LAURENT-PERRIER
“Perhaps sweet wine today…” Carina whispered to herself as her fingertip slid on the shiny wine glass. The wine she bought every day, for Jean, somehow seemed a bit less appealing today. The shop owner glanced her way and smiled with a kindness Carina became less used to recognizing in people’s faces.
“Trouble choosing?” he asked, nodding towards the wine bottle Carina now held. She paused, both to process the heavily accented French and to consider her response to the shop owner. This was a good opportunity to practice her French which she desperately tried to learn in the past six months.
“I wanted to try something new,” she said, smiling at the owner, who was now putting some bottles on the shelf. She wondered if her accent sounded strange, so she tried to gauge the man’s expression for any hint of mockery as he turned his face back to her.
“Have you tried Muscat de Rivesaltes or Muscat de Saint-Jean-de-Minervois? They are both sweet.”
As she was looking for the wines the man suggested the usual Cabernet Sauvignon caught her eye with its typical black and white appearance. Carina envisioned Jean cradling the bottle, its deep, dark glass cold to the touch. It was dry, but most importantly, it was cheap wine. She imagined the crimson liquid on the tip of her tongue. The heavy, dominant flavor.
“Yes, I will have Muscat de Rivesaltes,” Carina said, hoping to not make a huge mistake in the language she was trying so hard to learn within the past few months. There was not a person whom she would speak to in French, except for Jean, and she did not particularly like practicing French with her French husband, or maybe it was the other way around.
The man pointed to the exact place the sweet wine was located, and Carina smiled as she pulled it from the shelf. The gleaming, golden bottle seemed weightless in her grasp, and as she lifted it from the shelf.
“Thank you,” Carina said, her smile glowing with sincere gratitude as she left the shop, already looking forward to the owner’s suggestions for other wines on her next visit.
As she walked back to their house, Carina mulled over the price of the bottle in her bag, knowing it was more than Jean would typically spend on wine. She could almost hear his voice. “This is how you become poor,” he would say, whenever she suggested indulging in a more luxurious wine or item. The weight of the bottle suddenly felt heavier in her bag.
Humming a melody to herself, as if to drown out her thoughts, Carina recalled the tunes of an Italian pop song that had stayed with her since she moved to France for Jean. Her husband had been adamant that Paris was the city for their future. Looking up at the buildings, she continued humming the melody that reminded her of her childhood. She wondered if she could ever speak French the way Jean did.
Once at home, Carina prepared dinner. Soon enough, Jean rang the bell, and Carina sat down with her husband, as they did every day, to talk about everyday things.
“How was your day?” she asked in French, her voice filled with enthusiasm, as she poured the wine into the glasses she had bought back when she had just moved to Paris. She remembered how Jean had thought they were a bit too expensive. Jean loosened his tie as he found his place on the chair. The weight of the day seemed to be on his shoulders.
“Alright, a bit tired,” he replied in English. Pulling back the sleeves of his white shirt, he seemed confused at the liquid that was filling his glass.
“What is that?”
Carina raised an eyebrow, looking at the wine. She chuckled as if her joke had been misunderstood.
“It’s different. Sweet.”
Carina carefully poured the coq au vin from the pot onto Jean’s plate. She had taken the time to learn how to cook it because she knew it was his favorite.
Jean’s gaze met Carina’s, his expression heavy with disappointment, tinged with another emotion she couldn’t quite identify.
“You know I never drink sweet.”
Carina sat quietly in her chair, pondering why sweet wine had become the focal point of their evening. She couldn’t help but wonder why Jean couldn’t indulge in a glass of wine of her choice, even just for one evening. Why did it always have to be that cheap, dry wine every single time?
“I like it. We never drink it,” uttered Carina, marked by a slight note of desperation. She hoped to share her passion for the wine with Jean, wanting him to join her, at least this time.
“And there is a reason why we don’t,” Jean said. He poured his wine into the sink a few steps away from the table. “Please do not buy that again.”
Carina swallowed the words that rose to her throat, but they felt stuck, lingering there for the rest of the night. It created a knot that even her sweet wine could not wash down. She finished her food as Jean talked about how busy his day was. The dinner was accompanied by the music Jean chose on the radio, a French pop song. Carina did not understand any of the lyrics, and when Jean mumbled the words, she imagined that he was speaking the language of another world.
As they sat down in the living room, Carina continued to read The Little Prince in French. She had been doing this after dinner, and Jean would be reading his daily news and later French novels of his taste. Carina realized she never saw him buy the books when they were together.
“You are into novels now?” Carina asked, as she was going through the list of French words she had written down. Jean mumbled as a reply, not moving his eyes from the book he was reading.
“Jean?”
Jean lifted his head.
“Ah, yeah. They are gifts. I would not want to disappoint my co-worker by not reading them.”
Jean closed the lid of his book, as though he didn’t want Carina to see something deeply buried in its pages. She glanced at the growing shadows in the room and back at Jean. She wondered when the lights had become so dim in their living room.
She felt an urgency to bring up a topic, as if to dispel the encroaching gloom. “I got to practice some French today.”
“Yeah, with whom, honey?” Jean asked, as his glances went down to the book he was holding, almost too tightly in his hands.
“The owner of a new shop I discovered.” Carina felt unsure about disclosing that it was a wine shop, as it would bring them back to that topic.
“You mean where you got that awful sweet wine?” Jean laughed, putting the novel on the table next to his chair, and moved over to Carina to kiss her cheek.
Carina looked at Jean in disbelief, but Jean’s back was already turned to her as he went into the kitchen. Out of Carina’s sight, Jean’s voice reached the living room. “I am going to bed, love. I am too tired.”
Carina, standing in the kitchen, decided to light up a cigarette before going to bed. She would only smoke after she made sure Jean was asleep. Leaning onto the counter, her eye caught the sight of the sweet wine, which was shining through the trash bin. Carina reached out to the wine, but stopped. The ashes of her cigarette fell down slowly, staining the white floor of the kitchen. She thought about the novel and what could be hidden in its pages. The French words in it, a sea of words, in which she would become a drowning fish.
She pulled the Muscat de Rivesaltes out from the bin as though she was saving it from its fate. She put out the cigarette before opening the window for fresh air to come in.
Despite the events of the previous night, Carina felt drawn back to the wine shop the next day. As she entered the small, rectangular space, she exchanged a greeting with the owner.
“Afternoon. Here for more wine?” The man chuckled as he was wiping the counter with a rag that adopted a yellow hue.
“Yes. Any good suggestions? My husband only likes red, dry wine.”
The man burst into a short laughter. Carina wondered if she said something funny.
“Your husband is a Frenchman. Not much you can do with that.”
Carina stood there, thinking about the sentence. She wondered if Jean had come here often, or had come here at all before, as it was in the walking distance to their house, and priorly his house only.
“Actually, I will just have Muscat de Saint-Jean-de-Minervois today,” Carina said, as she reached out to the shelf. “It has my husband’s name in it.”
“Many men named Jean here in France,” the man said as he welcomed Carina’s choice of wine and placed it in the paper bag.
“Not many Jean D’Abovilles who are married to a Carina, I assume,” Carina said as she showed the name on her credit card prior to pushing it onto the pos device.
The man stood still for a second. “You are married to Jean? He is a frequent customer here.”
Carina felt a strange sensation stirring in her abdomen, aching to be set free.
“And I was wondering where all of that expensive red wine was going, especially the Laurent-Perrier. Really good taste,” the man remarked, gesturing towards the wine he mentioned with a pointed finger.
Carina froze, her gaze locked on the bag in the man’s hands. All of a sudden, the only thing that occupied her mind was the Italian pop song she hummed in the streets of Paris. She grabbed the bag from the man’s hands gently.
“Good day,” she said to the owner. “Say hi to Jean for me if you see him.”
