sit silently, watching the angry sun drop swiftly behind the black hills that rim the lake. I can see the fireflies winking from the trees along the shore that we have left behind.

Usually, when quaffing flask after decanter after pitcher of jammy, noxious booze, I later weep veritable flagons of remorse. But not today. I yawn and stretch out, flopping over onto my back in this strange bed.

Hilariously enough, these are questions we’ve been asking all along, our entire lives, right? Can we pull this off? Who are we? What are we doing?

They tend to be high most of the time, so they’re not into purely sober living, but they don’t spend their days in the dereliction of the addicted, with the relentless anxiety that there will never, in all the world, be enough. I fill a glass from the tap. They don’t have a filter installed on the faucet like Nadine does, which means their tap

When I’m feeling festive or exuberant, I want to chat and burble, marking my journey into tipsiness with my verbal outpourings, measuring my drunkenness in confessions and, eventually, incoherence.

The thought makes me unspeakably sad, and I am swamped with sudden despair, the kind that swoops in after a bout of drinking and settles over your neurochemicals like an impermeable sheath.

Now I am a disgraceful debtor, in over her head. Few things are more shameful than insolvency in a country where poverty is a moral failing.

he thought something had suddenly begun malfunctioning, rather than just continuing along its natural entropic path, unimpeded by the feminine forces that typically stood in its way.

My father had desperately wanted there to be some secret to running a wildly successful vineyard, some occult practice that would guarantee a brilliant harvest, like plucking grapes under the full moon or debauching virgins in the fecund fields. But Mr. Bartoletti’s secret was much less glamorous. The man worked with a maniacal, dedicated fervor.