Spiced Wine

Ali walked into House Atreides and quickly surveyed the room. The tables were tastefully lit with hanging globes in a soft glowing blue and made of linen and sea glass. Each was capable of seating 4 people and there were twenty in the small room. She nodded to the bartender smiling at the fact that the room was almost entirely filled with people enjoying the Friday evening wine tasting.

It was a unique little bar, decorated in muted shades of sand and coral with touches of blue in the glowing tiles set into the surfaces of the bar and the walls at spaced intervals. They served only mixed drinks and wine, with the specialty of the house being drinks based on the novel Dune by Frank Herbert, and wines from Atreides Wines, which also owned and operated the bar. Tonight’s specialties were drinks named for the ruling “houses”, such as The House Atreides made with Russian vodka, and The House Harkonnen, made with absinth. The favorite with the bar clientele was the Arrakis, which was the bar’s version of a Shark Bite. In addition to being quite tasty, they loved the twist of the drink being made with “Spiced” rum and blue in color to reflect the storyline of the blue-eyed Fremen from Arrakis, also known as the spice planet.

Tonight, as on every Friday night, they were holding a wine tasting for their newest wines, Alia, a smooth merlot, Leto, a golden chardonnay and Chani, a lightly balanced rose.

As she looked around, Ali noticed a man seated near the bar who had looked toward the door when she entered. He met her eyes and then looked down disappointedly as she continued to walk by. Her first thought was that he was rather nice looking, and her second thought was that he seemed to be waiting for someone. She could not help but overhear his conversation as he took out his phone and began speaking into it. “No, she’s not here yet. Yes, I know she’s twenty minutes late, I was just about to leave.”

Paul, the bartender, yes, his name really was Paul, nodded towards the man’s table as Ali stopped at the bar. “Poor guy, he’s been waiting for a blind date for almost an hour now. He was here early, and it looks like he’s about to be stood up. Seems like a really nice guy too.” Ali was thinking about how heartless some people could be when from across the room someone called out “Hi Ali! Great to see you tonight!”. As she turned to acknowledge the customer, the man at the table straightened up. “Allison?” he said, looking directly at her. “I thought you might have forgotten about our date.” Ali didn’t quite know what to do. Paul winked at her, saying “Ali, this is Joe” and she was stuck between letting the gentleman down easy or pretending to be his blind date. She slowly walked over to the table and held out her hand. “Hi, I’m Ali”, she said as he stood to meet her.

Joe shook her hand and then held her chair for her. “Hey Paul, can we get a drink for the lady?” he asked as she sat. Paul replied that he would bring a selection from the wine tasting and they could decide after that. As Paul set the samples down with a decided twinkle in his eye, Joe began explaining that he was a huge fan of the Dune novels and had thought that it would be a fun place to meet for a first date. Even if they didn’t have a second, at least he would have had a reason to check out the bar. He went on for a few minutes, talking about how much he was enjoying the bar and its vibe, describing the various drinks, how much the décor reflected the books and that the bartender was top notch. This gave Ali a chance to collect her thoughts. She herself hadn’t been on a date for almost a year and was a little rusty at small talk. Over sampling of the wines, they talked about themselves and how they had both been too busy with work and life to have dated much lately. How both had been in long-term relationships that had ended badly, leaving them a little gun shy about venturing out into the dating scene again.

As they talked, getting to know each other and sampling the night’s selection of new wines, Ali and Joe began to realize that they were actually having a really great time and each hoped that they would get to enjoy the other’s company again sometime soon. They both chose the red wine, with Joe asserting that it was by far one of the best he had ever tasted. Paul brought a bottle to the table and poured two glasses. As they raised their glasses in a toast, Ali lowered her head and watched Joe through her lashes as Paul held the label out for his inspection. There, on the bottle’s label, was a picture of the lady sitting across from him at the table. As Joe looked at her over his glass of Merlot, she smiled and said, “my name really is Ali. Its short for Alia, not Allison.” “I hope you’re not upset with me. My family is a little eccentric. We own the bar and I developed this wine. I didn’t mean to mislead you, but something just made me want to sit and share it with you.” As Joe recovered from his shock, Paul burst out laughing and left the bottle on the table saying “I’ve been waiting for her to find someone to share a glass with for a long time now! This one’s on me!!”