Babe Walker Read online

  “You really think you’ve changed?”

  “Of course. You’ve seen how I’ve changed. Did you ever imagine that in this lifetime you would A) ever see me again and B) become my friend and cofounder of a hugely successful wine empire? I mean, if someone told me ten years ago that I’d start the most important alcohol company, from a strictly branding perspective, with Christina Reynolds, I would have laughed in their big, stupid, wrong face. But look at us.”

  “I can’t decide if I respect your blind faith in this or if I think it’s the very reason my family’s entire wine company may go under.”

  “Go with the former, it’s so much cuter.”

  “But I have to make sure that you do actually understand how screwed we are right now.”

  “I understand.”

  “Okay. Good. So then can we—”

  “I mean, I definitely do not understand. But I still think I can help.”

  She took a long sip of the enormous and chic bottle of Smartwater she was holding. The look in Tina’s eyes was chilling. She was a woman on the edge.

  “What now?” she said, slightly under her breath.

  “Do you remember Mabinty?”

  “Who’s Mabinty?”

  “Okay, that’s what I thought. I figured you might remember the fully adult Jamaican woman I used to drive to your house with in the middle of the night to TP the trees. Your parents caught us a few times and once the police got involved.”

  Blank stare.

  “No? No recollection of her?”

  She shook her head, “No, I do not remember this person. I have a feeling you’ll remind me?”

  “Sure. So, Mabs is my nanny but also has operated as my mother, confidante, best friend, squad, teacher, and mentor through the various peaks and troughs of my life.”

  “Okay . . .”

  “And I think she can help us here. I think she can help us a lot.”

  “I’m sorry, I’m sure your Mabinty is a very nice lady, actually I’m not sure of that, but I can’t let you make one more executive decision at this point. I just need you to help clean up the mess you’ve made with the labels and then we can start thinking about next steps. With Ryan sick and Becca basically in permanent mom mode, you and I have to figure this out.”

  “See, that’s where you’re wrong. Mabinty’s precise area of expertise is saving me from the dire moments in my life when I feel like there is no hope, like I should just kill myself.”

  “Jesus, Babe!”

  “It’s sad but it’s true. She is a genius. Pure untapped brilliance and a business acumen like you would not believe.”

  “Babe, no. We have to sort this out ourselves! No more big ideas. I have a meeting with—”

  I pulled out my phone.

  “Too late. I’m already texting her.”

  “Babe. No. The answer is no.”

  seven

  BABE: Mabinty. Yuh need ti come to wine country. Mi a go need yuh ti get in yuh cyar, right away.

  MABINTY: Mi cyan’t.

  BABE: Yuh cyan. Mi needs yuh brain.

  MABINTY: What did yu do fi mek yuh need mi mind, right now? Mabinty gwaan hot date tonight. Yuh cyan’t be bahderin me wit yuh problem til tomorrow.

  BABE: Mi nah tellin no lie. Mi chattin di troot. Mi need yuh. Mi made yuh di Cee-Oh-Oh of di wine bizznizz mi chattin bout.

  MABINTY: Yuh ramp?

  BABE: Mi nah ramp. Go in yuh cyar!

  Okay. So maybe some additional backstory would be helpful for some of you who are reading this conversation I had with Mabinty Jones. Mabinty, or Mabs as I often call her, has been with me from day one. My dad hired her when I was born, to be my baby nurse/mom. My real mom was not exactly “in the picture” after I slid out of her tiny vagina, so Mabinty stepped into my life. And thank fucking god. She then transitioned into being my nanny/bff/confidante/boss-ass bitch. Mabinty is Jamaican and speaks Patois (patwah), which is a hybrid of English and West African dialects. She basically raised me, so I’m almost fluent. When I really need Mabinty, or I’m mad at her, I switch into Patois for emphasis. It’s incredibly effective.

  Needless to say, Mabinty canceled her date for that night. She drove to my house in Malibu, found my massive Louis Vuitton trunk, filled it with at least a week’s worth of my clothing, and drove up to Napa.

  I am grateful for Mabinty.

  My shaman, Steve, has been encouraging me to focus on gratitude. So, this seemed like an appropriate time acknowledge that I was grateful for someone. PS—I’m also grateful for that Vuitton trunk. It is vintage, like really fucking vintage, and so huge I could almost sleep inside of it. I’ve actually tried to, but it’s not that cozy to sleep with your knees pressed against your tits.

  Funny story: I once went to Lena Dunham’s writing office back before she was Girls famous. I was dating a guy in New York whose gay brother was best friends with Lena and we had to go to her tiny fucking office to pick up some pot. I swear on my dead grandmother’s grave that my trunk is bigger than that office was. And it was the aforementioned dead grandmother who bequeathed this trunk to me, so you know I’m not exaggerating.

  Anyway, I digress. Mabinty showed up to my hotel and I filled her in on everything that had been going on since I left LA. Drunk Jack, Tina, the wine, the rebrand, Marcus, fucking Marcus, Marcus’s dick story, and the labels being delayed.

  “So I need you to whip this place into shape, like only you can.”

  “When mi da Chief Operatin’ Officer, mi nah mess about. Yuh know me been runnin yuh fadder house fuh years. Mi runnin a tight ship in Bel Air, so yuh best know me runnin a tight ship ina di wine country.”

  I drove Mabinty to the winery. She spent the whole car ride telling me about this new guy she had been seeing and how she wanted marry him and how . . . I’m not sure exactly what else she said she said because a Fleetwood Mac song came on the radio and I just tuned Mabinty out and shoulder-danced in the car as Stevie Nicks sang. Mabinty has a new dude almost every month so I try not to get attached.

  When we arrived, Ryan and Tina were standing in the parking lot, having what looked like a very spirited conversation. I honestly couldn’t tell if they were mad at each other or excited about something. They are both so weird anyway, I wouldn’t be surprised if they’d fucked a time or two. I could definitely picture them having some private tryst out in the fields or something. We parked and got out of the car.

  “Mabinty. This is Tina, my old friend from high school.”

  “Mi remember dis one. She da one who no come back to di house after yuh tried to mek her shave her head.”

  “You have a really great memory.” Tina said, half-smiling and extending her hand to shake Mabinty’s.

  “Mi nah forget a ting.”

  “Good to know.”

  “Okay. So wen yuh go show mi round dis place?”

  Tina stood there a bit confused.

  “Sorry, Tina. I forgot to mention that I’ve appointed Mabinty to be the acting COO of the winery. For the time being.”

  “Excuse me? What?” Ryan jumped in.

  “Oh, Ryan, how rude of me. I didn’t introduce you to your new boss. This is Mabinty.”

  “You can’t be serious,” he replied.

  “Dead. Fucking. Serious.”

  “Babe, can I talk to you privately for a moment?” Tina asked.

  “Sure. What’s up?”

  We literally walked about two feet away from where we had just been standing.

  “Babe, what is going on here?”

  “Why are you whispering?”

  “I’m just trying to understand why your nanny is here.”

  “She can’t properly perform her duties as the COO of this company remotely from Bel Air, TINA!” I said her name, like, way too loud.

  “Ryan runs operations at the winery, Babe
.”

  “And how has that been going, recently?”

  “I get that there have been some misguided decisions, and some rough patches as of late, but . . .”

  “Tina. Can you stop? I’m really trying to help you here.”

  “Like you did when you delayed my labels because you needed the paper to be extra toothy?”

  “First of all, those are not your labels. They are myyyyyy labels on yourrrrrr wine. And maybe if you gave even the slightest shit about ‘tooth’ you wouldn’t be in the predicament that currently seems to be keeping you up at night.”

  “I told you that I needed to have those labels this week and you really FUCKED me on this. You made me look bad to my customers!” Tina yelled with more anger than I’d ever seen from her in my life.

  I was shocked (yet very intrigued) by Tina’s anger. Mabinty shot a look over acknowledging the outburst because obviously we were both talking much, much louder than we had been at the beginning of the conversation. At this point I was pissed, Tina was pissed, it looked like Mabinty was getting pissed as she spoke to Ryan, and he was obviously not feeling great being that I’d just passed him over for a job.

  “Mi dun wit all yuh.”

  Silence.

  “She is saying she is done with all of you.”

  “I know what she is saying, Babe.”

  “Well, gyal, ifa yuh no need mi translatin, let mi tel yuh wut be pon mi mind. Yuh need to stop blamin Babe fi yuh problems. Dis gyal right here, right now, out here tryna save yuh bizznizz outta di goodness of her own heart. Babe may have been unakind to yuh ina di past, but she here now, and from wut mi see wit mi eyes, and wut me hear wit me ears, yuh need some help.”

  “I understand what your saying, Mabinty . . .”

  “Tina! Mi no dun speakin.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Babe Walker is a special gyal. Yuh cyan’t find another like her ina di whole world. She understands tings bout di way yuh wine should look, dat yuh and yuh batty boy over here, Ryan, will never understand. She a geeenius. Yuh hear me? Babe a genius. Let mi gyal do wut she do.”

  Mabinty really loved me. She really believed in me and she had this whole time. She’d always been a support system for me and had my back. Through all of my ups and downs. I just hadn’t witnessed it firsthand in a very long time. We had drifted apart in the past few years, because of proximity and life paths/circumstances, but I felt closer to Mabinty in this moment than I had since high school. She was proud of me.

  I could tell in the tone of her voice that she wasn’t just saying those things to Tina and Ryan because I’d asked her to help me operate the business. She was saying them because she believed in me and my abilities. She really was the mom I never had. Mabinty was providing me with the unconditional love and support that she had been my whole life. But for some reason, this time it all made sense.

  “You’re right,” Tina said, “I’m sorry, Babe.”

  “Wow. I was not expecting that quick of a one-eighty from you, Tina.”

  “Well, Mabinty makes a good point. You are here to help, you’ve done a great job, and beyond that, I’m letting my stress about the company and my deep anger about the way you treated me ten years ago affect how I’m dealing with you now. Which is totally unfair.”

  “Thank you. I’m sorry the labels got a little delayed. I paid extra to make sure that didn’t happen, but shit happens.”

  “I know. You did everything you could to avoid this.”

  “Is it really that bad? Are the stores gonna be okay with the delay? It’s only a couple of days.”

  “Not one hundred percent sure, but I need to make a few more calls to get a sense.”

  “Will someone please sho mi round di bloodclot wine field?”

  “Sure,” Ryan piped up, “but can I ask what your experience is operating a business is this?”

  “Ryan, yuh cyan ask me anyting yuh want. So yuh know . . . I’ve been running Babe’s fadder’s properties, over twenty years. And by the look of it, we have more employees than yuh do here. So mi know how to manage yuh people. But, perhaps most important, mi one of di early investors at di largest legal pot farm in di state of California. Mi also sit on di board of directors, so mi understanding of di soil in dis part of di country is extensive. If mi cyan grow weed, mi cyan grow ya wine.”

  Ryan stood there, a bit dumbfounded.

  “Ryan. You are in good hands. We all want the same thing here.”

  Tina gave Ryan a look as if to say, Sorry but not that sorry.

  The four of us spent the next few hours touring the vineyards, seeing the operation on the bottling line, and meeting some of the employees of the company. Overall, Mabinty seemed pretty impressed. She asked if she could set up meetings for the following day with the head of human resources, and a tasting of the wine.

  That night Mabinty and I did something that we hadn’t done in years. We went back to the hotel and downloaded a movie on my iPad that was made in the year that I was born. This was a tradition of ours that we’d only ever done on my birthday, but we’d missed the last couple of years because I wasn’t in town, or she was off on some trip or whatever. But when she suggested that we do it that night, I jumped at the chance.

  “Babe Walker, mi need yuh to pick Beverly Hills Cop II.”

  “Mabs, no. This is my birthday tradition. I don’t want to watch that. Eddie Murphy is washed up.”

  “Yuh best no be chattin about mi Eddie like dat.”

  “How about Lost Boys?”

  “No. No. No. Mi know dis yuh birthday tradition, but dis time it no yuh birthday, so how bout Mabinty choose?”

  “Fair.”

  “Wut wud yuh say to Can’t Buy Me Love.”

  “Yassssss. Perfect.”

  Mabinty and I, like always, cuddled up and fell asleep watching Patrick Dempsey rent Amanda Peterson as his girlfriend for $1,000.

  Sidenote: Did you know that after that movie, Amanda Peterson’s life got, like, really dark? Like actually really fucking dark. Drugs, arrests, drunk driving, and ultimately her accidental death caused by a drug overdose.

  Anyway . . . such a cute fucking movie. They were both so great in their roles. Loved it.

  I swear to god, I had the best night of sleep I’d ever had. Maybe it was that I was happy that Mabinty was with me, maybe it was the confidence I had placed in myself for the work I’d been accomplishing, or maybe it was the Xanax/Belsomra cocktail I’d had just before I started watching the movie. But whatever it was, I was at peace.

  The next morning we were back at the winery so Mabinty could start getting things moving. We both had our work cut out for us. I had to get some buzz going behind this new rosé. Wasn’t exactly sure how I was going to pull that off, but I had a sense that once I put it out there into the world, people were going to love it.

  Or hate it. Probably not, tho.

  eight

  When I woke up, Mabinty was already gone.

  She left me a note that said, “Get Uber to di Winery. Mi already drive me cyar.” I took a few hours to get ready because that’s what I do. I take my time when I’m preparing for a big day. Everything has to be just right. My hair, my look, my skin, my nails, my overall vibe, my smell, my aura. It’s twofold. I need to feel right, but also almost all of my big ideas come when I’m getting ready for the day. Something about the flow of my routine gets me into a mental pathway that opens up a floodgate of ideas and concepts.

  On this particular, gorgeous morning, I thought a lot about the wine and how I was going to get it out into the world. I had some ideas but I knew it wouldn’t be clear to me until I saw the fully produced bottle and label and color, all together. I finished getting ready and got an Uber. Ironically, it was the same Uber driver who had dropped me off at Marcus’s place. It made me think that maybe some parts of the world only had one Uber driver an
d that made me feel sad. Anyway, Sarvjit was really nice and I told him all about my new wine and how excited I was to share it with world. He didn’t speak a word of English, but he was a great listener, nonetheless.

  When I arrived at the winery, Mabinty wasn’t there.

  “What do you mean she is at a meeting?” I asked Ryan.

  “Honestly, Babe, she is fucking amazing. She came in here like a bat out of hell.”

  “Honestly, Ryan, please don’t ever use that turn of phrase around me again.”

  “Yeah, sorry. I don’t even know what I was trying to say with that. I’m just really excited.”

  “Well, that’s good. I told you she would be good for you.”

  “Mabinty spent a couple hours with me this morning and transformed the way I look at the inventory at the winery. She reworked my algorithms for production and reduced costs on materials on bill and hold . . .”

  “I literally blacked out when you started talking because I was so bored by what you were saying. Does that ever happen to you?”

  “Not really, but I understand.”

  “I don’t care about any of the details, I’m just really happy that you are happy.”

  “In that case . . . I am very, very happy. Thank you, Babe.”

  “Where is she, though?”

  “She is with Rebecca and Tina at the John’s meeting.”

  “The grocery store John’s?”

  “Yup.”

  “I thought they pulled the product and said they wouldn’t take it now that it was so late.”

  “Mabinty called this morning and got their head buyer on the phone somehow. She set up a last-minute meeting at their corporate offices in San Fran. So they all drove down.”

  “Sounds about right.”

  You’ve got to give Mabinty fucking Jones some credit. Woman is a wheeler and a dealer. She can basically negotiate her way in and out of almost anything. I knew she would be effective in moving this business, but I had no idea just how quickly it would happen. Jesus. Actually the more I think about this whole thing . . . the person I should be giving the most credit to, is me! I am the actual genius here. I thought to bring Mabinty into this. So it’s Babe Walker who deserves all the credit. You’re welcome.