Four-Wheeler Therapy
Pearl’s sister broke out the cherry wine somewhere between the juice boxes and bologna sandwiches.
“Dare we?” Sherry asked.
Pearl hated wine. So did her sister.
Pearl cut a sandwich in half for her 3-year-old while sending a shocked yet pleased look over his head to Sherry.
“Let’s just open this wine and try to learn to like it,” Sherry said, unearthing a corkscrew from the back of her junk drawer.
They were both 33-years old and neither adept at cracking open a bottle of wine.
“We’re pathetic,” Pearl said, snapping the cork off half in the bottleneck, half out.
“Give it here.” Sherry poked the remainder of the cork into the bottle and watched it float before pouring two glasses in plastic wine glasses. Sherry’s was neon pink, Pearl’s grassy green.
“Cheers!” The plastic thudded in an unsatisfying way. Their four children, (two to each) cousins, dirty from running in the sprinkler, tan from a summer of no shirts and no school, ran in the yard. Their sandwiches spoiled, untouched, in the 90-degree heat.
This is when the giggles started. Neither of them could tolerate more than a few swallows of the sour cherry wine. Pearl spit hers, with much fanfare, into the burning bush at the edge of the deck. From their chaise lounges, they laughed.
“What’s so funny, Mom?” asked Sherry’s oldest. He was the ringleader at age 7 and the self-designated etiquette police.
“Nothing, honey, nothing.”
“Just boozing on a Thursday afternoon,” Pearl whispered in a stifled giggle. The sisters had, until this very afternoon, lived a prim and proper life. They’d grown up in a little town, never got very drunk or very pregnant until they got married, lived less than 5 miles from the home they’d grown up in, had good jobs, good kids, good families. They’d never dreamed of getting drunk on a Thursday afternoon.
