Part 2: Check Out

ANA

She sat facing the door, the way her father had taught her — always see who’s coming, never be caught off guard. The wine bar was small, intimate, the kind of place that charged thirty dollars for a glass and didn’t apologize. Dark wood, Edison bulbs, a chalkboard listing wines in careful script. She’d never been here before today, but she’d seen it enough times on the other woman’s Instagram. Her regular spot. Thursday evenings, usually. Sometimes alone with a book, sometimes with friends who looked as carefully curated as Her vintage Chanel.

Ana had ordered a glass of champagne and the woman winemaker flight. It was Women’s History Month, and every business and media channel acted like women hadn’t been doing whatever they were celebrating for centuries. Exhausting.

This pretentious little bar served three wines from Epoch Estate Wines, winemaker Jordan Fiorentini. Ana did a quick Google and deemed Jordan’s wines worthy of her order. The lineup: the 2025 Epoch Rosé, the 2019 Estate Blend, the 2021 Zinfandel. But first, champagne. She needed it to get through this conversation.

“I’ll have the Epoch flight and two glasses of Laurent-Perrier Blanc de Blancs, Brut Naure.”

“Wait, what?” The server raised an eyebrow.

“Yes, I’ll have wine with a side of wine.” Ana clapped back. She was not in the mood to play with this child.

His chest deflated the moment he really looked at her. Impeccably dressed in cream from head to toe, a burgundy Birkin as punctuation — an exclamation in case you doubted her authority. Her posture was trained and rigid. He shuffled off with a half smile and returned quickly with her flight and the champagne, setting all five glasses in an even row: a barrier between Ana and the empty seat across from her.

Ana slid one glass of champagne toward the other place setting. She thought this act of hospitality would disarm Her and give Ana some power. She sipped the champagne while the Epoch flight sat in front of her, three small glasses opening and waiting.

She’d known of the affair for three months. Not suspected — known. The way you know the exact moment he stopped loving you, or the precise second your mother’s last breath leaves her body. You just know.

He’d come home with flowers. Not grocery store carnations, but peonies from the florist on Connecticut Avenue, the expensive one that required ordering ahead. Then it was the way he touched her shoulder when he passed her in the kitchen. Small gifts: a book she’d mentioned months ago, a scarf in her shades of red and orange, not the black or beige gifts he was accustomed to bringing. He started asking about her day and actually listening to the answer. The routine changed, and she knew.

Twenty-five years of marriage had taught her this: when a man starts romancing his wife after years of indifference, he is acting out what he wants to do for and with the other woman. The wife becomes a surrogate for the love he can’t fully pour into Her.

She’d hired no investigator. She’d made no scene. She’d simply paid attention. Noticed the pattern of his “late meetings.” Watched him leave the house freshly showered on Saturday afternoons for “the gym.” He thinks he’s so clever.

Once she suspected, she observed him. She never followed — even though she was tempted to swing by the gym, the office, the bar where he was supposed to meet “the boys.” She wanted to, but never did. That was beneath her. She listened and made mental notes. Dumb fuck. He mentioned Her name three times within an hour. He could not help himself, and with every syllable uttered, Ana collected receipts.

“Oh, is she a new client?” Ana asked.

“No, a friend of Mark’s, we ran into her when we were having drinks.” He lied, aware that he was giving himself away. He could hardly help himself. Pronouncing Her name made him tingle, transported him back to Her bed, Her couch, Her cold wooden floors.

A Google search. LinkedIn. Instagram. Her profile was public and easy. Ana scrolled through it, learning what she needed to know. She was younger but not young. Fun. Beautiful. They worked in the same field. She had a Georgetown address. Her life on public display. She posted a video of Her living room decorated in a mix of vintage, bohemian, and contemporary pieces blended into what Ana would have called an eyesore today, but twenty years ago was her own place. Unapologetically, selfishly created for Herself: bright, colorful, energetic. The video infuriated Ana as she mourned the loss of the woman she used to be.

Thirty seconds in, and there was the Sherald. Amy Sherald; the painter whose portraits of Black Americans have commanded six-figure prices and years-long waiting lists. A gift not available to most women, at any age, at any price. She hadn’t described it in Her voice-over; She simply panned the camera past it with the caption: if you know, you know. Ana knew — and this was her breaking point.

Her blood pressure rose so fast her head spun. Lord, he didn’t. She gasped. But she knew he did. Bought Her an artwork by Ana’s favorite artist; a gift not just expensive, but something Ana had earned after twenty years of marriage, gifted to a mistress.

Ana sent Her a message through Instagram. Direct. Clear. We should talk. Thursday, 7 PM. Maxime Wine Bar on 14th.

The Other Woman ignored her. Ana sent another. The Other Woman declined. Ana sent another, and finally The Other Woman wrote back: I don’t think that’s a good idea.

Ana insisted. I know you go there Thursdays. I’ll be there anyway. Your choice whether to sit down or walk past me. He does not know we are meeting.

And now here she was, watching the door, five glasses of wine arranged like a barricade between her and the empty seat.

The door opened.

Photo Credit Jackeline Kairo @NKPStudios_

What happens next — the wine, the truth, and a confrontation that leaves no one standing — is for paid subscribers.

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“Let’s get dinner. My treat.” Calissa commanded.

Eating was our favorite pastime. It was more than a pastime. It was our only activity.

We were lower middle class, maybe poor, although we did not know it. We must have been, because for us, there were no camps, no sports, no summer vacations. Poor — but we always seemed to scrape up twenty dollars for a meal. We pooled our money like an investment group and found our way to Baker’s Square for a $5.99 combo special, or the Chinese restaurant across the street: two for $15, four for $25.

Our escape from the cramped apartment was gathering around any table and eating. Not to satisfy hunger, but to experience abundance. To escape. To vacation.

Our worship of food was passed down — mother to daughter, aunt to nephew, sister to sister.

There were seven of us in that two-bedroom apartment: my aunt, my mother, my sister Maria, my cousins Calissa and June, and Francine, who had come from the Atlanta to live with my aunt. She took in one boarder, and three months later my mother left her second husband, and the four of us moved in too.

I was the little sister before Maria was born, seven years later. Unlike her, I took up space. Leaving me out was not an option. Even then, I was the instigator. The creator. The fun-bringer.

Robert, my brother — newly arrived from Houston — found himself living in a two-bedroom apartment with seven females between the ages of eight and forty-five.

We did not go to Wisconsin, or museums, or overseas. Not yet. Later, we would. But those summers belonged to us, to the table, to whatever abundance twenty dollars could conjure.

Today, I am twenty-two. Calissa is twenty-five.

This will be our last meal together.

I don’t remember being hungry. I remember the ceremony of numbing. The rush of specialness that drapes your shoulders when you walk into a restaurant and someone is glad you came.

By then I had eaten in a hundred restaurants across at least four countries, and the magic had not yet worn off.

Moo shu chicken for me. Orange chicken for her. And somewhere on that table, a small carafe of plum wine — the kind that comes without asking, sweet and dark and cheap, the kind you don’t think to name.

What would I have said, had I known?

The conversation was disjointed. She rambled. I swallowed. I nodded. This food isn’t fresh, she said. I hate my apartment. Mike is coming over — maybe. I’m quitting my job. The words came quick, choppy, stabbed in between bites. And I sat silent, witnessing her unraveling.

Maybe we both knew.

Have you ever wished you could go back in time?

I would have wrapped my arms around her. Sewn her up. Held her together.

Instead, I feasted into blindness.

I have drunk a lot of wine since that afternoon on North Sheridan.

I know now what I didn’t know then — that plum wine, umeshu, is technically not wine at all. It is ume fruit steeped in shochu or sake, pulled from a Japanese tradition that stretches back centuries. The versions that arrive in small carafes at Chinese-American restaurants are something adjacent — sweeter, simpler, made for people who aren’t yet sure they like wine, or who never thought to ask.

I was that person. I ordered it because it was there. Because it felt like a small luxury.

I didn’t have a palate yet. I had appetite.

I think about that a lot — who I was before I had the language. Before I could tell you about residual sugar and fermentation and the particular way sweetness can hollow out into something mournful on the finish. Back then, I just knew it tasted like something good was happening. Like we deserved to be there. I crave the freedom of that moment.

Calissa ordered it too, I think. Or maybe she didn’t. Memory does that — fills in the details it needs.

What I know is this: I can taste that afternoon. And it is sweet, and a little cheap, and entirely irreplaceable.

I’m stuck, and I need to tell you why you haven’t heard from me.

For three months, I’ve been writing part 3 of the love triangle series: Hospitality and Checkout. Five complete drafts. Ana, the wife, and HER, the other woman, sitting across from each other at a wine bar. Three wines from a female winemaker between them. Twenty years of marriage and a six-month affair hanging in the air.

It should write itself. The confrontation. The reckoning. The resolution.

But every time I try, I fall into the trap: the scorned wife, the seductress, the victim, the villain. The tired stories we tell ourselves about women and desire and who owes what to whom.

I can’t take a side because I don’t believe in sides.

Photo credit @SurSeinePhoto

The husband made the vows. The husband lied. But society will call Ana the victim and HER the home-wrecker. Ana has somewhere to go with her pain: a marriage, a home, a covenant. HER sits alone with the check, paying with his money, bearing shame that isn’t solely hers to carry.

I’m trying to write from the middle of this mess, and the middle has no neat ending.

So I’m giving myself permission to stop. To let the story rest. To sit with the discomfort of not knowing how to resolve what maybe can’t be resolved.

Sometimes the most honest thing a writer can do is admit when a story needs more time. When pushing through would betray the complexity you’re trying to honor. When the creative block isn’t about skill but about ethics.

I’ll be back with the stories that started The Champagne Diaries years ago: wine as pleasure, as discovery, as the language we use when English isn’t enough.

But this one? Ana and HER and the question of who’s responsible when love and vows collide?

It needs more time.

Paid subscribers will be the first to read “Covenant” when it’s ready. You’ll also get the behind-the-scenes breakdown of what finally unlocked the story: the wine notes, the character revelations, the moment of clarity that made the ending possible. Your support allows me to take the time these stories deserve.

Thank you for your patience. Thank you for reading. Thank you for trusting me with these stories even when I can’t finish them yet.

With honesty and gratitude,
Regine

P.S. Have you ever been stuck: creatively, professionally, personally? What did you do? Push through or step back? I’m genuinely asking. Reply and tell me. I want to know. The conversation happens in the comments, and I read every response.

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She woke to his hand on her inner thigh.

Not stroking—resting. Claiming space on her body like he’d earned the right to it. The weight of his palm felt heavier than it should, a reminder of everything that had just happened and how little of it had mattered.

The room still smelled like the Conrad No. 5 candle, basil and sandalwood mixing with something else now: sweat, disappointment, the particular staleness of a fantasy collapsed. Dawn light crept through the curtains she’d forgotten to close, exposing everything she’d hoped darkness would make more forgiving.

She reached for the DAOU Patrimony on the nightstand. The Cabernet Franc they’d opened with such intention hours ago, when she still believed in the mythology of this moment. The bottle was nearly empty; they’d drunk most of it before going to bed, lubrication for courage neither of them had actually possessed.

She brought the bottle to her lips and drank directly from it. No glass, no ceremony. Just the residual dark fruit and earthiness coating her tongue, a small pleasure to compensate for the larger absence. The wine was better than the sex. At least the DAOU had delivered on its promises.

His hand shifted on her thigh, fingers flexing slightly. Still asleep, or pretending to be. She wasn’t sure which would be worse.

She set the empty bottle back on the nightstand with more force than necessary. The sharp clink against the wood made him stir.

“Morning,” he murmured, his voice thick with satisfaction. Actually satisfied, she thought and felt disgusted. Like a man who’d gotten exactly what he needed and assumed she had too.

She didn’t answer. Couldn’t. If she opened her mouth right now, she’d say words that would detonate everything: the friendship, the mentorship, the three years of careful cultivation that had led to this spectacular letdown.

His hand moved now, stroking. Long, slow circles on her inner thigh as if trying to restart something. As though the problem was insufficient foreplay rather than the twenty years of conditioning that had made him a stranger to his own desire.

“You okay?” he asked, and she could hear the uncertainty creeping into his voice. Finally. Some awareness that the morning after wasn’t unfolding like he’d imagined.

She sat up, pulling away from his touch. The sheet fell to her waist and she didn’t bother covering herself. What was the point of modesty now? He’d seen everything. Done so little with it.

His hand returned to her thigh, tentative now. “How about some coffee?” he asked, his tone careful, like he was trying to reset the morning to something familiar and safe.

“Not coffee,” she said, swinging her legs out of bed. “I need something better.”

HIM

I watched her walk naked to the bathroom, and even in my confusion, I noticed her unevenly smooth brown skin, cocoa where the sun lay and deep bronze everywhere else. I watched the grace of her movement. The curve of her spine, the confident stride. This woman who’d offered me a gift I couldn’t even name, and I’d somehow...

What had I done wrong?

I’d been gentle. Careful. I’d kissed her the way I thought she wanted to be kissed. Moved the way I thought I was supposed to move. The way I’d always moved.

But she’d gone still beneath me. Not resistant, but first responsive, then nothing. Like she’d given up. As though she was waiting for something I didn’t know how to give.

I heard the shower start. She was washing me off.

The thought made my stomach clench. I sat up, looking around her bedroom in the morning light. The Amy Sherald painting on the wall—that portrait of a Black woman in a floral dress against a pale blue background, the one I’d bought her after she closed that Senegal contract. It had felt like the right gift then, an investment in her taste, her values, her future.

Now it felt like a witness.

https://open.substack.com/pub/reginerousseau/p/hospitality?utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web

HER

She stood under the shower longer than necessary, letting the water run hotter than comfortable. Punishment, maybe. Or purification. She wasn’t sure which.

Is this what Ana, his wife, has dealt with for twenty years?

The thought had come to her in the middle of it, when he was moving above her with such careful, practiced restraint. So quiet. So controlled. As though sex was something to be endured with dignity rather than abandoned to.

She’d wanted him to lose himself. To devour and be devoured. Instead, he’d made love like a man checking items off a list: kiss her neck, touch her breasts—too aggressive with the nipples—enter carefully, finish quietly.

He’d barely made a sound.

She’d tried. God, she’d tried. She’d touched him, guided him, whispered instruction and encouragement. But it was as futile as trying to convince someone to try wine who’s been told their whole life that alcohol is a sin.

The rage was building now, hot and clarifying. She’d crossed a line she’d never crossed before. Betrayed her own ethics, her own code. And for what? For a man who didn’t even know how to be present in his own pleasure?

She turned off the shower and wrapped herself in her robe, toweled off and moisturized her still-damp skin with rose-scented oil. She dressed in a silk kimono she picked up from that Tokyo trip, deep green and vibrant shades of pink, expensive secrets. When she walked back into the bedroom, he was sitting up, sheet pooled at his waist, looking uncertain in a way that would have been endearing yesterday.

Today it just made her tired.

“Are you disappointed?” he asked.

The directness surprised her. She’d expected deflection, or worse, his obliviousness to continue through breakfast.

She walked to her closet, the same closet where she’d knelt last night searching for the DAOU, filled with hope and purpose. She pulled out the Champagne Henriot Blanc de Blancs she’d been saving for…what? A celebration? A moment of clarity?

This qualified.

She touched the bottle. Cool. Perfect. Her closet method worked—darkness, steady temperature, the wine nestled among her vintage furs and designer shoes, the luxury good it was. One thing had gone right, at least.

“Why are you so stiff and quiet?” she blurted out, her back still to him as she carried the bottle to the kitchen.

HIM

Her question hit me with the force of cold water.

Stiff and quiet.

Is that what I was?

“I—” I started, but the words caught. Because she was right. I’d been stiff. Quiet. The way I always was. The way I’d been with Ana for...

Twenty years.

Always in the dark. Always silent. Not to disturb the children in the next room. Except the children are grown now, away at college. And we still fucked—no, made love—no, had sex—in the dark. In silence.

Who were we being quiet for?

The question opened something in my chest, a cavity I hadn’t known was there.

“I don’t know how to be any other way,” I said, and heard the truth of it in my voice.

HER

She turned to face him, pulling out her ice bucket, filling it with cold water and ice. She lowered the Henriot into the bath for a proper quick chill. Some things couldn’t be rushed.

Unlike last night, when she’d rushed into this with a bottle of $250 Cabernet Franc and a head full of romantic notions about giving and making a man feel devoured.

She glanced at him standing in her kitchen doorway now, still in just his boxer briefs, a man searching for directions to the nearest exit.

But then she glanced at the Amy Sherald painting visible through the bedroom door. That serene woman in florals, standing against the blue background with such quiet dignity. He paid,twenty thousand dollars. An investment in her, in her standards, in the kind of person she’d built herself to be.

Can she find another him?

She swallowed what she wanted to say—I betrayed everything I believe in for this? For a man who doesn’t even know his own body?—and turned back to the champagne.

“Champagne Henriot,” she said, filling the silence with what she knew. “Established 1808. One of the oldest champagne houses in existence. They were suppliers to the French royal courts before there was even a designation for ‘champagne.’”

She was lecturing—what she did when uncomfortable, retreating into wine knowledge like armor.

“It’s a blanc de blancs, which means...”

“One hundred percent Chardonnay,” he finished, and she remembered that he’d been listening at all those dinners. Even when he was telling his same stories over and over, he’d been absorbing what she taught him about wine.

“Right,” she said, softer now. “Pure. Unblended. Just Chardonnay grapes from grand cru vineyards in the Côte des Blancs. It’s elegant but unforgiving. You taste everything; there’s nothing to hide behind.”

Like this morning. Everything exposed in the daylight.

She lifted the bottle from the ice bath, dried it with a kitchen towel, and began the ritual of opening. The foil, the cage, the gentle coax of the cork.

The whisper of release felt like an exhale.

She reached for her Zalto champagne glasses, the large, delicate flutes that opened up the wine’s aromatics. Not coupes or narrow flutes. Those were for parties, for performance. These were for truly tasting what you were drinking.

She poured carefully, watching the fine persistent bubbles rise in streams. The wine was pale gold, almost translucent.

“To honesty,” she said, raising her glass.

He raised his, uncertainty flickering across his face. “To honesty.”

They drank. The champagne was bright and precise: citrus, white flowers, that distinctive chalky minerality from the Côte des Blancs terroir. The acidity cut clean and sharp, bringing everything into focus.

“You wanted the lights on,” he said suddenly, and she heard him trying—genuinely trying to understand what had gone wrong.

“I did,” she confirmed, taking another sip. Let the champagne do its work. “I wanted to see you. Your face. Your body. I wanted to watch us together. I wanted to be devoured too.”

The last part came out quieter. An admission of her own hunger, her own disappointment.

“I’m not used to...” he started, then stopped. Tried again. “With Ana, it’s always dark. Always quiet. We have to be...”

“Quiet for who?” she asked, echoing the question she’d heard in his pause. “Your children are grown. They are rarely home.”

He stared into his champagne as if it might have answers.

“I don’t know,” he said finally. “I think we just... forgot how to be any other way.”

HER

She set down her glass and looked at him, really looked. This man who’d sat across from her at a dozen elegant dinners, telling her about policy initiatives and international development, making her laugh with his observations about DC’s absurd theater of power. Who’d bought her a $20,000 painting because he understood what it meant to invest in a woman he wants.

Who’d confessed in his Mercedes that he wanted to be devoured, and then didn’t know how to let himself be consumed.

She had a pattern. She knew this about herself. When things got difficult, when the fantasy cracked against reality, she left. She’d left jobs, cities, relationships—always with good reasons, always justified, but always left.

She’d already paid the price for being here. Already crossed the line, betrayed her code, become the other woman. The moral cost was spent.

So what if...

A disturbing thought flickered through her mind. What if she stayed? Not for love, not for a future that didn’t exist. But to get the fantasy that she came for. To finish what they’d started.

She could teach him to be free. She could show him how to be present in his own body. How to give voice to pleasure. How to exist in the light. Skills he’d take back to his wife, to his marriage bed. She’d be improving Ana’s sex life as collateral damage of the affair.

The thought should have repulsed her. Instead, it felt like purpose.

“Maybe we rushed it,” she said slowly, watching his face. “Last night. The wine, the build-up, all that anticipation—maybe it was too much pressure. Maybe we’re not ready for this.”

He looked up, cautious hope in his eyes.

“I don’t do this,” she continued, gesturing between them. “I’ve never been the other woman. I don’t know how to... I don’t have a framework for this.”

“Neither do I,” he admitted.

She picked up the Henriot bottle, topped off both their glasses. The champagne kept revealing itself: now she caught brioche, a hint of hazelnut from the aging. Complexity emerging with time and attention.

“But I also have this pattern,” she said, surprising herself with the honesty. “Of giving up too soon. Of walking away when things get hard instead of...”

She trailed off. Instead of what? Fighting for it? This wasn’t hers to fight for. He belonged to someone else.

But he was here. In her kitchen. Drinking her champagne. Still wanting from her, even if he didn’t know how to receive it.

“I like how you court me,” she said quietly. “The dinners. The attention. Even your repetitive stories.” She smiled slightly, taking the edge off it. “You make me feel seen. Valued. That matters.”

HIM

I didn’t know what to say. She was offering me something—a second chance? Permission to stay? I wasn’t sure.

“I want to learn… you,” I said, and meant it. “I want this to be... different. Better for you, for me. I just don’t know how.”

HER

She looked at him over the rim of her champagne glass. This beautiful man-child in boxer briefs, asking to be taught how to make love at fifty-five years old.

It should have been pathetic.

Instead, it felt like an offering. As though he was finally giving her what she’d asked for: his vulnerability, his hunger, his willingness to be remade.

“If we do this,” she said carefully, “if we keep seeing each other, it has to be different. I need you to show up—truly show up. Not the careful, controlled version. The real thing.”

“Okay,” he said.

“I mean it. Lights on. Sounds. Presence.”

He nodded, and she saw him considering what that would mean. Unlearning twenty years of conditioned restraint.

“And you have to understand,” she continued, “this doesn’t go anywhere. I’m not looking for you to leave your wife. I’m not falling in love with you. This is...”

She paused. What was this?

“A healing, for both of us,” she finished.

The champagne sat between them, still releasing tiny streams of bubbles. Persistent. Patient.

“This is a risk for both of us, but I am in need. I want it all. Are you willing?”

HIM

He set down his glass and looked at her with something new in his eyes. Not obliviousness. Not satisfaction. Something rawer.

“Yes,” he said.

But then he thought about the risk of change. He and Ana had resolved to sex twice a month, a compromise reached years ago, calendared like any other obligation. Would she notice if something shifted? If he suddenly wanted more, moved differently, made sounds he’d never made before?

How would he explain himself?

The thought should have stopped him. Should have sent him gathering his clothes, heading back to the safety of his controlled life.

Instead, he reached for her hand across the counter.

“Yes.” he said.

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Brooklyn tucked away a bottle of Taylor Fladgate 2018, she always brought vintage port to these tastings; fortified wine from Portugal’s Douro Valley that gained complexity with decades of bottle age, the kind of patience most people lacked. She brought port, not so much to share with the winemakers; they wanted to talk about their own juice. But the sommeliers and buyers noticed. The chefs especially noticed. While Melissa angled for an invitation to that imaginary Tuscan villa, Brooklyn was scanning the room for white coats. The winemakers could keep their dawn harvests and their romantic sunsets over endless vine rows.

Brooklyn wanted a chef.

ACT I: THE HUNT

Her colleagues didn’t understand the math. Falling in love with a winemaker meant moving to wine country; Napa, Sonoma, Willamette Valley if you were lucky. Some remote region in Croatia or Spain if you weren’t. Early mornings walking vineyard rows in mud-caked boots. Harvest meant twelve-hour days of physical labor, the kind that destroyed manicures and relationships. Then came the cleaning: tanks, barrels, equipment, the eternal smell of fermentation and sanitizer soaked into everything you owned.

These women owned a hundred pairs of Gucci loafers, The Office of Angela Scott and other city shoes. Not a single pair of Wellingtons among them.

Brooklyn had done her research. Chefs worked long hours, same as wine reps. Chefs understood the restaurant hustle, the performance of service, the high that came from a perfectly executed night. A chef’s apartment would be in the city, in her city; within walking distance of his restaurant. No commute to the country. No roosters at dawn.

And a chef would know what to do with a woman who brought Taylor Fladgate to bed.

She’d adjusted her wardrobe accordingly. While her colleagues squeezed into bandage dresses that screamed “available,” Brooklyn chose clothes that whispered “hungry.” A silk blouse that clung to her curves, tailored pants that showed she had hips. She’d stopped apologizing for the soft swell of her lower belly, that little pouch beneath her firm abs that her trainer called “stubborn” and she’d come to think of as proof she actually enjoyed food. The fuppa, her girlfriend called it. The exact body of someone who could keep up with a chef’s appetite; tasting menus at midnight, Grand Cru wines until 3 AM, the understanding that food was foreplay.

Brooklyn had narrowed her targets to five. Marcus at Mama Mia, who was turning out the city’s best pasta and had arms like a boxer from years of hand-rolling dough. David at Luca et Luca, the quiet one with the Michelin star and the rumored open marriage. James at Kindred, who’d just been written up in Bon Appétit and was exactly her age, thirty-two and feeling the clock. Andre at Meats, who could butcher a pig and quote Bourdain in the same breath.

But Paulo was different.

Paulo was the one who made her heart rate pick up when she delivered her samples to his restaurant. Thirty-eight, Costa Rican, single as far as she could determine from careful questioning of his head hostess. He’d opened Cantina six months ago and the food was unlike anything in Chicago! Blue Zone cooking, the stuff people ate in the longevity hotspots of the world. Fresh, bright, aggressively healthy but somehow deeply comforting. Casados with perfectly cooked beans. Ceviche that tasted like the ocean. Gallo pinto that made you understand why Costa Ricans ate it for breakfast every day.

And the man could move in a kitchen. Economy of motion, complete control, presence that made everyone around him more focused.

ACT II: Paulo

Brooklyn had been planning this approach for three weeks. She’d timed her wine delivery for 4 PM; after prep, before service, when Paulo would be in that liminal space where chefs were most human. She’d worn her red slacks and a simple black t-shirt that showed off the collarbone he’d once complimented.

“Brought you something special,” she said, setting the bottle on the stainless steel prep counter; Taylor Fladgate 1992 Vintage Port. The ‘92 according to Robert M. Parker, JR, “ is unquestionably the greatest young port I have ever tasted. It represents the essence of what vintage port can achieve. The color is an opaque black/purple, and the nose offers up fabulously intense aromas of minerals, cassis, blackberries, licorice, and spices, as well as extraordinary purity and penetration…” Vintage port is declared only in exceptional years when the harvest warranted it. The wine spends about two years in cask before being bottled unfiltered, then required at least a decade in bottle to soften the tannins, developing signature notes of dried fig and tobacco.

Paulo wiped his hands on his apron, picked up the bottle. His fingers were scarred from years of knife work, nails clipped short, one thumb slightly crooked from an old break. Beautiful, competent hands.

“Taylor Fladgate,” he said, reading the label. His accent turned the words into music. “You know I can’t afford to put this on the wine list.”

“It’s not for the list.”

He looked at her then, really looked. Brooklyn held his gaze, letting him see exactly what she was offering. The kitchen around them hummed with pre-service energy. His sous chef prepping plantains, the dishwasher starting his first load, the smell of sofrito building in a pot.

“You always bring port, no?” Paulo asked.

“Only for chefs who’d appreciate it.”

“And you think I’d appreciate it.”

“I think you’d know exactly what to do with it.”

The corner of his mouth lifted. “I make a chocolate tres leches that would pair perfectly. Coco, caramelized pineapple, coconut cream, I might have to play with the recipe to make it work.”

Smart. The wine’s residual sweetness would balance the chocolate and coconut cream. She wasnt sure how the caramelized pineapple would work, but was open to seeing how this pairng tasted. They would figure it our together. She understoon wine and he understood structure. Brooklyn’s stomach tightened. Food as flirtation, the promise of sugar and fat and... “Sounds like it needs to be tasted.”

“After service,” Paulo said. “Midnight.”

“I’ll be here.”

He set the bottle in the wine cooler, his hand lingering on the glass for a moment before returning to his mise en place. Brooklyn turned to leave, felt his eyes on her back, the weight of attention from a man who knew exactly what he wanted.

AFTER SERVICE

Brooklyn made it to the door before Paulo called after her.

“Hey, Brooklyn?”

She turned.

“Try this.” He poured a teaspoon of tri-colored seasoned salt onto a white plate. Brooklyn tried to grasp a pinch, then decided to lick the finger tip and let the orange, red and white grains coat her skin. The mixture was spicy, salty, savory and slightly sweet.

“Wow, she said. This is incredible.”

“I am revealing all of my secrets to you.”

“This could be fun to try to pair with a port,” she added. “I’ll see you later.”

As she walked away, he called her again.

“Hey, Brooklyn?”

She turned.

“You know what they say in kitchens, right? About the porter?”

She shook her head.

“Port is what you drink when the work is done. When you’ve earned it.” He was smiling now, full dimples, the first time she’d seen him anything but serious in his kitchen. “It’s patient. Gets better with time. Doesn’t rush.”

Brooklyn felt heat spread through her chest. “Good thing I’m patient too.” Twenty, thirty, forty years, that’s what vintage port demanded. Some things were worth the wait.

“We’ll see about that.”

She walked out into the late afternoon sun, already counting the hours until midnight. Behind her, she could hear Paulo calling orders to his team, his voice carrying that particular authority that made her knees weak.

Yes, chef. Yes.

I hate that question. Lately it’s triggering. Not because it’s unpleasant, but because we’ve all agreed to lie.

“Fine,” we say. Fine. That word tastes like bad wine in my mouth, like resignation dressed up as politeness. I’ve been saying it for months—to friends, to lovers, to myself in bed at 3 AM when sleep is disrupted and the world feels like it’s unraveling at the seams.

But here’s the truth: I am not fine.

I sat at my kitchen table yesterday with a pen that was running out of ink and a piece of paper I’d been avoiding for weeks. The list wrote itself:

-Injustice I scroll past because outrage exhausts me.
-Romance that arrives in fragments—a text here, a maybe-plan there, nothing that lands.
-Frayed panties I keep wearing because replacing them feels like self-care I can’t afford.
- Rhytmless sex that leaves me lonelier than solitude.
-Wine I drink because it’s there, not because it moves me.
-Food that fills but doesn’t satisfy.
-Sequin and leater duster coats hanging in my closet like ghosts of a woman I used to be.

The list grew longer. Each line a small surrender, a place where I’d accepted “fine” instead of insisting on more.

I read it twice. Then I walked to the sink, held my lighter to the corner of the page, and watched it burn. The smoke alarm didn’t go off. Maybe even it was too tired to protest.

Then I opened a bottle of Passerelles Anjou Blanc 2023.

The Wine Moment:

This Chenin Blanc from the Loire Valley doesn’t do “fine.” It does layered. It does life. It pours the color of mid afternoon sunlight—that golden hour when every selfie is perfect.

First sip: juicy nectarine that makes you remember sunshine on a gray fall day. Second sip: ginger heat that wakes something up inside you. By the third sip, I’m tasting ripe yellow apples and something I can only describe as clarity.

The wine goes down easily, but it doesn’t disappear. It lingers. It has a point of view.

I poured a second glass and queued up Scandal, a show I’d been avoiding because everyone said, “watching now would be too much.” Good, I thought. Let it be too much. Give me drama that matches the moment. Give me plot twists and high stakes and characters who refuse to settle.

The wine paired perfectly with my spicy Jamaican takeout—the kind that makes your lips tingle and your eyes water and reminds you that you have a body capable of feeling things.

Somewhere between episode five and the bottom of the bottle, something shifted.

I’m not fine. I don’t want to be fine.

I want wine that makes me pause mid-sip and think, oh. I want love that shows up fully, or not at all. I want conversations that leave me breathless, food that makes me groan out loud, clothes that make me feel like the protagonist of my own life.

I want to stop tolerating mediocrity like it’s a virtue.

The world is on fire, yes. But that’s not a reason to accept less—it’s a reason to insist on more. More pleasure, more connection, more moments that cut through the numbness and remind us why we’re here.

So when someone asks how I am, I’m done lying.

I’m not fine.

I’m waking up.

What are you tolerating? What would you burn?

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I put it back.

Photo Credit @LeaSharpeIG

I’m preparing for my Loved Girl Era.

She receives flowers
Lavished in gifts,
Drinks fine wine,
Eats well.

She is heard.

Takes long walks in bright colored dresses,
With a hand to hold onto.
Laughs with her whole body.

She has a lap to lay her head on,
Is unafraid to be soft,
And gives freely from a full heart.

She lives like love is her birthright—because it is.

The Wine That Tastes Like Permission

Tonight, that love tastes like Loveblock Sustainable Pinot Noir 2021, from Central Otago, New Zealand. The wine is exposed, uninterrupted and complex—just like her—with notes of wild cherry, sun-dried thyme, and an untamed earthiness that reminds her she’s grounded, even when her heart soars.

I didn’t choose this wine by accident.

Central Otago is the southernmost wine region in the world: isolated, extreme, uncompromising. The vines there endure dramatic temperature swings: blazing summer days that coax out concentrated fruit, and sharp alpine nights that preserve acidity and finesse. It’s a place where nothing survives unless it’s resilient and authentic. There’s no faking it in Central Otago. The terroir strips away pretense.

Pinot Noir demands the same honesty. It’s the most transparent grape in the world; thin-skinned, temperamental, incapable of hiding flaws. Where Cabernet Sauvignon can muscle through with tannin and structure, Pinot Noir reveals everything: the quality of the fruit, the integrity of the winemaking, the truth of the vintage. You can’t manipulate Pinot Noir into being something it’s not.

That’s why it’s the wine for this moment.

Photo Credit @LeaSharpeIG

What I’m Actually Preparing For

The Loved Girl Era isn’t about finding someone to love me. It’s about becoming someone who can receive love without flinching, without immediately calculating what I owe in return, without scanning for the exit, without waiting for the other shoe to drop.

I’ve spent years being impressive instead of present. Capable instead of soft. I perfected the art of not needing anything, because needing felt dangerous. I became the woman who brings her own flowers, who doesn’t ask for help, who can handle anything alone.

And I was so lonely I forgot I was lonely.

The Loved Girl Era means unlearning all of that. It means ordering the wine I actually want, not the one that’s on sale. It means wearing the bright dress even though it draws attention. It means saying “I’d love that” instead of “I’m fine either way.” It means laughing with my whole body instead of covering my mouth. It means letting someone see me cry without apologizing for having feelings.

It means drinking Pinot Noir—exposed, uninterrupted, complex—and recognizing myself in the glass.

This is where free posts end and real transformation begins. Paid subscribers, you’re getting the parts I don’t post on Instagram—the unglamorous middle, the daily practices, the wine that holds you when softness feels impossible.

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I’m grateful you’re here either way.

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The southern wall is a bookshelf of wine bottles. The bottles sit vertically so I can’t read the labels. But a good sommelier knows each bottle by the foil on the cap. I want to live here.

There’s a ladder, like the ones you would find in an old bookstore. The wooden ladder propped against the wall of wines. The ladder has wheels so the wine steward can slide back and forth when searching for a bottle. I imagine myself traveling on that ladder; east to west fondling bottle necks deciding which wine’s story to uncork.

There are two four-top tables in the wine room. I sit alone, facing the wines supported by a comfortable leather chair. The west wall is made of glass and looks onto a rooftop patio. The patio is nearly empty. I have been here so many times, I think. There’s usually so much life here.

This is where we come for celebrations, dates and confessions. But today this is where I chose to bare my soul.

This is how love ends

Tracey and I met at NoMI, fifteen years ago, to toast the end of her marriage to John. She was late, always. I waited gracefully, anticipating tears and regrets.

Not that day. Tracey arrived in a perfectly tailored Armani suit. Her short hair slicked back, three-inch high pointy patent leather shoes that elevated her well above six feet with a bright red lipstick that screamed freedom. She was all smiles.

“So, wow, you look like you’re doing ok!” I greeted her with a mix of best friend and maternal sarcasm.

“Girl hell yeah, on to the next.” And just like that the conversations about John ended.

We didn’t talk about their seven-year marriage, the gaslighting, the Tiffany gifts and flowers instead of apologies, the verbal torture that only a spouse can administer. Maybe she’d said enough. Maybe I didn’t push her to talk because I’d heard too much.

We talked about the quickness of the divorce proceedings, like my own two years prior—it was surgical. Like removing a cancer that eats away at your mind and body, causing a slow painful dying and then you make a deal with a higher power, sign your pain away to end the sickness. The process is sterile, prescriptive, heartless and uncertain.

Tracey and I chose life at that moment. We ordered the first of several bottles that we could not afford: Champagne Billecart-Salmon Rosé, a perfect choice with its coral pink color that lifts the spirit, spiral of bubbles that spring hope and warm red fruit palate that consoles the heart.

Surrounded in luxury, we plotted about all the new loves we would find in the summer of 1999.

This is how our love goes

I am back at NoMI. It’s early spring 2021or 2022, I can’t remember the covid years, this time I am waiting for RaJaun and trying to decide if I too should end this love story.

The sun shines on my face. I look to my left and want to be outside at Tracey and my table with the three couples drinking wine and cocktails. But it’s Chicago in early May; it’s sunny but bone chilling cold. The empty streets below still carry the weight of a world learning to gather again.

I am dressed for the spring in a purple, blue and pink floral strapless jumpsuit. I started my wardrobe planning a week prior to our date. The winning look: an effortless show stopper from Rent-the-Runway, weather be damned. I needed to make a statement. I need to match his swag.

Something happened in the last two years. His wardrobe went from frumpy casual to exclusively Tom Ford. He was well dressed when we first met circa 2001. Then around 2011 when he opened the cigar shop and moved deeper into the suburbs of Chicago it was athleisure all the time. A mix of Tony Soprano and Bernie Mac.

Every inch of him smelled like Cuban contraband. I didn’t mind. I loved a good smoke back then and loved the way he smells of expensive cigars mixed with Egyptian musk oil. His scent made a home in my hair, hands and lips lingering like a welcomed guest.

I look at the fitness tracker on my wrist. I really should upgrade to a nicer watch, I think, but how would I count my steps? He is late. He is always late. I usually lie about the reservation time, so that I am not kept waiting—but I didn’t lie today.

I just sent a text reminding him that due to Covid, we have 90 minutes to eat and get out. That text wasn’t enough. It’s never enough. He does what he wants, on his own time. Is this why we never worked out? No, it’s so much more than that. Is it?

A Good Smoke

He is beautiful and my body responds by clenching. First my throat, then my pelvis and finally a quick click of the eyes. I take a mental picture.

He is wearing loose fitting grey trousers, a grey button down a few shades lighter and navy trench. His shoes are suede low tops, he approaches with a smile and it takes everything in me to remain in that chair—my heart leaps.

His skin is dark, the color of mahogany with a red undertone. My skin warms. His face is wide with a chiseled nose that gives away his Trinidadian roots. He is built like a linebacker. Six foot one inches, stocky but strong and mobile.

He comes for me. Raises me from the chair and holds me firmly. The cigar shop closed a few years ago so now he smells like Tom Ford Ombré Leather— “cardamom, teather, jasmine sambac, amber, moss, P\patchouli” with undertones of Cuban contraband.

I can’t think. Every word I rehearsed faded and I am moving through our play. He is the leading man and I am happy to be follow. Thank God NoMI is attached to the Park Hyatt.

“Would you like to order a drink?”

“I am in the mood for wine today.” He directs this at me.

“Who are you? No bourbon?” The last time we met at NoMI, we were introduced to Whistle Pig Boss Hog V. Four glasses and $320 later we were spending the night at the London House. Does wine mean we are keeping things light, I wondered but was too afraid to spoil the moment by asking.

I ordered a bottle of Morgon. He gets the power and I get the elegance of Cru Beaujolais. This wine gives purple fruit and earth; gamay grapes in granite soils, offering both rustic charm and refined complexity. Like us, it’s deceptively simple on the surface but reveals layers the longer you linger.

“Can we have this sent to our room?” He asked the waiter. The waiter smiled, taking notes, game recognizes game.

Damn him, for knowing me so well.

The story continues below for paid subscribers including the wine education behind my choices and how this affair truly concluded.

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I didn't know the difference until October 2016, when my best friend Danita asked me to go skydiving. Danita was running through her bucket list like Morgan Freeman in The Bucket List—skydiving was number ten. Except Danita wasn't dying, not physically anyway.

I was the Jack Nicholson character and didn't know then that I too was experiencing my own quiet death.

I am the best vacation plus-one. For real. I say yes to every and anything. I say yes before the idea is formed. I have adopted this philosophy to my everyday life. Shit, why not, everyday should feel like a vacation.

Saying yes worked out for Shonda Rhimes—she wrote a book about it. During her "Year of Yes," she lost a bunch of weight, got over her fear of public speaking, and had the best year of her career.

My yeses don't always end up as grand.

"Hey let's go skydiving." "Yes!" "Really?" "Yeeessss!!!."

The Philosophy of Yes

That's how it went. That's how it always goes with me. Yes comes out before common sense or fear. Which I believe are the same thing.

Two Groupons later, we were in western Illinois, strapping up for a 14,000-foot fall. Okay, there was about a month between the Groupon purchase and the actual experience, but I didn't think once about what I'd signed up for. Not even once between saying yes and arriving at the location. This is what's unique about my always-on-vacation brain. Like who doesn't think about going skydiving? Side note: how cheap am I that I looked for a Groupon for a life-risking adventure? This should have been the time that I paid full price! Right?

It was a perfect day to die. Sunny, cool and the wind was still. Danita was beaming, I was neutral. Our fall-cation began with a forty-minute class on the dos, don'ts, and risks of skydiving.

"I'm a little nervous." She whispered. I was the Jack Nicholson character in this story—all I heard was blah, blah, blah. "Girl, let's do this damn thing."

Then we were introduced to our tandem partners. These were a group of late twenty to early thirty year old adrenalin junkies. They were all neon smiles. No, really—they glowed. I could see their YES energy! These were the citizens of Yesland! I had found my tribe! I wanted to scream YAAAASSSS, Let's go!

They paired us up based on height. Danita is about two inches taller than I am—okay, maybe three. I've always been jealous of her height. Taller women have advantages. It's easier for them to find clothes. They can gain a few pounds, and it doesn't show. If you're at a bar and there are two single guys; one short and one tall—the rule is your taller girlfriend gets the tall guy. Yeah, it's bullshit! Tall girls have more fun.

Oh, but not today, Danita. Not today. Today my shortness proved to be an advantage. Danita was paired with a six-foot-tall, lanky Steve Jobs type, and I was paired with Luke. Oh, Luke—five-foot-seven, fit, sandy blond with wild curly hair and sunburned skin. Luke was probably in his mid thirties, but the sun worship made him look ten years older. Fuck perfect skin—he was F-I-N-E! I mean fire! I could not wait to be strapped dick to ass!

Luke flashed me a smile that said, I got you, babe. Luke, you like chocolate? I wanted to ask when we were introduced, but instead said, "Uh, hi." "Is this your first time?" "Yes." "You'll love it!" Oh. I already do Luke, I already do.

There was another hour's wait before we were invited to board the... uh... plane? Helicopter? What the fuck is this thing? I wondered when we entered. It looked like those planes in war movies that transport soldiers. It was basically hollow, with steel benches bolted around the perimeter. Fuck me, did I just say yes to war?

Danita had the biggest smile on her face. She looked neon too. She was glowing. "We are doing this!" She yelled.

I don't know which was stronger—the gas fumes from the death plane or the sharp, tangy scent of common sense. One of them—or maybe both—took over, and I ran toward the wide opening of the death plane, where doors should have been. DOORS! There are no doors on this motherfucker! I was running toward a life of HELL NO! Luke pulled me toward him.

"You're ok." Mother... let me go before I... This was our first disagreement, Luke and I. He saw the fear in my eyes and wanted to calm me down. Is Luke my soulmate? I am so easy, a real sucker for a pretty face. Looking back, Luke was a diving junkie, and nothing would keep him from getting his fix. Not even me, especially not me. But I convinced myself he was my guide to another YES adventure and sat on the metal bench. FUCK ME!

The propeller-driven transporter to death took off. Luke motioned for me to sit on his lap. All the fear I'd felt moments before melted away as I backed that thing up, sat on his lap, and we became one. YES. Yas, yas. "Oh, this won't be so bad." We were bonded together, Luke and I, and all that no-noise in my head went away. I was back to yes-land. I was with my person. My soulmate Luke. I felt calm and safe.

"Okay, you're up next." Each couple was being shoved out of the plane. Oh, fuck me, here comes common sense again. We marched toward the edge of the opening. I should have looked forward, but I looked down. Wait, no. No, no, noooooo. I'm not sure if I said it or thought it, but seconds later, I was beginning the worst moment of my life.

We jumped out of the plane and I relived every bad shit that has ever happened to me.

You always quit things. My mom's voice; a needle to my eardrum. Reading his diary; an open-palmed punch to my chest. Taunting laughter of twenty-three middle schoolers; tears streaming to the corners of my mouth. The fire. His hands.

I felt the horror of all those experiences during the 60 second fall. All of the awfulness of my life packaged in sixty seconds.

At 5,000 feet, we were to pull a cord to deploy the parachute. I think I heard Luke's voice asking, "Do you want to pull the cord?"or maybe he motioned for me to pull it. I was frozen; I couldn't think, move, or speak. I was frozen in a memory loop of hell. I could not even save myself.

A needle to my eardrum. An open-palmed punch to my chest. Taste of salt. The fire. His hands.

All-knowing Luke, soulmate Luke, beautiful Luke—he rescued me. He opened the parachute and in a few seconds we were floating. I'm cold. I'm wet. I'm breathless.

We are floating.

I tried to focus on the flatness and endlessness of the land to calm myself. It was glorious, beautiful, maybe the most beautiful thing I've ever seen, but I couldn't get back to the present. I was caught in the velocity of the fall.

We floated for five minutes. Breathe, breathe, breathe.

When we landed, Luke removed the parachute. We looked at each other my eyes like golf balls, my stomach nauseous, my fingers and legs unsteady. We were in different places. He puts a hand on my shoulder and walks away. I think he was disappointed. It would never have worked out. I was still falling, and he was floating.

Danita skipped toward me as I swayed from side to side like I just polished off a bottle of champagne. "That was amazing!" She yells. Shut the fuck up, I wanted to answer, but instead said, "I need water and pancakes."

As traumatic as this skydiving experience was, I never stopped saying YES. The 60-second fall still haunts me. I remember it more clearly than the five minutes of peaceful floating. What I learned is that with every yes, there's a chance I might fall before I float. When I'm falling, I close my eyes and remember that floating is coming soon—and that floating outlasts the fall.

But what happens when saying yes becomes a trauma response instead of a life philosophy?

For Paid Subscribers: The Psychology of Falling

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Love—new, pulsing, alive—was on the tip of my tongue, so I spoke with a passion that made us forget we were there to talk business. We lingered over cold coffee and half-eaten pastries, feasting instead on stories of travel and longing. I told her how, after six years of carefully constructed solitude, I had finally found you. And in that moment, watching her face soften with both hope and envy, her heart opened like a book she had been afraid to read.

We both needed a love story. Mine was just beginning; hers was still waiting to be written. Wait, this story isn’t about you. It’s about her. It’s about me.

“Meet me in Milan,” she said. Not as a flirtation, but as an extension of the conversation we’d begun. “We’ll eat Calvisius Caviar and drink Ca’ del Bosco Franciacorta.”

So I came for her—and along the way, I learned about the nature of sturgeons, wandered inside a bottle of Ca’ del Bosco Cuvée Prestige, and was reminded that this life I’ve built is worth every fight it took to get here.

The Radical Act of Saying Yes

There’s something transformative about following a woman’s invitation instead of waiting for a man’s plan. Her offer carried no hidden agenda, no expectation beyond shared discovery. When she said Milan, she meant adventure in its purest form.

Here’s what travel bloggers won’t tell you about solo travel after 50.

Read what happened next…

Have you ever followed a near stranger’s invitation somewhere unexpected? Tell me about the adventure. Did it change your perspective on travel? On solo travel?

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Golden Vintage
Inspired by the 1986 Trefethen Chardonnay
Regine T. Rousseau


We were the same color
gold-tinged and full of promise.

He was oxygen,
Opening unknown parts,
softening what was restrained,
coaxing youth into bloom.

But oxygen is a double-edged grace
what gives life also takes it,
dulls what once dazzled.

Still, the wine endures,
not despite that exposure,
but because of it.

Acidity is memory.
It’s what kept us upright
when the sweetness thinned,
when everything familiar began to shift.

Love, like time, decenters me
seeps into the grain of my days,
settles underneath,
tilts the axis.

But this wine,
this vintage,
is a testament:

some things do not sour.
Some grow more desirable, more rare.

And maybe that’s the gift… survival.

Not unchanged,
but better for the unraveling.

Even now,
the finish lingers
warm,
complex,
haunting

not as absence,
but as proof that once,
we opened.

This poem has been viewed by over 900 followers and many DMed asking for the backstory. Here is the tea.

He approached me in Napa Valley with a masculine energy that was certain, focused, intentional. He smelled expensive—like bergamot and aged wood—and when he spoke about wine, it wasn't just knowledge anymore. It was seduction through education.

What happens when a decade-long friendship ignites into something that consumes you completely? When someone teaches you about pleasure in ways you never imagined, only to disappear as methodically as they arrived?

Read what happened next

For paid subscribers: The full story behind this poem—including how our love for wine deepened the connection, the passionate affair that followed, the 1986 Trefethen Chardonnay that changed everything, and what I learned about love from someone who understood vintage better than vulnerability.

Have you ever been completely undone by someone's expertise? Tell me in the comments about a time when knowledge became seduction.

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He revealed this in an unexpected moment of vulnerability, his hands still on the steering wheel of his Mercedes S-Class, the engine idling outside her Georgetown apartment. They hadn't made love yet—they'd toyed with the idea for years and were only now moving closer. She had never been the other woman before, but something about his confession of hunger, spoken into the winter darkness after two Manhattan cocktails, made her want to cross that line.

She pulled her fur coat tighter and tried to remember when a man had ever disclosed how he wanted to feel during sex. They've told her what they like, asked her what she didn't like, but this was different. This was a confession.

He is a father, husband, a boss and inherited the customs of fatherhood and husbanding from the generations before him. He was taught to be a giver without expectations of getting. But that kind of pressure builds up.

She knew this wasn't going anywhere beyond an affair, but now she had a purpose: a reason to say yes. To make this man who had become a friend, a mentor, feel desired. She would give him what he needed, with no debt attached—truth is, he'd prepaid.

She could taste his loneliness—and decided that tonight, she would answer it.

She wouldn't be with him for love or status or commitment. This was hospitality—the art of making someone feel wholly received.

She turned to face him in the leather seat. "Come up with me. But first,” she paused. “Can you stay the night?"

While he handled his obligations, she prepared with candles and perfume. The idea of cooking something for him flashed through her mind and left as quickly. She had stopped cooking for men five years ago, defying her grandmother's wisdom about earning men's devotion through their stomachs. She became bored with their greediness and sense of entitlement. Their ignorance of the rules of reciprocity. Just because there's no check doesn't mean you don't have to pay.

But wine was different. Wine was offering, not serving.

She still chose and poured their wine, always something to match her mood.

Tonight: DAOU Vineyards Patrimony Cabernet Franc. She dropped to her knees to find the wine bottle among the twenty-something bottles stored in the corner of her closet. She kept her wine bottles nestled among her other treasures—her aunt's vintage mink, her grandmother's Chanel jacket, the Ferragamo purse from that Paris thrift store. No kitchen space for proper storage, but wine and luxury clothes both demand the same care: darkness, steady temperature, low humidity.

Her entire net worth, with the exception of the Amy Sherald painting he gifted her, was in that closet. On her knees with her cellphone flashlight for guidance, she searched for one of the two bottles of DAOU Vineyards Patrimony Cabernet Franc. She found it, stroked the bottle and thought, "you can stop this."

But the truth is she was hungry too. She needed to feel something. She needed to be courted, cared for, feel feminine in an old school way that she'd be embarrassed to share with friends. They were her ride or die, but she couldn't bring herself to tell them that she needs rescuing and craves the fantasy… at any cost. She would never share this moment of aching for another's husband. This would break them.

She shifted. Her back to a pile of designer shoe boxes, legs spread out beyond the closet doors and thought about opening the Cabernet Franc for herself. She thought about letting its silky texture coated with luxurious dark fruit; blackberries, blueberries, earthiness and spice, give her what she needed—a tingle, warmth, the feels. She didn't need to get that from him. Did she?

She pulled herself off the chilled wooden floor, walked to the kitchen, uncorked the bottle, poured the wine into a decanter, grabbed two glasses and waited for his knock.

HIM

I stood at her door. Palm pressed against its warmth, unable to make a fist, release my wrist and knock. I wondered if she could hear my heart beating.

How did I get here?

HER

She shivered when the floor boards beneath his feet cracked under his weight.

HIM

"She knows I am here." He thought, cleared his throat loudly and tapped his knuckles against the door.

HER

Her heart jumped, she poured herself an ounce of wine, grabbed the Camille Long Stemmed glass by the bowl, took a big gulp, swirled it around her mouth and swallowed the courage.

"It's open," she called out.

HIM

I walked in and the apartment was just as I expected, neat, colorful, comfortable and filled with the smell of sweet basil, sandalwood and violets.

"Wow, what's that smell?"

"It's my favorite candle, Conrad No. 5, by Barratt Riley & Co in Beverly Hills."

"You may be the bougiest person I know."

"Wine?" She smiled.

"Yes," I reached for the bottle. "Patrimony? Tell me more. Where..."

Before I could finish, she took a sip of wine and kissed it into my mouth. A little spilled from the corner and she caught it with her lips.

I am weak and hope she can't feel my knees soften.

We drank more wine in silence. I am quiet, fearful that if I talk I will tell her that I am terrified and this moment will end. Three times I think of leaving. Heading home, lying about the lie and telling Ana that I decided to bring my work home. But I stay because the wine and she are the most delicious things I've tasted in years.

Tonight, we feast on each other, cabernet franc and realized fantasies.

HOSPITALITY - Behind the Scenes

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He's on his way. Again.

You find reasonable excuses to see him. This time, it's a business chat. Last time, it was to retrieve the faded blue Cubs championship t-shirt you left at his place—the one you claim you can't sleep without, although you sleep in t…

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There's a tenderness in starting over.

I began Champagne Diaries years ago as a whisper—a handful of stories shared on Facebook and an old blog platform that felt like home. Love stories where wine wasn't just a drink, but a companion holding space for everything we couldn't say out loud. Stories written with a glass in hand and my heart wide open, believing that vulnerability and a good vintage could heal almost anything.

Then I paused. Life shifted in ways that felt seismic and small all at once. Priorities shifted. But the stories didn't leave me. They sat quietly in the corners of my mind, patient as aged wine, waiting.

And recently, my heart broken and something stirred. A reminder from somewhere deep and true: these stories still matter. They're still yours to tell.

So here I am, beginning again. Not because I have to, but because I want to. Because some things are worth returning to, worth tending with fresh hands and a fuller heart.

Why Champagne Diaries, Why Now?

Because we need softness in a world that rewards hardness. Because we need spaces that feel like deep breaths and slow sips, where time moves differently and feelings are allowed to be complicated.

Because love—messy, complicated, raw, new, or long-lost—still deserves to be explored with the same reverence we give to a wine that took decades to become itself.

And because wine still has things to teach us. About patience. About how time changes everything. About the way certain flavors can unlock doors in memory we forgot we'd closed. About ourselves, when we're brave enough to listen.

What This Space Will Be

Champagne Diaries is a storytelling journal rooted in romance, travel, and wine—but really, it's about the moments that make us human. Some stories spring from imagination. Some are pulled from real life, still warm to the touch. All are emotionally true, written for the part of you that believes in magic and knows heartbreak in equal measure.

You can expect:

Short stories every two weeks that pour like good wine—slowly, intentionally, with layers that reveal themselves as you settle in. Stories that taste like midnight conversations and morning-after regrets, like first kisses and shattering final goodbyes.

Narrative-driven wine reflections that meet you wherever you are emotionally. Not lectures about tannins and terroir (though we'll talk about those too), but explorations of why we reach for Champagne when we're celebrating, Burgundy when we're contemplating, and that bottle we've been saving when we finally decide we're worth it.

Moments of pause—a line that stops you mid-sip, a memory that surfaces unbidden, a feeling that lingers longer than the wine's finish. The kind of writing that makes you set down your phone and remember what it feels like to feel.

What You'll Receive

For free subscribers: These stories will arrive in your inbox like letters from a friend who pays attention—ready to be savored with whatever you're drinking, whether it's morning coffee or evening wine.

For paid subscribers: You'll sit at the edge of the bed for the deeper conversation. Behind-the-scenes notes on where these stories come from. Wine-paired writing prompts that might surprise you. Special reflections meant just for us—the ones who believe that supporting storytelling is its own form of love.

The Community I'm Hoping For

I'm dreaming of a gathering place for people who understand that the best conversations happen when defenses are down and glasses are full. Who know that sophistication isn't about what you know, but how deeply you're willing to feel.

Whether you're a wine novice or a seasoned collector, whether you've loved once or many times, whether you're currently healing or celebrating—there's a place for you here. Bring your curiosity. Bring your stories. Bring whatever's in your glass.

So let's begin again, beautifully. Let's create something that feels like the best kind of dinner party—intimate, honest, and full of stories worth telling.

Pour yourself something lovely. Settle in. Let's see what unfolds.

Subscribe to Champagne Diaries

Because some stories are worth the wait. Because starting over can be the most beautiful thing we do.

P.S. - I'm curious: what made you pause the last time you started something over? What brought you back? I'd love to hear your beginning-again story.