Jen says.

Short Fiction Inspired by & A Review of Demeter Fragrance Library Dregs

Jen is standing on the trunk of Cal’s car, and he is really pissed about it. Jen doesn’t care. Three sheets to the wind on some of the foulest red wine I have ever had the misfortune to taste, Jen needs a platform for her latest magnum opus, a free form poem entitled, “Why Rivers Cuomo is a Total Douche.”

Jen says Rivers is a sexist pig, and if you don’t believe her you can read that Sady Doyle piece that proves it. Jen says she already knew everything Sady said, like way before Sady did, but that’s okay, Jen still loves her anyway.

Jen says she can see the skepticism on my face, and I try hard not to roll my eyes at her as she stumbled over to point to the exact location of said skepticism. Jen says it’s somewhere around my eyebrows. Cal tries to persuade Jen to come down, but she isn’t fooled by his faux concern that she might fall and knock her teeth out.

“Stop crying about your car,” Jen says, and Cal winces as the broad trunk of his ’69 Pontiac GTO, which he spent most of the summer and every penny he made mowing lawns painstakingly restoring, flexes under her weight as she stomps around. “You’re such a materialistic bastard,” Jen says, cackling. “This is no longer a symbolic representation of your masculinity! I appropriate this giant phallic instrument in the name of the oppressed! This is the Peoples’ car!”

Cal stares at the ground, really regretting that he agreed to buy us booze with his fake ID. I can’t say I blame him.

Jen shakes the bottle in my direction, offering me more of the foul wine. I can see crap floating around in the bottom of the bottle, and I shake my head at her with a grimace. Shrugging, Jen throws her head back and drinks deeply from the bottle. When she pulls it from her lips, her mouth is red ringed, like a kid with a grape popsicle.

All the sudden, I see a flashlight moving fast in our direction. Cal panics, and tells Jen he knew he shouldn’t have listened to her when she suggested we drink in the high school parking lot because it’s the last place anyone would think to look.

Jen says Cal shouldn’t be so uptight as she launches herself at him, half-jumping and half-falling off the trunk. Cal catches her right before she hits the ground to prevent her from landing, as expected, face first. Cal pulls her upright and suddenly they are almost kissing. I blush and turn away, wishing I wasn’t there.

A voice calls out “Hey you!" and we all recognize it as the old school security guard, Stan. "Stan the Man," Jen says giggling, and pulls away from Cal, who stands frozen in place, arms still wrapped around the space Jen occupied. The fog is so thick it creates a barrier between Cal’s car and Stan, but as soon as he sees the distinctive Pontiac, we’re all doomed and we know it.

Jen says, “Come on, Cal,” throwing open the passenger side door and flinging herself into the back seat. Cal and I spring into action on her command, running for the open door. He jumps in and slides across the seat and I follow, barely pulling the door shut when he guns the engine, tires squealing against the asphalt as we pull away.

“Do you think he saw us?” Cal asks, and I shrug. If so, I know we’re screwed. Cal is a nice guy, but he’ll fold like a house of cards if they ask him who was with him tonight. It’s too bad, too. If he was the type to lie, Jen probably would have kissed him.

Jen says nice guys finish last, and with her, she means it.

Jen wraps her arms around my neck from the backseat, and I pat at them as she sticks her head over the seat between us. An old Jane’s Addiction song comes on the radio, and Jen mumbles along, making up her own lyrics to make the song about her. I laugh as she sings loudly in my ear, ignoring the off-key parts and the nonsensical words she adds because she’s too drunk to think of real rhymes.

“You’re the best, you know that?” Jen says, planting a wet kiss on my cheek. Cal can barely keep his eyes on the road. Waves of jealousy reverberate off him and into me and I feel angry at Jen because she always says that, and I know she doesn’t really mean it. Not with Cal; not with me.

“I love you,” Jen whispers, resting her head sleepily on my shoulder and closing her eyes. I can feel her breath against my cheek, and the foul wine smell on her breath should repulse me, but it doesn’t. Like everything else about Jen, I think it’s weirdly beautiful.

“I love you, too,” I mutter, resting my cheek against her forehead.

Jen doesn’t say anything.

I wish she would.

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Demeter Dregs is described as follows:

As in wine, not your would-be prom date! Dregs are, quite simply, the sediment or leftover particles of the grape left to settle at the bottom of a wine barrel, and also, often in the bottom of a good, aged bottle of red wine. While the "bottom of the barrel" connotation associated with dregs negative, it is essential to a full-bodied red wine, and therefore, not surprisingly, a full and pleasing aspect of the bouquet of a fine red wine. It is that aspect of the bouquet represented in Demeter's Dregs.

Dregs smells like the red, red, wine UB40 once sang about drinking until it obliterates the memory of someone you loved.  In other words, not something people sit around sipping while saying things like "smokey body" and "fruity legs." It's a cheap red wine you drink to get drunk. It gets grape candy note like the bottom of a bottle of Carlo Rossi. That doesn't make it bad; it makes it awesome. I love that it tastes like the dregs of a bottle.  It's more interesting than smelling like a non-descript wine.

I don't recommend you spray yourself wet with this before you go driving, though. You may have a hard time convincing the  cop that pulls you over for speeding you haven't had anything to drink before you got behind the wheel.

See other pieces in the series here.