Lola's Lurching Life Ch. 03 - Final

"Thank you."

"Thanks for tolerating me."

"It's partly fun being with you."

"Partly enjoyable, too."

"Ooh," she said, avoiding eye contact.

He said the lighting was unsuitable for his requirements and anyway no Orcas were in close.

As they returned to the cottage, Lola said, "Never attempt to turn a vehicle as the strip was narrow and damage to the young trees or vines would be a crime."

"I understand."

"Drive on and turn just inside the fence of the yet undeveloped top of the vineyard, turn again inside the roadside boundary and the exit gate is just beyond the windmill, the lock code being 6062."

"Got it," he said, making a note of the combination on his phone.

Max drove off, waving happily, possibly thinking wow, what a babe.

Lola waved him off turned and suddenly thought omigod, it's probably him, the kind of man she felt she'd always wanted.

She turned frantically but he and his vehicle had already disappeared.

"Fuck!" she screamed seawards.

Returned to the cottage, she sat, rubbing her left breast softly, as if in sorrow.

But Lola Hunt would describe herself as a practical woman. And thus, did not fret.

"Yes, Max was pretty good looking and possessing a probably fit body. He was around her age, was obviously well-educated with a soft-centre, probably self-reliant and sexy and oozed talents, it appeared. Yes, providing he was disease free, Max could share her bed, any time soon.

But she accepted that she wouldn't attempt to make that happen. He was in a relationship and fine, it was his choice. However, it that relationship soured and then disintegrated, she would gladly open her legs for him if he came to her acting horny. Oh yes. She would smother him and excite him so greatly, that he would never be able to leave her.

"Dream on, baby," she yawned, wondering which drawer she'd placed her vibrator in. And without waiting for the answer, began thinking she must call Shona in the morning early to discuss obtaining the relocation of the shed permit and would she like Shona to manage its relocation and installation of a septic tank toilet system. Over at the cottage site, she'd likg a removable two-vehicle garage placed well back from the former frontage of the big shed so that it had greater protection from salt-laden winds and she had more open view across to the slipway and new garden.

With all that underway, she'd arrange to have dinner with Rudi and inquire whether he had employment for her and she needed to let a 5-year contract for management of her vineyard.

Oh yes, she was on the move again.

She decided to have a shower and then call her parents about visiting her.

When driving to dinner with Rudi to discuss her plan and needs, Lola took a hands-free call.

"Hi, it's Max. I can't stop thinking about you."

She asked was anyone listening and he said no.

"It's called puppy love, Max. You'll get over it."

"Don't be mean. Are you on for a bit of a fling?"

"Ask me again when you no longer have a bed companion. My ethics don't allow me to assist any guy who wishes to two-time his wife or girlfriend. Good night, sweet man."

She cut the call and Max called back almost immediately. She disconnected the phone and imaged he would be almost weeping.

"Just do the right thing, Max," she snarled aloud.

Two weeks later, Lola began working for Rudi Nevada at his Classic Hills Vineyard and Winery. She was just about to leave for her first day on the job, when Max Logan called.

They greeted one another and as asked could he cross her land in the morning to the deep sea trench site? She said certainly but was left wondering, perhaps it was something difficult to detect emphasis in his tone - she screwed up her mouth indicated distaste - deciding that he was the type of person she should not become involved with.

Max made three more requested visits and they were in never in speaking distance again. Lola occasionally sighted his distinctive vehicle in the village.

One Monday, Lola walked through to Stony Batter on a ramble with Caroline. Her closest friend usually had Mondays and Tuesday off from working in the restaurant. Weekends, of course, were always the busiest days of the week with the weekend tides of invasion from the mainland arriving and later departing on a steady flow of ferries.

Mid-afternoon after a chicken salad they had carried in their backpacks, they completed their circular walk and when they were back in cell phone range on higher land, Caroline called someone while Lola stood statue-like on the cliff top looking across the gulf to the rugged Coromandel coastline.

"Omigod, if that clown Max you told me about had captured that imagine of you. with you in your prime with those beautifully formed classical features, he would have sold it for big money."

"Keep your distance, you hot bitch," Lola mocked, setting them off shrieking in laugher.

As the laughter died, Caroline said, "If you get the hots for Maxie baby, forget it. His live-in girlfriend became pregnant and wished to get married but Max wished to stay just as they were. Apparent her dad arrived with the beefy workmate and Max was warned by dad to marry his daughter or else, as the story goes, be thrown into the tide in a heavily weighted crayfish pot."

"Good heavens!"

"Aye, and my friend Judith says the wedding is in four weeks and she will be invited as Max is her close cousin, and I reckon they would have been very close when they were teenagers or older."

"Let's walk on," Lola said. "And thanks for that info. "It's just another case of a careless young guy or perhaps a female taken herself off the pill secretly. Max had been crossing my vineyard, with my permission, to photograph coastal wildlife."

"Ah, and you were thinking of inviting him in after one of those visits for more than coffee."

"Who will ever know that answer for sure, Caroline?" Lola said in a tone that suggested that answer included her.

"You are such a complex character," Caroline said, accepting what she'd just heard, was the only answer she would get. Lola was the most difficult person she'd ever met to pin down if her comment raised more questions.

"Have you heard back from Rudi yet about vineyard employment?"

"He said late this week. Apparently, he's busy at present."

"Very business. Something's going on. Listen, this is confidential. I've seen his car parked outside the Hill's farmhouse."

"Omigod, you think he's negotiating to buy some land off them?"

"Or all of it."

Iola said her guess would be his company that owned Rudi's former business that he now managed, may have received a corporate buy-out offer. But Caroline thought Rudi would oppose that because ultimately, he probably wanted to drop dead amongst his long-beloved wines."

"Why are you so sure about that."

"He's somewhat sentimental at times, particularly in the wake of a fit of bad-temper. He was conceived and later born on the initial acreage of the Nevada family's Classic Hills Vineyards and Winery and by the age of thirty-two, held the title of all the land in his name while most of the family retained some shareholding in the reconstructed company."

"Omigod, Caroline. I accept your dropping dead theory."

Dougal Wallace called Iola that evening to ask if he could borrow her pickup for a couple of days. The family had taken possession of a house they had purchased on the Palm Beach frontage with a three-vehicle garage at the side of it and a boatshed at the rear.

"Every bit of space is piled with junk at the death of the widow occupier. The entire place needs a decent clean out. Only I will drive your pickup."

"Would you like to buy it as its surplus to my requirement at present."

"I would like to do that but unfortunately buying the beach-house has left me rather cash-strapped at present."

"Then I'll give it to you."

"No, you can't do that."

"You and Helena are responsible to launching me into my new career and you can't deny that."

"I... um... yes. I'll be over tomorrow and we can battle it out with her."

"That's too much to give away."

"Then you pay me $10,000 for it as an interest-free loan, and when you can afford it, donate $10,000 to the Waiheke Island Relief Fund or whatever it's called, in my name."

"Okay, that's acceptable and very generous of you. But you'll have to get through Helena before I can officially accept and truthfully, your chances, being the most optimistic as I can be, are almost nil."

"Well, perhaps I may have to remove my gloves."

"Please, Iola, don't come to physical blows."

"Of course not; my comment was simply using an old cliché. You guys are my friends but sometimes even a friend has to be made to toe the line."

Dougal said nervously, "Right, let's see how tomorrow pans out. I'll tell the boss you will be arriving for lunch. She's at present getting late spring bulbs from a friend."

* * *

Monday dawned cheerfully and Lola thought that was a good sign.

She sat with an overnight email in the hands with a full quotation from Shona for the relocation of the big shed with a starting date 11 days away, which was fine. The work included the price of a subcontractor for digging out the site to flat solid clay and to provide four soak holes to council specifications for the roof water-run off.

The price also included the 4-hour hours of a transporter equipped to hoist the broken-down sections of the garage and to its trailer, to take them to site at the top of the vineyard as soon as the new concrete had 'cured' and hoisting the sections into place so that Shona and her crew could correctly resemble then and re-bolt the sections together and affix the work benches into place.

Everything appeared dandy and she believed Shona would not to charge her for the work exorbitantly and returned the signed contract, keeping a copy for herself and made the required deposit by bank transfer.

Shona had suggested Lola check the Internet and order her choice of double garage and give Shona the details and she'd do the rest.

Lola went online and chose a standard two-vehicle lock-up garage constructed in green mist exterior colour steel, to be locatable and placed on already smooth ground and resting on piles provided and placed with tie-downs as part of the contract.

The model she selected from the supply agents on the island included two sizeable floor to ceiling cupboards at either end of the far wall and a small workbench and the storage space brooms and long tools between with smaller cupboards above the bench built around a single slightly opening window for ventilation protected by security bars.

Thinking of the buildings at the upper end of her vineyard, she made a diary note to extend the coastal tree plantings so that those buildings were generally shielded from view along that boundary line and down the road boundary a little way.

Lola sighed and laid back, enjoying the early spring sunlight coming in from the new corner dormer windows. Turning her head, she looked out to sea and breathed 'Wow', and through the other window could see almost all of her vines were in in leaf. Only a few had not survived their new environment or the shift or failed grafts had led to their demise.

It suddenly occurred to her fully, rather than the thought lurking in back-thinking, that this cottage was the first home that she'd owned, ever.

"Omigod, I'm a late-sprouting home-owner, but at least I've got here," she gloated, feeling very pleased with herself. She opened the windows and lay back listening to the birds in the big trees behind the cottage.

"Perfect solitude," she cried, but even Nola knew that if she remained sprawled there too long, she would soon feel bored.

She picked up her ringing phone.

"It's Rudi, I need to know if you definitely would be available to manage a new vineyard planting from go to whoa for me, say over the next two years, with the biggest workload coming in the first year. I don't have to ask you can you do it, because you're already proved you can on your place. I guess you was laying in the sunlight right now in your newly renovated cottage and listening to the birds."

"You forgot to add with me picking my nose."

He laughed, sounding slightly tense, and asked, "Well?"

Lola was relaxed and that encouraged her to tease.

"How large is Ernie and Glenys's farm?"

Rudi let fly screech sounding as if he'd been scorched by bolt-lightening.

"How the hell do you know anything about that," he yelled.

Come on, Lola. You need to remain firm and courageous and leave him empty-handed.

"I talk to people and I feel I ought to keep tabs on the industry and certainly to be ahead of the pack," she said smoothly.

"What people, what are they saying, are they attempting to ruin me. Do I need to call in the investigators?"

"Rudi, be calm. Accept that you don't talk to everyone. I'm afraid I cannot reveal my sources although if I were working for you I would, of course, feel obliged to tell you much more than I otherwise would."

He ignored being told that and said, "I demand who told you I'm buying that property that you allege I'm buying."

"I didn't mention at any time that you were buying any property."

"Liar?"

"Pardon me, Rubi. If you think back carefully, all I said to you was how large is Ernie and Glenys' farm."

He reflected on that statement.

Lola braced, expecting to her a bath-load of vitriolic and possibly several profanities tossed in her direction.

But no. Somehow, Rudi kept a lid on his erupting temper.

She pushed, "Was that all I said to you?"

"Yes."

"Thanks, and I admire you for admitting that, being the truth."

"Perhaps your distinctive vehicle has been seen up at that farmhouse more than once, Rudi, but don's ask many how many people would have noticed that, had it occurred."

"Agreed," he said, sounding sullen.

"I can confirm this, Rudi. Your business is your business, just if my private business is my business. But if I do come to work for you, anything that appears to be your confidential business will remain that way with me, and that's how it should be."

"Oh, here's another thought. I've read several times that usually the most efficient way, leaving price aside, is for any winegrower to consider acquiring adjoining neighbouring land in the first instance when investigating possibilities and reviewing soil test results, etcetera."

Rudi sighed loudly over the phone and then apologized. "I lost it a big there for a while."

"That's okay, Rudi. I have come to know you quite well, I believe. And you have so much on your plate at times to work through, and I guess usually money is involved, and really big money when it comes to buying land."

"Thanks for saying that, Lola. I now don't see myself as such a pig. Come for dinner at 8.00 on Thursday and listen to your job offer."

Lola worked a couple of hours putting a piece of tape on every vine that was dead or dying and a difficult colour on any that were displaying signs of ill-thrift and knowing and might be remedied in some cases.

After an hour she thought, why was she doing that? It was something Todd could do and he'd welcome the coin (money). But at present she needed something to do.

Arriving at the Wallace's for lunch, Lola was pleased to see them again together; she'd met Helena without Dougal a couple of times fairly recently.

As Lola drove up, Helena raced up and virtually pulled Lola out of the Land Rover and glanced at it contemptuously.

They went around the outside of the gazebo, where Dougal had resumed reading the daily morning newspaper from Auckland.

When they were settled, Dougal with a beer, the two women with red wine, Lola said with authority, "Let's get business out of the way and Dougal glanced at her appealingly.

"What business?" Helena asked suspiciously, arching an eyebrow.

"Oh, Helena, you've had your hair coloured in a tone with more lustre."

Helena touched her hair but said steely-eyed, "What are you up to, young lady."

"Will you humour me?"

"I suppose so."

"Press the inside tops of the three main fingers of one hand and reach across and pressed those kissed fingers to my lips and say, "I love you Lola."

Helena did that meekly, without question, and sat back and folded her arms and then leaned on them on the table.

Lola looked at the meaty forearms and shuddered at the thought of being smacked over the mouth by that angrily-wielded weight.

All in one breath, Lola let it rip.

"Dougal called me to asked if he could borrow my new pickup for a couple or so days to help clear possibly four tonnes of rubbish and possible bits of saleable stuff in the beach-house at Palm Beach that you overlooked letting my about, Helena."

"But leaving that aside, I said I'm finding the need for that vehicle less and less as I rely more and more on the go-anywhere Land Rover and would he like to buy it. He said yes but unfortunately your guys had just bought this beach property and there would be considerably costly improvement you and he want to make almost immediately."

"I said I'd give the vehicle to you guys. He, sounding ready to crap himself, cried no, you would not accept that and I said why not, that I'm hugely grateful for you two launching me into the wine industry. I suggested then you two take the pickup now and we you can readily afford it give a $10,000 donation to the island's community urgent relief fund in my name and he said I'd need to get your agreement on that Helena. So here I am asking for support, Helena."

Helena blinked slowly twice and muttered, "Support?"

Lola pounced.

"Oh guys, have I mentioned that I'm about to be offered a permanent to job by Rudi Nevada that will overfill my jeans in big bucks weekly?"

Two pairs of pricked up ears listened to Lola intently and now two pairs of eyes fixed on her, and Helena practically whined, "Why haven't you said anything about this before today?"

"Because an until an hour ago, I had nothing more to say than I had asked him a couple of weeks ago did he have a job for me. We had a brief discussion this morning and he said come for dinner on Thursday and he would present an offer to me and instructed me not to say anything meantime."

"What kind of job?

"I really don't know Dougal, but I suspect it will be big, it will either be in the administration or vineyard activities of the publicly-listed company on the Stock Exchange and I know he kind of regards me as big cheese after acting some time as my mentor."

Helena said, "He's probably going to put you through the hoops and if you perform well, which you will, he'll convince the board to make you managing director and boost his title from chairman to executive chairman to allow him to keep a finger on daily running of the company."

Both Dougal and Lola boggled at Helena.

"Well, if all you can do is shrug, Lola, I'll get the cheese and chicken kitsch and you come in and grab the salad and another bottle of wine from the fridge."

"Oh, what about the pickup deal, Helena?"

"We'll take it from today and in exactly one year from today, Dougal will lodge a $10,000 in your name to the relief fund trust. Oh, and when negotiating your salary and perks, make sure the job includes a new vehicle every two years and that when you get to the top in management, that you'll handed a decent parcel of shares."

The happy lunching trio ate and drank wine lightly until 3 pm and chatted without stop. The gathering was very much like family. Driving home contentedly and possessing a delayed invitation to inspect the beach house as soon as all the junk was removed but before upgrading began, Lola knew that she now had a great surrogate family on the island, comprising Helena, Dougal and Caroline.

She looked forward to meeting them along with the arrival of her own family once lambing on the Hawkes Bay farm was over.