitchell, J.B. Hill, Bob White, Kent Davis, Wayne Ferguson, Tony & Erika Sisco, Betty Roby, Kathy Brown, Venus Chapman, Nicole McDowell, Tara Ford, Flecia Brown, Christine Beatty, Greg Willis, Al Whitney, Brian White, Ronnie Akers, Jacques Walden, Dennis Wade, Julian Jackson, Mark Webb, Kelvin Lloyd, Frank Nelson, Hayward Horton, Mark Bartlett, Marvin Burch, Derrick (Nick Lambert), Gerald Mason, Charles E. Johnson, Harry Sykes, Kim Mosley, Ed (Bat) Lewis, Shelia Harrison, David A. Brown, Leslie LeGrande, Rev. Hank Davis, Susan Davis-Wigenton, Donna Richardson, Sheila Wilson, Curtis West, Bruce Lee, Val Guilford, Derek T. Dingle, Ramona Palmer, Joi Edwards, Warren Jones, Deberah (Sparkle) Williams, Leon H. Carter, Zack Withers, Kevin Davis, Sybil & Leroy Savage, Avis Easley, Demetress Graves, Anna Burch, Natalie Crawford, Najah Aziz, George Hughes, Monica Harris Wade, Yetta Gipson, Mary Knatt, Serena Knight, Sonya Perry, Denise Taylor, Diana Joseph, Derrick (Tinee) Muldrow, Rick Eley, Marty McNeal, D.L. Cummings, Rob Parker, Cliff Brown, D. Orlando Ledbetter, Garry Howard, Stephen A. Smith, Clifford Benton, Len Burnett, Lesley Hanesworth, Sherline Tavenier, Jeri Byrom, E. Franklin Dudley, Skip Grimes, Carla Griffin, Jeff Stevenson, Angela Norwood, Lateefah Aziz, Billy Robinson, Jay Nichols, Ralph Howard, Paul Spencer, Jai Wilson, Garry Raines, Glen Robinson, Dwayne Gray, Jessica Ferguson, Carolyn Glover, David R. Squires, Kim Royster, Keela Starr, Mike Dean, Veda McNeal, Dexter Santos, John Hughes, Mark Lassiter, Tony Carter, Kimberly Frelow, Michele Ship, Michelle Lemon, Zain, Tammy Thompson, Karen Shepherd, Carmen Carter, Erin Sherrod, Tawana Turner-Green, Sheryl Williams-Jones, Vonda Henderson, Danny Anderson, Keisha Hutchinson, Olivia Alston, John Hollis, Dorothy (Dot) Harrell, Aggie Nteta, LaKesha Williams, Ursula Renee, Carrie Haley, Anita Wilson, Tim Lewis, Sandra Velazquez, Patricia Hale, Pam Cooper, Michelle Hixon, Regina Troy, Denise Thomas, Andre Aldridge, Brenda O’Bryant, Ron Thomas, Pargeet Wright, Laurie Hunt, Deborah Sharpe, Mike Christian, Sid Tutani, Tracie Andrews, Toni Tyrell, Tanecia Raphael, Tammy Grier, Roland Louis, April Tarver, Penny Payne, Cynthia Fields, TaToya Tokley, Dr. Yvonne Sanders-Butler, Alicia Guice, Clara LeRoy, Denise Bethea, Hadjii Hand, Petey Franklin, Sibyl Johnson, Shauna Tisdale and The Osagyefuo Amoatia Ofori Panin, King of Akyem Abuakwa, Eastern Region of Ghana, West Africa.

  Special thanks and love to my great alma mater, Norfolk State University (Class of 1983); the brothers of Alpha Phi Alpha (especially the Notorious E Pi of Norfolk State); Ballou High School (Class of ’79), ALL of Washington, D.C., especially Southeast and the team at www.atlantablackstar.com.

  I am also grateful to all the readers and book clubs that have supported my work over the years and to my many literary friends Nathan McCall, Carol Mackey, Linda Duggins, Terrie Williams, Kimberla Lawson Roby, Walter Mosley.

  I’m sure I left off some names; I ask your forgiveness. If you know me you know it is an error of the head, not the heart. :-) I appreciate and I am grateful for you.

  Peace and blessings,

  CURTIS

  In vino veritas (in vee-noh ver-i-tas) Latin. In wine, there is truth. A Latin expression that suggests people are more likely to say what they really feel under the influence of alcohol.

  CHAPTER 1

  CONFLICTING EMOTIONS

  The pain shot up Ginger Wall’s left arm, a jolt that rendered half of her body immobile. Her heartbeat was rapid, even though it felt like her chest was collapsing. Breathing was a chore. She was sure she was going to die.

  No one was around to help her. No one was around because there was no one in her life. Her husband was her husband, but pretty much in name only; their marriage was on a spectacular descent. And he was in the house, anyway. Her daughter, whom she had smothered like a blanket, was just off to college. The few friends she maintained were kept at a distance. She was alone, and that thought pushed her to the edge of death.

  Unable to move and desperate for air, Ginger resigned herself to dying—right there behind the wheel of her Lexus coupe in the garage of her modest townhouse near downtown Atlanta.

  Seconds went by, then minutes, and finally she passed out. When she came to a few minutes later, the pain was gone. She could breathe easily. There was relief of the pressure she felt on her chest.

  It almost seemed like a dream, like she pulled into the garage and passed out from exhaustion, and that scary moment came to her in her sleep. The reality was that the thought of entering a loveless house paralyzed her with anxiety and fear. She knew it was not a dream because her face was damp with tears.

  Ginger had recently returned from dropping off her only child, Helena, at college. Paul, her husband, said his goodbyes to his baby girl at the airport, a fear of f
lying keeping him from making the trip to Washington, D.C.

  But not her mom. Helena had become Ginger’s everything. Right around the time Paul was laid off from his job as a heating and air conditioning repair specialist was when their marriage turned into an eighteen-wheeler going downhill with no brakes. He lost his self-esteem and she, eventually, lost interest. The combination made for a mundane existence and rapid fall over an eleven-month period.

  This was not easy to accept for Ginger. She was crushed, crestfallen. It was if someone had died. As if she had died.

  Only she hadn’t. She was alive, but not living. To breathe, Ginger threw what was left of herself into Helena, serving as mother, chef, security, fan, chauffeur and anything else that kept her occupied and gave her some sense of fulfillment. That was why she pleaded with her child to attend a local college; her going away was akin to pulling the plug on the activity in Ginger’s life.

  “Mom, you know I love you and I’m going to miss you,” Helena said when she decided to attend college in Washington, D.C. “But I’ve got to get away. Not from you, but from Atlanta. You are the one who told me when I turned fifteen that I should go to school out of town, that it would help me to grow up and be responsible. Ever since then that has been my goal. Plus, you have Dad.”

  Somehow, through the strife, they managed to shield Helena, to, indeed, fool her. She thought her parents were in a fulfilling relationship. If she had taken the time to really pay attention, she would have noticed that all the cheery conversation around the house was between her and her mom or her and her dad. There was only token dialogue between her parents, and none of it loving.

  But she was merely seventeen when the downturn began; her life was the focal point of her existence. She simply did not notice.

  One night while Helena was at a school play, the troubles in the marriage reached a crescendo.

  “I thought about it. I thought about it a lot,” Paul said, rising from the dinner table with Ginger. “I’ve got to go.”

  Ginger had a forkful of risotto headed toward her mouth when he said that. She dropped it into her plate below. He said it so casually, as one would reveal it was raining outside. The words registered with Ginger instantly, but for a nanosecond, though, she thought he meant he had to leave the dining room because there was a game on television he had to see. Or that he was tired and needed to go to bed early. Or that he wanted something from the store and had to go and get it. It could not have meant what it really sounded like he meant. It was not what he said; it was the way he said it that clued her in.

  So, she did what anyone would do: She asked for confirmation. “What do you mean?”

  Paul continued toward the kitchen. He did not bother to turn around.

  “Divorce, Ginger,” he said, again so nonchalantly that it was staggering. “Divorce.”

  Ginger reached for her glass of homemade tea and knocked it over, spilling its contents across the table and onto the hardwood floor. She was frozen there, unable to move until her emotions switched from confusion to anger. It was not April Fool’s Day and Paul was not a joking kind of man. He, in fact, had become so serious, that Ginger and Helena privately called him “Heart Attack,” as in “Serious as a heart attack.”

  Her anger allowed her to rise from the table and storm her way to the kitchen, where Paul was uncorking a second bottle of Malbec from the vast collection of wines he coveted like rare coins. He did not share the first bottle with his wife.

  Ginger was five-foot-six, but appeared smaller when side-by-side with Paul, who was eight inches taller.

  Looking up at him, she demanded: “What are you talking about, Paul?”

  Ginger raised her voice when her husband did not answer. “Paul, what the hell are you talking about?”

  “Don’t act like this is some surprise,” he said, finally. There was an edge to his voice—and a coldness, too. “This has been building for a while now. I’m fifty years old. You’re only forty-seven. And—”

  “Are you drunk? I’m forty-three,” Ginger interrupted.

  “No, I’m not drunk. And, okay, you’re forty-three,” Paul went on. “Anyway, we have some time to live still. Face it: We’re not good together anymore.”

  “And this is the result?” Ginger asked. “You making a decision for both of us? No discussion about it? No counseling? Nothing? And what about our daughter, Paul? What about her?”

  “Helena is a smart girl and she’s strong,” he said. “She will adjust. She’ll be fine.”

  Ginger was not so sure about that. She and her daughter were close, but she was a daddy’s girl. This news would rock her.

  “Well, you tell her why you’re breaking up this family,” Ginger said. “You tell her that she and I are not good enough for you.”

  “This is not about Helena,” Paul said, and a chill ran through Ginger’s body despite how heated she was.

  “So, it’s about me? You don’t want me anymore?” she asked. It was a rhetorical question because she knew the answer. But Paul answered anyway.

  “I’m simply not sure about this marriage anymore,” he said. He sipped his wine. “I’m sorry. I really am. I can’t make you happy. And you don’t try to make me happy. We’ve had sex one time in the last nine months. One time, a few weeks ago. And that was because we both were drunk.

  “So why should we stay in a marriage for appearance sake? Or even for Helena? It wouldn’t be teaching her the right thing.”

  “And it’s teaching her the right thing by breaking up her family?” Ginger asked. She wanted to continue, but it suddenly hit her that going back and forth with Paul would give him the impression she was trying to convince him to stay, which she did not want to do. No doubt, she was devastated and hurt; she had built her life around her family. But she was prideful, too, and somewhere in their back-and-forth she decided, “Fuck him.”

  “I only ask that you do two things for me,” she said. “Pick up your daughter from school and explain this to her.”

  “I will talk to Helena,” Paul said. “But not tonight.”

  “You bastard,” Ginger fired back. “You had it all planned out, huh? So who’s your woman? Who’s your side chick?”

  Paul studied his wife, scanned her from head-to-toe and back again. There was a time looking at her smooth skin and full, pouty lips and dark eyes would mesmerize him. Not anymore. He held animus toward her that he did not bother to explain.

  “Believe it or not,” he said as calmly as one would give driving directions, “it’s not about being with someone else. It’s about being away from you.”

  And as tranquil as Paul was, Ginger turned equally irate. “I have done nothing but love you and be here for you and provide a nice home for you,” she said. “You’re such an egomaniac to try to belittle me. That’s very hateful of you. But it shows you don’t deserve me. You have been depressed since losing your job and I have been supportive and encouraging. Since we’re being honest about everything, let me tell you this: You’re a selfish pig. All you’ve ever thought about was yourself. You never considered how hard this whole thing has been for me. And that makes you a selfish pig.

  “I’m woman enough to admit that I’m hurt by all of this. But the more I talk the more strength I get. I don’t mean to call you names, but you’re a loser. And whatever God has in store for you, well, good luck with that because He does not reward selfish pigs.”

  “Yeah, that’s really mature, Ginger,” Paul said. “You wishing bad on me. I won’t stoop that low.”

  “You’d have to cut off your legs to get any lower than you are,” Ginger said.

  “I could say something, but I’m not,” Paul responded. “But I will say this: You call being a nasty, mean, cold person supportive of me? That’s all you have been. And that’s not supportive.”

  Paul looked at Ginger with a strange expression. “I’m going to pick up Helena,” he said. “I’ll explain everything to her, but not now. She’s happy. I will, though, in due time.”
<
br />   “Yeah, right,” Ginger said. “You’ll explain what you want to explain—not the truth, I’m sure.”

  Paul finished his wine, corked the bottle and placed it in its proper place among the alphabetized collection. He looked at his wife, who could not detect the pain that engulfed him. He hid it well, but inside he cried. Finally, before tears seeped from his eyes, he turned and walked away.

  Ginger was left standing there to struggle with an influx of emotions that came crashing down. She waited until she heard the garage close, indicating Paul had gone.

  It was then that she was overcome with a confluence of pain, shock, hurt, disappointment and failure. She cried. She laughed. She perspired—all over a three- or four-minute span. Ginger thought she was having a breakdown. “I’m OK,” she said aloud. “I’m OK.”

  But she wasn’t.

  CHAPTER 2

  SAVING GRACE

  As Ginger sat in the garage that evening, fearful that she was dying, Paul stood in the house, perhaps fifty feet away, feeling as alive as ever, as if he were starting a new life. His hands shook, but not from some kind of breakdown. It was from the possibilities, from relief, from joy, from amazement. While his wife fretted coming into the loveless house she shared with a man who wanted out, Paul held in his unsteady possession a lottery ticket that represented $8 million.

  A whole new world was now his, one that suddenly had boundless possibilities.

  Processing it all jolted him. He played the Georgia State Lottery because it seemed the thing to do. “You have to play to win,” its slogan said. And yet he never expected to actually have the prized numbers.

  In one sense, it was liberating: financial concerns, concerns that overwhelmed him and robbed him of his dignity, no longer existed. In another sense, there was trepidation: What to do? Where to begin? And in still another way there was a true dilemma: What to do about his wife?