The greenish color and the smell of hay bring to mind the kind of herbal infusions you’d get at a spa, and the taste is so sharp and bracing that it feels like an energy drink. Yes, an energy drink! You feel strong and vigorous as you down one shot after another. You’re delighted with everyone, but most of all with yourself, your witty, charming, quirky self, and you believe that everyone else is just as impressed by you as you are, until you suddenly realize that you’re so drunk you can’t fully control yourself—your movements, or your words, or that crazy laughter that makes your mouth twist and your eyes water—and your whole body convulses and you splash the drink all over your plate, your knees, and your chest. And then you realize that this isn’t that big a party, that there are only five seemingly respectable middle-aged adults at the table in this neat Upper West Side apartment, that your husband, Mark, is staring at you in horror, and that his friend Sergey is red in the face, because your charming, witty self has been mocking and abusing him for the past two hours. The hosts are trying their best to look away, even though they are almost as drunk as you are.
The only remedy for this is, of course, more horseradish vodka, but God help you if you find that the bottle is empty.
“Are we all out?” Helena asked, taking the empty bottle from me and shaking it with great force, as if shaking could magically refill it.
Bu hikaye The New Yorker dergisinin September 11, 2023 sayısından alınmıştır.
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Bu hikaye The New Yorker dergisinin September 11, 2023 sayısından alınmıştır.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Giriş Yap
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On a mid-October Sunday not long ago sun high, wind cool-I was in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, for a book festival, and I took a stroll. There were few people on the streets-like the population of a lot of capital cities, Harrisburg's swells on weekdays with lawyers and lobbyists and legislative staffers, and dwindles on the weekends. But, on the façades of small businesses and in the doorways of private homes, I could see evidence of political activity. Across from the sparkling Susquehanna River, there was a row of Democratic lawn signs: Malcolm Kenyatta for auditor general, Bob Casey for U.S. Senate, and, most important, in white letters atop a periwinkle not unlike that of the sky, Kamala Harris for President.
