Mimosas Before Noon
Tuesday, April 28th, 2009
The orange juice gave the champagne a breakfast disguise that made it right to drink before lunch.
I’d seen them come out on trays. The waiters were carrying them through the country club, lifting them up over the wedding crowd. Open at the top and curved in the middle, they were the brightest in the room – decorations brighter than the occasional spring dress.
I waited for the mimosas to come my direction, but the servers coming from the kitchen were all right-handed. When they hit the first bodies crowded in the foyer, they veered right and around a round wooden table with a sign-in registery and enormous flower displays.
I stepped into line at the bar and watched more shapely orange glasses carried away. Straight champagne was being poured and a few couples talked in a doorway talked over it. They were smiling at it each other, but what they held between them wasn’t exciting. I waited for my mamosas. The girls around were pristine and pretty, or aged and slightly sullen, baring different degrees of cleavage. The men were balding an akward or young and awkward, confident in their women but over-confident, not aware how weak the connection can be.
Another waiter came out from the kitchen and veered right. I hadn’t moved any closer to the bartender.
For a divorced man at a wedding in the presence of love, the feeling comes over filtered and strained. I wasn’t cynical or distrusting, but I wondered why what seems so real evaded me, after all. The love was evident and also gauged, not how I used to perceive it – more balanced and layered with doubt.
The line gradually dwindled. The backs turned and walked away with orange shapes in their hands. I’ve played with Vodka/cranberry and had my share of blonde beers, but I wanted the light combination of citrus and bubbly. I finally laid my arms up on the bar and watched the vested bartender make my sweet drinks.
I carried the mimosas from the bar to a table with friends and handed them out to anyone with an empty hand or set them in the table center. The country club windows and the white-board blinds were open to the golf course and budding trees.
The tables in the reception room were beginning to fill with people, but most were still standing and talking in the room the wedding party fled. I walked through it one last time. The love was gone. I went back to the bar and got more mimosas before the glasses from the first round were picked up from the help.
I drank them through lunch and until all the chairs were pushed out and people were dancing. I joined a congregation in the hall when the pretty brunette with blonde streaks said, “You should come drinking with us.”
But I was drinking. “Why would you want to leave these beautiful mimosas?”
“I love mimosas.”
“Yes, me too.”
I’d just learned the word the day before. Three-quarters champagne topped off by orange juice is how the bartenders were making them. They were pouring for tips and making decent money.
” … but you should seriously go out with us.”
Why would anyone leave? “Where are you going?”
“Maloneys.”
Someone was always wanting to bring the party to an end. I wasn’t ready to plan the next move. “I don’t know where that is.”
“You could follow someone.”
Another waiter passed and this time I saw him veer left in the thinning crowd. “I suppose I could … okay, yeah. I’ll go.”
Mimosas wouldn’t be the popular drinks at the bar. They’d get lost in the neon and the bar lined with fancy bottles and fancier colors. I couldn’t stay at wedding forever. The ceremony was over. The vows had been exchanged, including mine. I’d just met the love of my life and I could make it last until 4.
