Ruby Quartz, with an alcohol content of over forty percent, was formidable. When she opened her eyes, not knowing how she had ended up this way, what entered her vision was an exceedingly luxurious ceiling.
The soft beige silk wallpaper, the gentle lighting, and the texture of the goose-down duvet wrapping tenderly around her body made it feel as though she were still dreaming.
“...Where am I?”
She sprang upright like a coil and swept her gaze around the room. Fortunately, her clothes were still on, and after checking even the bathroom, she confirmed she was the only one in the room.
Relief washed over her, and at the same time, bewilderment surged up. She remembered coming to Napa Valley for coverage, but she had no idea why she was lying in the bed of such an expensive hotel.
She picked up the phone on the bedside table and called Director Park. Before the ringtone could sound twice, she thought she heard a bell ringing from the next room, and then Director Park’s subdued voice came through.
“Oh, Reporter Kim. Looks like you finally woke up?”
“Director! Where are you right now? Where is this place?”
“Where else? A hotel. I’m in the next room, so I’ll come over.”
A moment later, with a beep, Director Park entered the room looking disheveled. Exhaustion was plain on his face as well.
“Director, why am I here? Yesterday in Napa Valley... I remember drinking that red liquor the old man gave me.”
Director Park dropped onto the sofa at the foot of the bed and let out a hollow laugh.
“You don’t remember? Reporter, you were a work of art yesterday. Ruby Quartz or whatever it was—turns out that stuff really is strong. After one glass, your eyes went unfocused, and then you suddenly grabbed Elder Warren’s hand and shouted, ‘I love Legend!’
Then to President Brian, you suddenly said in Korean, ‘Useok, you’re really handsome,’ and even touched his face. When you asked him whether he had a girlfriend, I really... Anyway, you kept rambling through the interview like that, and then—whoosh—you collapsed as if someone had turned off your power.”
“Ahh... I’m insane...!”
Reporter Kim’s face flushed hot in an instant. Good heavens, what on earth had she said to the interviewee?
“Maybe because you drank wine and then had brandy on top of it, mixing them made the alcohol hit you all at once?”
“So then? Don’t tell me Choi Useok carried me all the way here on his back?”
“As if. The winery staff helped, and we barely got you into the car. And over here, if you say Choi Useok, no one understands who you mean.
That... President Brian made special arrangements because we were Redwood’s guests, paid for it himself, and found us a good hotel. If he hadn’t, we might have ended up sleeping curled up in the back seat of the car all night.”
Only then did Reporter Kim properly look around the room. The terrace faintly visible beyond the window, the highest-quality furniture. At a glance, it was a premium hotel in Napa where one night’s stay would likely take up a significant portion of her monthly salary. She checked the clock on the wall.
7 a.m.
“...Good grief, it’s seven right now? I just slept from last evening until now? In this expensive hotel?”
“That’s what I’m saying. But last night, I enjoyed the wine and dinner Redwood sent over. Alone, but very elegantly...
Wow, but I wondered why there was such a fancy hotel around the vineyards. Then when I was actually drinking wine while looking out at the nighttime vineyards, maybe because they’d set up just the right amount of lighting, it was really...”
At Director Park’s blatant bragging and teasing, resentment surged over Reporter Kim like a wave. Her instinct for cost-effectiveness, unique to office workers, pierced through her hangover and rose up.
At a hotel like this, she should have had a glass of wine on the terrace, put bubbles in the bathtub, and brainstormed her article while enjoying Napa’s night view. But reality had been nothing more than twelve-plus hours of dead sleep accompanied by memory loss.
“This won’t do. Director, we at least have to get our money’s worth. Wash up right now and go downstairs. We’re raiding breakfast first. If it’s seven in the morning, that’s when they open, isn’t it?”
“No, doesn’t your head hurt?”
“It’ll get better if I eat! I have to eat before I can go do an interview or anything!”
Even as she staggered, she headed straight for the bathroom. Standing under the shower and dousing herself with hot water, she tried to wash away yesterday’s atrocities. Thirty minutes later, the two of them were seated by the window in the hotel restaurant.
It was a fantastic view overlooking the vineyards of Napa Valley in the distance, but Reporter Kim’s hands were busy loading omelets and bacon onto her plate.
“Wow, the croissants here are seriously good. Director, try some of this. This is all President Brian’s thoughtfulness. It’d be rude to leave any.”
“You already took care of being rude yesterday...”
Director Park muttered, but Reporter Kim pretended not to hear and gulped down orange juice. Once sugar entered her system, her hazy mind began spinning rapidly.
Although she had behaved disgracefully yesterday in a half-fainting state, a reporter-like rationalization began: paradoxically, perhaps that had completely broken down Warren and Brian’s wariness.
“Director, today’s interview is going to go even deeper than yesterday. We’ve been baptized with Ruby Quartz now. We’re not strangers anymore. President Choi Useok’s human struggles, and his ambitions for the Korean market he dreams of... We have to get all of that today.”
“Hmm... I didn’t really see any ambition for the Korean market.”
“Really?”
“I’m not certain, but when you collapsed, I talked with him for a bit. He didn’t mention advancing into Korea at all. If anything, he only talked about the European market.”
“Still, he’s Korean, so if we actually ask, it might be different.”
After finishing the meal, Reporter Kim sprayed herself generously with the perfume provided among the hotel amenities and burned with fighting spirit. After shouting “Fighting!” at her reflection in the mirror, she urged Director Park on and climbed back into the rental car.
Around 8:30 a.m. At Redwood, which gave off a mysterious atmosphere as it held the morning mist, the sound of a car could be heard from afar, as if guests had come early in the morning.
I had been checking the grapevines near the entrance, and when I turned my head to look, I saw Reporter Kim Sujin and Director Park Chaegeun—who had been thoroughly done in by Warren’s mischief yesterday—getting out of the car and approaching.
“Oh my, President! Good morning! I was terribly rude yesterday!”
“Are you feeling a bit more clearheaded?”
When I greeted her with a smile, she bowed repeatedly as if she didn’t know what to do with herself.
“I’m truly sorry about yesterday. I must have lost my mind. I made a lot of mistakes yesterday, didn’t I? Goodness... I’m not usually someone who makes mistakes like that... Thank you so much for the hotel stay.”
“Haha, it’s all right. It was Elder Warren’s mistake for telling you to toss back brandy in one go. When he gets carried away, he sometimes pressures people to drink too much. He thinks everyone can hold their liquor like he can. But wasn’t the interview finished?”
“We’re not just ordinary reporters; we’re a program called Success Era. You know shows like Hometown at 6, right? It’s that sort of format, so we’re a little short on footage...”
“Yes, all right. Let’s head up.”
But as the crew followed me up, they froze slightly when they saw Chloe at the winery entrance, her eyes sparkling. No, they seemed even more surprised when she came up to me and linked her arm through mine.
“Are these the people from Korea doing the coverage?”
“Yeah. This is Chloe, my girlfriend.”
“Oh my... so you were his girlfriend? You two look wonderful together.”
Perhaps recalling the dark history of asking whether I had a girlfriend while touching my face under the influence yesterday, Reporter Kim’s face briefly reddened. But once she saw Chloe’s radiant beauty and natural physical affection, her eyes began to sparkle.
Then she whispered to Director Park, who was already filming the two of us with his camera.
“A Korean genius winemaker in Napa and a blonde beauty... This is a ratings cheat code!”
“I know.”
I had a pretty good idea what the two of them were whispering about, so I went inside with a wry smile.
“What are they saying?”
“They’re probably surprised because you’re pretty.”
At my answer, Chloe tossed her hair back and shrugged.
“She may be a beautiful reporter from Korea, but I don’t think I’m losing.”
“Yes, yes, of course.”
As soon as we sat down on yesterday’s terrace, Reporter Kim rushed not at me but at Chloe.
“Nice to meet you! Ms. Chloe? Wow, you’re really beautiful. You and the president look so good together!”
As Reporter Kim let out a stream of Konglish-laced exclamations, Chloe responded by lightly resting her head against my arm.
“Nice to meet you. I’ve heard a lot about you from Brian. I heard you had a hard time coming all the way here from Korea.”
“Oh my, thank you. Director! Get a two-shot. The two of them standing here with the vineyard in the background—this is definitely opening material!”
Director Park busily set up the angle. Beneath the Napa sunlight pouring down as the morning mist slightly lifted, the sight of an Asian genius winemaker and a vibrant California woman standing side by side would be like a scene from a movie in itself.
“Ms. Chloe, what kind of person is President Brian, as someone who watches him from beside him? I think Korean viewers will be very curious.”
Chloe stared at me and smiled playfully.
“Mm, inside the winery, Brian is an absolutely relentless perfectionist. He’ll stay up all night because of the sugar content of a single grape. But when he comes to my farm, he becomes a different person.
When he’s caring for the pear trees, he’s a farmer gentler than anyone else. Maybe that’s why the wine he makes feels less like cold technique and more like warm passion.”
“Pear trees?”
“Yes. I have a farm too. A pear and cherry farm.”
At Chloe’s calm reply, Reporter Kim froze for a moment, then asked.
“Ah... you seem quite young...?”
“That’s right. I’m the same age as Brian. We went to the same schools. High school and university.”
“But you have a farm?”
Suppressing a laugh, I added.
“If we’re talking farm size, Chloe’s farm is larger than mine. Around five hundred acres, was it?”
I’d heard that on top of the two-hundred-acre farm she already had, she had recently bought nearly another two hundred acres, and if you added the pear orchard, it would be over four hundred fifty acres.
It simply wasn’t widely known, but in effect, she was practically Brentwood’s Cherry Queen.
“Five hundred acres?”
“Roughly... two million square meters? It’s probably just a bit smaller than the area of Yeouido.”
Chloe couldn’t understand the conversation between Reporter Kim Sujin and me, and simply blinked. If she had understood beside me, she probably would have raised her voice, saying that even with five hundred acres, her sales weren’t even half of half of mine, which came from around a hundred acres.
“The area of Yeouido...”
Reporter Kim’s mouth fell open, clearly shocked that Chloe was not merely a young, pretty woman. Seeing Chloe in a white T-shirt, a checkered shirt thrown over it, and jeans, Reporter Kim had probably thought she was just an ordinary daughter from some country household.
“Then Ms. Chloe must have helped her boyfriend’s farming a great deal from the outside.”
She seemed to be thinking that, since Chloe was so wealthy, perhaps she had supported him like a rich girlfriend helping her boyfriend study for the bar exam.
“Pardon? Me, helping Brian? It’s the opposite.”
At Chloe’s bewildered expression, Reporter Kim nodded with a peculiar look on her face, then turned to me and continued with a normal interview.
Throughout the interview, Reporter Kim Sujin led the conversation with enthusiasm, and Warren, who arrived afterward, also took part in the interview in a rather entertaining manner.
I didn’t know about anything else, but at least for me, meeting Koreans after such a long time and conversing in Korean was another kind of recharge.
A week later, in the editing room of KSC Broadcasting Station in Yeouido, Seoul.
Inside the dim office, only the bluish light emitted by dozens of monitors filled the space. Reporter Kim had been unable to go home for three days and sat in front of the editing console. Her eyes were bloodshot, but the gaze with which she stared at the screen was sharper than ever.
“Director, this part. The scene where Warren pats Brian on the shoulder and says, ‘My only master.’ Make the subtitles bigger. Use the most authoritative font, too.”
“Reporter, isn’t this too cringey? It’s like a movie trailer.”
The editor, who had been dozing beside her, grumbled, but Reporter Kim Sujin was firm.
“No, this has to be even more cinematic than a movie. The male lead, the female lead, and the legendary figure protecting the two of them! If that’s not a movie, then what is?”
She replayed the scene where Brian introduced Chloe and said, “She’s my girlfriend,” over and over again.
A meeting between a dreamlike vineyard and the Cherry Queen. This was a movie and a drama in itself, so the ratings were as good as guaranteed.