Wine: a study

"Sorry, the place is a mess," Kelly says as he opens the door to his apartment. There is a half-empty suitcase on his couch, the cat is gone, and his bed is torn apart. The mattress is naked, the surface picked out in ugly flowers, and piled with clothes.

"Come on, I need help picking out a suit," he says half in the closet. He grabs his dress shirts in bunches and lays them out on the already cluttered bed. The colors are all bright blues, purples, and pinks done in stripes, checks, plaids, and some patterns that are a mixture of both. His nightstand (a collection of wooden vintner's boxes) is broken in half and opened to show his collection of ties. It's another jumble of bright colors and patterns.

I have been helping him prepare for his Advanced tests for the past month. Well, by helping I mean going with him to study groups and calming him down as he worries about something I'm sure he already knows by heart. ("What if they ask me to name all the [insert grape] in [insert country/region]?" "Kel, you have an IQ of 300, you know that stuff." "What if it's all French? You know I'm an Italophile..."). I've watched him and his fellow sommeliers sit in front of glasses of wine and play the drinking version of Guess Who?! I've seen a full, formal table service performed step-by-step...even using a wine basket (which, apparently, is a useless piece of wicker/wire that no one uses anyway...sort of like taking advanced Calculus and being an English major).

Kelly matches shirts and ties in patterns that make my eyes hurt. Stripes with plaids in a giant swath of various purples. I match a solid blue shirt with a paisley-esque tie, but he vetos it and pulls another shirt to replace the blue. "That's too boring," he says. I sigh and step aside, offering a few comments when I can and watch him pack.

He'll be gone for the week and returning Saturday night. I keep trying to be as helpful as possible, but I know I'm just a blanket...something comforting just to have around. He pours two glasses of a pinot noir from Napa (a rarity in Mr. Old-world's fridge) and I drink as he finishes packing. In the morning, he will rush to grab his three bags, thrust a few CDs into my hands that he needs returned to the library, and empty the few items in his fridge into my car: two cheeses from our Othello picnic, a quarter gallon of whole milk, and the half-finished bottle of pinot noir.