I don’t find it any friendlier than the average grocery store, which disappoints me more than it should. I buy apples, eggs, guacamole, pita chips, ginger ale and multiple frozen pizzas. I make an impulse purchase of birthday-cake-flavored gum. It doesn’t taste even remotely like birthday cake.
Yet another disappointment.
On the drive home, as I chew the bland gum, a negative thought begins to worm around my brain.
Isn’t it classic me? To put faith in something implausible, like a grocery store with an exceptionally friendly staff, like birthday-cake-flavored gum, like a storybook happily ever after, like true love. Whenever I’m let down by reality, I’m simultaneously shocked and embarrassed by my lack of ability to anticipate the completely predictable outcome.
I attempt to spit the gum out my window, but it gets stuck on the side of my car.
By the time I get to Main Street in Rowan, there’s a sinkhole opening in my chest. All I can think about is how sad I am and how I can’t escape the sadness because I feel it. It’s coursing through my body with the swift ruthlessness of the flu. I can barely hold the steering wheel. I don’t have the strength.
I have to pull over.
I park in the first open spot I see. It’s in front of a squat cottage. It kind of looks like a mushroom. Brown roof, white stem of building. The door is comically short, and on either side, there are two round windows. There’s no sign.
The cottage looks funny next to its neighbor, a neon pink building, the loudest one in town. Luckily, that shop has a sign I can read: SIMPLE SPIRITS, WINE & LIQUOR.
I don’t really want to get out of the car, with my halo of frizz, legion of dust mites. I’m wearing my most raggedy jeans, a sweat-stained T-shirt and sunglasses that I thought I could pull off once upon a time, but I now suspect make me look like a ninety-year-old woman. They keep sliding down the greasy bridge of my nose.
I take off my sunglasses and rub my nose with the back of my hand, hoping it absorbs some of the oil or, at least, distributes it more evenly so it’s not pooling there. I take a reluctant look in the mirror.
People might shudder as I pass them by, hold their children close while recoiling in horror.
But . . . I could really use some wine.
I grab my wallet and get out of the car. I hurry into the store, hoping no townspeople will spot me and think they’ve seen some sort of mythical trash monster.
I miss the step down entering the store, and almost fall flat on my face. I catch myself somehow, my arms out in front of me, gripping the air. I look around, ready to be mortified, but there’s no one here.
The ceiling is vaulted; there are exposed beams. It’s all very rustic. The walls are lined with shelves, and there are two round tables in the center of the store. One has a few bottles of wine on it, the other different types of liquor. There is a little note card in front of each bottle. I walk over to the wine table, ready to pick my poison. As I walk, the thick floor planks squeal beneath my feet.
I pick up a note card. Chianti. It’s earthy. Notes of tobacco, of red fruit.
I know nothing about wine except how to drink it.
“You don’t want that.”
The voice comes from behind me. I’m not startled by it because it’s a lovely voice. The tone of it. It’s an instant balm.
I turn around.
The floorboards wail under my weight, but when she walks, they make no sound at all.
She’s the most beautiful person I’ve ever seen. Easily.
Dark waves cascade down to her waist. So much hair, thick and shiny. How does it shine like that? It’s like her hair is emitting its own light.
She has big almond eyes, an ethereal hazel, like two pools of amber. She has long black lashes and her eyebrows are epic, full and lush, steeply arched. I want to touch them.
Her cheekbones are high, pronounced. Nose delicate and straight. Her lips are extensive, the twin conquerors of her face. They hold a natural color, a rosy pink. I doubt she’s wearing any lipstick, or any makeup at all. If she is, whatever it is, I would buy it. Her skin is a new state of matter.
I can’t tell how old she is, maybe late thirties? Early forties? She smiles at me, a pleasant, frank smile. Her cheeks round, and soft lines appear at the edges of her eyes.
She reaches out and runs an elegant manicured hand along my forearm, then takes the card out of my hand and places it back on the table.
“Come,” she says. She leads me over to the back wall. “The Bordeaux. You want the Bordeaux.”
She scans the shelves until she spots the bottle she’s looking for. She materializes a ladder and begins to climb up the bottom rungs to reach the bottle.