A Glass of Orange Wine

As Ida trudged home, weighed down by three layers and a woolly scarf, the sun dipped below the extended arms of the skyscrapers around her, and the sky turned the pinky blush of salmon. She buried her nose into her scarf as the sun greedily stole any remaining warmth along with it and readjusted her hold on the gift bag in her left hand so her coat could better protect her exposed fingers. When she left her apartment this morning, she hadn’t thought to bring gloves. She would have forgotten her keys if Callie, her roommate, hadn’t reminded her, and maybe her head, too, if it weren’t already attached at the neck.

The edifice of her apartment building was almost enough to make Ida cry in relief, tired eyes blinking away needlepoint pain, which would have been a wild occurrence, given the circumstances of her day and how she had remained stoic through it all. She took the stairs slowly, focused intently on each flex and extension of her thighs and calves underneath her slacks, all the way up to the third floor and the beige door of apartment 3A, where she lived with Callie and their mildly overweight, extremely fluffy cat, Tilda.

Mildly useless from the cold, Ida’s fingers fiddled with the key and turned the lock after one unsuccessful attempt. The rush of warm air greeted her like an overly enthusiastic great aunt, pinching the apples of her cheeks, the tips of her ears, the joints of her knuckles, and she released her last cool breath as she closed the door behind her.

The apartment smelled of vanilla, some cheap candle Callie had purchased while they were waiting in line at the grocery store earlier that week, and a bit like Callie herself, all earthy sweat and Tilda fur.

“Home,” Ida called as she shook off her coat, taking special care to pass the gift bag from hand to hand as she removed each sleeve.

“Home!” Callie echoed from the living room, just barely out of sight beyond the entry hallway. “How’d it go?”

“Um,” Ida mused ineloquently, though too quiet for Callie to hear, as she considered how her visit with her father went. She toed off her boots and placed them neatly beside Callie’s haphazardly kicked-off tennis shoes. Next went her scarf, settled gently onto the hook with their coats, Ida’s charcoal grey and Callie’s downy pink. “It went alright.”

“Oh yeah?”

She forced back a heavy sigh and finally made her way to the living area, having run out of articles of clothing to procrastinate with.

Their living room was pleasantly cozy, thanks to Callie’s collecting of anything and everything soft and plushy and technicolor, as well as her disdain for overhead lighting and LED bulbs. Callie was lounging on their rusty brown sofa with a thick, burgundy blanket tucked expertly around her legs, an empty glass on the end table next to her, right beside a novel she had undoubtedly spent the entire day working through. A stranger to the anxieties of speed and meeting deadlines, Callie always took ages to finish books, unlike Ida. She didn’t bother herself with feeling guilty for not spending her time on things that didn’t bring her joy—all qualities of which Ida worked diligently not to feel too jealous.

Callie waited not-so-patiently for Ida to sit on the opposite end of the sofa and place her bag in her lap before she said, “You don’t look like it went alright.”

Ida shrugged. She couldn’t disagree, but she couldn’t explain her feelings further. Visiting her father, as always, was an exercise in mental fortitude and compartmentalization that might take days or weeks to fully decipher and sift through.

“What’s the book?” Ida asked.

Callie pursed her lips and blindly grabbed for it over her shoulder. “A ridiculous romance novel with a woman who can do no wrong and a man who could benefit from a long drive over a cliff,” she said as she presented the cover, a bright blue thing with the illustrated likeness of two faceless cartoon lovers aptly titled Dumb Love. Ida smirked.

“Naturally.”

“Naturally,” Callie agreed with a long, drawn-out sigh, and let the book fall to her lap with a thump. “What’s the bag?”

Ida’s smirk slipped away, and she readjusted her tight hold on the brown paper; she fought back a cringe as it crinkled noisily. The only other sound in the room was the faint crackle of the vanilla candle’s wick. Callie hadn’t cut it first, so it was guttering out black smoke now and then, and Ida almost redirected the conversation to complain about it, but she knew Callie wouldn’t fall for that.

“My dad gave me some wine,” she explained, and Callie’s expression scrunched in confusion.

“He… gave you… wine,” she repeated, slowly and suspiciously.

“Orange. The stuff we always had growing up. I was, like, ten when he first let me try it.”

Callie hummed and leaned forward; Ida preemptively held the bag to her chest so Callie couldn’t snatch it away. As was her original intention, Callie merely grabbed the edge of her blanket and launched it toward Ida’s feet so Ida would be covered, too.

Ida smiled sheepishly and gratefully took the cover. It was already warm from Callie’s body heat, and she scooched further down beneath it to maximize the welcome rise in temperature.

“Should we drink it?” Callie asked.

“No,” Ida said quickly. “No, you don’t have to do that.”

“Do what? Drink wine? Oh no. How dreadful.”

“But it’s.” Ida waved one hand through the air as she trailed off, trying to explain her hesitation without digging too deeply into a topic she really, really didn’t want to dredge up. Not when she was already so exhausted. “Have you ever even had it before? This kind.”

“No, but it’s wine. I have had wine before.”

“But this is different,” Ida said.

“A different flavor and color, sure.”

“And from my dad.”

“Sure.” Callie studied Ida, picking at the edges of her book with her fingernails. She had painted them brown a few days ago while they both watched the newest episode of some horrid reality show Ida didn’t even know the name of. One nail’s polish was already chipped in one corner. “Can I see it?”

Fighting through her bones’ desire to seize up at the thought, Ida plucked the tissue paper from the top and pulled the bottle out by the neck. It was still cold, left over from the outside air and her father’s freezer. Ida turned the bottle so the gold, embossed label faced Callie. Once she read the name, Callie’s eyelids fluttered in rapid blinks.

“Cal,” Ida whispered. “Don’t cry.”

“I’m not,” Callie said fiercely, undermined by the distinct shininess and redness of her hazel eyes beneath her glasses. “You’re right. I’ve never had this kind.”

“I should drink it alone, then.”

Callie shook her head fiercely. “Why?”

“Because it’s mine.” Ida rolled the bottle from palm to palm. It was so cold that it hurt to hold for longer than a second, but the thought of someone else partaking in it left her chest in a vice and her throat in a coil of barbed wire. “He gave it to me. I don’t want to be ungrateful.”

“It’s not the best gift ever.”

“He’s never given me anything else,” Ida admitted.

Callie tabled the book and peeled herself from her cocoon. For a moment, Ida thought Callie was going to shrug and walk away from this dead-end conversation, leaving Ida alone with this before she was ready. Ida wouldn’t beg her to stay. But Callie just piled her side of the blanket around Ida’s frame, padded softly to the kitchen (she had a thing about walking on the balls of her feet when barefoot), and returned a second later, clutching a small object—a bottle opener.

She held it out to Ida, who stared at it while she gnawed on the inside of her cheek.

“What happens if I run out?”

“We won’t drink it all. We don’t even have to mention it again after tonight if you don’t want to.” Ida gingerly lifted the metal corkscrew. “You’re better about this wine thing. You’ve had it for years, so I probably won’t be able to pick up all of the notes and specific tastes you will. I won’t be able to tell you the year or where it came from. I have had wine, though, and I know it can taste different when you drink it alone. I think this is the kind that needs to be shared.”

“You’ll hate it.”

“What I hate is that you think you have to drink it by yourself.”

Ida considered her roommate’s heavy stare and clenched the tool until it hurt her fingers. Then she breathed deeply through her nose and pressed the end into the cork, freeing the neck of the packaging and wriggling the stopper free in one go. The scent of fermented grapes assaulted Ida’s nose, and she bit back a gag. Callie gingerly took the items from her hand, leaving only the bottle, then lifted her glass from the end table and held it out.

Before she could reconsider, Ida tipped the orange liquid into the glass and tried not to worry about the reckless way it splashed against the clear walls and threatened to spill over. Callie loved their white rug, and Ida would hate to ruin it or anything else.

Callie took a seat on the coffee table instead of the couch so they were facing each other. “Together?” she asked, a determined expression on her face.

Ida knew Callie could be serious when she wanted to be, but those moments were so few and far between that it took her aback for a moment. She had no reason to be so shocked that her best friend was this somber when it came to Ida’s well-being, but maybe it was just difficult for her to think that way in general, that anyone could care so much about her in the first place.

“What if we just… toss it in the back of the freezer and forget about it?” Ida asked, even as she raised the freezing bottle to her lips, her breath whistling over the opening.

“You know you can’t do that,” Callie said, boldly acknowledging Ida’s inability to let anything about her family go.

“Right. Okay. Cheers, then.”

With those words, muttered like grace before a meal, both women took a sip of the wine and swallowed. Ida, who had tasted this from her early childhood and beyond, starting all the way back when her father first started pulling away, winced only slightly at its dryness and licked the remnants from her lips. Callie, who had two married parents who used to be and still were active participants in her life, bared her teeth and shook her head in disgust.

A tear finally slipped down Callie’s cheek, and Ida brushed it away without a word. Callie reached for the bottle, and this time, Ida let her take it and place it beside her on the table with her own glass, both still mostly full.

“That’s awful,” Callie admitted.

“I used to like it a lot,” Ida offered in return. “I used to think that anything was better than nothing. I didn’t even know other wines existed until I grew up.”

Callie took Ida’s now-empty hands in hers and rubbed a mindless pattern with her thumbs.

“I’m definitely more of a rosé gal.”

“I know,” Ida said with a small smile. She traced the gilded label with tired eyes. “Thanks for drinking it with me anyway.”

“Any time,” Callie said, and Ida believed her, just as she believed Callie was right. A wine called Grief was at least a bit sweeter when shared.