Chapter 15 #3
I nod, trying to guide her away from a flowerbed she looks dangerously close to falling into.
Viv, now barefoot and holding her heels like trophies, pauses to admire a man leaning against a truck in the parking lot. “Is that flannel shirt for real,” she murmurs, “or am I deeply under-cuddled?”
“Oh no… Viv. Don’t.” But it’s too late. She’s already sauntering over.
“I’m going to ask him if he knows the way to the freeway,” she singsongs. “With my mouth. And maybe my hands.”
Marin hiccups. “Oh no. We lost her. I give it five minutes before she’s either making out or making up a fake identity.
” Now she’s leaning heavily against my side and I’m struggling to keep us both upright.
“I think she told a guy in there her name was Verona and she was a recently divorced perfume chemist.”
“To be fair,” I say, “she was wearing patchouli.”
Viv reappears, smug and slightly disheveled. “Guess who got another phone number and a free bottle of wine?”
We reach the car right as someone’s phone pings, loud and aggressive.
Viv checks it, then freezes. “So, Birdie, don’t freak out.”
“What?”
“You’ve kind of gone viral?”
My stomach drops like a faulty elevator. “What?”
She turns her phone toward me. There I am.
Projected in all my awkward glory, windmilling through a conga line, sunglasses on my head, my blouse slightly askew, shouting “GRIEF ISN’T LINEAR, BABY!
” into the night like a backup dancer in an insane asylum flash mob.
It’s been reposted by someone with a wine influencer handle and the caption: “When the grief retreat goes harder than Coachella.”
“I’m going to die.”
“No, you’re going to trend,” Viv tuts, like that’s a comfort.
“Viv, I’m on the internet.”
“You’re welcome.”
“I didn’t ask for this.”
“You never do.” She pops the trunk and chucks her heels in like a woman who’s retired from consequences.
We manage to get to the car, Marin propped up between Viv and me.
Marin immediately starts humming to herself in the backseat, Viv’s scrolling through selfies she took with random people inside, and I’m trying to navigate us toward the drive-thru with the precision of a mother duck leading her drunk ducklings.
“Birdie,” Marin mumbles, resting her head against the window, “I love you.”
“I love you too.”
“No, like, if I threw up on you, you wouldn’t yell.”
“I might yell a little.”
“You’re still my favorite.”
Viv passes Marin a napkin she stole from the wine tasting table. “Just in case.”
Marin sighs. “I have never been more certain we need fries.”
“I need fries and a TikTok black out,” I whisper.
We roll through the drive-thru like a clown car and order three large fries, one chocolate milkshake, and, somehow, a breakfast burrito.
“Who ordered the burrito?” I try to toss it into the backseat.
Marin raises her hand with her eyes closed. “I did. It felt like a breakfast moment.”
I glance at the clock on the dash, which proudly proclaims 1:30 AM. “I guess we are getting closer to the breakfast realm.”
“Time is a social construct, darling.” Viv pops a fry in her mouth.
Marin moans from the backseat, “I think I’m going to be sick.”
______________
I stand at the kitchen counter, hair in a lopsided bun, gripping a mug of coffee like it’s a flotation device.
I’m still wearing last night’s blouse, now mysteriously buttoned wrong, and no pants.
Just underwear and the unmistakable look of a woman questioning all her life choices in the harsh light of morning.
Is this who I am now? A pantsless widow with raccoon eyes with only a vague recollection of a conga line and French fries?
Viv strolls in first, glowing like a woman who got eight hours of sleep and has zero regrets. She’s wearing oversized sunglasses and holding a green smoothie that smells like liquified lawn clippings.
“Great night!” she sings, plopping herself onto the counter. “We laughed, we danced, Marin almost eloped with a retired orthodontist named Len.”
I groan, shielding my eyes. “How are you this vertical? Did the sangria metabolize into vitamins in your body?”
Viv grins. “Chaos is my cardio.”
Marin shuffles in last, gripping her phone like it’s reporting on a national emergency. Her robe is tied in a perfect knot, hair still pinned in a tidy bun, but her eyes are wide with panic.
“I think I’m viral,” she croaks.
Viv perks up. “You’re welcome.”
I freeze mid-sip. “You think you’re viral?”
Marin thrusts her phone toward me. “Look! It’s us at the winery! It’s everywhere!”
Viv spins her phone around with a smug little flourish. “That’s not you, babe. That’s Birdie.” She hits play.
There I am, front and center, conga-line-adjacent and fully committed to a dance that looks like I’m trying to swat bees with my elbows. At one point, I do a high kick. I cannot do high kicks. My brain has a foggy memory of Viv showing me this video last night.
Marin leans closer, squints at the screen, then gasps. “Wait? That’s you? But I made an epic toast!”
Viv’s eyes light up. “Oh, we posted that too. It's in a compilation video called ‘Grief Girls Gone Wild.’ But Birdie doing the conga line and then the Floss with a sangria? That’s the money shot.”
“So I’m the face of middle-aged emotional unraveling?” I mope.
Viv grins. “The star of it.”
I wince. “No. No, no, no.”
Viv starts reading the comments aloud with great enthusiasm:
“This is the kind of soft grief content I needed today.”
“Grieving and thriving. We love to see it.”
“Wine Mom Nation, rise.”
“Someone sponsor her!”
“Eighty-seven thousand likes,” Marin croaks. “And climbing.”
I squint at the screen. “Wait, why am I the one who went viral? I’m pretty sure Viv recorded you in the yard when you took Frank outside to potty. You told Frank you wanted to do a trust fall in the vineyard.”
I’ve gone from the perfectly composed housewife, the kind of widow people can stomach, with her grief neatly folded between PTA meetings and silent auction donations, to a woman who dances in a goat wine bar and blurts out things like “grief isn’t linear” without even flinching.
Either I’m healing, or I’m unraveling. Maybe both.
Marin groans and drops onto a stool, burying her face in her hands. “I was emotional. You try drinking half a sangria and talking about loss in public.”
Viv flips her phone around and points to another comment. “This one says we should start a podcast.”
“Nope.” Viv barely finishes reading the comment before I protest.
She ignores me. “Healing Through Chaos. First episode: ‘Dancing Away the Patriarchy.’”
“If you say ‘healing energy’ one more time,” I mutter, pouring more coffee, “I’m putting sage in your underpants drawer.”
Viv beams, toasting me with her smoothie. “And my underpants would thank you.”
Frank, curled up under the table with a napkin around his neck like a cape, lets out a snort of agreement.
My phone dings, and I roll my eyes, already anticipating Harper texting me from where she’s crashed out in her childhood bedroom upstairs, begging me to bring her up a bowl of Cheerios and coffee.
My hands freeze.
Noah.
Noah: Saw the video. So, how do I join the grief society? Is there an application or a dance audition?
I stare at the screen, cheeks warming.
Me: What are you doing on the internet, looking at viral grief videos?
Noah: I wasn’t. I was watching viral cat videos, like any normal person does on a Friday morning before work, and I saw your face.
I quickly lock my screen before anyone can peek.
Viv notices. “Was that from a handsome stranger from last night?”
“No. Worse.”
“Oooh. The mailman.”
I groan. “You people are feral.”