Merlot Is a Terrible Alibi

“That is a real fear,” she said.

“It does not make me noble.”

“No.”

“I do not want to lose you again.”

“Then do not push me out before I have chosen a door.”

Paloma closed her eyes.

“I want the residency,” Alondra said. “I want to make that record. I also want to come here. Those things can both be true.”

“You should not have to choose.”

“Then stop arranging the choice for me.”

Paloma opened her eyes. “What do we do?”

It was the first question. It was small. It changed the room.

“We make a plan,” Alondra said.

“And if it fails?”

“Then we make another one. Or we admit it failed. We do not disappear.”

Paloma put her hand on the sheet near Alondra’s knee. She did not touch her.

“Can I kiss you?” Paloma asked.

“Are you trying to get out of this conversation?”

“No.” Paloma’s hand stayed where it was. “I want to kiss you. I also want to keep talking after.”

Alondra studied her.

“Ask me again after,” she said.

“I will.”

Alondra moved closer. “Yes.”

Paloma kissed her with care, then with need. Alondra held her face and let the kiss deepen until Paloma made a small sound against her mouth.

Paloma drew back.

“Can I take off your shirt?” she asked.

“Yes.”

Paloma lifted it over Alondra’s head. Her hands paused at Alondra’s ribs.

“Here?”

“Yes.”

Paloma touched her breast, then kissed her there. Alondra held the back of Paloma’s neck.

“Your turn,” she said.

Paloma looked at her. “You do not have to—”

“I know. Do you want it?”

“Yes.”

“Then tell me.”

“I want you to touch me.”

Alondra slid her hand beneath the sheet. Paloma’s thighs opened for her.

“Slow,” Paloma said.

Alondra went slow.

She kept one hand on Paloma’s stomach and used the other between her legs. Paloma watched her for a moment, then let her head fall back onto the pillow.

“Like that?” Alondra asked.

“Yes.”

Alondra moved in small circles over her clitoris. Paloma caught Alondra’s wrist.

“Do not stop.”

“I will not.”

Paloma’s body tightened under her hand. Alondra kissed her breast, then moved lower.

“Can I use my mouth?” she asked.

“Yes. Please.”

Alondra settled between Paloma’s thighs. She used her mouth while her fingers moved inside her, staying with the rhythm Paloma had asked for. Paloma’s hand came to rest in Alondra’s hair.

“More,” Paloma said.

Alondra gave her more.

Paloma broke with Alondra’s name in her mouth. She held herself rigid for a few seconds, then fell back against the bed, laughing once as if she had surprised herself.

Alondra rose beside her.

“Still here?” Paloma asked.

“Still here.”

Paloma touched Alondra’s cheek. “Can I take care of you?”

“Care is not payment.”

“I know.” Paloma’s hand stayed against her face. “I want you. I want to do this because I want you.”

Alondra kissed her. “Then ask.”

“Can I put my mouth on you?”

“Yes.”

Paloma guided Alondra onto her back. She kissed the inside of her thigh, then put her mouth against her. Alondra’s hand closed around the sheet.

“Tell me,” Paloma said.

“Keep going.”

Paloma did. Her mouth moved with patient attention. When Alondra asked for her fingers, Paloma asked where and how, then listened.

“There,” Alondra said. “Do not change that.”

Paloma did not change it.

Alondra came with Paloma’s name on her tongue. When it passed, Paloma lay beside her and pulled the sheet over them both.

For a while, neither of them reached for the phone.

Then Alondra did.

“I will write Inés,” she said.

Paloma turned onto her side. “What will you say?”

“That I want the residency. That I need to ask whether the six weeks can be divided into blocks.”

“And if they say no?”

“Then I decide with the answer in front of me.”

Paloma gave a small nod.

“And I want to record here,” Alondra said. “Five days every month. Start with three months. The barrel hall has a room now.”

“You want to work here?”

“I want to work here. I also want to sleep with you when I am here, if we still want that.”

“We will ask.”

“We will.”

Paloma considered it. “The first full week of each month.”

“Good.”

“I will hire a cellar assistant.”

Alondra looked at her.

“Not someday,” Paloma said. “This week. Someone to handle deliveries and invoices. Someone who can tell me to stop answering messages at midnight.”

“Berta would enjoy that job too much.”

“Berta already does it for free.”

“Then pay someone else.”

Paloma smiled. “Two days off each week. No changing the schedule unless there is a real emergency.”

“And if there is?”

“I call you before I decide your part in it.”

Alondra took her phone and opened the calendar.

“Wednesday calls when we are apart,” she said. “No canceled calls without saying why.”

“First week of each month here.”

“Three months.”

“Then we review.”

Alondra entered the first block.

Outside, the vineyard workers began arriving below them. A truck door shut. Someone called for Mateo.

Paloma looked at the calendar, then at Alondra.

“This is not a grand claim,” she said.

“No.”

“It is a trial.”

Alondra set the phone down.

“A real one,” she said.

The benefit day began with the left speaker giving a scream and going dead.

Alondra stood at the microphone with her guitar against her ribs. One chord had gone out into the barrel hall. Half of it came back. The other half vanished under a cough of static.

Mateo crouched beside the borrowed sound rack. He checked a cable, then another.

“The power amp is gone,” he said.

“Can you fix it?” Berta asked.

“Not before doors.”

Doors opened at six. There were women from the growers’ cooperative due at five to set up tables, labels, order forms, and the small cash boxes that mattered more than anyone liked to say.

Paloma stood near the loading door with her clipboard. Alondra saw the old movement begin in her: the turn inward, the quick inventory, the plan to carry the whole broken thing alone.

Then Paloma put the clipboard on a barrel.

“Damn,” she said.

Berta waited.

Paloma looked at them both. “I need help before I make this my private emergency.”

Berta blinked once. “Well. There is a sentence I have been waiting seven years to hear.”

“Do not make it strange.”

“It is already strange. Continue.”

Paloma pointed toward the sound rack. “Berta, tell me what we can safely run. Alondra, tell me what kind of show this room can hold with one working speaker. Mateo, keep trying, but do not promise anyone a resurrection.”

Mateo lifted one hand from the floor. “A fair request.”

Alondra set her guitar aside.

“Give me ten minutes with the room,” she said.

“You have fifteen,” Paloma said. “Then I need a number for chairs.”

Alondra walked the length of the hall. Oak barrels lined both walls. The floor still showed pale marks where the outdoor stage had been dragged in after the rain. She struck an open D on her guitar. It crossed the room, met stone, and returned softer.

She tried a minor chord near the south wall. Better.

“The riser goes,” she said.

Mateo looked up. “The riser?”

“It makes everyone too far away. We put the players on the floor. Chairs in a half circle. Keep the north aisle clear for safety.”

Berta was already counting rows.

“No loops,” Alondra continued. “No backing tracks. Two microphones. One for lead vocal, one for whoever needs it. I play acoustic. The collective can take turns close to the front.”

“Will people hear?” Paloma asked.

“If they want a stadium, they chose the wrong vineyard.”

Berta made a mark on her clipboard. “That is almost charming.”

“It is a terrible insult to stadiums.”

Paloma looked toward the stack of folding tables. “The cooperative was meant to set up along the east wall.”

“They cannot if we pull the chairs forward,” Berta said.

Paloma took the brass key from her ring.

“The reserve room,” she said.

Berta stopped writing. “Paloma.”

“The reserve room has its own door to the courtyard. It is dry. It has lights.”

“You said nobody used that room.”

“I know what I said.”

She walked to the narrow door beside the old press. The key resisted once, then turned. Dust lay across the tile. Shelves of reserve bottles filled one wall. Her mother’s labels sat in neat rows behind glass.

Paloma opened the door wider.

“Move the tasting tables in here,” she said. “The cooperative gets this room.”

Berta studied her for a moment.

“Your mother would complain about the tablecloths,” Berta said.

“She hated tablecloths.”

“She hated bad tablecloths.”

Paloma gave one short laugh. “Then use the good ones.”

After that, she did not retreat upstairs to manage through messages. She stayed in the hall. She asked Pilar to direct the cooperative tables. She asked Berta to check the exits again after the chairs moved. She asked Mateo what he needed before he fried the remaining speaker too.