“What kind of bar is that?” Trevor asked.
“Exactly.” I grimaced. “And it was like pulling teeth; trying to get a drink from this damn bartender. I finally tell him, 'Okay, I know you have wine back there; I saw the bottles being carried in.' Caleb says, 'Yeah; I got red, I got white.' I grimace at him and say, 'Thanks so much for the description; you should be a sommelier.'”
“I take it this Caleb didn't know what a sommelier is,” Re said dryly.
“He thought she'd insulted him!” Tristan chortled.
“Which I did with my sarcasm. He got the tone if not the word.” I shrugged. “Before he could squash me with his big, meaty fist—”
“Or sit on you and smother you to death,” Tristan added.
I gave him a look, and he giggled.
“Before he could say anything more,” I amended, “my Aunty Ray stepped in and asked him if they at least had any wine coolers. Hell, all he would have needed was some 7up and he could have made her one. But he's nearly as baffled by wine coolers as he was by sommelier. He says, 'What? I got wine in da coolers, but I no more wine coolers,” I mimicked Caleb's thick accent, and Tryst giggled.
“Classy,” Re said dryly.
“Oh, she's just getting started,” Tristan said.
“Aunty Ray says, 'Fine, give me a glass of red.' Caleb fills up a plastic party cup with red wine and hands it to her. Next comes my sweet sister-in-law. She says, 'Um... can I have a CabSav?'” I mimicked Renee's sweet voice and finally got a giggle out of Re. “Caleb looks utterly dumbfounded; the three of us were his first customers and there we were throwing all these strange words at him. He obviously thought that bartending was just pouring wine into cups. Caleb scowls at Renee and says, “I got red. I got white.”
The guys kind of chuckled but Tristan motions that there's more coming.
“Renee just blinks at Caleb as if she can't comprehend his level of stupidity. So, I tell him that she'll take a red and, ironically, it turns out to be Cabernet Sauvignon.” I rolled my eyes. “Caleb fills a cup up to the brim and hands it to tiny, Japanese Renee, whose eyes go wide as she holds the cup up to her face. She starts to say something, and I whisper, 'Just say thank you, Renee.' She meekly says thank you and then whispers to me, 'But I'm going to drink it all.' Japanese people don't waste, you see. I told Renee that was the point and ordered a red for myself.”
“Lovely,” Re said.
“She's not done,” Tristan said.
“This is a long story,” Re noted.
“You asked for it,” I reminded him.
“Fair enough,” he agreed. “Continue.”
“Oh, thank you, Great Sun God,” I huffed.
Tristan giggled again and it made putting up with Re worth it.
“So, I proceeded to get sloppy drunk with Renee, Ray, and my brother,” I went on. “We had a nice buzz going until we nearly got blasted away from a rendition of 'The Circle of Life' by that damn opera singer. Honestly, I didn't think anyone actually knew the words to the beginning of that song, much less could sing them so very loudly.”
“Nants ingonyama bagithi baba!” Tristan sang out, startling all of us.
“Vas zat Zulu?” Kirill asked as he came into the room.
“That's the opening line to 'The Circle of Life,'” Tristan explained.
“Actually, I think it is Zulu,” I mused.
“You should sing it for Fallon,” Kirill suggested as he took a seat. “He vould love zat.”
“Elton John sings it, honey,” I said as I patted Kirill's hand. “It's from The Lion King.”
“Vervain's telling us a story about her human life,” Re said.
Tristan blinked. Yeah; it was strange for me to hear it put that way too. My human life; as if it were completely separate from the life I was living now. But I guess it was.
“Anyway,” I went on before Tristan started looking depressed again. “The drunk was Zulued right out of us. Then we wandered around the Aquarium, and I got lost trying to find Nemo.”
Kirill and Trevor chuckled while Re frowned.
“I finally had some success when I got to the Clown Fish tank, but I couldn't decide which of them was him. I asked a little girl for help, and we spent a bit of time looking for one with a gimpy fin, but then her mother pulled her away from my drunk ass.” I chuckled. “Then I ended up sprawled across the benches in the shark arena contemplating the similarities between it and my life. That's where my brother found me. He was shouting something about trying to get me another drink before the bar closed, but Caleb wouldn't give him one because it was too close to closing time. T.J. went on and on about what a prick Caleb was, and I was like, 'It's okay, Brother, I'll get my wine. Don't you worry.'”
“Oh, no,” Kirill murmured.
“I stumbled out of the shark arena with my brother and plopped down in my seat at our unreserved table to wait for an opportunity to present itself,” I said. “T.J. ran off to yell at someone else so it was just me and Renee. By that time, most of the partygoers had left, but we were stuck there because a drunk doctor had crashed his Porsche into a coconut tree and blocked the only road out.”
“He crashed into a coconut tree?” Trevor asked dryly.
“It happens.” I shrugged. “So, anyway, there was this camera crew going around recording messages for my cousin. I noticed them nearby, and the guy with the mic met my eye. He said to my Aunt, 'Hey, we haven't got those
