Merlot Is a Terrible Alibi

Each request was plain. Each one had an answer.

Alondra watched Paloma make room for other people’s hands.

At four, the dead speaker remained dead.

At four-ten, the chairs stood in a close half circle beneath the barrel racks. The reserve room held bottles, order forms, coffee urns, and six women from the cooperative arranging jars of dried herbs beside the wine. Their talk carried through the open door.

Alondra stood on the floor where the front row would be. She played the first song without the microphone.

The room listened.

When she sang, the working speaker caught enough of her voice to carry the words to the back wall. Her guitar did the rest. The barrels softened the sharp edges. Nothing sounded polished. It sounded near.

Berta stood beside the sound rack.

“That will reach,” she said.

“It has to,” Alondra said.

Paloma came to stand at her side. “Do you need me to change anything?”

The question landed differently from the old ones. It did not hide an answer inside it.

“Yes,” Alondra said. “Leave the reserve room open during the set. Let people move through. Let them buy things. Let them see why we are here.”

Paloma looked toward the room that had been closed for years.

“All right,” she said. “I can do that.”

At five-thirty, Alondra’s phone lit with an email from Inés Ortiz.

La Casa de las Cuerdas could divide the residency. Two weeks in January. Two in March. Two in May.

Alondra read it twice, then found Paloma near the barrel that now served as their desk.

“Before doors,” Paloma said.

“Calendar,” Alondra answered.

They stood shoulder to shoulder with both phones open.

December fourth through eighth: recording at Bruma Alta.

January twelfth through twenty-fifth: Mexico City residency.

January nineteenth through twenty-first: Paloma’s visit, if Alondra’s studio schedule allowed it.

February third through seventh: Bruma Alta again.

Every Wednesday at eight: call, unless one of them said otherwise before the hour came.

Paloma added assistant interviews for Thursday morning. Two full days off each week, protected unless there was a real emergency. Alondra added a note to send travel details within a day of booking anything.

Then they wrote the same line together.

Call before changing a date.

Berta appeared beside them with a tray of glasses.

“What is this?” she asked.

“Administrative romance,” Alondra said.

Berta considered the screen. “Boring things survive.”

Paloma looked at Alondra. “I like that.”

“It is not a grand claim,” Alondra said.

“No,” Paloma said. “It is a place to start.”

The first guests came through the loading door at six. Boots clicked on the tile. Coats were folded over chair backs. The reserve room filled with women asking about soil, harvests, prices, and whether the Merlot had improved.

Berta gave Alondra a signal from the sound rack.

Paloma stood beside the open reserve-room door, clipboard in hand, asking for help when she needed it.

Alondra lifted her guitar.

Then she gave the barrel hall its first note.

The chord crossed the hall and came back softer.

Alondra held it until the room settled.

Then she began.

She played the songs she knew by habit. Songs from airport floors. Songs from motel rooms. Songs written after shows for people who had wanted a piece of her and gone home with only a chorus.

The crowd listened close. The working speaker did its part. The barrels did the rest.

After the fourth song, Alondra adjusted the capo and looked toward Berta.

“This next one was found in a box,” she said. “Which is why you should never clean anything properly.”

Berta lifted her glass. “That is not my professional advice.”

“It should be.”

A few people laughed. Paloma stood by the open reserve-room door with her clipboard down at her side.

Alondra looked at the strings.

The song had begun on the night of their engagement party, after cheap Merlot and too much courage. Back then, she had written it as a plea. One woman locked inside a room. Another woman expected to break down the door.

The old ending had made suffering sound romantic. It had made leaving simple. It had made one of them a saint and the other one a thief.

That ending no longer deserved a melody.

She played the first verse. Then the second.

When she reached the place that had been blank for seven years, she let the last chord ring once beneath her hand.

Then she sang.

“Do not save me from the dark.

Meet me where the road comes through.

Bring the truth you thought would break us.

I will bring mine too.”

The final line landed clean.

Paloma did not look away.

Her eyes shone in the barrel-hall light. She put one hand over her chest and stood there, letting the song belong to itself.

Alondra finished the progression. No flourish. No demand for applause.

For one second, there was only the last note fading into oak and stone.

Then the room answered.

People stood. Berta clapped over her head, still holding her wineglass. Pilar wiped at her face with the back of her wrist and laughed when one of the cooperative women handed her a stack of order forms.

Alondra played two more songs. The collective joined her for the last one, their voices rough in the good way, each woman taking a line and giving it back changed.

By the time the chairs began to scrape backward, the reserve room had nearly sold out of its bottles.

Pilar climbed onto a barrel with her phone in hand.

“Wait,” she called.

The guests turned.

She checked the screen once more. “Sales, donations, the livestream fund, and whatever Berta charged those people from San Miguel for the old reserve bottles.”

“Market value,” Berta said.

“You made the goal.”

The hall broke open again.

“The press fund is covered,” Pilar said. “The permits are covered. We have enough left to begin the shared harvest account.”

Paloma closed her eyes for a moment.

Alondra crossed the floor after the crowd began moving again. She did not touch her until Paloma turned and held out her hand.

“You did it,” Alondra said.

“We did it.”

“That was almost a normal answer.”

“Do not get used to it.”

Berta appeared with a ring of keys.

Paloma took them from her, removed two, and placed them in Berta’s palm.

Berta looked down. “What are these?”

“The office beside mine,” Paloma said. “Sol starts on Monday. Deliveries, invoices, scheduling, payroll. She gets a desk with a door that closes.”

“And why do I have a key?”

“Because you will help train her. Because I will not keep every number in my head. Because if I start trying to do that again, I want someone to come upstairs and stop me.”

Berta turned the keys over once.

“You are serious.”

“I am tired of being impressive in ways that make me miserable.”

Berta looked at Alondra, then back at Paloma.

“That is almost sensible.”

“Thank you.”

“It was not praise.”

“I will take what I can get.”

Berta put the keys in her pocket. “The Merlot remains a terrible alibi.”

“It always was,” Alondra said.

Paloma laughed. It came easily this time.

Four months later, Alondra returned from Mexico City with three finished mixes, two half-finished songs, her guitar, and a suitcase.

The vines had begun their summer work. The crush pad was dry. Sol sat at a desk behind the cellar window, speaking into a phone while Berta corrected a label with a pen tucked behind one ear.

Paloma came down the stairs from the office.

“How was the city?” she asked.

“Loud. Honest. Expensive coffee.”

“How were the recordings?”

“Better than I expected.”

Paloma took the hard case from her. “How was the train?”

“Late.”

“That sounds familiar.”

“It is part of my brand.”

Upstairs, Paloma’s suitcase stood at the foot of the bed, packed for her visit to Mexico City the following week. Alondra set hers beside it and left it closed.

On the desk sat the old cassette in a clear sleeve. Beneath the faded date from their engagement party, Alondra had written one new word.

Finished.

Paloma picked it up.

“Do I get to hear the final mix?”

“Yes.”

“Does it still hurt?”

“A little.”

Paloma considered that. “Good. I do not trust songs that lie.”

Alondra put the new recording on.

They made soup while it played. They checked the calendar after dinner. They argued lightly over a train date, then chose one together.

Her suitcase stayed unpacked beside Paloma’s.

There was no train in the morning.

There was no rescue in it.

There was work. There were questions. There were two women learning how to arrive.

It was ordinary.

It was chosen.

It was happy.