I don’t stop. I double down. I throw in a shimmy.
A shimmy.
Who even am I?
That’s when I notice Viv at the edge of the crowd, casually holding her phone up with one hand, fanning herself with the other like a proud stage mom. She fixes the camera on me, mutters something about “midlife icons,” and I pray to God she isn’t recording this.
The conga line does another lap around the dance floor, and I feel like I’m reclaiming joy one shaky hip movement at a time. I’m laughing. Full-belly, deep-wrinkle, laugh-till-you-snort laughing. And the thing is, it feels good. It feels ridiculous, but it feels good. I’m not sure what the hell I’m doing out here in the middle of agoat-filled vineyard, shaking my grief into submission, but for once, it doesn’t feel heavy.
It feels free.
After a few more laps, I decide I’ve sweat enough for one night and start scanning the room for our table. That’s when I spot Marin, perched on a wine barrel, cheeks flushed, holding a sangria like it’s her emotional support drink. The band slows down into something vaguely acoustic. She stands up, clinking her glass with a fork she’s somehow acquired.
The room goes silent as she wobbles for a moment before hoisting herself up onto the barrel. “I just wanna say something,” she slurs sweetly. “To weird seasons of life. And weird friends. And a life that could be full of regret but somehow gives you exactly who you need to survive it.”
There’s a pause. Then someone cheers.
Viv, still on the sidelines fanning herself with a wine list in one hand and doing something with her phone in the other, pauses. “What she said!” she echoes before I think I hear her muttering something about, “Hashtag grief girls gone wild.”
The band picks up again, something vaguely Latin-pop but with the energy of a wedding DJ who’s stopped caring. I finally escape the conga line only to find Marin slow-dancing with a man in a turtleneck and flip-flops. She’s swaying in a circle, whispering something into his shoulder that might be a poem or possibly the word “cabernet” over and over.
“Marin?” I approach cautiously. “You good?”
She turns, her pupils the size of quarters. “This man has opinions about jazz. We’re soulmates.”
“I love that for you.” I gently pry her wine glass from her hand and hand her a complimentary cube of cheese like she’s a baby bird. Glancing down at my watch confirms it. It’s time to grab Viv and get out of here. As my mom always said, nothing good ever happens after midnight.
After making a few laps around the room, I’m about ready to call out a search party when I see a shadowy corner of the winery,where Viv is making out, full onmaking out, with a man wearing a linen vest and aggressively white sneakers. He’s got one hand in her hair and another on her waist, and they’re swaying like it’s prom and they’re the only two people in the universe who know the lyrics to the soft indie rock song playing.
“Should we?” I motion helplessly, not expecting anyone to answer.
“Your friend?” the older woman to my right asks.
I nod.
“Leave her be. She looks hydrated and spiritually aligned. She needs this.”
I hate that I understand what she means.
And right when I think the night has hit its peak weirdness, someone yells, “You! Grief lady! Come up here!”
I blink. “Me?”
“I saw you in that congo line! We need you!” He points to the poster with the glaring message:"Groove Challenge."
I shake my head furiously. “No, thank you! I’m emotionally constipated and it comes out in my dancing!”
But the stranger next to me is already pushing me forward. “Time for you to get hydrated and spiritually aligned. You need this too!”
The next thing I know, I’m on a makeshift stage flanked by two servers, one with bleached eyebrows and a nose ring, the other with a mullet and Crocs covered in enamel pins, both holding wine glasses like microphones and looking at me like I’m about to perform instead of panic. One of them shouts, “Okay, now, grind those hips, you got this!” and suddenly my hips are swinging in one direction while my arms go rogue in the opposite.
What they’re doing looks effortless, like a metronome with rhythm. What I’m doing looks like I’m trying to ward off a swarm of bees while also bracing for a squat I may never recover from.
“Am I doing it?” I shout over the music.
“No!” Viv yells cheerfully from the crowd, recording like herphone is a front-row seat to the Birdie Disaster Hour. “But it’s iconic!”
Someone hands me a sangria mid-shimmy, which I accept like a trophy for surviving this whole ordeal and perimenopause. I nearly drop it as I attempt an interpretive shoulder roll that results in an audible pop.
