They were in the neighborhood, drinking wine at a local Heuriger, a wine tavern, really good wine they said, and since they were in the neighborhood they thought they’d drop by and ask when the rowing club Heuriger was.

It was last weekend, we said, but come in and chat for a while.

Oh, we couldn’t, they said. They apologized for bothering us. Just for a minute. Then they have to run.

Would you like something to drink? Some wine? Glass of water? Juice?

I’d like some of your good single malt, if I may be so bold, she said. He had some wine, but mostly mineral water, since he was driving.

In a generous mood, I fetched a liter bottle of my second-best single malt from the library. It was two-thirds full. The best single malt, my vat-strength Macallan’s is locked away. This was still good stuff, Macallan Elegancia.

I got two Riedel single malt glasses.

We sat and chatted about various things. I couldn’t get over how fast our guest was putting away her whisky. It was impressive. After a while, I felt like saying, why don’t we just insert a valve into your side and pour it straight into your liver?

I had to go pick up Beta at her summer job so I didn’t drink but a glass at the start. When I got home with her, our guests, especially the one drinking whisky, were more cheerful than they had been when I left, which is the way it’s supposed to be I guess.

I heard somewhere that with English men, you can see in the faces of grown men how they looked as boys, and with the French, you can see in the faces of little boys what they’ll look like when they grow up.

As we sat there and talked, and poured (for a drink or two I had matched our guest, but lost the desire and began giving her full refills, and taking symbolic ones myself) I noticed I could see clearly how handsome and how pretty our guests had been before they entered middle age and got heavy and so on.

It is one of my favorite super powers, being able to look at people and see how beautiful they are.

Our whisky drinking guest stopped making sense with about two inches of whisky left in the bottle. Beta was, by this time, also tasting a bit of the Macallan, just half an inch in a glass. Gamma sniffed it and wrinkled her nose and asked how we could drink it. Both girls, though, were mainly observing the woman beside me. They found it both interesting, in a slightly clinical way, a slightly anthropological way, and entertaining in a we don’t usually get to see this stuff way.

Alpha sometimes had to remind me to refill our guest’s glass; sometimes it was empty so fast I didn’t notice right away.

I was getting slapped on the back a lot and that sort of thing, to which I usually said something like, “heh, yeah, hm”.

She declared she wasn’t leaving until the bottle was finished. I thought she was kidding but she wasn’t. I poured her a big glass. She asked me if I were trying to get rid of her. Well, I thought. No, no, of course not, I said. We’re all having a great time, I said.

I half expected her to sit on my lap at some point, but she didn’t.

When I was a kid, a friend’s mom went crazy and climbed my uncle’s pear tree and threw pears at him when he asked her to get out.

They left after several hours of fun, our guests. The husband was fairly sober, having drunk mainly water the whole time. They marched their beautiful selves out to their car and drove off into the night. Come back soon, we said.