She wasn’t an alcoholic. She was a connoisseur of late afternoons.
Jenni smiled. The old her, the pre-cocktail-hour her, would have panic-texted back immediately: Of course! Are you okay? Do you need me to drive up? What happened? She would have absorbed Chloe’s anxiety, made it her own, and spent the rest of the evening pacing the house in a state of low-grade hysteria. jenni lee afternoon cocktail
She measured the gin carefully, watching the clear liquid catch the light. She was aware of every sound: the clink of the ice cubes as she dropped them into the mixing glass, the gentle chime of the spoon against the crystal as she stirred—never shook, her mother had always said, shaking bruises the gin. She strained the pale, straw-colored liquid into a chilled Nick & Nora glass, the shape elegant and slightly old-fashioned, like something from a black-and-white movie. She wasn’t an alcoholic