Friday Night

Natalie Spears

Four bottles of red wine stood side by side on the kitchen counter with brown construction paper wrapped around the labels. Bridget and Charlie began setting up glasses on the island for our blind tasting. Brie chopped furiously, passing her vegetables to Andrew who was searing ground sausage. Hot oil spattered onto the soapstone counter as he threw red peppers into the pan. I could see Mom eye this, and she snuck behind Andrew to lower the heat. I sat perched on a metal stool, layering a cracker with jam, Manchego, and salami. Dad fiddled with the Sonos, which never seemed to work on the first try. “Luckiest Man” by the Wood Brothers started booming out of the kitchen speaker. We collectively groaned — Dad had been featuring his same ten-song playlist every Friday night for the past three months, ever since the pandemic shut-down began.

I placed my glass down on the table and looked at my ranker sheet, evaluating our third anonymous wine of the evening, when Andrew announced that his pasta and homemade vodka meat sauce were ready. This was met with an argument from Bridget that we should finish the tasting before sitting down to eat dinner. But according to Andrew, the pasta would start to get sticky and the sauce wouldn’t taste as fresh. Couldn’t we just reheat it? Absolutely not!

Suddenly I was brought back to eighth grade, the last time my siblings and I lived under the same roof. The last time we had been together long enough that the politeness and niceties of a distant relationship did not exist. Three months of quarantining together had brought us back there, settling into the roles we had as kids growing up alongside one another. Ultimately, as it always did, Bridget’s oldest-sibling conviction prevailed. The five of us, with the addition of two in-laws, gathered around the kitchen island for our last tasting, the spicy vodka sauce cooling behind us. A familiar sound of the acoustic intro to “Luckiest Man” filled the room and we chuckled as Dad’s playlist began again.