We don’t serve champagne or any mixed drinks like a Bellini or mimosa. The Strauss is not a nightclub, a dessert bar, or a wine bar. The Strauss is nothing fancy. Our patrons know we’re nothing fancy and during my tenure as a bartender I have yet to hear someone order a bottle of wine let alone a glass of champagne. Beer and liquor, that’s our modus operandi.
So when a semi-regular named Lenore Wilde walked in with a $200 bottle of Krug, I was more than a little surprised.
“Got any nice glasses?” she asked in a depressed voice that didn’t match the celebration of the champagne.
“I can scare up something,” I replied and turned back.
We had a total of four goblets. I reached for one and began to clean it out, but Lenore, or Elle as she liked to be called, stopped me.
“I don’t care,” she said and reached for the glass and poured, filling her goblet to the top. “Grab a glass.”
“Oh, Elle, I couldn’t.”
“Yes, you could,” she replied to me.
“That is a $200 bottle of champagne.”
“No, this is a $500 bottle of champagne that was given to me for my new demotion that was disguised as a promotion. Now, drink,” she said holding the bottle ready for my glass.
I grabbed a glass down and placed it on the bar. Elle began to pour. “Not so full,” I told her. “I am working.”
She nodded her head and took a long gulp of the wine. I was a bit shocked. I figured Elle would do the whole production of looking at the light, smelling, and lightly tasting before committing to drinking. “If this hasn’t been the shittiest fucking month,” she said. I nodded and remained quiet. I could feel that she was on the verge of a rant. “I should have seen this fucking demotion coming. I should have. But when I found my fiancé cheating on me on my thousand-count Egyptian cotton sheets, I lost a bit of my focus.”
I looked at her shocked. I had no idea she was – had been – engaged.
“Don’t look so shock. I had to buy myself the ring.”
“Elle,” I said because what did you say when one of your patrons told you she was demoted at work and caught her cheap, penniless fiancé cheating on her.
“I’ll be okay,” she said and quickly finished off her glass. “Especially after I finish this bottle. Douche bag tools,” she said under her breath.
“I’ll marry you, Elle!” Eddie called from the kitchen.
“Thanks, Eddie,” she replied and braved a smile. “What do you think of the champagne?” she asked me.
I raised the glass to my lips and took a sip. Immediately the heady feeling of tingly bubbles filled my head. No matter how well conditioned my liver was, one sip of wine immediately brought me to my happy place. It was a mystery how a single sip of champagne could render me as incapacitated as three beers within an hour, an extremely stiff Long Island, or two shots of bourbon.
My happy place was the memory of my first sip of champagne. My junior year of college, Jazz and I turned twenty-one in September and November, no more than five weeks apart. That New Year’s was our very first New Year that we were able to drink legally.
To honor our newfound adult-dom and begin to entice Jazz into the family business, Jazz’s dad invited us to his accounting firm’s New Year’s Eve party. Every New Years, her dad started the New Year and the last free minutes of his life until April 15th with a party for his clients. It was a tax deduction. Being an accountant, Jazz’s dad was big on deductions.
Jazz and I had not missed a New Year’s together since we first met in third grade. My parents would drop me off at Jazz’s house for the evening. They were always crazy busy on New Year’s Eve. Jazz and I would watch her mother get all dolled up in make up, gorgeous diamond-encrusted jewelry she hardly ever wore, and these amazing dresses with her hair chicly piled on top of her head. One year, she was especially proud of Jazz’s dad for buying her a real Armani dress when he went to New York for a conference.
At some point, a sitter would come to the house. Jazz’s parents would leave with kisses for the two of us and instructions for the sitter. During the evening, Jazz and I would giggle and watch movies, driving the sitter absolutely nuts while we waited for the Big Apple to drop in Manhattan. The sitter had strict instructions to whisk the two of us off to bed as soon as the clock turned 12:01 a.m., but we couldn’t help but lay awake in her bed and think about what her parents may be doing.
We were positive that the party was a glamorous affair with glitter, balloons, magnificent fountains, and a live band that went absolutely nuts at midnight when everyone would wave their party favors and honk their horns. One such daydream of Jazz’s had her parents arriving in a gilded pumpkin carriage to dance the night away. Prince Charming was very disappointed with them for not brining their beautiful daughter and her daughter’s friend. What can I say except we loved our imaginations.
Needless to say, when Jazz’s father told her that we were both more than welcome to see what actually happened at the glamorous event, we were more than happy to make our thoughts and daydreams a reality. Like he did for her mother, Jazz’s father bought her an exquisite dress. It was a black Juicy Couture cocktail dress. I also had a surprise on Christmas morning. Jazz was in touch with my parents and they were more than happy to provide me with a black cocktail dress by Nicole Miller.
I spent the night at Jazz’s place the night before the party so we could get up early to work out. I still maintained my athletic discipline by running three days a week, but Jazz wasn’t one for sweating. Still, she was sure she’d look my like a size four than a size six if she ran. After our workout (which went better for me than for Jazz), we had our appointments for hair and nails. My nails were painted Midnight in Moscow, a dark blue that looked nearly black. Jazz’s nails were Va-Va Voom Red. With our manicures in place, we then skipped over to the hair salon. Jazz had a sleek chignon and mine was done in a loose French twist.
We had three hours to kill before we would leave for the party by the time we were done with all of our appointments. The time was spent drinking diet Coke and musing over friends, male friends, and boyfriends, conversations we thought high society women would engage in. Jazz said it was a pity that we weren’t married with children and spouses to complain about.
And then it was time for the party. We expected a limo to pull up in the drive and escort us in style to the glamorous event. Instead, we rode with Jazz’s parents in their Yukon. That was disappointment number one.
Disappointment number two was the location of the event. We should’ve known that in this town there was nowhere posh enough for the shindig we had pictured in our minds, but we were still pissed when we realized the event of our New Year’s Dreams was taking place in the downtown Holiday Inn.
While the tables and chairs were draped in satin linens, there was no flowing fountain, no silver and gold balloons. In fact, the only thing ornate about the whole thing was the 15-foot Christmas tree draped with white lights and icicle ornaments. Pretty? Yes, but not fit for our imagination. So the decorations were extremely scaled down. That was disappointment number three.
Not satisfied with the decorations, we took to people watching sure we’d find some men for the night. But as we gazed around the room, we found disappointment number four. We were the youngest people here.
From there, the disappointments kept stacking up. The hors d'oeuvres were terrible. Having skipped dinner, we were miserable and starving while Jazz’s parents expected us to put on happy faces and greet everyone with them. Also, we did not receive one New Year’s Eve hat, horn, or noisemaker. But once the majority of guests had arrived, Jazz’s mother took us over to the bar and gave us a glass of champagne.
With one sip from the champagne flute, the night didn’t seem so bad. At school, Jazz and I could both drink like a fish, drink some of our boy friends to shame, but once the champagne touched our tongues, our heads lightened and the world began to dance. It no longer mattered that the event we had dreamed about didn’t live up to our expectations, it didn’t matter that we were starving because the food here sucked, and it didn’t even matter that everyone in attendance was middle age and not attractive in our eyes. None of that mattered because once under the magnificent spell of the champagne all that mattered was that we were young, glamorous, and having a great time.
It was amazing what one sip of champagne could do, especially when that sip came from a $500 bottle of Krug. Coming back to down to Earth, I realized that Elle was still venting and I had missed quite a bit too.
“Men!” she complained.
Men. The tingling bubbles sighed the word breathlessly and my thoughts went to Levi. I hadn’t realized it before, but the start of a relationship was a bit like drinking champagne. Both parties went out of their way to impress the other, dressed up, got butterflies, worried over the right thing to say. And once the initial attraction was clear, there was the build up to sex.
Ah, the build up to sex. I don’t believe it is any possible for a woman to feel more sexy than those few days, hours, weeks, maybe even months before you agree to consummate the deal with your partner. For me, the wait was always at least a month. I lived by the dating credo that you should treat a new partner like a new job. Therefore, all benefits do not kick in for one month from the start date.
The One-Month Plan is partly to keep my virtue and self-respect intact. The other part is because like my namesake and unlike my surly demeanor, I like to be treated like a princess. It may take awhile to convince me to take a chance on you, but once I’ve made that decision, I like to make sure, I made the right decision. Hence, I take great pleasure in being wined and dined. Dinner, movies, drinks, walks in the park, intellectual conversation, pointlessly random conversation, and any other activities are how I evaluate my date’s performance at the one-month mark. I take my evaluations very seriously too.
So far, Levi wasn’t doing too badly of a job. Dinner, movies, drinks, and walks were a bit hard to do with me working as much as I did, and despite it all, he still tried to get me to actually leaving the tending to others. I probably could have switched shifts, but it just wasn’t ingrained in my DNA to shirk my duties onto someone else. Still, he did do conversation of the intellectual and pointlessly random variety quite well.
Since he first watched Casablanca and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest he had watched Apocalypse Now, Doctor Zhivago, Some Like it Hot, To Have and To Have Not, Dr. Strangelove, and Bring It On. Two of those, while I’ll admit I like, I mainly asked him to watch to see if he would indeed follow my advice. He did. He also made sure to give me plenty of shit for having him watch a movie about crazy, power-hungry cheerleaders.
We also discussed politics, a topic that is normally a no-no for me. He was a left-wing democrat and I am definitely a libertarian who believes people need to be held accountable for their own actions without the government cleaning up after us whenever something goes wrong.
From politics to cartoons, I was impressed he watched Transformers and had seen the movies as well. He also remembered the cartoon Jabberjaw, the Scooby Doo-esque great white shark that plays drums and foils many a villainous plot. Eddie laughed and said Levi was only agreeing with me to impress me. Like most people, Eddie believes this is a cartoon I have made up. I’ve told him numerous times to Google it.
With the one-month mark of my time with Levi looming, I decided that I would actually take a Friday night off so he could take me to dinner and let the activities begin. I hated to admit that Jazz was right. I didn’t mean too, but I had been hiding. I chose work over companionship. Work because it was there, it was solid, and it wasn’t leaving me. Companionship, no matter how loving and well meaning was always fleeting. While I wasn’t a person that could completely shut out the world, I could shut out the rest of the world, those people who hadn’t already barged into my little hidey-hole.
“I don’t even know why I try,” Elle huffed and all of those beautiful champagne bubbles began to pop inside my head. “I guess I didn’t believe that the glass ceiling was real, that I could possibly find the love that my parents have. I want to sit here and complain about fairness, but life isn’t fair. It’s something I have known. Had life been fair, things would…” her voice trailed off and Elle actually looked mournful. It was nothing compared to the anger and rejection she felt, and my mind began to wonder what she had left behind. Before I could wonder too much, Elle disrupted my thoughts, “My hard work, my loyalty…it’s all for naught.”
“Elle, I wish there was more…” my voice trailed off as I watched Elle begin to chug from a $500 bottle wine. Chugging from a bottle was never a good sign, but chugging from a bottle worth half a grand? That was a horse of a different color altogether. “Will you need a ride home?”
Elle laughed. “Am I that bad?”
I shook my head. “Not yet, but you’re chugging champagne that costs five bills.” Elle was silent but did look at the bottle in amazement. She didn’t seem the type to act first and think later, but tonight didn’t seem to be quite her night. Maybe for tonight acting first was exactly what she needed.
“So I am,” she said half shocked half completed unfazed. “I can manage to call a taxi.”
“Look, I don’t do it for everyone,” I said. “But over in the corner playing darts is Jill, the other full-time bartender. I’m sure I can twist her arm for long enough to mix drinks for the next hour while I get you home.”
Elle looked in Jill’s direction. I wasn’t sure if she knew Jill, but she seemed curious. “I can manage fine on my own,” she said in an uncharacteristically petulant voice.
I gave Elle a thorough once over. She may have about five years on me, a better job, and better standing in the community, but she didn’t have my knowledge of people. “I’m sure you can manage fine on your own, Elle. I manage fine on my own too. But everyone now and then, it is nice to sit back and let someone else manage for you. It doesn’t have to be every day; it may only happen once a year. It doesn’t necessarily have to be to your best friend or some seemingly male soul mate. Just let someone else manage for a minute.”
Elle sighed and became engrossed in the champagne label. “I have two more of these bottles in the car,” she groused. “This one was from Hansbury, my CEO. He asked me out last month after he noticed my engagement ring was gone. I told him no. The other bottle is from Peter Hankinson, the CFO who is an absolute idiot and knows I think that. And then third bottle, that’s from board chairman Wes Roberts who hugged me and said ‘Honey, do us proud.’ I always thought he had a clear head on his shoulders and could see the number fudging that was going on, but…he has no idea! None! And Hansbury and Hankinson now have me out of the way.”
I laughed and Elle looked at me a little stunned. “If that’s true, imagine the scandal when that comes out in this economy. Do you really want to be surrounded by that?”
She mulled my words over. “Smart words for a bartender.”
“Don’t knock bartending,” I said and gave a smile. She had come into the bar enough for this to be a running a joke – me being too smart to be a bartender. My standard is to say that we come in all shapes and sizes and that I can pay my bills. Jazz mocks my standard answer.
She smiled at me. “I think tonight, I can let the bartender manage.” She nodded her head and stretched her arms. “I am going to need some strips. And how about a whiskey sour?”
“If the bartender is managing tonight, that whiskey sour is a beer.”
She wrinkled her nose at me, but relented. “Before that comes out, I’m taking a trip to the little girls’ room,” she said and then stood up. “Whoa,” she swayed and reached for the bar. Her eyelashes flicker a couple of times and then she righted herself. “Champagne bubbles. I always forget how fast they hit me.”
I answered her with a smile, “And they always seem to take you to a happy place.”
Elle laughed. “That they do. But so does a bottle of whiskey.”
I laughed as Elle walked, or more correctly stumbled a bit to the bathroom. Champagne and whiskey did make you feel happy. The problem was learning to say “when” to that happiness. Like all good things, the ending comes way too fast. In the case of whiskey and champagne, the ending came in the morning when the jury rendered its verdict on your indulgence. Indulge in too much happiness and you just might wake up to a sentence served out on the bathroom floor.
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