One Bottle

“You’re going on that date tonight, aren’t you?"

Mallory’s face lit up. “Yeah,” she said, placing her phone down on her vanity. “I’m getting ready for it right now, actually.”

“How rare is it,” Jacob’s voice came from down around her elbow, propped against the stained wood of her makeup table. “To find someone out in the real world? I mean, like, not on any dating app.”

“Well, she’s a doctor, so she probably prioritizes work instead of finding people to ghost,” Mallory said. “But it does feel better this way, like more organic.”

“What’re y’all doing?” Jacob asked.

“Oh, Jacob, this is so cute,” Mallory said as she mixed some foundation and moisturizer on the back of her hand. “She wants to go have a picnic in the botanical gardens! She’s bringing everything, she just wants me to show up.”

“Oh, my God, that is cute!” Jacob said. “And you’re practically giddy talking about her! Wait, Mal, this is exciting.”

Her makeup sponge halting mid-bounce, Mallory swatted the air as if there was a gnat in the room. “Don’t even say that! I’m not putting any stock into this until we’ve hung out, like, more than once.”

“Oh, really?”

“I mean, if we hang out more than once. You know that I mean!”

Jacob was silent for a minute as Mallory dabbed on some blush, humming softly to the music she was playing. “So are you nervous at all? I mean, it’s been a couple years since you actually gave real dating a shot.”

To be honest with herself, Mallory had been trying to ignore a little bubble of anxiety building in her stomach all day that had nothing to do with finding the right thing to wear or being witty and endearing on the date tonight.

“Yeah, I am,” she said. “But my therapist says it’s time to at least dip a toe into relationships again. She says I’m ready.”

“Alright, darlin’, as long as you feel like you’re ready too,” Jacob said. “Hey, listen, I’m going to let you go get pretty. Call me if you need me later, okay? I’m just grading some papers tonight.”

“Okay! Love you, big twin,” Mallory said.

“Love you back, little twin,” Jacob laughed, and the line went quiet. Mallory got up momentarily from her vanity table to turn up the volume on her record player, smiling at the old joke between them as she sat back down. Jacob had been taller than her since they hit seventh grade, which was also the year Mallory had blessedly begun to sprout boobs and look less like her twin brother’s identical twin brother and more like his sister.

Makeup and hair done, Mallory stood and walked to her closet. Should I go pretty and flirty, she wondered, fingering a couple of sundresses, or, like, jeans?

Thirty minutes later, she was parking her car with a black sundress on, a stomach full of butterflies, and a hastily-purchased bottle of merlot. After briefly considering if leaving the wine in the car was a good idea- who drinks red wine on a picnic, what is wrong with me- Mallory took the bottle by the neck and got out of the car.

As she walked across the lily pond’s bridge to a little clearing of grass, Mallory saw Olivia’s bright red hair standing out among the flowers surrounding them. In an insane stroke of luck, they were the only ones in this part of the gardens.

“Hi!” Olivia’s glittering laugh quashed the butterflies and brought a smile to Mallory’s face. She’d forgotten how gorgeous Olivia was; they’d met at the library, of all the stereotypical meet-cute places, last week.

“Hey, you,” Mallory said as she reached Olivia and her already-spread quilt. Sitting on the beautiful yellow pattern was an actual, Instagrammable wicker basket and next to that, a whole charcuterie board. Of course there was wine, and Mallory’s smile got even wider when she saw what it was.

“Nice taste in wine,” Mallory said slyly as she raised her identical bottle of merlot up. Olivia laughed again, which made Mallory’s insides flip over. “And here I was feeling silly for bringing red wine to a picnic.”

“Well, I figured it’s not really that hot this time of year and I basically only drink red wine, you know? C’mon, sit down!”

“This is incredible,” Mallory said, tucking her legs to the side as she sat. “Here, let me,” she reached for the bottle opener peeking from the basket. “I can’t believe how, like, social-media-perfect this is.” She finagled the cork out of the first bottle of merlot and poured two glasses. “Cheers,” she said as she handed Olivia one of them.

“Cheers to being brave enough to give the cute brunette in the fiction section my number,” Olivia grinned, then took a sip of wine. Mallory did the same, closing her eyes briefly at the familiar taste and smell.

That was all a year ago. Olivia, being a doctor, had been one of the first people to stop going out at all when the CDC started suggesting it; Mallory had only been able to see her a few more times after that first date, but the two women kept talking even after the entire city was ordered into a shelter-in-place. Honestly, it felt to Mallory like their relationship had evolved and changed even as the new virus did.

And now, a year later, Mallory sat at her kitchen table with her laptop and a bottle of the same merlot from that perfect night in front of her. Exactly a year to the day, Mallory thought as her phone buzzed to life next to her computer.

It was from Liv, of course. Just one word, but enough to make Mallory glow.

Ready!

Mallory pulled up Zoom and called Liv, who answered immediately, sitting cross legged on her living room rug with a brown package in front of her.

“Can I open it now?”

“Oh, I don’t even get a ‘hello’?” Mallory laughed. “Yes, of course you can!”

Liv took her cheap, package-opening knife and slit the tape open, digging through the boatloads of packaging peanuts and bubble wrap to pull out-

“Oh, Mally!” Liv positively beamed as she held up, shining from the beam of spring evening light coming through her kitchen window, an identical bottle of merlot.