Chapter 136: Merger (3)
TL: Hanguk
From Napa Valley to Lodi was a little over an hour and a half. By now I'd made the trip so often that, even though it was roughly the distance from Seoul to Cheonan, it didn't feel like much of a burden. The straight-line distance from my house to school was over 50 km too, so it amounted to only a bit farther than my daily commute to school, I suppose?
Humming to myself, letting my thoughts wander as I drove, I found I'd arrived in Lodi before I knew it.
"You're here?"
Since I always called ahead before coming, she'd been waiting at the farm office around the time I was due to arrive, and the moment she spotted my car she came running out. Then she noticed the small paper bag in my hand and pointed at it.
"What's that?"
"Huh? Oh, I brought this for you."
Chloe's grin spread ear to ear, and she asked with a sly, half-lidded look.
"What is iiit?"
"I went to the department store with my parents and picked up a scarf."
She snatched the bag I handed over, tore the box open right out of it, and pulled out a softly ivory-colored silk scarf. When the silk met the sunlight, it shimmered like rippling water. She must have loved it, because her eyes turned into little hearts and she immediately wound it around her head like a kerchief. She tied it on in a flash without even a mirror, then went over to the car, fixed it up in the window, and struck a pose for me.
"Well? Do I look pretty?"
"Yeah, looks good."
"Tch... look at me properly."
"I mean it, you look great. Like a model out of a magazine."
And I wasn't just saying it; she really did look like a model posing in some magazine. I figured it was because she was so pretty and so well-proportioned.
She squirmed bashfully at my words, smiled, and asked.
"So why'd you buy it?"
"I told you, I was at the department store with my parents..."
For a second Chloe's eyebrows slanted into a frown.
"... Why are you explaining it like you grabbed it because the fruit happened to be on sale while you were shopping?"
Sensing I'd made some kind of mistake, I thought fast.
"The thing is, I figured a scarf on your head would really suit you when you're out working the farm. Wearing a hat all the time isn't great for your hair, you know. And when it's chilly, it's nice to wrap around your neck."
She pursed her lips, planted her hands on her hips, and came creeping toward me. Her face was so full of fury that I caught myself backing away little by little.
"That's all?"
"No, well... there's another reason..."
Just then she closed the distance and brought her foot down on top of mine, and when she saw me caught off guard, Chloe gave a sly grin and took my face in both hands. And then, for a moment, just the briefest moment, her lips touched mine.
A breeze passed through, faintly carrying the scent of pear blossoms.
In that instant, every sound stopped.
The birdsong, the rumble of a distant tractor...
All I could hear was the pounding of my own heart.
Then Chloe, her face flushed bright red, took a step back and said.
"Why did you buy it?"
"... I wanted to. I thought you'd like it."
Chloe broke into a soft smile and flung her arms around me.
"Thank you."
"... It's nothing, really..."
"But are all Korean guys like this?"
"... Like what?"
"Hmm... never mind."
I hadn't realized it, but holding Chloe gave me a sense of warmth and, along with it, a feeling of calm. Maybe marrying Chloe wouldn't be such a bad idea after all, I found myself thinking.
"Buy me something good to eat."
"Actually, on the way over I scoped out a decent place nearby."
"Not somewhere close... I want to go for a drive, so let's head somewhere a little farther out. How about Benicia? The restaurants there have a great atmosphere, you know. We can look out over the sea and have a meal with some wine. If we leave now it'll take about an hour. And since lunch will be late, there won't even be a wait."
"Uh... weren't we supposed to take care of the farm stuff?"
Chloe abruptly pulled away from me and put on a sulky face.
"I'm working plenty hard on the farm, okay? Can't we set the mood a little today?"
"... Sure we can. Honestly, doing farm work every single day does get old. We could use a change of pace now and then."
"That's exactly what I'm saying. Let's go."
"Uh, alright..."
Before I quite knew what was happening, I had her in tow and was climbing back into the car. The difference from the drive over was that Chloe was riding beside me now, and the other small change from usual was that her hand lay folded over my right one.
The next day, the Silveroak Hills Vineyards office.
On the old oak table sat a contract, a laptop, and water glasses arranged neatly to match the number of people present.
Ben Lowell straightened his crisp black suit and spoke.
"All right, why don't we all take our seats. I believe you've all met once before, so I trust there's no need for introductions?"
Elowen Pike nodded without a word. He already knew that today's counterparty was Redwood Winery, so there was no great surprise on his face. If anything, learning it was Redwood had cleared up the question of why the other side hadn't tried to lowball him so hard.
Since his property sat right next door, it was the ideal land for them to expand into, and he'd realized that if they pushed too hard to slash the price, the deal might fall through. But that didn't mean Elowen was particularly angry about it. No, if anything, he felt relieved.
After all, the only thing on his mind right now was clearing his debts quickly, selling off his wine, and starting fresh in Sonoma.
Beside him sat his partner, Tom, while across from them sat me, my father, and Ben.
Once the document folders had been set in front of each of us, a brief silence settled in. For a moment a peculiar mood took hold, but soon Ben opened his laptop and began to speak.
"First, allow me to go over the basic terms of this agreement once more. The assets Redwood Winery is acquiring include the 32-acre plot, the main winery building, and all of the fermentation tanks, cooling lines, the barrel room, and the irrigation system. The barrels themselves and the inventory of already-bottled wine, however, are excluded."
Elowen nodded.
"I've already confirmed that. Only the wine still fermenting in the tanks is included in the acquisition, correct?"
"Correct. It's recorded as work in progress, approximately 50,000 liters."
Ben then turned the page and read on quietly.
"The existing mortgage is to be paid off in full by the seller as a condition of sale, and any remaining taxes or unpaid property tax are likewise the seller's sole responsibility. The buyer assumes none of those debts."
My father nodded.
"Good. It seems all the uncertain points have been cleared up."
Elowen looked over the contract once more and said.
"Six and a half million dollars, paid entirely in cash, is what I was told. Is that correct?"
It was Ben who answered.
"That's correct. The buyer has confirmed that the balance will be wired within two days of signing. Under Article 4, Clause 1 of the contract, the buyer gains effective possession of the property the moment the signing is complete, and the legal transfer of ownership will take place within 48 hours of the funds being transferred. Is that understood?"
Now that the farm was being sold, Elowen felt a clean relief, as if a long-lodged weight in his chest had finally lifted, and at the same time a sensation almost like guilt, as though he'd committed some crime. He felt sorry toward his father, who had passed the farm down to him.
So he only nodded, his expression dark, and Tom, who had been watching him with concern, patted him on the shoulder.
Then Elowen signed the contract first, followed by Tom, and then my dad picked up the pen. As Dad wrote the date beside his signature, I could see his fingertips trembling slightly. He must have been deeply moved at taking on another 32 acres of farmland.
With Redwood's 15 acres, Ironwood Cellars' 30 acres, and Silveroak's 50 acres now in hand, we had become wealthy estate owners with a total of 95 acres.
In fact, the average American farm was about 445 acres. In the Midwest, where they grew corn and wheat, 100 acres was small enough to cover in a few passes of a tractor, so small that it was hard to make a living from it, to the point where it was common to take a 'second job'.
But owning a farm of nearly 100 acres in Napa Valley was a very different story. Napa Valley was famous for its sky-high land prices, and the average vineyard here ran only about 20 to 40 acres.
Anyone who personally owned 100 acres in Napa Valley outright would have had land worth tens of millions of dollars on that alone, plus staggering yearly revenue from the wine it produced, enough to be recognized on that basis as a pillar of the community or a successful businessman.
Ben squared up the last page and said quietly.
"The contract is now officially in effect. For both parties, this is a fresh start, I'd say. I wish nothing but success for both of your ventures in the days ahead."
Elowen rose from his seat and offered my dad his hand.
"So it's done. It was a good deal."
"Likewise."
Once the deal was finished and we'd stepped outside, I said to my dad, who still looked a little dazed.
"It still doesn't quite feel real, somehow. You feel that too, right, Dad?"
"I know. When the money's just sitting in a bank account, it's only a number... it felt like staring at an account with a big figure in it. But now that we've actually taken over the farm, this whole sprawling vineyard becomes ours. It's like something I only ever imagined has turned real. Maybe this is why people buy a house once they've made some money. Something you can see with your own eyes feels a lot different from just a number on a screen."
"I feel the same way. When we make wine and earn money from it... it feels good, sure, but it was never all that incredibly moving, you know? But taking over a winery, that always gets to me. It was the same when we acquired Ironwood Cellars, and the same when we picked up the rest of the Silveroak plot after the fire... there's this feeling I can't even put into words. Like just looking at it fills my heart all the way up?"
Once I'd said it, I felt as though I'd heard these exact lines somewhere before. And the moment Armando's face flashed into my mind, I gently closed my eyes.
"Ugh... I take it back."
"Huh?"
"Let's just go, quick."
Shaking off all the emotion that had welled up in my chest, I hurried away from Silveroak and headed back to Redwood.
"So the acquisition deal went through okay?"
When I reached the aging cellar, Warren was holding a glass of wine, savoring it with deep appreciation.
"Yeah... though lately it's like you come in to work just to drink wine."
"Drinking wine is my job, isn't it?"
"That's true, but..."
"You've already gone and checked the state of all the grapes in the vineyard, haven't you? Even the harvest schedule, you sorted it all out without me saying a word."
"Of course. It's my job."
Though when I called it a harvest schedule, it wasn't as if a definite picking date had been set yet. It was closer to just having a rough sense of around when to start checking on the timing for harvest.
"So the only thing left for me to do is drink wine..."
"Right... if there's nothing in particular you need, I'll head out."
"You sure keep busy. Where are you running off to this time?"
"The pear farm."
"Didn't you go there just yesterday?"
"......"
Embarrassed, I let my gaze drift off to the side and said.
"I didn't get a proper look at it yesterday... so I'm going today to tend to it."
"Mmm?"
"It just sort of happened that..."
One corner of Warren's mouth crept up unnaturally high.
"Okay, fine, I didn't get a proper look because I was on a date."
"Oho, so you do get up to something other than farming once in a while? How wonderfully human of you."
"What, do you take me for some kind of robot?"
"That's exactly what I thought. I'd half-wondered whether Asians even knew how to date, but apparently that's not the case after all."
I was dumbfounded. Here I was, a man who'd even been married in my past life, and this was the treatment I got...
"It's nothing like that."
And just as I was about to head out,
"Hey, in that case..."
"Yes?"
"Let me tag along too, to that pear farm of yours."
For a second I nearly asked, "Why there?" but on second thought it occurred to me that he might be curious about the other crops as well.
"Sure, let's go."
At my words Warren sprang to his feet, smiled, and grabbed his jacket. And as he fell into step behind me, I asked offhandedly.
"Since you're coming to see it anyway, if you have time today or tomorrow, would you like to see the other farms too?"
"Where?"
"There's cherries, there's rice..."
"Rice?"
"Yeah. And there's a distillery there too."
"A distillery?"
"It's just a look-around, so don't read too much into it."
I waved my hand dismissively and started off.
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