by Mike Wehner
Hard to forget someone I almost killed. Also gorgeous. Also silly. And sweet. “Who?”
Erin set her menu on top of my stack cock-eyed and I wanted to disassemble her like a fryer chicken. It’s illegal to have sex with a live chicken but you can do whatever you want to a bucket of fried bird from the grocery store. This world is a strange place.
“Don’t make this harder than it already is,” she said.
“Yes, blond, nice teeth, chatty,” I said.
“I am trying to ask if you’d like to come to dinner with us.”
“Are you trying to set me up with your sister?” I asked.
“You ate a serving spoon of horseradish the day you started here, I would never set you up with my sister…”
I cut her off, “I was establishing dominance.” Stuffing my mouth with the white devil and keeping it down for five dollars was like throwing a fruit cup at a prison guard your first day in the penitentiary. Credibility had to be established, I knew I was going to make mistakes so figured I’d catch less crap if I was likable.
“Secondly,” she said over me, “I love my sister more than anything in the world and I could never set her up with someone who worked here. I didn’t want you to think it was just going to be the two of us, I worded it wrong, I’m sorry.”
That was disappointing, I hadn’t so much as kissed a girl in a year; I couldn’t even masturbate. The last evening I tried to make time for myself I was working with hot peppers and after a few tugs my crotch burned for eight hours. It was so traumatizing that I rarely touched my penis to pee, I unzipped and pointed my hips to aim.
Even if Emily didn’t like me at least I could take comfort in the fact that the thing she loved most was what I almost destroyed. A happy accident. “So if it’s not a date, why are you being weird?” She swiveled her bar chair towards me, hands on her knees.
“Because we were invited by Mike and it will be less awkward as a group. I wasn’t trying to bait you with my sister. You’re not her type.”
I put my elbow on the counter and flopped my head in my hand like a valley girl. “What’s this thing?”
“It’s a dinner and tasting at a winery in St. Helena, Mike is taking us to make up for the other night. You guys played so well together the first time, we thought it would be fun.”
“You should have just said that, he’s the only person I’ve met out here that I don’t hate.” Some of the menus wouldn’t sit perfect in all four corners of the holders, the edges of the tabs weren’t parallel and I vexed the thick stock back and forth trying to make it right.
“I’d really appreciate it. I have some issues with men and you’d be helping me find out if I want to go on a date,” she said. “Shit, sorry, over-sharing.”
“Now I get it, this is about you and Mike.”
“Something like that,” Erin said and turned her legs back under the bar top.
“I really like him.”
“I know you do Alex, probably more than me.”
“I’ll go, but if your sister is into me you should tell me.”
“You want to go out with Emily?”
“Every guy wants to go out with your sister, even count Tommy.” I pulled my apron up over my face like a cape. Erin snorted like always, it was unattractive.
“It’s not a date. Tomorrow night, you and I will do all the morning prep and leave after lunch. No jeans. No cat shit.”
Eleven
DAY 961
The next afternoon steam billowed from beneath my bathroom door and I stood in front of it counting to ten. My iron was broken and I raced to find a way to get the fold lines out of a button-up shirt. Boiling water poured from the showerhead with the hope the humidity would loosen up the shirt. The wrinkles clung together, afraid to get too close to the rusted bottom of the claw foot tub they hung above.
I kept my dress shirts in the middle drawer of my dresser, all of them were wrinkled and all of them were gingham. Some of them still had the silver chest clips and tissue paper tucked under the collars. The paper rustled when I dug below for a second option to put in the dryer.
I’d returned home from the restaurant to make myself presentable for what I hoped was a date but wasn’t. I was nervous, Emily was a shot at quelling the loneliness. I changed my shirt a few times, rotating the entire collection between my back and the steam room I’d created. Unbuttoning, rolling up, picking at the sleeves. Nothing looked right. I returned them all to their store bought position and moved on to the collars, the more I fidgeted the more I thought about poor Emily’s neck.
Jitters turned to paralyzing self-examination once I was in front of Erin’s house. The khakis, the loafers, business casual attire looked superimposed on me like track suits painted over the cast of The Last Judgment. Erin was on the porch, up on her toes tipping a pink watering can into a hanging fern. I navigated around the gargantuan mini-bus in the driveway to get to her.
She tugged at my collar. “It’s nice to see you when you aren’t covered in sweat and grease.” I’d gotten used to her touch, kitchens are intimate places. You are always rubbing hips and reaching over one another. We could kill each other on accident, it’s the perfect setup. I stumble around her venting a pressure cooker, she sidesteps with a cleaver in each hand—one slip and we both get what we deserve.
Erin’s salt cod skin was always covered in black at work, so her greeting was followed by a Wizard of Oz moment where she burst forth in Technicolor for the first time. Draped in royal blue, the pleats of her dress grew and shrank with each step. Her hair was wavy and down and it was the first time I saw her head without a writing instrument stuck through some part of it.
Inside, Emily was on the couch, knees tipped together at odd angles. Her face shadowed, I saw the family resemblance. Silhouetted their faces are roughly the same, round, petite noses and plus-size eyes pulled a touch too far apart. In direct light they looked like different species of pretty insects. Emily is less pointy, she has no edges or juts. Her lips were saturated in a candy apple red that would make Erin look like a crime TV prostitute. Emily’s hair was longer, the outer layers swept out in waves and the inner rolled up in thick curls. Emily’s beauty was gloss and shine, while Erin’s was rivet and salt. All girls are beautiful, even the ones you want dead.
“Good to see you Alex,” she said with fervor and shot up the stairs, “be right back!” Emily’s dress was short and the bottom of her ass played peek-a-boo with each upward hop. A moment later she bound back down and greeted me with a shoulder top hug and a kiss that intentionally missed my cheek. She wasn’t manic, it was the world that was slow, all of us needed to catch up to her.
“You look nice,” I said but I wanted to say beautiful, stunning, gorgeous, superlative. Those are magic words and should be conserved, there aren’t many words you can say and a girl knows you mean it. And they don’t want you to mean it all the time. We stood at the foot of the stairs, Emily a head taller than both of us with her feet planted on the first step.
“Erin, this dress isn’t too over the top for tonight is it?” Emily accordianed out the bottom with a curtsy.
“It’s fine,” Erin said like she’d graded a slew of other outfits.
“Good, this is the only thing I have in dark red that I like,” Emily said.
“Who gives a shit about the color?” Erin replied. I stepped aside and ran my fingers along the grooves in the artichoke finial at the end of the banister.
“Because I failed wine aiming 101,” Emily said deadpan. She stepped next to me, in heels her head wasn’t to the top of my shoulder so I smiled down and to the right. My gaze lingered at her neck line, combed it over to see if I had done any lasting damage. Erin whacked me in the gut when we walked away, thinking I was gawking at her sister’s far superior chest.
Rendered in shades of pink that blended to burgundy I wished it was a date with Emily. But dates had questions, who you are, where you come from. Stupid questions we think of as the bland obligations of getting to kno
w someone new but they are really risks assessments, a banal anti-murder-death-killer survey that I couldn’t pass with wine involved.
“What’s with the bus outside?” I got between their outfit banter. Erin took us into the kitchen where Mike was digging bottles of white wine into a cooler full of ice. Emily picked at blueberries on the counter.
“Hey Alex, they tell me we’ve got to behave tonight,” Mike said. His grip went over while I dove in for a classic shake and our hands came together like the Boys and Girls Club logo. He looked stylish in sharp suede oxfords and red chinos.
“Is that bus an apology?” I said. I slid behind the far side of the island so he wouldn’t see my shoes.
“Alex, open your mouth.” Emily held up a blueberry. I did and with a swift flick she bounced it off my forehead.
“That’s my ride and my job, I tour the grape fields with bougie rich people on vacation.” He fought to find a spot for a sixth bottle.
“He talks a lot of yang about wine for someone who makes a living off of it,” Erin said. The nail polish and jewelry did little to shine her up, the appalling I-don’t-give-a-shitness she liberally applied to everything but cooking was still apparent.
“All the great American men drop out of college then profit on the backs of people they despise,” Mike said, “I’m a patriot, like Walt Disney.”
“Jobs,” I countered.
“Boys,” Erin butted in.
“Kanye,” Emily said then threw another blueberry at me.
Mike told me all about his wine touring business and the bus outside he used to shuttle around odd and even couples while huffing out vino factoids and forcing bottled water into everyone’s hand. He smiled so much his cheeks had deep vertical grooves. Thick yet lean, I wondered how I might fight him off if he swooped in to save Erin while I had her face breathing dishwater. I couldn’t picture him with Erin, they weren’t opposites that attracted so much as two things made out of different stuff.
A dinner and tasting was arranged for the four us, some winery’s bribe to get Mike to bring some of his elite clientele to their establishment and Mike’s bribe to get Erin to forgive him for the unfortunate happenings in the front yard.
On the porch we waited for our driver to arrive, some mutual friend who could handle the bus. We looked ridiculous, like an array of mismatched bottles. Emily a smooth red wine, Mike a pinstriped bottle of American rye, Erin a royal blue and gold bottle of Canadian whiskey, and in my blue gingham check I was a Bavarian beer with ugly shoes.
Our chariot looked like a municipal vehicle that carried disabled teens to their jobs at a mega-mart but inside was luxurious and comfy. The rows of seats had been replaced with a large U-shaped bench that sat like a campfire.
The bus was full of booze and single people but nobody was on a date. The caustic gaze of a protective sister on the far side of the bench pushed, the lovely fervor of Emily across from me pulled.
Mike sensed the tension and when I glanced up from Charlie’s message on my phone he was shaking a bottle of wine in each hand. He jigged his feet and used his nose as an arrow to point and hum at each one asking for a recommendation. Our host, our jester, our savior.
The girls and I chorused a “yes” at him as soon as we understood the question. The first bottle finished, the push and pull got worse. I couldn’t stop staring at Emily. She was immaculate. She was also the best path to Erin’s unhappiness. My brain clashed into a muddle of black romantic comedy mash-ups. Let’s spoon so I can smother you with a pillow. A lovely carriage ride over the river and through the woods to the hole I’ve dug for you. Shopping.
“Were you always a cook Alex?” Emily asked in an attempt to steer the conversation away from wine. Questions, the reason I didn’t have any new friends. I tried to be vague without seeming withholding.
“Nope, I was an engineer for a long time,” I said. Engineer is a vague word, it doesn’t mean anything. Engineer is a word your high school guidance counselor plants into your head if you’re good at math and look like you have trouble talking to girls.
“Which field?” Mike said.
“Apocalyptic,” I said half-kidding, “I programmed manufacturing robots, the ones that replace people.” The bus fought its way out of suburbia and off in the distance the hills were dotted with fewer and fewer houses the farther we drove north.
“Cooking is better?” Emily asked. Her words had a happy perk, she leaned way back in her seat and folded her arms on her stomach. Erin and I were both hunched up on our thighs, prepared for battle.
“It’s different, not as good as eating,” I said, smiling.
“Speaking of which,” Erin said to everyone, “what are we eating tonight?”
“I didn’t ask, it will be prefix and catered. They said something about a wine cave dining room but I’ve never been there, this place is way up north,” Mike said. It was common for him to get invited by wine makers to taste and visit the grounds. Napa and the surrounding areas have hundreds of wineries all vying for the busloads of wandering drunks to sell their stories to.
“I don’t know shit about wine compared to the people we’ll meet tonight. I’d be laughed out of any Somm exam room, but touring isn’t a horticulture class, it’s an experience.”
“I’m not a wine guy, as long as it isn’t sweet or cold I’ll drink it,” I said.
“I like to put red wine in the freezer when it’s hot out,” Emily said, she was slapping the rhythm in her head on her stomach.
“Emily,” Erin huffed, fake embarrassed.
“I’ve forgotten about it more than once,” she continued.
“Does the bottle break?”
“No, the cork gets pushed out and wine gushes out the top. I did it a few weeks ago. Erin and I took turns shaking the slush into bowls and ate it with spoons,” Emily said, “Erin put cocoa on hers which I thought was weird.”
“Thanks Em.” Erin shook her head and looked off into the orange hills at the falling sun as we spun away from it, on this lidless world hurling itself through space.
Twelve
The four of us stumbled back into the gravel parking lot a few hours later, Emily grasping the top of my forearm for balance. Wine drunk is different than beer drunk is different than whiskey. Wine drunk is a happy, feet shuffling impairment and my feet raked the rocks with crooked steps on the way back to the bus.
The driver had a sketch pad laid across the steering wheel. He fumbled to hide a drawing of a cartoon demon with giant lopsided breasts eating ice cream. His right hand was out for low-fives. I plowed aboard behind Emily and intentionally tripped so I could thumb the small of her back and burrow my nose into her neck which I swore smelled like burnt plastic. Our foursome collapsed in different directions in a sort of mobile triclinium and like the Romans all of us were thinking about blood.
“That Croatian blood wine was the most horrific thing I’ve ever tasted,” Erin said. She looked over at Mike who was belly up at the back of the bus with his forearm over his eyes.
“I choked it down,“ Mike said.
The vintner made a big deal about importing extremely rare grapes from some part of Europe where the floors were made of dirt, admiration through scarcity. He should have considered Occam’s razor. Maybe they were hard to find because nobody wanted to grow grapes that tasted like a fat lip.
“It smelled like my multi-vitamin,” Emily said to the ceiling, “I poured it under the table.” She kicked her shoes off and sat in the aisle.
“You bitch Em, I stepped in that.”
Erin and I laid facing each other with Emily’s knees beneath our noses, heads dangling off the long leather seats.
The bus teetered on the gravel and pulled out onto the road.
“Home?” the bus driver asked. Mike leapt up.
Home, I wanted to go home.
“Best wine of the night?” I said for the sake of conversation.
“None of it was any good,” Erin corrected, “best wine of your life?” The street li
ghts slid across the inside of the cabin in squares. Emily tipped over, her bottom stuck to the floor.
“It might not have been good, but it’s working,” Mike said looking at sideways Emily.
“The day I closed on my first condo my mom left a bottle of cheap Chianti, wicker shell and all on the counter. My friends were there that helped me move. One of the guys found a box of plastic cups, not that I owned wine glasses, and passed them around,” I said. “It was the best and only cup of wine I’ve ever had.”
There was a card propped next to the bottle that said: life only gets better from here. John peeled the straw shell apart knowing the mess would irritate me and Charlie took the pieces and assembled them into a giant penis that he rammed into the hole of his cup after he’d emptied it. I missed happier times, where there was only sweet and no bitter.
Erin’s eyes flashed slate blue in the passing lights. “I staged at a kitchen in Spain for a summer, it was horrible. I didn’t speak the language and I don’t think I got a single good night of sleep. My flight home was a disaster too, stranded in Dublin for a day and a half.
“I took a cab when I landed because I didn’t want to wake anyone up. When I got home Em was up to greet me with a pitcher of red wine she poured into a plastic juice pitcher and filled with all the fruit in the house. Some of it wasn’t even sliced. We swayed on our front porch swing and I picked strawberry leaves out of my teeth while the sun came up.”
Emily was sleeping and Mike was up front, Erin and I were alone in the dark save for the ring of yellow Christmas lights shrink wrapped to the floor for legal reasons. There was no move, no deflection. Her sister between us, I faced her for the first time. This wasn’t boss Erin or competitive Erin or the demonic plague inside the television. It wasn’t the girl I was going to kill or the girl who I had to prove was fucking evil. Alcohol is a powerful drug and it stripped me of my inhibitions and of the constant jabbering of my thoughts. Before me, for the first time was Erin the human being. A silly girl in the dark who wanted to know all about me. And I the same.