Negroni

by Cambria Gifford

Everyone you love will die.

      My grandmother used to say that after I smuggled her my mother’s gin. Holding the bottle by its neck, bloody lipstick all over its mouth, she would tell my sister and I about her many husbands, how each one’s death was worse than the last. After a while, the names and dates got so muddled that I couldn’t figure out who my real grandfather was. When I asked, my grandmother would shrug and say she couldn’t remember.

       My mother always found out about the gin.

       “Stop enabling her,” she’d scold. “She’s a recovering alcoholic.”

       “No,” I’d say. “She’s just an alcoholic.”

       Then next week the gin would be in a new hiding place. Our grandmother treated it like a scavenger hunt and my sister and I would race to see who could find it first. Easter eggs? Try liquor bottles. We’d find them in the washing machine. Under the bed.  Nestled in the hose outside. You’d think my mother would’ve stopped buying them, but she couldn’t face life sober either. 

       Once, as a kid, I promised my grandmother that as soon as I turned twenty-one, I’d buy her as much gin as she could drink. But I have a feeling she secretly liked the paucity of it, because although she smiled and smoothed my hair, there wasn’t pride on her face. Just a cocktail of shame and sadness.

        Now I’m thirty, and the only person I have to buy gin for is myself.

       The big ice cube in my Negroni ticks as it melts. This means I’m hydrated. The more the ice melts, the more water I drink. 

      There’s a run in my tights, starting at the back of my knee and going up my thigh. My sister would balk if she knew I wore ripped tights to a funeral. She reeks of effortless perfection, even in the face of an open casket. Her hair as glossy and coiffed as ever, her cheeks pink, her lips red. Her demure little no, thank you whenever someone offers a drink and that haughty eyebrow raised in my direction as I accept on her behalf. 

        That eyebrow is worse than a lecture, but I get those too. I’m worried about you. You need to take care of yourself. This is dangerous.

        And yet somehow her neighbors’ recycling bins keep filling with wine bottles. Even when they go on vacation.

       “At least I’m fucking honest,” I mumble. “Rules for thee, not for me,” I say in a posh British accent, then snort into my glass.

         “Can I get you a water, miss?” 

    I look up and squint, definitely one or two rounds past being capable of embarrassment. It’s the mousy bartender. Her eyes slip past mine and come to rest on one of the many empty booths behind me. No doubt she wishes there was at least one other patron to talk to, but I’m giving her quite a lot of business all by my lonesome.

      “One sec.” I tip the rest of my drink back and swallow, with some effort. “I’d love a water.”

       She nods hesitantly and darts around the corner.

       I lick my chapped lips. I tilt my head too far to the side trying to catch the sultry jazz tune that tinkles from the speakers. I tilt my head back the other way, to balance it out, and end up nearly falling off the stool just as the bartender rounds the corner with my water. 

       I’m already itching for another Negroni. I don’t drink them because they taste good—they taste like herbs soaked in gasoline. But so long as I don’t like what I’m drinking, I can never crave it. Or that’s how it’s supposed to work, at least, but here I am—itching for one.

      The bartender sets my water on a thick coaster. I smile sweetly at her, the way my sister would. She flinches like she’s been stung, so I slip into a grimace, an expression that sits much more naturally on my face.

       “Thank you.” I reach for the glass and miss, knocking my fingers against it. As if it didn’t happen, I say, “And I’ll have another round, please.” I close my wet fingers securely around the glass, to prove I can, but don’t lift it in fear of spilling more. 

        The bartender peers at me for slightly too long, the most eye contact she’s made thus far, then nods and scampers away.

        I let go of the water, jostling another spill from it, and shrug my coat off. It flops to the floor because I forgot there’s no back to my seat. I don’t rescue it; it’s already about half lint, because I didn’t think the tag was serious about being “dry clean only.” But it’s the blackest thing I have, and I wasn’t going to borrow and ruin something else of my sister’s.  She would just hold it over my head, like she will with these tights and this dress, which I’ve definitely spilled Negroni on. Even after I wash it she’ll still sniff it out like a bloodhound. And then she’ll hold both my hands in hers, like when we were kids having pretend séances, and stare imploringly into my eyes and beg me to get sober. Meanwhile another bottle finds its way into her neighbor’s bin, so, sober my ass.

        I close my eyes halfway, so everything dims and blurs. Dreamlike. The dark wood of the bar gleams. I brush my fingers against the velvet seat cushion beneath me. I chose this hotel specifically because of this bar, because of the black and gold marbled floor and the gauzy silk draped over the chandeliers and the heavy curtains on the walls that muffle the blood rushing in my ears. My tongue traces my lips again, and I find a loose bit of skin. I clamp it between my tongue and teeth and yank. A prick of pain. A bead of blood swells on my lip. I swallow it with a sip of water.

      The bartender reappears, but instead of a drink, she brings a man in a suit. I’m barely sober enough to know that I’m about to be kicked out.

      “Bill my room, please,” I say, before the man can start the spiel.

     I get up and gracelessly scoop my coat off the floor and teeter into the lobby. It’s far more brightly lit than the bar, and I’m suddenly far more aware of my lint and my tights and my dress reeking of liquor.  

      “Miss?” The man in the suit is in front of me again. “What’s your room number?”

      I look at him, albeit unsteadily.

     “Are you a guest at this hotel?” he asks. The woman at the front desk is watching our exchange passively. I know she remembers me checking in two days ago—I know she remembers my puffy eyes and sniffles and used tissues spread all over the counter as I dug for my wallet. She says nothing.

     “Miss?” The man’s stare is unrelenting. “Do I need to call security?” He takes a step toward me and I quite literally almost throw up on him. I think he sees it in my face, because he quickly retreats.

        “I’m a guest,” I tell him. “Room 338. McDuff. Like the dog.” 

      He looks to the woman, who confirms with a slight, bored nod. He steps aside and waves his hand toward the elevators. “My apologies. Have a nice evening.”

        I say nothing in return, which is about as rude as I get.

      The elevator takes an excruciatingly long time to arrive. I stand there, tapping my foot and avidly avoiding the stare of the woman at the front desk. 

       Ding. 

      Elevator music. I come face to face with the mirror on the back wall. Despite wearing her dress, my sister is nowhere in my reflection. My hair sprouts up around my head like a dandelion puff. My tasteful dark lipstick has faded, so it just looks like I’ve been eating handfuls of dirt. My cheeks are puffy and blotchy. I didn’t wear mascara to avoid it streaming down my cheeks in thin black rivers, but it doesn’t even matter because I didn’t cry. Everyone at the funeral was expecting me to, so I didn’t. I try once more to mimic my sister’s smile–I drag and stretch my lips and I now understand why the bartender flinched. It’s a smile fit for the morgue.

      I weave down the hallway. The pattern on the carpet hurts my eyes, swirls and whorls and big black blobs, so I look at the ceiling to quell the nausea. My room is blessedly clean, the sheets tucked so tight I have to really heave them free. And then I’m standing there in my black clothes and death is oozing from my pores. 

      I lurch to the shower. Everything is too bright so I flick off the lights. I peel the tights from my legs and put them straight in the trash. The dress goes into the sink, which I fill with hot water. I congratulate myself on this brilliant and proactive idea that will surely purge all Negroni from it. 

     The shower is icy and then searing. Water pressure nonexistent. But the body wash smells like syrupy sweet watermelon. I scrub my face with it and it gets into my eyes and stings and I tell myself that’s the reason I’m finally crying. 

       I barely dry off before stumbling to bed. My sopping hair soaks the pillows. I cradle my head in the crook of my arm and look at the wall and think of how annoyed my sister will be that I ruined her tights and dress and then I remember that she won’t care because she’s dead.