“Roz,” a man’s voice calls.
Both Vin and I turn to see St. Michel sitting at an outdoor restaurant on 100th, just off the bustle of Lex. He’s got a glass of frosty orange wine in front of him because of course he does.
“Hi! You remember Vin? You’ve met a time or two. So, back from Montreaux?” We walk over and he stands to kiss my cheek and, to my deep delight, Vin’s.
“Always, always, back from Montreaux,” he says on a sigh. “Join me for a drink?”
I’m about to explain that there is a bean lasagna getting cold on my counter back home, but Vin is already pulling out a chair for me, and then for himself.
The server sprints over to us, eyes bouncing back and forth between Vin in his T-shirt and ball cap and St. Michel in his jean button-down with a silk scarf tucked in at the collar. Daddy and French Daddy. This is clearly the server’s lucky night.
“What can I get you to drink?” they ask Vin, plainly wishing they could sop him up with bread.
Vin just points at me. In all the times we’ve ever dined outtogether, he’s never once ordered before I have. So it’s probably silly that it makes my stomach flip just a little. But also, this is a fancy wine bar and I’m not in any way, shape, or form prepared for this order. I’m a “house red” girly. I flip the menu from one side to the other.
“Taste this,” St. Michel says, sliding his goblet of juicy wine toward me.
I follow instructions. It’s light and cool and tastes like just a whiff of summer on the wind. “Well, it barely tastesorange,” I say to him, and he laughs.
“A glass for her,” St. Michel says. “From my bottle. Vincent?”
The glass gets slid his way as well and to my surprise Vin takes a sip too.
“Sure,” Vin says to the server. “Thank you,” Vin says to St. Michel.
The sky’s started on its journey from orange to purple and I’m glad I wore a sweatshirt.
The server promptly delivers our matching drinks and Vin glances at me, nostrils flaring. I turn away from him so I don’t laugh in St. Michel’s face.
Vin squints his eyes into the yonder while he takes a sip of the wine, sets down the glass, and—God, help me—swirls it.
That’s all it takes. I burst into laughter.
“What’s the joke?” St. Michel asks.
“Sorry. Nothing.” I’m pinching the bridge of my nose, trying to stop giggling, reaching hard for dignity. “We’re just…we’re really trying to fake our way through the fact that we are not fancy wine people.”
Vin is chuckling too. He lifts his glass to St. Michel. “This would go great with pork rinds.”
St. Michel has just completed the cheers but immediatelylooks as if he’d like to take it back after that statement. He can’t tell if Vin’s joking.
And then all three of us are laughing, together, but most likely at different things.
St. Michel’s eyes flick between us. “You two reallyshouldstay together.”
This sentiment, said from a lightly accented tongue, on a warmish Tuesday night in June, with this wine and this lighting, weirdlydoesn’tstab me through the heart. When St. Michel says it, he makes it sound like a concept, like a choice, likeDon’t go to Florence, go to Venice instead.
Vin hasn’t stiffened either, though he’s looking back and forth between St. Michel and me, probably trying to figure out when the hell I dumped my marital issues on the custom framing guy.
If anything, I’m just a little surprised. This is a different take than he had before. And besides, his nose is rarely even in his own business, let alone ours. “I thought you said breaking up was fine.”
He purses his lips and signals to the server. “It is. But so is marriage. The artichoke tartines, please.” The server salutes and disappears.
“Ringing endorsement of holy matrimony,” I say on a laugh. Vin is now watching him with a lowered brow.
St. Michel shrugs. “It’s all fine. Everything changes anyhow. Everyone thinks that their relationship should reach stasis. And most of them want it to reach stasis right after they start dating. So they can have that new-love feeling for the rest of their life. How boring.”
“You don’t enjoy falling in love?” I ask him, slightly teasing him now, because he can’t be this overeverything.
