Sour Grapes by Lentzski Eliza

Author:Lentzski, Eliza
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2022-05-31T00:00:00+00:00

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I stood in front of the microwave in the vineyard office later that evening. I still didn’t have internet in the farmhouse, so I’d started streaming movies after dinner in the tasting barn. The isolated back office was nowhere near as comfortable as my living room, but the movies were a distraction from being alone and bored in the farmhouse when the workday had come to an end.

I hadn’t set a timer on my microwave popcorn. I listened for the sustained pauses in between the final popping kernels to find the sweet spot between underdone and burnt. As the moments between each pop became more pronounced, I took note of another sound. In between the familiar snap of the final kernels popping, I heard undistinguishable, muffled noise come from beneath me. I discerned no voices, only the barely audible sounds of what sounded like heavy objects being moved around.

I wasn’t the kind of person to reach for a weapon whenever I heard something unexpected. Alex had slept with a baseball bat under our bed, but beyond that—and the knives already in the kitchen—we’d never kept any self-defense items in our condo. I didn’t think we were being robbed—the parking lot was empty, and I hadn’t seen any unexplainable lights, but I was concerned. I didn’t know the age of the tasting barn or wine cellar below to worry about a structural collapse or if an animal too large for Gato to take care of had wandered into the building. I turned off the microwave and left the finished popcorn bag inside. I grabbed my phone, if only for its flashlight function, or to call Rolando if I found something problematic in the wine cellar.

The entrance to the underground wine caves were through the production side of the tasting barn. It was the only way into the root cellar from inside of the barn, but for safety, a second entrance popped out elsewhere on the property like an emergency exit if the primary entrance became blocked.

I kept my steps light as I traveled down the built-in brick steps. The overhead lights in the stairwell weren’t overly bright compared to the lights in the tasting room, but they offered enough illumination that I didn’t need to use my cellphone’s flashlight to avoid tripping over my feet.

The noises became louder and more pronounced the closer I came to the subterranean space where the wine casks were located. I still heard no voices, but the shuffling and moving of solid objects became more obvious. Maybe someone really was trying to rob us, I briefly considered. I looked down at my phone and frowned at the lack of connectivity. The wine cellar was a dead zone. Even if I’d wanted to call Rolando or even the police, I would need to be above ground to have a signal.

I started to regret not bringing anything with me for self-defense, but it wasn’t like the winery’s office was stocked with weapons. What was I going to do? Staple an intruder to death?

I stooped and retrieved a loose chunk of brick from the ground.

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