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CHAPTER TWO.

CHAPTER TWO.

WINES HAVE BEEN IN THE DIAMOND FAMILY

for half a century. Penn Diamond built the first winery in San Diego, California, in the late 1600s. In those days, it was challenging to develop the business from scratch. The competition was stiff, the merchants squabbled for supremacy, and the fittest usually survived the race. The fittest often were the ones who had the most boys. Penn Diamond was wise to build the company on the mind of his two sons, Sean and Randall, instead of on real estate like the other merchants were all doing.

The two boys went their separate ways when they were twenty-one and nineteen, respectively. Randall Penn did better than his elder brother. He’d came to New York in 1780, and old boy with the acumen of a business veteran. A strong point of the Penn's, they passed down the flag.

Bruce's father, Scott Diamond, took that flag and carried it well. He taught his son well and delegated to the boy the second he had turned eight. By the time Bruce's thirteenth birthday swung in, he could taste the wine and tell the grapes' condition, the cellar temperature, and humidity before it fermented. If it was from France, Bruce knew it. If it was mixed in a warehouse in the neighborhood, he could tell that as well. His acuity of taste was almost uncanny.

Bruce opened his first store when he was nineteen. He’d started a small winery in the New York area four months later. He remained on the board of his father's wine company, though. Three months ago, Robert Diamond and his wife Rita realized their son knew about wines just as much as anyone in the business.

"How about school? You should get a college degree now, maybe take some subjects to make you better in the business," Robert said at dinner.

"Where would you want me to go?" he asked, his heart paused.

Rita said quickly, "England."

"We are thinking, Cambridge University. Great place, you'd meet other bright kids, maybe take the business there with you. We are looking at the birth of a dynasty."

His parents grinned over their meals at him across the table. Rita Diamond looked like an older snow white. Bruce thought his mother would always be beautiful; she aged so gracefully that men still stared at her suggestively. His dad, on the other hand, displayed stress lines in the corner of his eyes. Robert Diamond was always clean-shaven, aristocratic in the manner and reticent, only speaking when necessary, or when wine or Bruce was the subject, like now.

"What do you say?" his dad asked.

"I'll think about it, dad. I don't know—"

Rita cut in, "Think about it? Bruce, you should, I thought you'd, I mean—"

Robert touched his wife's arm on the table. He nodded at her. To Bruce, he said, "Think about it. It's okay. Take your time. I'll make the arrangements for you. You have nothing to be worried about."

The prospect of a university in a foreign country was quite enticing. Bruce had been across the Atlantic before. He had been in Liverpool to watch a match between the home and another team. He had spent an extra week there after that.

He had wanted to go with Mary at the time, but he didn't have the guts to even make mention of a girl. Mary had jeered at him about the matter for a week.

"The matrix has you, Bruce."

"What are you talking about?" he asked.

"You know, the movie

Matrix.

I mean, you are trapped until you become an adult."

"I'm twenty-one, Mary. I am an adult."

"No, you're not," she said and scooped some ice cream. She rubbed some on Bruce's nose.

"Aw, come on."

"Wait, let me get it."

Mary kissed him and then licked the ice cream off of his nose. That led to kissing, some touching and some loving. They lay on the shag rug of his apartment, panting at the roof. Mary had then leaned on her elbow to look upon his face.

She said softly, "What's bothering you?"

"Nothing."

"You are a bad liar, Bruce."

"I'm thinking about mom," he said finally. "I don't know what she'd say if I took you home. I'm worried about that."

Mary frowned. "Why does it bother you?"

"Why?"

He fell back on the carpet and closed his eyes. He exhaled.

How could I ever live without you, Mary? And how could I even begin to tell you that what's about to happen soon?

"Yes, why? Tell me. Why don't you just open your mouth and just say it? Tell them I work, I am not lazy, I am not after your money or—"

Bruce looked at her sharply.

"I'm sorry, baby. But you know what I'm talking about, right?"

"Mom would only remember you vaguely from high school. Or she might. And if she does, she'll remember how you used to help me with my homework. And how you used to love to sit with me on the porch, you'd never come in because you thought it was too neat inside," Bruce finished breathlessly.

Mary could barely remember Bruce's mother, as well. It was so long ago, and in those days, Mrs. Diamond didn't come out to say anything to her son's friends.

Mary chuckled and put her hands around his neck. She kissed him on the cheek and buried her face.

"What did she think of me then?" she asked.

I don't think Rita remembers you, Mary. That's the problem.

"I know what I think of you, Mary. That's what matters, right?"

"Yeah."

Clemens stopped the car by the hotel. He turned his thick neck and said, "There's where she works."

"I want to see her face, not where she works!" Rita snapped from behind the car.

"You'd have to go in."

It was dark in the back of the car; the tinted windows were up, just the way high society women in the caliber of Rita Diamond loved it. There Pamela was seated beside her. The hairstylist was browsing through an open Vogue brochure, deliberately ignoring Rita, her friend, as usual.

It was eight in the morning. Clemens said he wasn't sure if the girl was getting on or off her job. Rita had functions to attend to; Pam had her shop to be at. She put the Vogue brochure away and sighed because whether she liked it or not, Rita was staring through the window on Pamela's side, but one of his eyes checked to see if Pamela was paying attention.

"What do you think?" Rita asked her.

"I think we are breaking the law by now, stalking a poor girl."

"Pam! Can you be helpful for a change?"

Pamela suggested that they wait for the girl at the hotel when she either arrives or leaves. Rita told Clemens, in turn, to stay put. They almost missed the girl's exit thirty minutes after because both women were now talking, distracted from a dress in the Vogue brochure.

Rita Diamond jumped in her seat when Clemens announced the girl's appearance. Rita sidled against Pamela's side of the car; she gazed at the girl through the window. Pamela was smiling.

"Hm, she's pretty," Pamela observed, "She looks Italian—"

Rita was gawking, veins resurrected on her neck, her red lips curled. Clemens mirrored the expression on Rita's face. Pam asked him, "Is she Italian?"

Clemens gave the woman a soured look, "I don't think so. Maybe Indian."

"Does she have a name?" Pam asked the driver.

"Mary."

Rita looked at her driver. "Mary, what?"

Clemens shrugged. He said he had no idea what her surname was. "It was the bellhop who’d told me."

"Then go ask the damn bellhop whose daughter my son is coming to their hotel to see. As to what she’s doing here, does she live or work here? I want to know."

Pam exhaled and sat back. She said, "Rita, Clemens can't just go in there asking for a girl's name. I'm sure there's a law against that as well. Can we get to the shop now?"

Rita rested, too. Some of the ugliness on her lips diffused. She ordered Clemens to drive.

"I'm gonna have a word with Bruce," Rita said.

Pam shook her head.

Bruce loathed the game of golf. He didn't play it, and the only time he would step on any turf or touched a golf club was when he was with his friend Greg Stilton. Greg was one of those rich kids who thought golf was the only decent game rich people should play.

Greg was built for golf, though. He was a squat little guy, blond hair, and a face ready to smile even before there was anything to be amused by. Greg had a whole shelf of golf shoes with those grips under them. He had at least fifty different face caps.

Bruce didn't have many friends he could talk to about his problems. Greg was one of the few. The friends sat in the Golf Club Bar after an hour pushing the golf ball around the undulating green field. Greg drank soda; Bruce had a bottle of beer dangling from his hand.

"What do you need to go to the university for?" Greg asked his friend.

"

What's a man without a university degree,

I guess."

Bruce noted the bitterness in his voice, too. He glanced at his friend. Greg knew about Mary Cortez. They had been in high school together. Greg had been a nerd most of those years, had even liked Cortez.

"You could do something stupid, like go with her. She won't mind, I'm sure."

Greg shrugged and drank his coke. He smiled at the can; when he looked at the field of green, his smile widened. Bruce wished he had half the disposition Greg had when it came to his problems. Greg asked if Bruce had told Mary already. Bruce shook his head.

Then Greg shocked his friend when he said, "Then don't. You don't have to."

Bruce stared at the guy. "Are you fucking kidding me?"

"It's better that way."

"It's going to hurt her badly if I leave without telling her."

Greg smiled and waved the red can with the white stripe of Coca-Cola in the air. "Yeah, she'd hurt for a few days, maybe a week. But she'd move on. And you'd finish school; if you're lucky, she'll still be single when you get back."

"I wish it were that simple, Greg."

"All the complications of the world are nothing but what we make of them," Greg announced regally.

Bruce glanced at him and asked who said that.

"Me. Put a copyright sign on that," said Greg.

Bruce downed the last measure from his bottle.

Eighteen years ago, when Mary and her family came to the United States, immigration laws were not as complicated as they have become. At the time, immigrants of Latin American descent only needed to present a valid passport bearing their names, country of origin, date of birth. They also needed to show evidence that they would not add themselves to the current statistics of homeless people filling the already busting barriers between modern America's haves and have-nots.

These days though, her American status presented challenges for a scholarship to a university.

Mary Cortez was two years old when the bus that brought the family across the border had hit the state line. Mr. Cortez had a passport for both himself and his wife. He was a shrewd looking man with a thick neck for work, having done hard labor in factories in his country's impoverished slums. When the bespectacled guy at immigration looked at his passport and peeked through the glass barrier to ask what the nature of his coming to America was, Manuel Cortez, said, "I’ve come for my daughter to have a better chance at life in America."

The young officer couldn't have been more than twenty himself. He peered over the edge of the counter to take a look at Mary. He smiled at her, Mary waved and beamed. The officer reached through the aperture in the glass to give Mary a candy. She took it and said, "Thank you, Mr. Officer."

"Call me Barnes," said Mr. Officer.

"Okay, Barnes."

The officer had then announced to the small family: "Welcome to America."

It seemed like forever ago. But in reality, it had only been a few years. When Mary passed by the meat shop where her dad worked, she would try not to look at the red awning with the inscription,

Mark’s Meat Shop.

Or when she ran early in the morning along Fifth Avenue, short of breath and her skin dripping with sweat, Mary would pass by the grocery store where her mother worked, from the first day they had arrived until her last day on earth. A lump would force itself up her throat and would stay there. Mary would stop running and stare at the glass doors, the white sticker with Mickey Mouse on it still fresh like the first time, and she would see her mom come out and walk down the street until she got home. His mother started taking the bus when the pain in her ankles and knees worsened. Medical bills toppled over many times. Her father was barely able to provide. Her mother had to work harder. They both worked harder so she could live the American dream they've all been told about back in Mexico.

Sometimes Mary slowed down along this street where both her parents worked about three blocks apart to sense them again. To feel their presence, their guidance. However, when she arrived at her place, her memory of them faded into mere words on tombstones.

Mary promised herself never to give up on achieving that dream. These days though, the distance she needed to go seemed as far away as when she began. It seemed like she might work in the hotel for far longer than she had imagined.

Then she met Bruce again.

They had been friends in high school. They liked each other, but Bruce was too shy to ask her out, and she was too preoccupied with her family problems to care. They'd stare at each other, talk about school, fall silent again because something had grown between them that they couldn't name. And it was that same thing that brought them together again after school.

Bruce Diamond had gradually grown on her. Theirs was a peculiar kind of love; Mary could say it was eighty percent friendship and twenty percent love. Sometimes she wasn't sure under which influence they both operated.

Whether Bruce loved her back, she had no doubt. But he's been showing signs of being distracted lately. He would be with her and just zone out. Mary was an attentive lover; she was not just reading into things.

Thoughts of her dead parents temporarily forgotten; she perched herself on the edge of the bed in a room where her friend Tami worked.

"Do you think maybe he's got a new girl?"

Tami laughed. "Why would you think something like that?"

"Why not? Help me understand."

Tami tossed the pile of sheets in a basket and joined Mary on the bed.

"He's rich, fucking rich. He comes to visit you at work, he's good to you, and he's not ashamed to be with you. He is the gentlest man I’ve ever seen," said Tami. "Now, why would he go through all that trouble if he didn't love and want you?"

Mary sighed. She had given that line of thought a hard perusal in the past, too. It didn't make sense to her that Bruce could be seeing another girl.

"What could be bothering him then?" Mary asked looking down at the floor.

"It could be anything but you," her friend said. "Give him time; he'll come around and maybe tell you about some business deal that's gone bad. See?"

Mary's mind brightened a little at the thought that Bruce may be having a hard time with his business. It was a bittersweet thing for her, being relieved on account of Bruce's likely misfortune. She’d felt sorry for him.

Feeling light-hearted she left Tami and went back to her work.

Mary Cortez got off her job earlier than she would to attend a seminar at St John's University in Manhattan. In the New York Times, the previous week was about a ten-day forum to enlighten prospective students on scholarship options. She had decided not to tell Bruce about it.

She took the midday bus to Manhattan instead of a taxi. She loved the feel of people around her in a bus, opaque faces, worried faces, and the inscrutable ones. It was a game her dad and mom played back when she was younger. They took train rides just to be among people they considered low like them, even though on occasion, Mary has spotted a congressman or two and some important people in the news.

She daydreamed about college sometimes. She doesn't let those moments linger. The future may be said to be brighter, but whose eyes are we looking through?

The university hall was packed with different shades of people. She’d picked up on a few foreign languages. Some Spanish, Portuguese, and mostly English, both broken and fluent. Mary could switch between Spanish, adulterated, and the Queen's English.

She sat in the front row, so she wouldn’t miss anything important. The program lasted all of two hours of jargon and complicated terms. She was about to declare her time wasted when a short woman with bushy black hair climbed the stage. She had a genial face, one that looked like it was ready to help anyone.

She said her name was Grace Ortiz. Mary noted the name in her jotter and listened to every word that came from the woman's cute lips. Grace broke things down further, using layman words to describe the university's scholarship organization's technical webwork.

After the program, Mary drifted with the rest of the crowd to the big hall entrance.

Grace Ortiz's office was big. Mary immediately envisaged a female board member in a big company. She came around her desk when Mary entered, and she held her hands, smiling sweetly.

"How nice of you to come to see me," she said as though Mary had set an appointment with her. "Please have a seat."

She pulled a soft revolving chair from under the big table. Mary sat and tried to not be too self-conscious. Grace waddled back to her place opposite Mary. She folded her hands over the well-arranged world on the table.

"How may I help you, lady?"

"I'm Mary Cortez. I’d listened to your speech today; I think it was nice of you to tell us those things."

Grace shrugged and smiled. "I do my best."

"I would love to go to college in Manhattan, probably. I live and work across the bridge in Queens. I don't have funding at all. I have no initial previous funding."

"Acquiring funds isn't usually a long process as long as you are eligible. How's your citizenship?"

"I came to America when I was two."

After a moment of thought Grace Ortiz said, "If you'd like to leave your information with me, I will help you check through and see what options are open for your citizenship status, okay."

"Yeah."

Mary gave the woman copies of her credentials and thanked her. Once again, Grace Ortiz thanked her for coming to see her without sounding sanctimonious. Some of the weight Mary carried on her medium-sized shoulders were shed at the gates of the campus. She rode the taxi back to her apartment after that.

A black car pulled into the street as she exited the taxi. Clemens was in that car, taking photos of Mary as she went up the steps into her building. Clemens peered at the picture of the girl and nodded with satisfaction. The image was clear enough.

Clemens turned the car around and gunned it back to the Diamond house a mile away. When the driver bumbled into the mansion, Rita was waiting in the large study with her husband. Robert Diamond’s face was hidden behind the New York Times. He was bare all over except his boxer shorts. He paid little attention when Clemens and Rita conferred.

Clemens gave Rita Diamond the mobile phone and stood aside.

Rita frowned at the photo. She looked at her driver, and then at her husband —the newspaper.

"Robert?"

The paper dropped an inch. Robert's furrowed forehead appeared there. He asked what the problem was. Rita turned the screen of the phone so that Robert could get a clear sight of it. Robert pursed his lips and dropped the paper on his hairy thighs. He took the phone and stared at the image.

"Who is this?" he asked her.

"I was hoping you'd know. She looks very familiar. Anyone you might know, maybe at the company?"

Robert chuckled. He had hundreds of people under his payroll in his several companies around America and Europe. Rita was dramatic again, Robert thought. He was careful not to take these petty matters seriously. Diamond stocks have not been doing great this past week. A pretty girl going up the step was the least of Robert's worries. He gave the phone back.

"That's whom Bruce is seeing," said Rita.

Robert gestured for the phone again; this time, he took more than a cursory look at the girl. He smiled and said, "She's pretty." He looked at Clemens for clarification. "Who's she?"

Rita said, "I don't know who she is, which is why we should be worried, Robert."

"Worried? Why?"

Rita's face fell, horrified, she said, "Robert. Doesn't who our son marries matter to you? We can't let our son marry just anybody, a nobody!"

"Well, find out who she is. For all, we know she is one of the—"

"She works at a hotel!" Rita spat.

"She owns it?"

"She

works

there, Robert. We think she is a cleaner or a receptionist. I checked the Royal Palace Hotel board membership; they don't have a Mary Cortez on it. That's her name, Mary Cortez, a Mexican. A Latin American. Bruce has to do better, Robert."

"Well, let's not get all riled up yet, Rita. Bruce hasn't said anything about this, has he?"

Robert returned the phone to his wife.

"She just might be a Mahone, Rockwell, or one of the lesser-known Blackmore girls. You know how those girls are—"

"Do any of those names sound Latin to you?" Rita asked, clearly irritated by her husband. "Are you being obtuse?"

"All I'm trying to say is there must be an explanation, alright."

"There is no justification for stooping so low—"

Robert winced; he said, "Rita! Let our son make his own choices, okay. He is a grown man now."

"You men need to be pushed. Without our guidance—"

"You mean,

your

guidance."

"Robert," Rita glared at her husband.

Robert Diamond lost the battle. He picked his paper and spotted where he stopped reading. Rita adjusted herself in her seat. She dismissed Clemens, who had been quiet during the exchange between the couple. The large man left with a smile on his face.

Rita was on her phone, texting rapidly.

Bruce Diamond came to the mansion right after his time at the golf club. He met his dad, still poring over the stock section of the New York Times. Bruce dropped his tall frame on the couch beside his dad and breathed deeply.

He lowered the newspaper and his dad said, "You need a drink, son?"

"I could use one."

Bruce started to stand up, but his father motioned him not to. Robert Diamond went to the bar nearby. He poured bourbon for them both. He glanced at his son's face and he cleared his throat.

"What about Cambridge? You are done thinking about it?"

Bruce sipped his drink; it burned his throat. He drank because his father did. He'd rather have a beer once in a while, watch ducks in the pond outside or design wine bottles in his head.

"Yeah, I love Cambridge. I'll do it."

"Is there anything that could make that impossible?" his dad asked.

Bruce sat forward, his elbows on his knees. He examined the content of his frosted glass. He caught the tone in his father's voice. It was a curious question, one backed by an existing bias. Bruce wondered where this bias stemmed from.

He looked at his dad and asked, "Is there something you are not telling me, dad?"

"Perhaps there is something you want to say?"

Bruce chuckled and his dad grinned. They sometimes played these games at the winery downtown. Bruce enjoyed the banter with his father. As long as he could remember, his father had treated him like one of his equals at the company, making him feel needed, that Bruce's opinions mattered on almost every level of company production. At home, Robert Diamond was the same.

But despite this, Bruce could not bring himself to tell his dad about the one true love of his life. And this afternoon, as he left Greg Stilton, his reason for not telling his parents about his relationship with Mary Cortez became more apparent. It was damn uncomfortable.

"Nothing. I’m experiencing cold feet. I haven't been to England for a while now so, leaving you and mom here isn't something I look forward to."

His dad nodded. "You don't have anything to worry about. I'll take care of it."

"What about mom?"

"She's worried about you." Robert Diamond added, "You let your mom worry all she wants, we get the job done. I trust in your abilities when you get to England. I'm gonna be paying attention where you need me, alright."

"Yeah."

Bruce finished his drink, sucked in a deep breath, and rose to leave. He’d felt his father's eyes on his back as he returned the glass to the bar. When he turned around, his dad was looking at him.

"I am okay, dad."

"Sure?"

"Yeah."

"Perhaps you could assure your mom that you are when you get the chance. She's worried."

"I know."

Both men considered the situation silently; there was much more to say, but restraint won over openness, and Bruce walked away. In his room, which looked like a penthouse suite of a five-star hotel, he sat to contemplate what his friend Greg Stilton told him as Bruce left the club.

"You suffer the dilemma of

societal ascribed status

," said Stilton. "You love Mary. You care deeply. That’s okay, but your status's nobility does not allow such a girl into your circle. You are gonna start a war. It would be easy for you for your temperament is condoning of benevolence. But what about her? Have you thought about that?"

"What about her?" Bruce had questioned.

Greg shrugged and looked stamped his shoe into the pressed grass of the third inning. They could see most of Queen's and a portion of The Brooklyn Bridge; traffic barely moved on it. The cars looked like little beads.

"Will Rita accept her?" Greg asked.

Now sitting on his bed, another drink in his hand, he sighed deeply when he considered what his mother would say about Mary Cortez. It was evident that his parents have talked about Mary.

Societal ascribed status,

one of Greg's coinage. He lay on his back as a dull headache started rummaging through the end of his head.

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