Season of Change(27)
Slade bent over for a closer look. There were a lot of clusters on the vine. “By thin you mean...”
“Cut back and toss in the bin.” She gestured to two large containers with wheels. “You’ll also be cutting back the tendrils that you can’t tie, the ones that get in the way of the corridor between rows.” At the group’s blank looks, she added, “Imagine driving between the rows. If anything would brush your car’s fender, cut it back.”
“Shouldn’t we hire experts to do this?” Slade would pay good money to be sitting in front of an air conditioner about now.
“Normally, I’d hire a crew.” Christine gazed out over the vineyards. “But this should have been done months ago and I’m finding that no crews want to come out this far to work. Besides, it’s not rocket science. These are plants. If you make a mistake, they’ll grow back.”
“But what if the cluster I cut off is the best cluster?” Slade’s muscles knotted with stress. Anything he did, he wanted to exceed expectations. “What if we mess this up?”
Christine put a hand on his shoulder and smiled up at him. It was a sparkly smile, one that said, Have no fear. “At this point, there is no best based on taste. The ripening process hasn’t shifted into full swing. We’re doing damage control, which means damage will be done, but more good than harm.” She stepped closer, bringing the coconut smell of sunscreen and the light scent of vanilla. “Just think, this is only five thousand cases worth of grapes. You want to bottle eighty.” And then, grinning, she pushed him forward and they got down to business.
She paired them up—Flynn and Nate, Slade and Christine—and they started down two parallel rows. One person cut. The other person tied off vines. She assigned the children to clean up. Faith and Truman with Flynn. Grace with Slade.
The children pushed the bins, darting in to grab cut vines and grape clusters and shoot them into the bins like writhing basketballs. Abby darted back and forth beneath the trellises to see how everyone was doing.
“Did I fail a test?” Slade grumbled, his shirt clinging to his back, sweat trickling down his spine.
Christine knelt a few feet ahead of him, cutting clusters. She glanced back, her furrowed brow barely visible beneath that floppy hat he was starting to envy.
“I got paired with teacher,” he clarified.
That made her laugh. “You seemed stressed out about the work. I thought you needed reassurance. Go with the flow. Trust in nature.”
“I do trust in nature. I just don’t trust in me.”
The gloves made his fingers clumsy. Grace watched him struggle to wrap a twist tie around a vine, undoubtedly thinking her father was a huge dork.
“You’ll feel more comfortable when we get to the end of the row. Then we can switch.”
Slade’s twist tie dropped to the ground.
Grace darted in to retrieve it. “Can I?” she whispered.
Rescued by his daughter, Slade felt loved. He held the vine in place for her.
Her smaller fingers were more dexterous than his. In no time, she had the wire and paper tie wrapped around the vine.
“I’ll hold the vine and you tie it up,” he offered.
Grace nodded, grinning as if she’d just won the seventh game of the championship series.