Merlot Is a Terrible Alibi

Her stomach went cold.

“Paloma.”

Paloma had gone still across from her.

Alondra pulled another notice from the folder. “What is this?”

Paloma reached for it.

Alondra did not give it to her. “You were losing the vineyard.”

“It did not happen.”

“That is not what I asked.”

“It was handled.”

“Weeks before you sent me the ring.”

Paloma’s face changed. Not much. Enough.

Alondra looked down at the letters. Late fees. Legal language. A number written in red pencil along one margin. Her mind moved backward through that spring: Paloma canceling calls, saying she was tired, saying the harvest accounts were complicated, saying nothing at all when Alondra asked if she should come home early.

“You told me you were fine.”

“I told you what I could.”

“What you could?” Alondra’s hands shook once. She put the papers on the floor before she tore them. “You ended our engagement by mail while this was happening.”

“Do not make it into something else.”

“What else could it be?”

Paloma rose so quickly her knee struck the edge of a box. She gathered the notices, the legal letters, every folder with 2019 on its tab.

“Paloma.”

“I said it was handled.”

“That does not erase it.”

“No.” Her mouth pressed into a hard line. “It does not.”

She crossed to the old file cabinet near the west wall. Its paint was chipped green. Alondra had thought it empty.

Paloma opened the lowest drawer, shoved the folders inside, and closed it.

The lock clicked.

She put the key into her pocket.

Alondra stayed on the floor among the remaining files. Outside, someone shouted for more gloves. A dolly rattled over the threshold. The benefit still needed a room, a stage, a permit, a hundred small mercies.

But the old anger had changed shape.

It had a question inside it now.

The question followed them through the rest of the day. It did not make the chairs lighter or the permit list shorter. It made each ordinary instruction sound chosen with care.

By dusk, the barrel hall had begun to resemble a room people might enter on purpose. The broken racks were gone. The exits wore bright tape. Barrels made a dark wall behind the place Alondra had marked for herself and her guitar.

She stood on the low platform Berta had found in storage and played a chord.

It returned from the far wall clean and plain.

“It will do,” Alondra said.

Paloma checked the emergency exit signs. “That is almost praise.”

“Do not make it a habit.”

At eight, the backup generator quit.

The work lamps blinked twice. Then the hall went black.

Someone swore near the west door. A tool hit concrete.

Berta came in with a flashlight held under her chin. “Nobody move until you remember where your feet are.”

Paloma was already at the electrical panel. “It was running this afternoon.”

“It was lying,” Berta said.

The generator outside gave one last metallic cough when Mateo tried it again. Then nothing.

Alondra stood in the dark with her hands in her jacket pockets. “It has joined my farewell tour.”

Berta found the breaker box, inspected it, and shut the panel with more force than necessary.

“No powered work tonight,” she said. “We have enough battery lights for the inspector’s walk-through if the electrician comes before dawn. If she does not, we make a smaller show.”

“We need the soundboard,” Paloma said.

“We need people who can stand upright first.”

Berta aimed the flashlight at both of them. “Tasting room. Eat something. If either of you starts moving chairs by phone light, I will lock you in separate barrels.”

Twenty minutes later, she set two paper bags on the tasting-room threshold. The room had one emergency lantern on the central table. Its white bulb made the bottles along the wall look pale and distant.

“Enchiladas,” Berta said. “And beans. I brought enough for an argument.”

“We have been fed worse things,” Alondra said.

“That Merlot at your engagement party remains a crime,” Berta replied.

Paloma shut her eyes.

Berta noticed. Of course she did.

“Eat,” she said again, less sharp this time. “I am calling the inspector’s office. Try not to ruin anything that cannot be repaired with lumber.”

When she left, the door clicked shut behind her.

Alondra opened one of the bags. Corn, chile, cheese, and roasted squash filled the room. She took a carton and sat at the far end of the table.

Paloma sat three chairs away.

For a while they ate.

Rain tapped at the high windows. The lantern gave off a faint battery buzz. Alondra kept seeing the foreclosure notices on the floor. March. April. The ring in its box.

Paloma broke a piece of tortilla in half and set it down.

“Berta said this is your last contracted show.”

Alondra looked up. “Berta tells stories when she is worried.”

“Is it?”

“Yes.”

“You are stopping?”

“Touring. Playing the circuit. Being carried from airport to airport in a van that smells like wet socks and old coffee.”

Paloma considered that. “You liked it.”

“I did.” Alondra moved her fork through the beans. “Or I liked being good at it. That can look similar from far away.”

“What changed?”

Alondra almost gave her the usual answer. Her shoulder hurt. The clubs had become smaller. She was tired. All true, none of it close enough.

“I got tired of arriving somewhere and knowing exactly who I was supposed to be,” she said. “The guitarist. The woman with the stories between songs. The one who could make a room feel less lonely for ninety minutes.”

Paloma said nothing.

“Everyone keeps congratulating me for knowing when to quit.” Alondra let out a small laugh. “I do not know anything. I finish this benefit, and then I become a person I do not recognize.”

“You are still Alondra.”

“That is not an answer.”

“No.” Paloma looked down at her food. “It is not.”

Alondra waited.

Paloma had once been good at silence in a way that felt like shelter. Now it felt like a locked office.

“I do not know what to say to that,” Paloma said.

“Try something true.”

Paloma’s mouth tightened.

The lantern made a hard circle on the table. Outside, water slid from the eaves in steady drops.

Finally Paloma said, “I am tired.”

It was so small that Alondra nearly laughed. Not because it was funny.

“Of what?”

“Everything needing something from me.”

“That is closer.”

“It is not useful.”

“No,” Alondra said. “It is not.”

Paloma met her eyes then. “I am sorry I do not know how to do this.”

The old answer rose in Alondra. Too late. You knew how to leave. She let it stay behind her teeth.

“What is this?” she asked.

Paloma’s hand rested beside the lantern.

“This,” Paloma said, “is sitting across from you and not knowing whether I am allowed to miss you.”

Alondra felt the sentence land in the place the question had made.

“You are allowed,” she said. “That does not settle anything.”

“I know.”

Paloma stood. She came around the table slowly, as if sudden movement might send Alondra away.

She stopped beside her chair.

“Can I touch you?” Paloma asked.

Alondra looked at the hand near her shoulder. Seven years had changed it. There were new small scars across the knuckles. The hand still looked capable of holding a glass steady during bad news.

“Yes,” Alondra said. “You can.”

Paloma placed her palm against Alondra’s cheek.

Alondra turned into it before she could decide whether that was wise. Paloma bent toward her. Alondra lifted her face.

A phone rang on the table.

They stopped.

Berta’s name lit Paloma’s screen.

“Of course,” Alondra said.

Paloma answered. “What happened?”

Berta spoke fast enough that Alondra caught only pieces.

Inspector. Route change. Sunrise.

Paloma listened, then said, “Six fifteen. Yes. We will be ready.”

She ended the call.

“The inspector is coming at sunrise,” she said.

Alondra picked up her fork again. “Then we should probably sleep.”

Paloma remained beside her chair for one second longer.

“At sunrise,” Paloma said, “we work.”

“At sunrise,” Alondra agreed.

Neither of them moved right away.

At six, Berta found them in the tasting room with cold enchiladas and a lantern running low.

“The inspector is early,” she said. “Of course she is. The rear exit route is still blocked by Paloma’s office.”

Paloma stood at once.

“The office is locked,” Berta continued. “The exterior door beyond it is the second marked exit. We need it open, cleared, and visible before she gets here.”

“I have the key,” Paloma said.

She did not move.

Alondra put the lid back on the takeout carton. “Then let us meet the office.”

Berta gave her a look that held both approval and a warning. “Five minutes. No excavating your souls until after the fire code is satisfied.”

“That was exactly our plan,” Alondra said.

“Liar.”