Champagne is for getting swept off her feet.
It’s for first meetings and shiny jewelry and coquettish glances under heavy mascara.
It’s for a new pair of lips meeting her rouge-tinted ones, a new hand curling in her hair, a
new body pressed against hers. It’s for new, exciting things, for reinvigorating an all-too
fleeting youth and reinstalling an all-too fleeting confidence. Her laughter bubbles over
like the fizz forming at the mouth of the bottle. Champagne is for a first date at a fancy
place way outside her budget, but the handsome face sitting across from her makes it
worth it. It’s for a tipsy walk back to her date’s apartment with a wonderful warmness
gripping her chest and complacency muddling her mind. Champagne is for being made
love to, and she feels something sparking right then and there, like when bubbles pop in
her mouth.
Feni is for falling in love.
It’s for exotic trips to south Asia and plenty of humor (“Wait, what is this called? Feni?
Out of cashews? Wow, you really can make alcohol out of anything!”). It’s for long,
soporific afternoons bathing in the hot sun and being kissed over and over again until
she feels her existence melting away to the man she wants — needs. It’s for losing her
mind and inhibitions, the days blurring together into a routine — food, fun, sleep, food,
fun, sleep, food, fun, sleep. Her partner is the axis of which her world rotates on; the
gifts she is showered with and his gentle caresses pull her in until the gravity is causing
her to crash towards him. The ecstasy and bliss she comes to associate with her lover
dawns a wonderfully terrifying realization: she’s completely in love.
Beer is for simple beginnings.
It’s for moving into a new apartment and cardboard boxes and paying rent. It’s for
relaxation after a long day at work, and opening doors to unwind. It’s for beginning a
new reality that she’s so enraptured by that it still feels like a dream. It’s for chatting and
sharing secrets under the stars on the fire escape. It’s for flipping news channels and
shopping for curtains and making (and subsequently burning) the dinner. Beer is there
when they find themselves enamored by domesticity. They’ve begun to prefer these
moments of cheap take-out and post-coital silence over cool nights in the
Mediterranean and surfing on Florida beaches. It’s also when, as she sips a can of Bud
Light and lets the bitter taste lull her brain into happy mindlessness, she decides she
may as well be married to this man, because she now refuses anyone else, forever.
He’s ruined her in the best way possible, so they marry in the spring.
Cider is for parties.
They invite people over often, open bottles upon bottles as they eat and chat and sing
nineties tunes. Her mind is buzzing after the third glass. Between gossip and house
tours, a pleasant warmth in her stomach grows whenever someone compliments how
right they are for one another. She nods, feigning a noncommittal expression, even
though she’s swimming in her own joyous disbelief. How did she manage to find her
soulmate? The one person she’s made for, the only one she’ll ever have, ever want,
ever need. She doesn’t want to live without these endless nights of guests and finger
foods and drinks. She couldn’t.
Gin is for waiting.
She’s been told that the workload piles up at her husband’s office. They have to meet
the end-of-the quarter cutoffs for their bonuses. It doesn’t bother her much; he’s very
focused on his career and she wouldn’t dare be an inconvenience for him. She begins
to cook meals for one instead of two. Her husband comes home at late hours,
exhausted beyond belief. He usually collapses on the couch, absorbed in his own little
world, numbers dancing in his head to the tune of his far-away workplace. She takes the
liberty in easing his pain by providing a glass of gin and tonic. It’s not her favorite drink,
and it’s neither his, but it’s enough. Afterwards, he crawls into bed, and she goes after
him, watching him with adoration as he trudges up the stairs to their bedroom. She’s
heard that such periods of stagnancy — dips — are inevitable in relationships. It would
be selfish of her to whine and complain. She loves him, earnestly and completely, and
that means she must make herself as receptive to his behaviors as possible. She needs
him, needs this relationship.
Wine is for delusion.
The nights without him become longer. She comes to that realization one evening at
eight o’clock, sipping on Chardonnay. Lately, he’s become too tired for gin, and instead
opts to sleep immediately. His smile is weaker, more tired. His eyes are more distracted
and he fidgets perpetually. They drink a lot more often. Now and then, she’ll briefly
contemplate beginning a discussion on children, just to keep him home more. She’s
desperate for redamancy, for his hands all over her body, to watch that expression of
unadulterated affection flutter back onto his face. Wine helps her cope with some of the
loneliness. It helps her lose her sense of time, turns the world syrupy-sweet, and she’s
able to trick her awful mind that he’ll come home soon. She imitates the role of a trophy
suburban housewife, longing for her husband while pretending to sweep the floors. Over
time, she realizes, she has a better chance of finishing half the bottle and passing out
on the couch before he gets home. She drinks extra to try and ignore the smell of
unfamiliar perfume on him.
Vodka is to numb the pain.
The pain in her heart, the pain of the bruises, the pain of the truth. Her throat is sore
from all the yelling, but it’s nothing in comparison to the liquid fire scorching her
esophagus. He’s gone. He’s stormed off, and she wonders if she’ll ever see him again.
She’s sorry. She’s so, so sorry. She didn’t mean to get angry. It had just slipped out. He
had said he’d be leaving for a week-long business trip, and she, unable to bear the
combined weight of her brewing hurt and mistrust over the past months, had lashed out,
accusing him of cheating. In turn, he’d erupted too. His hands were all over her, but not
in the gentle way they used to be. Their voices were raised, but not laughing or calling
out each other’s names.
And now, she’s on the floor, sobbing uncontrollably.
Please come back, she repeats hoarsely into the silence of her apartment. She clings to
those words like a prayer, begging to anyone and anything to bring him back. She’d
throw herself at his feet for a chance at forgiveness. She was wrong for losing her
patience. Maybe there was a rational explanation to it all. She shouldn’t have yelled at
him like that. And she’s so, so sorry. It’s so cold without him by her side, without the
knowledge of when — if — he’ll come back.
It’s really, really cold, so she takes another sip.
Once the hangover has passed and the weight of her grief has dispersed from her chest
to her sinus, she hobbles to the bathroom. Every step she takes in bitter sobriety
beckons her back into the reprieve of stupor.
She makes it, however, and flicks on the light to their bathroom. Her face stings from
the (hours? Days? It would have surely been years) that she’s been weeping. She runs
her hands underneath the warm water, and blood rushes back into her fingertips all too
hastily. They turn red with feeling.
She splashes the water onto her face and examines herself in the mirror.
Water is for revelation.
-Meghana Vadassery