The LeBaron Secret by Stephen; Birmingham Read Free Book Online Page A

we hear about?—Eric has been kicking up his heels a bit, straining in the harness, feeling his oats, as they say. This displeases Sari, who, after all, is still his boss. If there is any problem with Eric, it might seem, it is that Sari has tried too hard to carve Eric in her own image. Perhaps it is a mistake for any parent to try to carve a child—for any human to try to carve another human—in his or her own image. Perhaps. Long ago, Sari would have liked to have carved Melissa in her own image. That didn’t work, either.
    Meanwhile, Peter, Jr., soars through life like a bubble rising from the stem of a glass of champagne. He takes nothing seriously, unless it is having a good time. Peter loves fast cars, beautiful women, staying up all night in nightclubs—in an earlier generation, he would have been called a playboy. He works for Baronet, too, where his title is superintendent of the Sonoma vineyard, but he doesn’t work very hard, and once arrived for work—his Jaguar weaving uncertainly down the road—still in black tie, fresh from an all-night party on Russian Hill. When Sari heard about this caper, there was hell to pay, believe me. Peter’s nickname is “Peeper” or “Peep.” This is because, when he was a baby, his Aunt Joanna used to say that he made sounds “just like a little peeping frog” when he cried. The nickname stuck, and today Peter’s friends all call him “Peeper” or “Peep.” This is, you can see, a family fond of nicknames.
    Peeper has never married, and shows no indication that he ever will. His relations with women don’t last very long, and once he has bedded them down a few times he seems to lose interest. But since 1968, Eric has been married to Alix, and you cannot say that Eric LeBaron “married down.” Alix is the daughter of Harry Tillinghast, the president of Kern-McKittrick Oil, and was considered quite a belle when she married Eric. “The debutante catch of the year,” said the Chronicle when Alix came out at the 1965 Cotillion. “Oil and wine don’t mix,” said Sari, when Eric told his mother of his intentions, but the marriage has worked out happily enough. Happily enough. They have two teenage daughters, Kimberly and Sloane, also twins. Two sets of twins in two LeBaron generations. But in the case of the girls, they are fraternal twins—the two-egg kind, rather than the one-egg. Both girls attend the Sarah Dix Hamlin School, which their mother attended. Alix is a bit of a snob. She has enrolled the girls as boarders, for example, though they could easily commute from the Peninsula, because she feels that the boarding students—who of course pay a higher tuition—are higher in the school’s pecking order, socially, than the day students. Of course, she is right. The two groups hardly know each other’s names. Alix pronounces her name “ A-leeks ,” though her given name was Alice, which she found too common-sounding.
    Despite their different sorts of lives, Eric and Peeper are close, very close.
    And so there you have the LeBarons. There was one other child, who died. But we must not forget Joanna. Joanna is very important. Joanna is Peter Powell LeBaron’s sister, the same age as Sari, and if you live in New York you have no doubt heard of her. She has had a spectacular career in advertising, and now heads her own Madison Avenue agency, LeBaron & Murdock. She lives in great style in Manhattan—a duplex at 1040 Fifth Avenue, overlooking the park, the same building where Jackie Onassis lives. She spends most of her time there, although, as we mentioned, she also has a house in Santa Barbara. Joanna has no connection with Baronet Vineyards, Inc., except indirectly. It should come as no surprise that her agency has the Baronet advertising account—$20,000,000 worth of business, for which she takes a commission at a “family rate”