III - part one

I scraped my throat for what felt like the tenth time.

“-Unless you’d rather go for crypto, of course. I’ve heard crypto’s good. NFT’s, too, or whatever it is you young kids like to get involved with these days. Do you know what that is, doll? I suppose there is some money in that, but the real question you should ask yourself is…”

Sentence after sentence tumbled from the older man’s mouth, the need to mansplain investments to me apparently so great that he’d all but forgotten about the empty glass I’d offered for him to fill. My focus was on the monocle that dangled from his neck instead.

Did people really still wear those?

“Apologies”, I tried to interrupt. “I just remem—“

“No need to apologize deary. Now me, personally, I prefer going for the solid investments. So like I said, wine. That’s where the real money is at. There are a lot of changes in today’s world, but the people will never stop wanting alcohol, meaning there will always be demand for a good vino. Your grandmother knew that. Did she tell you about the time we—”

Dan stood looking at me from a distance, his head bobbing up and down with every word the old-timer me was speaking. With every pleading expression of mine his grin only grew further. ‘Payback’, he mouthed, inconspicuously pointing towards the older lady I’d left him with not ten minutes ago.

“I really—”

“Not that I am saying wine is your only choice, of course. Cigars are good business too, and I could help you with both of them if you’d like. Anything for the granddaughter of Annetta. You just call me, doll, and we’ll…”

“Great, thanks. Much appreciated.”

I duck to the gentleman’s side smoothly, not bothering to see if he was offended before I moved into the crowd that filled up my grandmother’s living room.

I wasn’t surprised by the amount of people that had shown up for my grandmother’s funeral – she’d had quite the social life after all, actual family aside –, but I was a bit annoyed at how many of them had decided to show up at her wake, the ‘close friends and family’-part of the invitation evidently open to too much interpretation.

Although, a large percentage of the people here seemed to know more about my grandmother’s last few years than I did as her granddaughter. It sparked a guilt in me I hadn’t expected to feel. On the one side, it made me think I should’ve tried harder to mend our relationship, but on the other it made it clear she hadn’t exactly been lonely without my company.

At any rate there was nothing to be done about it now.

I was happy to find the kitchen empty when I walked in. Putting my empty wine glass on the counter I topped it off and drained it to a socially acceptable level again. The noise of Cal’s high heels reached me from the basement stairs.

“Christ on crack, these people…” She groaned loudly, appearing from the basement door with a crate filled with bottles in hand. “And I thought I had drinking problems. We should’ve hired more than two waiters. Doesn’t anyone here know it’s poor form to drink yourself to death at someone else’s wake?”

A dry snort left my lips, the sight of her trying to close the door with her feet enough to put a smile on my face. I didn’t bother to point out that she was wobbling in her stiletto’s, too.

“I don’t know, drinking myself to death sounds pretty damn tempting right now.”

“You can’t say that, babe. It makes you sound depressed.”

“This is my grandmother’s wake. Being depressed is kind of what’s expected of me.”

Cal simply shook her head as she slammed the crate down on the counter, getting to work on restocking the fridge. I slumped down in the barstool nearest to her.

“Oh hey, at least I figured out what’s with all the people taking pictures”, she said in between bottles. “Apparently there’s a rumor going ’round that you plan to put the house up on the market as soon as it’s legally yours. I’ve had three people ask me about it already.”

I clasped the back of my neck and rolled it, trying and failing to release some of the tension there. Great. More inheritance talk.

“Really? Who?”

“Don’t know, that lady with the purple hair and her husband with the monocle. That guy that calls himself uncle Rob wanted to know more, too, but when I said you wouldn’t go below one mill he kinda slowly fucked off.”

One million dollar? “What the hell, Cal. Who says I’m even inheriting this place?”

“What, what the hell? As you just reminded me this is your grandmother’s wake, babe, and you’re the only relative that’s here. This place has a wine cellar the size of my entire living room and kitchen, for fuck’s sake. One million would be underselling it.”

There was a mixture of jealousy and awe on her face as she gestured all around us, pointing towards the empty crate as if to say ‘see’. A loud sigh escaped my lips.

I looked around too, trying to take in the marble floors and golden details with the eye of a realtor and attempting to gauge the price label you could put to them. It would sell easily enough, I guessed. If it would be mine to sell.

“My grandmother also had two daughters, you know”, I reminded Cal as I turned my back to reach for a piece of cake that’d been left on one of the trays. “Just because they didn’t show today that doesn’t mean she didn’t leave them anything. They have children too.”

“Children she only knew through Facebook and that she called spoiled shit 1 to 5. But, I know, you do have a point. I just hope they weren’t counting on a share of your grandmother’s wine collection.”

Cal took one more long sip before she straightened her dress, throwing me an apologetic look as she moved towards the living room entrance. A long braid the color of a fire-hydrant bobbed against her back.

“Oh, by the way”, she hummed as she looked over her shoulder. “Dan mentioned Ian and his father are finally here. They’re in the study, apparently, behind closed doors. Talking to some guy in a suit and draining more of your grandmother’s impressive liquor collection.”

I groaned inwardly. Of course Ian’s father had claimed an entire room for himself, dragging Ian with him and deciding to just wait for me to come to them. God forbid the man made it about anyone other than himself for once.

Maybe I should go a bit easier on the alcohol myself.

“Yeah, uhm- Great. If you speak to them, tell them I’ll be right there. Thanks.”

This was going to be a long afternoon.