Babe Walker Read online

  “No way.”

  “Yes!” she exclaimed, getting excited. “Michael is super shy, kind of like his dad.”

  That’s not good.

  “And Ben is constantly making noises and trying to get your attention. He cries a lot.”

  “So you think Michael is maybe more of the creepy, back-of-the-room-keeping-to-himself type, while Mr. Ben is the overachieving, gets-what-he-wants-when-he-wants type of guy. Love that for Benjamin. Sucks about li’l Mikey though.”

  “No, I don’t know. Of course, there’s no way to know what they’ll be like. A lot of it is nurture versus nature, you know?”

  “No, I have no idea. I’ve never had children, obviously.”

  “Right.”

  “Thought about it a lot, been pregnant before, seen children in the world, the usual. Once I even talked to a child that I met at Café Gratitude. He was too young to speak in full sentences so I got bored after a few seconds, but I tried.”

  “They’re pretty amazing—kids. Just all that they can teach you about yourself, about the world.”

  “They’re so Gwyneth.”

  “Children?”

  “Yes!”

  “I agree. I’m obsessed with all of the stuff I’m buying for them. It’s probably all unnecessary, but I love it. Drives Greg crazy, the amount of money I’m spending on them already.”

  “Fuck Greg.”

  I’d crossed a line. Greg was her husband and while from the sounds of it he was a complete waste of a dude, I needed to respect her decision to procreate with this man.

  “Just kidding . . .” I tried.

  “Anyway, Babe. Let’s maybe try to get some work done so that my little sister doesn’t murder us when she comes back? I can’t have my kids crying constantly and my sister crying.”

  “Definitely. Such a good idea. We should totally do some work or whatever. I love that you’re a working mom with a passion for what she does. It’s super inspiring, honestly. I normally hate mommy-and-kid shit. But, to be honest, I really don’t want to.”

  She took a good look at me before she could figure out how to respond.

  “It’s not that I don’t want to help.”

  I didn’t.

  “But, more the fact that I don’t think I’m in a good headspace for creativity right now. I’ll work on all of this later,” I said, grabbing the packet of brand info in front of me.

  “So, should we be done for the day?” Rebecca asked, hoping I’d say yes. I guess she was as exhausted as she looked.

  “Love that idea. Obsessed with it. Hard for it.”

  Too far.

  “Okay, then,” she said, with the start of an uncomfortable chuckle.

  “Okay, then.”

  “Let’s connect tomorrow. And seriously, don’t fuck my sister and me over. I really think you could help here. You were always such a bright kid, albeit miserable to be around. Do good by us; I think you’d really feel good about it.”

  “Okay, I’m not clear on whether or not you’re giving me a compliment, insulting me, or pleading for my assistance with the business crisis your family has been struck with, but I’m just going to say: sure and bye.”

  I started to walk away, feeling weird. Were we fighting?

  “Maybe it’s a little of all those things,” Rebecca said without looking up at me.

  The light in my room when I got back was fucking spectacular. I took two hundred photos of the view from my suite’s bathroom. Rolling hills. Plants. Sky. Birds. Wow, I thought, God is so good. I am so blessed.

  LOL. But no, it really was super pretty I took so many pics and sent them to my bestie, Genevieve. I hadn’t spoken to Gen since arriving in wine country and to be honest, I had no idea what was happening in her life, where she was, or who she was fucking. A week is a long time for us not to talk.

  GEN: What the fuck is this. What’s happening? Where are you?

  BABE: My lovely view. I bought a vineyard. Napa.

  GEN: Cute

  GEN: You’ll die when I tell you who I saw this morning at soul.

  BABE: I thought you gave up soulcycle because it was making your hands bigger?

  GEN: I did but now I’m back. I wear cashmere gloves so that my hands sweat extra

  BABE: Do they smell?

  GEN: My hands?

  BABE: The gloves. I feel like they probably get so smelly and dank

  GEN: I obviously don’t wear them more than once. Don’t be fucking gross Babe

  BABE: So you just keep extra gloves in your car or something? That’s retarded

  GEN: Yes I keep them in my car. In that little cupboard in front of the passengers seat with the cute little door

  GEN: I forget what that’s called

  BABE: Me too

  GEN: And don’t say “dank”

  GEN: Please

  GEN: It’s not nice

  BABE: You’re right

  BABE: Who’d you see?

  BABE: Rita Wilson?

  BABE: ScarJo? Does she still think you ran over her dog? Or wait did you run over her dog? I can’t remember the whole story

  GEN: Yeah I did. That was an awful night fuck. Remember I tried to cover it up and blame it on Lulu, but she found out the truth. She knows. We don’t talk anymore obviously

  BABE: Sad

  GEN: I know I miss her. She’s lit

  BABE: No it’s sad about the dog not your fucking breakup with her

  GEN: Both things are equally sad imho

  BABE: True

  BABE: Both are sad

  GEN: So

  GEN: I saw Robert.

  BABE: No you didn’t

  GEN: Why would I lie about that

  BABE: Really?

  GEN: What?

  BABE: The last time you told me you ran into an ex of mine it turned out you just had a dream about him but you thought it would be funny to say you saw him just to fuck with me

  GEN: I did that?

  BABE: Si

  GEN: Wow. I wish I remembered more shit, honestly. I feel like this ayurvedic diet of only paneer cheese and fresh cilantro is fucking with my memory and brain in general.

  BABE: How long have you only been eating cheese and cilantro?

  GEN: Two months

  BABE: That’s a lie but ok

  GEN: Anyway I REALLY SAW HIM I SWEAR

  BABE: Okay stop screaming

  BABE: I don’t even care

  As soon as I pressed send it hit me that I really didn’t care, which was a new thing for me and it felt really good.

  GEN: Ew fine

  GEN: Why are you in Napa?

  BABE: It’s a really long story but do you remember that guy Jack you met at Roman’s house like a week ago or whatever

  GEN: No but does that matter?

  BABE: No

  BABE: I came to Napa with him to take a load off and enjoy a few days of uninterrupted sex

  BABE: He’s really good at sex

  BABE: But he turned out to be the worst

  GEN: Wdym

  BABE: He got drunk and loud and scary but not in a cute way

  GEN: Who cares

  GEN: You went out there to fuck

  BABE: I know it’s weird but I think I’m done fucking people I genuinely hate

  GEN: Jesus

  BABE: I know. I’m like old now I guess

  GEN: Ew

  BABE: Then I ran into Christina Reynolds from school and basically took over her wine empire and I’m saving it from bankruptcy. It’s really amazing. The work I’m doing is really rewarding me and I think I might have finally found my calling. It feels really good

  Then I didn’t hear from Genevieve for over an hour. Until,

  GEN: Sorry I was at the cryo clinic

&nb
sp; GEN: My skin feels like a baby seal

  GEN: Sounds like you’ve made a huge mistake. I honestly don’t know what you could possibly want to do for Christina Reynolds. She sucks. She’s basic. Whatever I guess you’ll figure it out sooner rather than later.

  GEN: Good luck loser

  I didn’t respond to Genevieve but her vitriol and ignorance and doubt were exactly the kick in the pants I needed to pull out Christina’s stupid brand’s brand book and get to work. Fuck Gen and anyone who thought they knew what I was capable of. I decided to come from a place of positivity, a place of love, a place of bitchy, chic, mature, slutty, empowered love.

  The wine’s new name would be Love Rosé.

  five

  Now that I had a new name for this wine, it needed a new look. New label, new glass bottle, new everything.

  I was inspired. I was invigorated. Most paramount of my projects was finding a way to make the bottle look like something that you had to have. It had to be a symbol of chic, sophisticated cuteness. I mean, wine labels are historically heinous as a rule, so I had a lot of room to play, but I knew that if I was going to really make it work, it would have to be fucking iconic.

  The moment called for a proper brainstorm. I thought of every fashion house that had ever made an impact on me and why. I made a list of about fifty. A greatest hits, if you will, but I realized that I was letting my emotions get involved. The list was too long to be helpful. I couldn’t with a clear conscience put Norma Kamali on that list. I mean, love her but no. It was clear I had to narrow it down. Very carefully, I started to whittle. This was surprisingly hard for me.

  This is what I came up with:

  1. Prada—whimsy, future, secrets

  2. Versace—luxe, bitchy, sex-positivity

  3. Dior—always new, always old

  4. Givenchy—proud, bold, villainous

  5. Balenciaga—roller coaster, fear

  6. Gucci—reinvention

  7. Chanel—cunt

  8. McQueen—morbid, lightness, darkness

  9. Isabel Marant—not clear on her anymore but k

  10. Lanvin—draping, touch, attraction

  11. Vuitton—humor, spark, tactile, history

  12. Hermès—deep, heritage, boring

  13. Fendi—fur, color

  14. YSL/SLP—almost didn’t make the list because of the name change

  These houses and their brands are iconic, to the point, clean, simple, and chic. I needed to do a deep dive into this project if I was going to extrapolate the common denominators of chicness from these designers and apply that to the creation of my new wine label. I began by taking three Adderall and one Vyvanse. Washing it down with a Diet Coke, I opened my pictures app on my phone and began to look back at all of my archives of clothing.

  Sidenote: I keep a ton of my clothing archived in a state-of-the-art facility in Century City. Twenty-­four-seven armed security, cedar construction, temperature and humidity controlled. The vibes are very posi and bright over there, but trust, they do not fuck around.

  I emailed images of individual pieces from my collection to the concierge at my hotel so she could print them. She must have thought I was crazy, because when she came to my room to deliver them, she seemed concerned about my well-being.

  “Here are your printouts, Miss Walker,” said the mousy woman with the kitten heels and the maroon blazer.

  “Thanks. You can keep them coming. I’m going to be sending you a lot more over the next few hours and day, potentially. So just bring ’em up.”

  “Okay. Whatever you need. We are here to help.”

  “Oh, great. Actually, in that case, can you rustle up some red string, some yellow string, green string, and pink string? Maybe like two spools of each. Thread is fine, or yarn. But I guess thread is preferable.”

  “Uh, sure.”

  “Amazing. Thank you so much.”

  “Might take me a bit of time, but I’ll get it for you.”

  “No worries, take your time. Oh, and tacks. Thumbtacks. All white, please!”

  “I’ll get into this right away for you.”

  “You’re the best. And some more Diet Coke. And some more lemon, prewedged. And can you take this bottle and put it in a bucket of ice and bring it back up here for me?” I asked, as I handed her a bottle of the rosé.

  “My pleasure. Be back in a moment.”

  I figured I should be drinking Love Rosé while I was redesigning the label for it.

  Over the next two/nine hours (not totally sure, due to the explosive combo of the Adderall and Vyvanse) I was serving Claire Danes in an episode of Homeland. Blinds drawn, lights on full blast. I was cutting out images of iconic pieces and logos and tacking them to the hotel room’s wall. Connecting them with color-coded strings to represent the ways in which they informed and influenced one another. Themes, vibes, connection, similarities, differences, evolution, de-evolution, deconstruction, reconstruction. I was in it. Like really fucking in this shit. I was on another plane. I had drawn twenty or thirty versions of the label on the hotel stationery. These mockups were then tacked up on the wall as well. Some were terrible, some were fine, but I wasn’t there yet. I could still only feel it; I couldn’t yet see it.

  I stood back from the wall and looked at my work. It was either the work of a genius or the work of a homeless woman who you would see walking down the street in New York dragging fourteen shopping carts filled with the newspapers she’s been hoarding since 2003. Sorry, dark.

  Ultimately, it didn’t matter because I knew I didn’t have it yet. There was too much going on in my head. I needed to slow it down.

  I opened the blinds to realize that the sun was already out. It was 11:30 a.m. Jesus. I’d been at this for a while. The view from the hotel was cute. It overlooked a little town with a couple shops and there was a large field across the street. Maybe it was a grape farm or a vineyard or whatever they call it. But at the end of that field, was a giant billboard that was all white and had huge letters written across it: SPACE AVAILABLE and then a phone number below that it smaller letters.

  This thing was far away, but I could still read it.

  That was it. Simple, to the point, and I could read from about a mile away or whatever. It was clean and definitive. The opposite of wine culture. Wine is confusing and fancy and complicated. I glanced over at the minibar area and there were three bottles of wine sitting on top of it. I couldn’t read one of them. In fact, I couldn’t think of one wine bottle I’d ever drunk that I could remember the label or the name.

  I started to draw the label that had popped into my head. Inspired by the billboard, I came up with this.

  It was brilliant. I was brilliant. The company was saved. Gen was wrong.

  There was knock at the door. I threw my hair in the highest, tightest pony of all time and hurled myself at the door, still completely high on my overprescription of ADD medicines.

  It was Tina and she looked terrified.

  “Babe, I’m freaking out.”

  “I can tell. Look at your hair.”

  “The rosé is doing really poorly with the big retailers.”

  “Ya. No shit. That packaging looks like trash. I hate it and I hate you for letting it out into the world. Here, sit down.”

  “You’re really not helping.” Tina pouted and took a seat at the edge of my unmade bed. She still hadn’t noticed the madness tacked onto the walls of my room.

  “No. Actually I am.”

  “We need to move everything around at the winery so we can do a new rosé bottling this weekend.”

  “Okay. No problem. Call Ryan. I have a new label that—”

  “Ryan has the fucking flu. He is totally out of commission. I promised the buyers at our biggest accounts that I would replace every bottle they have with a new, more updated label that would make them really h
appy. But we have nothing for them. It was the only way for me to calm them down. I need something from you. Anything. Whatever you have at this point, I need to run with it.”

  “It’s all good. You need to calm down, T.”

  “I CAN’T, BABE!”

  “Wow. Okay. You either need to shut the fuck up immediately or take a Xanax . . . immediately.”

  “Sorry.” She took a deep breath. “The biggest grocery-store chain in California, which sells almost half of all the wine we produce, is telling me that they will not reorder any of our wines until we fix the rosé issue.”

  “I fixed it,” I said as I handed her the new label sketch.

  She looked at it for a long time and then looked at me. Her eyes widened and she proceeded to give me the biggest hug I’ve ever gotten in my life. I hated it, but I understood. I’d saved her life. I’d thrown her a life raft. I’d risked my life for her and her family’s business. Ingesting that much speed would kill most people. I was the Jack to her Rose. Typical me, saving the fucking day.

  “Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. I love it. This is exactly what it needed to be. So simple.”

  “I’m glad you approve. I will help out in Ryan’s absence. Has he never heard of the flu shot? Employees can be so unreliable. I get it.”

  “That would be amazing. Can you deal with the printer and get the new labels done, like, right away. I need them at the winery by Friday night at the absolute latest.”

  “Def. Just give me a couple hours to get some sleep and then shower, get a blowout, and pick an outfit.”

  “Honestly, Babe, I don’t care what you do as long as you get me this label printed by this weekend. Word of warning though, the printer’s name is Marcus. He can be difficult, but he owes us one. I’ve thrown him a lot of business over the past few years. Don’t let him push you around. He thinks of himself as a real artist. I’ll text you his address. I have to go meet with some other retailers to get this all straightened out.”

  “Okay. But how do I go from this,” I said, showing her the sketch, “to an actual label that can be printed?”

  “Good question. I will text a picture of it to Jo. She is our graphic designer and she will get the files ready for your approval. Come to the winery before you go see the printer and you can finalize the design.”