C—— had the last glass of Rosé. She thought about opening a bottle of the blend Rosie made a couple vintages ago, but thought about the meeting she had in the morning, what they wanted her to present; budget, projections.. How do you “project” how many people are going to visit the website, buy wine.. visit the tasting room, join the wine club, which was becoming more and more humorous to her. Whenever she had her own wines, or tasting room (which she was more and more against by the day), she would be that label that didn’t have a “wine club”. She hated how that sounded, the whole idea… Wine club. Rubbish.

“So are you gonna quit?” Mikaella asked.

“No. Not yet. I’m a ways from that, but eventually I have to leave. This is just too much for me, all this pressure to sell, the constant threatening.. it’s ridiculous.. this isn’t wine, the wine industry.. this isn’t why I got into this business,” C said.

“Are you headed home after this?”

“Yeah, I have to study..”

“For what? Are you trying to be a sommelier?”

“Oh, no. For making wine.. I’m just looking into different wine styles, yeasts, oaks, and whatever else I can learn.”

“You don’t want to be a sommelier?”

“Uh, no, not really.” C poured the rest of her SB into the sink behind the bar. Everyone else saw her dismiss her wine, and thought she would say something, but she just walked out the front doors. Why was it so odd that she wanted to make wine? Her own wine… What did anyone know, especially Mikaella. She’d been in the wine industry for what, two months? Once home, she’d study like she were going for the bar, or something else.. no, she wouldn’t compare, because there was no comparison. This was for her.