Wine Duty

Bulb. B-U-L-B. BULB. What kind of a word is that? Bulb.

Emma shook her head as she stared down the light bulb, the last one still emitting light in the string of incredibly chic and trendy fairy lights hanging in the window. The others had been dead for months, but this one held on.

Emma could just barely see her furrowed brow and crossed arms in the reflection of the glass. She bitterly acknowledged how the reflection looked as irritated and tired as she felt. She glanced past the bulb and through the window, frowning as she saw her neighbors roll in on their happy little bikes and mosey into their happy little apartment after a happy little sunset bike ride.

From the outside, when all the lights were lit, this apartment glowed outward like a toy store in a Christmas village, a quality that used to bring Emma immense joy. Emma often mulled over the pros and cons of trying to bring that glow back. She considered, of course, searching for the box of new bulbs that almost certainly already existed somewhere in her apartment. Many times, she had looked around the apartment for the little cardboard box they were in, but only halfheartedly. Really, she just flicked her eyes from one corner of a room to another and called it a day.

She thought about buying them, and they already occupied space in her Amazon cart. She considered ordering them every morning over her coffee, and she considered it every night over what used to be Kate's wine.

Emma did not care for wine. She used to, sure, but she had no taste for it now. It had become too synonymous with Kate; it was her best friend’s drink, after all. Despite this, Emma still drank a bit of Kate’s wine every single night. Kate had left six bottles on the kitchen counter when she died, and since she was not around to enjoy it anymore, the duty of wine consumption fell on Emma.

Naturally.

Wine duty, trash duty, and fairy light duty. Those had all been Kate’s. She had been good at her job, too; over the span of three years, Emma saw maybe one dead light bulb. She smiled now as she remembered when Kate took one of the light bulbs at Christmas and wrote a letter from Santa explaining that Rudolph’s nose had gone out and that he had to borrow a bulb. Santa had kindly returned the bulb the next day.

All this, and somehow Kate never told her where she kept the spare bulbs.

Three years, she thought with astonishment. Those lights had been up for three years. Emma and Kate, the most dynamic of duos, were roommates for three years; they were best friends for nearly ten. Every secret was told, every insecurity meticulously combed through, and every absolutely inconsequential story shared, over and over and over again, just for the sake of knowing each other.

And she never told me where she kept the freaking light bulbs.

Emma lightly tapped on the bulb with her nail and sighed. She backed up to sit on the wood floor next to a small side table. She sat crisscross applesauce, rested her elbow on her knee and her chin in her palm, and glanced at last night’s glass of merlot.

With a tiny smile, she remembered her first night out with Kate in Los Angeles. They went to Farfalla, the restaurant on the corner. She remembered the excitement in the air as they enjoyed their first promenade down their new street beneath a slowly emerging full moon and static palms. She remembered the rush of contentment as bread and olive oil graced their palettes. She remembered her words tripping off her tongue as she struggled through a giddy toast to their new lives and their first of many date nights. She vowed to continue these nights to keep their friendship thriving and not let it unravel into arguments about where dirty dishes go and the proper direction of toilet paper rolls. She could still hear Kate's laugh and the clang of their first glasses of Kate’s favorite merlot in their new city. She listened, grinning around a mouthful of gnocchi, to Kate happily explain tannins and little blackbirds. She remembered how she thought her glass was a reflection of the night itself: perfectly sweet.

Their fairy lights had warmed the street that night and many nights following. It lit the way as Emma and Kate, tipsy on the merlot and sweet, sweet gluten, stumbled back home. The roommates bobbed, weaved, and giggled through the empty street talking about Cassiopeia and Contact, with the scent of their neighbor’s bergamot trees making their block seem lovelier and dreamier by the minute. They snickered at the slice of cake in Kate’s bare hands and the whipped cream Emma was eating off of a fork that she had stolen from the restaurant. She had fully maintained that she would return the fork in good time.

I still have it, Farfalla, Emma thought now as she glared at the trattoria from her window. You can’t have it back.

Emma did not think last night’s merlot had been the same one she had shared with Kate that night, but it might as well have been. Merlot was merlot, to Emma, and what once tasted elegant and luxurious now tasted bitter, so bitter it had made her teeth hurt. When she first opened and tasted it the previous evening, she thought maybe she had not let it sit long enough, but half an hour later she tried again. Better, she thought, pouring herself a glass. But not right. She could not bring herself to finish it last night. She was, however, determined to finish it now.

Can wine really breathe too much?

She took one demure sip and gagged.

Christ, yes it can.

It sure can.

Emma shuddered and rested the bottom of the glass on her knee. She had other lights to turn on, she knew, but the ambiance of that single light bulb in a big window just felt too right for that moment. She took a deep breath as she felt the distant threat of crying wind up her chest and around her throat, and she closed her eyes to focus on her senses. She felt the cold nipping at her toes, so she carefully curled them under her legs. She smelled the oily and human aroma of her hair, which she had not felt bothered to wash in nearly a week. She heard the silence set in all around her, hollow and heavy. Slowly opening her eyes, she lingered on the last light bulb before forcing her gaze to Farfalla, one fork short of a set, as it sat in shadow down the street.

She took another sip.