Martini Madness
by Stuart Watson
My wife saw it first. Over my shoulder, across the dining room, window table.
“There’s the best-looking martini in the room,” she said, nodding her head.
We had glasses of sauvignon blanc in front of us. We were reviewing the menu, enjoying our time, making eyes. Just like that, I couldn’t focus. Why did she do that?
She knows how I am about martinis. I was trying to be good, steering clear of generous intoxication for a few meals, and protecting my dwindling supply of brain cells.
I swiveled and looked toward the window. Guy in his 30s, combed hair. Best-looking martini opposite him, right in front of a knockout brunette.
Long hair, splashed across sweatered shoulders. A swooping neckline. I could make out her generous cleavage, thanks to my superior and finely honed surveillance skills.
“It has everything you love,” she said. “Shaken. Stirred. Goes down easy. Leaves you like a rag.”
She knows I love a good martini. And a beautiful woman. She knows I know she’s not the only beautiful woman in the world. I know she knows I’m grateful she said “yes.”
We’ll be walking along a city street and pass a beautiful woman and I’ll act nonchalant, eyes front. A couple steps later, she’ll say, “I saw that.”
I never know what to say, so I usually meet her eyes and smile the smile that says, “I know you know I’m perfectly happy right where I am.”
The martini across the room did indeed look excellent. Like the woman to whom it belonged. If I’m honest, I’ll admit that any martini would look excellent, especially to someone trying not to order and consume the damned things.
A beer guy in bartending school. Learning how to super-chill liquor so it goes down easier than its room-temp would suggest. First one after we close the restaurant. Then another to keep the first one company. Then a third because Who’s counting? The London Dry path to perdition.
My wife was no amateur. She knew my weak spot was the pairing of beauty and martini. She could still bring the A-game, still owned the lethal red satin spaghetti-strap cocktail dress that slew me once, and could slay me again, if ever she wanted. Or needed.
I opened my mouth. She met my eyes and knew how everything was tumbling like dirty laundry inside my head.
As our server approached, I got his attention, handed him my wife’s wine glass.
“My bride changed her mind,” I said. “She’d like a slightly dirty martini. Sapphire, if you have it. No vermouth. Up, with olives. Just like me.”
Stuart Watson wrote for newspapers in Anchorage, Seattle and Portland. His writing is in yolk.literary, Barzakh, Two Hawks Quarterly, MacQueen’s Quinterly, Bloom, Fewer than 500, Mystery Tribune, Bending Genres (Best Microfictions nominee), 433, Flash Boulevard, Revolution John, Montana Mouthful, Sledgehammer Lit, Five South, Shotgun Honey, The Writing Disorder, Grey Sparrow Journal, Reckon Review, Muleskinner Journal, Wrong Turn Lit and Pulp Modern Flash, among others. He lives in Oregon, with his wife and their amazing dog.
Check out Stuart’s previous appearence in our first issue:
And our interview with him:
