Vodka Friends Quotes

Me: “I refuse to attend Support Group.” Mom: “One of the symptoms of depression is disinterest in activities.” Me: “Please just let me watch America’s Next Top Model. It’s an activity.” Mom: “Television is a passivity.” Me: “Ugh, Mom, please.” Mom: “Hazel, you’re a teenager. You’re not a little kid anymore. You need to make friends, get out of the house, and live your life.” Me: “If you want me to be a teenager, don’t send me to Support Group. Buy me a fake ID so I can go to clubs, drink vodka, and take pot.” Mom: “You don’t take pot, for starters.” Me: “See, that’s the kind of thing I’d know if you got me a fake ID.” Mom: “You’re going to Support Group.” Me: “UGGGGGGGGGGGGG.” Mom: “Hazel, you deserve a life.

Most men would never tell a girl her Pikachu smells like a crab cake. It's just not done. But they would have no qualms about telling their guy friends. Similarly, if you're a guy and you pull your pants down, and the girl you're with immediately stats text messaging her friends, you have a small penis. Are You There Vodka? It's Me, Chelsea

You will miss me, question? I will miss you. You are friend.” “Yeah. I’m going to miss you.” I take another swig of vodka. “You're my friend. Heck, you’re my best friend.

I don't appreciate people who celebrate their dog's birthdays with "dog parties," and then invite their friends who don't even have dogs. I understand why people like dogs, and I think they definitely bring more to the table than cats or those godforsaken ferrets, but I don't think it's healthy for people to treat their dogs like they are real people.

Decebel looked over at Fane. "A face tu fiecare a lua ce ei say?(Do you ever get what they say?)" Fane smiled at his Beta. "Nu mai incerce sa, (No longer try)." "Good call." Decebel nodded. Jen looked over at Decebel, her eyes narrowing. "No talking in foreign tongue when around the Americans." Decebel leaned towards her, the gleam in his eyes causing Jen to tremble. "But Jennifer, I thought you spoke Romanian." He looked around at Sally and Jacque. "Weren't you two under the impression that she spoke Romanian?" Jacque and Sally nodded despite the daggers Jen was staring their way. "That was thoroughly impressed upon us, wouldn't you say, Sally?" Jacque turned to look at her. "Wait. Uh yeah, I distinctly remember a bar...vodka...and I'm almost positive Jen speaking in Romanian to the hot bartender." Sally was grinning from ear to ear as Jen's face grew red. "I hope you two aren't attached to your undergarments because I just got the sudden urge to have a bonfire," Jen growled out. "Note to self: hide underwear." "Or you could just solve that problem by not wearing any." Jacque heard Fane's voice through their bond. Her jaw dropped open and her face turned bright red as she turned to look at her mate. Jen looked at Sally. "Looks like Fane had a suggestion about the princess' undergarments. If I had my guess, I'd say he told her I couldn't burn them if she didn't own any." If Jacque could've turned any redder she would have. "How? What..." Jacque stuttered as she looked at her blonde friend, trying to figure out how she knew what Fane had been thinking. "It's a gift, Watson. But really what it boils down to is when it comes to chicks and underwear, guys will always say they don't mix." Decebel coughed as he choked on his laughter while Fane had buried his face in Jacque's back, his shoulders shaking. Jacque and Sally both looked at their friend with open mouths.

Ilyukhina raised her vodka. “Do not fuck up my house, Roscosmos bastards!” “Aren’t they your friends?” I asked. “They can be both!” She bellowed with laughter.

Here’s to the women we’ve met, and to the women we’ve fucked, And to those amongst us who’ve had no such luck. Here’s to beer in the glass, and vodka in the cup, Here’s to pokin’ her in the ass, so she won’t get knocked up. Here’s to all of you, and here’s to me, Together as friends we’ll always be, But if we should ever disagree, Then FUCK ALL OF YOU, HERE’S TO ME!

I was part of your train but my railroad car was disconnected and switched at the track, and now my friends and I are on a separate journey learning how not to rock the lifeboat, sending out a patient S.O.S to you for help. I reach out with love, possibly one of a dying breed, the old survival of the fittest theory, or perhaps I am throwing you a lifeline from my Rectangular Bubble.

The books were the background of my little world, and seeing them carted away by friends and relatives was like watching someone dismantle the sky.

So, I'm in Dallas--- I am on methadone, a quart of vodka a day, cocaine, and Xanax.

Friends don’t bite friends. At least not without lots of Vodka, a Mexican waiter named Santiago and mutual consent.

At the first such gathering, I politely sat with them for half an hour, drank some vodka, and even recited a toast about how great it was that Gulya had such great friends. This proved to be a tactical error, since afterward Gulya wanted me to drink vodka and recite toasts with them every night, which was not compatible with my program of study of the great Uzbek language.

It’s been my experience that people who make proclamations about themselves are usually the opposite of what they claim to be. If someone truly is a loyal friend, then they wouldn’t need to broadcast it; eventually, people will figure it out. Who talks about themselves like that? I have a lot of good friends and not one of them ever introduced themselves by saying, “I’m a very good friend.

Human sexual and social behavior shares some similaries with that of rodents, but has some important differences as well. It shows much greater variability and individuality, for example, and is less closely tied to the olfactory system. At present, it is tempting to speculate that those of us with cheatin' hearts might have differences in brain dopamine, vasopressin, or oxytocin signaling when compared to our more faithful friends who have adopted the prairie vole lifestyle.

My friends were thin, pretty, naturally bronzed and accessorized with bug-eyed sunglasses. They slurped vodka straight from the bottle while they drove. They roamed the streets in bikinis by day and by night, skimpy dresses short enough to bare their ass cheeks when they bent over. They pushed up their breasts and snorted coke in the bathrooms of clubs before grinding their crotches into strangers until last call. And when the night came to an end, they romped through the filthy, gum-stained streets barefoot because they were too hammered to feel the glass shards beneath their soles. The PB girls were wild, edgy, and dangerously carefree.

The list of frequently used nouns included: struggle for peace, woman, love, constitution, deputy, congress, delegation, friend, mother, little girl, salmon, sturgeon, red (black) caviar, champagne, vodka, watermelon, cherry, sour cherry, horseradish, and beefsteak. “Fini!” exclaimed Piri happily: she was done gluing the mirror.

When I still lived in Arizona, I sat down on a tattered futon at the house party and my blond friend handed me a bottle of blue Gatorade. There's vodka in it, she said. She was the kind of woman that served drinks at other people's parties. The vodka gave strength to my desires. Everyone watched. I was the last person to leave the party. As I buttoned my coat, the host of the party touched his beard, laughed, and said, No no no. I wrapped my scarf around my neck, picked up my bike leaning against the living room wall and walked toward the door. Stay, he said, and he wasn't asking. ...Though he did force himself on me, the truth is I stayed at the party waiting for something to happen. Everyone at the party left, and still, nothing had happened. He wasn't a stranger―I knew he was a bad man, I'd known that for a long time. That's why I stayed. I spent so much of my youth waiting for something to happen. Unsupervised, I had my choice of dark rooms. I knew which rooms were bad and I entered then anyway. It was a sort of power.

Each person has his own manner of waking in the morning after a drunken orgy, and as nothing is unknown to a Soviet citizen, so there is nothing strange in the fact that one Soviet citizen wakes up in one way, another so, and a third prefers not to awaken, but lies with face to the wall and eyes closed, waiting in vain for the friends who have forgotten to bring him half a vodka and a cucumber.

She was the first close friend who I felt like I’d re­ally cho­sen. We weren’t in each other’s lives be­cause of any obli­ga­tion to the past or con­ve­nience of the present. We had no shared his­tory and we had no rea­son to spend all our time to­ gether. But we did. Our friend­ship in­ten­si­fied as all our friends had chil­dren – she, like me, was un­con­vinced about hav­ing kids. And she, like me, found her­self in a re­la­tion­ship in her early thir­ties where they weren’t specif­i­cally work­ing to­wards start­ing a fam­ily. By the time I was thirty-four, Sarah was my only good friend who hadn’t had a baby. Ev­ery time there was an­other preg­nancy an­nounce­ment from a friend, I’d just text the words ‘And an­other one!’ and she’d know what I meant. She be­came the per­son I spent most of my free time with other than Andy, be­cause she was the only friend who had any free time. She could meet me for a drink with­out plan­ning it a month in ad­vance. Our friend­ship made me feel lib­er­ated as well as safe. I looked at her life choices with no sym­pa­thy or con­cern for her. If I could ad­mire her de­ci­sion to re­main child-free, I felt en­cour­aged to ad­mire my own. She made me feel nor­mal. As long as I had our friend­ship, I wasn’t alone and I had rea­son to be­lieve I was on the right track. We ar­ranged to meet for din­ner in Soho af­ter work on a Fri­day. The waiter took our drinks or­der and I asked for our usual – two Dirty Vodka Mar­ti­nis. ‘Er, not for me,’ she said. ‘A sparkling wa­ter, thank you.’ I was ready to make a joke about her un­char­ac­ter­is­tic ab­sti­nence, which she sensed, so as soon as the waiter left she said: ‘I’m preg­nant.’ I didn’t know what to say. I can’t imag­ine the ex­pres­sion on my face was par­tic­u­larly en­thu­si­as­tic, but I couldn’t help it – I was shocked and felt an un­war­ranted but in­tense sense of be­trayal. In a de­layed re­ac­tion, I stood up and went to her side of the ta­ble to hug her, un­able to find words of con­grat­u­la­tions. I asked what had made her change her mind and she spoke in va­garies about it ‘just be­ing the right time’ and wouldn’t elab­o­rate any fur­ther and give me an an­swer. And I needed an an­swer. I needed an an­swer more than any­thing that night. I needed to know whether she’d had a re­al­iza­tion that I hadn’t and, if so, I wanted to know how to get it. When I woke up the next day, I re­al­ized the feel­ing I was ex­pe­ri­enc­ing was not anger or jeal­ousy or bit­ter­ness – it was grief. I had no one left. They’d all gone. Of course, they hadn’t re­ally gone, they were still my friends and I still loved them. But huge parts of them had dis­ap­peared and there was noth­ing they could do to change that. Un­less I joined them in their spa­ces, on their sched­ules, with their fam­i­lies, I would barely see them. And I started dream­ing of an­other life, one com­pletely re­moved from all of it. No more chil­dren’s birth­day par­ties, no more chris­ten­ings, no more bar­be­cues in the sub­urbs. A life I hadn’t ever se­ri­ously con­tem­plated be­fore. I started dream­ing of what it would be like to start all over again. Be­cause as long as I was here in the only Lon­don I knew – mid­dle-class Lon­don, cor­po­rate Lon­don, mid-thir­ties Lon­don, mar­ried Lon­don – I was in their world. And I knew there was a whole other world out there.

Everybody says: the Kremlin, the Kremlin. They all go on about it, but I've never seen it. The number of times (thousands) I've been drunk or hung over, traipsing round Moscow, north-south, east-west, end to end, straight through or any old way - and I've never once seen the Kremlin. For instance, yesterday - yesterday I didn't see it again, though I was buzzing round that area the whole evening and it's not as if I was particularly drunk. I mean, as soon as I came out onto Savyelov Station, I had a glass of Zubrovka for starters, since I know from experience that as an early-morning tipple, nobody's so far dreamed up anything better. Anyway, a glass of Zubrovka. Then after that - on Kalyaev Street - another glass, only not Zubrovka this time, but coriander vodka. A friend of mine used to say coriander had a dehumanizing effect on a person, i.e, it refreshes your parts but it weakens your spirit. For some reason or other it had the opposite effect on me, i.e., my spirit was refreshed, while my parts all went to hell. But I do agree it's dehumanizing, so that's why I topped it up with two glasses of Zhiguli beer, plus some egg-nog straight from the bottle, in the middle of Kalyaev Street. Of course, you're saying: come on, Venya, get on with it — what did you have next? And I couldn't say for sure. I remember - I remember quite distinctly in fact - I had two glasses of Hunter's vodka, on Chekhov Street. But I couldn't have made it across the Sadovy ring road with nothing to drink, I really couldn't. So I must've had something else.

No, friend,” said a pleasant and, as it seemed to Prince Andrew , a familiar voice, “what I say is that if it were possible to know what is beyond death, none of us would be afraid of it. That’s so, friend.” Another, a younger voice, interrupted him: “Afraid or not, you can’t escape it anyhow.”“All the same, one is afraid! Oh, you clever people,” said a third manly voice interrupting them both. “Of course you artillery men are very wise, because you can take everything along with you—vodka and snacks.” And the owner of the manly voice , evidently an infantry officer, laughed. “Yes, one is afraid,” continued the first speaker, he of the familiar voice. “One is afraid of the unknown, that’s what it is. Whatever we may say about the soul going to the sky . . . we know there is no sky but only an atmosphere.

I’ve always had a talent for recognizing when I am in a moment worth being nostalgic for. When I was little, my mother would come home from a party, her hair cool from the wind, her perfume almost gone, and her lips a faded red, and she would coo at me: “You’re still awake! Hiiii.” And I’d think how beautiful she was and how I always wanted to remember her stepping out of the elevator in her pea-green wool coat, thirty-nine years old, just like that. Sixteen, lying on the dock at night with my camp boyfriend, taking tiny sips from a bottle of vodka. But school was so essentially repulsive to me, so characterized by a desire to be done. That’s part of why it hurts so bad to see it again. I didn’t drink in the essence of the classroom. I didn’t take legible notes or dance all night. I thought I would marry my boyfriend and grow old and sick of him. I thought I would keep my friends, and we’d make different, new memories. None of that happened. Better things happened. Then why am I so sad?

Then she took my hand and led me away from my friends and her friends. I’d expected to spend the evening at a distance from her, stealing glances across the fairground, maybe having a brief conversation. Now my hand was in hers, our fingers entwined like they had been that one night we’d walked home from the movies together. The night I’d been sure we would be together. it was like a montage out of a film, everything seen as if through a filter. We wandered the fairground for hours, me with my arm around her waist, and she didn’t even seem to care that people would see us. That night, Grace was not Grace; she was effervescent, lighthearted, a character out of a book. We competed against each other at bumper cars. Fed each other cotton candy. At the top of the Ferris wheel, we took swigs of straight vodka from her flask. The city, sprawled out in the distance, looked small from up there, a collection of toy buildings in a tilt-shift photograph. I even won her a prize at the laughing clowns. And I lapped it up, every moment of it, thinking that this was how things would be from now on.

This is happy! Your face opening is in sad mode. Why, question?' 'Going to be a long trip and I'll be all alone.' ... 'You will miss me, question? I will miss you. You are friend.' 'Yeah. I'm going to miss you.' I take another swig of vodka. 'You're my friend. Heck, you're my best friend. And pretty soon we're going to say goodbye forever.' He two tapped gloved claws together. They made a muffled sound instead of the usual click that comes along with the dismissive gesture. 'Not forever. We save planets. Then we have Astrophage technology. Visit each other.' I give a wry smile. 'Can we do all that within fifty Earth years? 'Probably not. Why so fast, question?' 'I only have fifty years or so left to live. Human's don't'- I hiccup- 'don't live long, remember?' 'Oh.' He's quiet for a moment. 'So we enjoy remaining time together, then go save planets. Then we are heroes!' 'Yeah!' I straighten up. I'm a little dizzy now. I've never been much of a drinker, and I'm hitting this vodka harder than I should. 'We're the moss imporn't people in the gal'xy! We're awesome!' He grabs a nearby wrench and raises it in one of his hands. 'To us!' I raise the vodka. 'To ush!

After loud overtures from his daughters, Anthony finally left the house and went up the winding path to the “museum,” to the mobile home where he and his parents had lived from 1949 to 1958. It has been left untouched. The furniture, tables, the paint on the walls, the ’50s cabinets, the dressers, the closets, are all unchanged, remaining as they once were. And in her closet in the bedroom, past the nurse’s uniform, far away in the right-hand corner on the top shelf, lies the black backpack that contains Tatiana’s soul. Every once in a while when she can stand it—or when she can’t stand it—she looks through it. Alexander never looks through it. Tatiana knows what Anthony is about to see. Two cans of Spam in the pack. A bottle of vodka. The nurse’s uniform she escaped from the Soviet Union in that hangs in plastic in the museum closet, next to the PMH nurse’s uniform she nearly lost her marriage in. The Hero of the Soviet Union medal in the pack, in a hidden pocket. The letters she received from Alexander—including the last one from Kontum, which, when she heard about his injuries, she thought would be the last one. That plane ride to Saigon in December 1970 was the longest twelve hours of Tatiana’s life. Francesca and her daughter Emily took care of Tatiana’s kids. Vikki, her good and forgiven friend, came with her, to bring back the body of Tom Richter, to bring back Anthony. In the backpack lies an old yellowed book, The Bronze Horseman and Other Poems. The pages are so old, they splinter if you turn them. You cannot leaf, you can only lift. And between the fracturing pages, photographs are slotted like fragile parchment leaves. Anthony is supposed to find two of these photographs and bring them back. It should take him only a few minutes. Cracked leaves of Tania before she was Alexander’s. Here she is at a few months old, held by her mother, Tania in one arm, Pasha in the other. Here she is, a toddler in the River Luga, bobbing with Pasha. And here a few years older, lying in the hammock with Dasha. A beaming, pretty, dark-haired Dasha is about fourteen. Here is Tania, around ten, with two dangling little braids, doing a fantastic one-armed handstand on top of a tree stump. Here are Tania and Pasha in the boat together, Pasha threateningly raising the oar over her head. Here is the whole family. The parents, side by side, unsmiling, Deda holding Tania’s hand. Babushka holding Pasha’s, Dasha smiling merrily in front.

That’s what best friends did for each other. No coddling, just straight talk, mockery, and having each other’s back. And providing vodka when necessary and not pregnant.

Nick moved over. "You smell like a fucking vodka bottle." "Sweating out my sins, my friend." "Lots of sins.

Good friends offer advice and words of wisdom… Real friends come over unannounced with vodka, chocolate, glitter, duct tape, cat suits, explosives, and a plan.

When after a few days the party relocated to Kazakhstan on an ancient plane chartered by NASA, the mood became even more festive. Jet lag, frigid temperatures that shocked even Canadians and a complete absence of language skills were apparently remedied with wild nights in various Baikonur “hot spots.” When Helene and the kids trooped over from the hotel to see me for the hour or two we were allotted to be together each day, they brought increasingly colorful stories about sensible, hard-working relatives and friends who had, the night before, morphed into vodka-loving party animals with a taste for wearing other people’s bras draped on their heads like berets.

Vodka was evil; pure liquid evil. She needed to learn to keep her mouth shut. She needed to learn that vodka was not her friend. Much like Alex wasn’t likely to be if she couldn’t extricate herself from this.

It’s not that I don’t love you. It’s the sound I heard when I was 9 and my father slammed the front door so hard behind him I swear to god it shook the whole house. For the next 3 years I watched my mother break her teeth on vodka bottles. I think she stopped breathing when he left. I think part of her died. I think he took her heart with him when he walked out. Her chest is empty, just a shattered mess or cracked ribs and depression pills. It’s not that I don’t love you. It’s all the blood in the sink. It’s the night that I spent 12 hours in the emergency room waiting to see if my sister was going to be okay, after the boy she loved, told her he didn’t love her anymore. It’s the crying, and the fluorescent lights, and white sneakers and pale faces and shaky breaths and blood. So much blood. It’s not that I don’t love you. It’s the time that I had to stay up for two days straight with my best friend while she cried and shrieked and threw up on my bedroom floor because her boyfriend fucked his ex. I swear to god she still has tear streaks stained onto her cheeks. I think when you love someone, it never really goes away. It’s not that I don’t love you. It’s the six weeks we had a substitute in English because our teacher was getting divorced and couldn’t handle getting out of bed. When she came back she was smiling. But her hands shook so hard when she held her coffee, you could see that something was broken inside. And sometimes when things break, you can’t fix them. Nothing ever goes back to how it was. I got an A in English that year. I think her head was always spinning too hard to read any essays. It’s not that I don’t love you. It’s that I do.

I have a lot of friends who proclaim to love the wilderness and spending time in it,” he says. “But what they consider wild is skiing at a resort all day, then going to the lodge for a vodka and a cheeseburger. Or hunting at a retreat with luxury cabins. There’s absolutely no shame in that. But I think there’s more charm in what we’re doing. And I think the experiences out here affect you much differently and deeply.

And while we’re at it, you may have guessed that I also love Ambien; NyQuil (none of this melatonin shit); wine; tequila; piña coladas; margaritas (vodka is for people who want to punish themselves); CBD gummies (I’m solely there for the gummy); a rogue pill a friend has left over after a surgery; half-and-half with a splash of coffee, two Splenda, and three pumps of peppermint; candy; Cinnabon; Wetzel’s Pretzels; Annie’s Pretzels; furry slippers and fuzzy robes; trashy magazines; garbage television; unconfirmed gossip; spas; lasers; luxury; healers of all stripes; extravagant gifts; surprise parties; choreographed dances with friends at any age; karaoke; musicals; Christmas decorations that include a “table tree;” naps; joining gyms I will never go to; hiring trainers I pay up front and then never go to; starting radical diets I never follow through on . . . I overspend, I overeat, I overdo.

The subversive Vodka, Pickle Juice, Kettlebell Lifting, and Other Russian Pastimes was published in 1998. The article was extremely well received by the most ruthless critics in the strength world. I started getting mail from guys with busted noses, cauliflower ears, scars, or at least Hells Angels tattoos. Incredulous, I told my friend and editor John Du Cane about it. He thought for a minute and said: “Let’s do it! I’ll make kettlebells and you teach people how to use them.

Men who once were titans of business now were unrecognizable to their friends, friends that found refuge at their homes in Newport and the Gold Coast, places with vodka and rare art and pretty dresses.

stretches, save for the very occasional twinkling lights from a village or small town. I always imagine how hard it must have been walking on foot during the prehistoric period across this vast and desolate space. After reaching Novosibirsk we drive for five or six hours across the flat steppe of southern Siberia, through miles of wheat and sunflower fields in the summer, before the topography changes and low hills come into view. The roads become rougher and more shingly, potholes appear, and the path is occasionally washed out completely by a river. Just as the bouncing and lurching of the four-wheel drive becomes intolerable, and after some eleven hours’ travelling in total, the base camp of the Denisova team finally appears and it’s time to see old friends, settle in, unpack and relax, usually over a few shots of vodka and an amiable dinner. The first time I ate with my Russian colleagues, I had to explain to Professor Michael Shunkov, co-director of the excavations at Denisova, that I was a vegetarian. When his translator conveyed my message Michael immediately replied, in perfect Russian-English, ‘You will not survive in Siberia!’ Meat is indeed usually on the menu, but Russian hospitality means that I have never gone hungry yet.

Oh, nothing—tea, vodka, herrings. There will be a pie . . . just our friends.

You broke up with me. I don't break up with you. Everyone in this house knows we're more than friends. Your beat up face makes me want to pound a bottle of vodka." - Drew "Isn't that a happy little list?" - Trent - Drew and Trent, #Rev

When Rostóv went back there was a bottle of vodka and a sausage on the table. Denísov was sitting there scratching with his pen on a sheet of paper. He looked gloomily in Rostóv’s face and said: “I am writing to her.” He leaned his elbows on the table with his pen in his hand and, evidently glad of a chance to say quicker in words what he wanted to write, told Rostóv the contents of his letter. “You see, my friend,” he said, “we sleep when we don’t love. We are children of the dust... but one falls in love and one is a God, one is pure as on the first day of creation... Who’s that now? Send him to the devil, I’m busy!” he shouted to Lavrúshka, who went up to him not in the least abashed.

Thank god for Vegas. Seriously. A lobotomy wasn’t as effective as a weekend three hours of Red Bull away (from LA, not Pismo) where I wore the thinnest pinned stilettos, gambled like a sweaty degenerate mobster in black loafers, drank like Amy Winehouse and Charles Bukowski’s baby, and snorted throat-dripping lines of coke in a Hard Rock Hotel bathroom with four new best friends. I’d giddily rub off any one of those from the to-do list I wrote in eyeliner on my hotel bathroom mirror.

12:55 a.m.: i’m ready to go. At this point in the evening, the liquor fairy alights gently upon my shoulder and coos sweetly in my ear, “BITCH, YOU CAN’T AFFORD TO PARTY LIKE THIS,” and the gears in my brain slowly grind into motion, trying to recall exactly how many drinks I’ve had, and how much those drinks cost apiece, and whether or not anyone would notice if I tried to squeeze myself out of the tiny bathroom window and hitchhike home. I don’t feel stupid until I’m locked in a bathroom stall doing drunk calculus on a paper towel to determine if I can pay both my bar tab and my card payment that month. It was cute to throw that flimsy piece of plastic with 67% APR at the bartender two hours ago, but now I can’t find my friends and I know they’ve been running up my bill all night. What if I actually get my cell phone shut off because these bitches are too stuck up for well liquor? “Three vodkas divided by the light bill times the minimum payment plus cab fare back to my hotel—shit, I gotta go!!

Letter to a Lost Friend by Barbara Hamby There must be a Russian word to describe what has happened between us, like ostyt, which can be used for a cup of tea that is too hot, but after you walk to the next room, and return, it is too cool; or perekhotet, which is to want something so much over months and even years that when you get it, you have lost the desire. Pushkin said, when he saw his portrait by Kiprensky, “It is like looking into a mirror, but one that flatters me.” What is the word for someone who looks into her friend’s face and sees once smooth skin gone like a train that has left the station in Petersburg with its wide avenues and nights at the Stray Dog Cafe, sex with the wrong men, who looked so right by candlelight, when everyone was young and smoked hand-rolled cigarettes, painted or wrote all night but nothing good, drank too much vodka, and woke in the painful daylight with skin like fresh cream, books everywhere, Lorca on Gogol, Tolstoy under Madame de Sévigné, so that now, on a train in the taiga of Siberia, I see what she sees — all my books alphabetized and on shelves, feet misshapen, hands ribbed with raised veins, neck crumpled like last week’s newspaper, while her friends are young, their skin pimply and eyes bright as puppies’, and who can blame her, for how lucky we are to be loved for even a moment, though I can’t help but feel like Pushkin, a rough ball of lead lodged in his gut, looking at his books and saying, “Goodbye, my dear friends,” as those volumes close and turn back into oblong blocks, dust clouding the gold leaf that once shimmered on their spines.

We called it a night, heading back to my friend's apartment, craving buttered toast and water. As we walked we exchanged stories of ludicrous encounters with guys, the things they would say and do. 'One time this guy at a coffee shop,' 'one time my friend's brother,' 'one time my philosophy professor,' 'one time...' 'Where are you ladies going?' A black Mustang was rumbling at the stoplight with three heavyset guys inside, snug in their seats. 'Do you want to come to the club?' The club! I felt dehydrated, vodka and tiny pineapples streaming through me, my mind filled with stories of 'one times', and suddenly I was delusional over how much I was expected to tolerate. The street was mostly empty, we were blocks away from the bars; nothing but houses with black windows and dormant Greyhound buses. I walked into the middle of the empty street, clenched my fists, threw back my head, and started screaming.

Anyone who has spent an hour drinking vodka by the glass knows that size has surprisingly little to do with a man’s capacity. There are tiny men for whom the limit is seven and giants for whom it is two. For our German friend, the limit appeared to be three. For if the Tolstoy dropped him in a barrel, and the Tchaikovsky set him adrift, then the caviar sent him over the falls. So, having wagged a chastising finger at the Count, he moved to the corner of the bar, laid his head on his arms, and dreamed of the Sugar Plum Fairy.

All the same, Kiev was a melancholy city. Its defining features were failures, absences. Some were obvious: only one supermarket (dollars only), few private cars (six at an intersection counted as a traffic jam), a joke of a postal service (to send a letter, one went to the railway station, and handed it to a friendly face going in the right direction). Others one only felt the force of after a time. With benefits and pensions virtually non-existent, the crudest health care (drugs had to be paid for; doctors wanted bribes), and no insurance (a few private firms had sprung up, but nobody trusted them with their money), Kievans were living lives of a precariousness unknown in the West, destitution never more than an illness or a family quarrel away. It showed in their wiry bodies and pinched, alert, Depression-era faces; the faces of people who get by on cheap vodka and stale cigarettes, and know they have to look after themselves, for nobody else will do it for them.

a poet announced to the workshop she was teaching that semester: I may not be here next week. Later, at home, she put on her mother’s old fur coat and, with a glass of vodka in hand, shut herself in her garage. The mother’s old fur coat is the kind of detail writing teachers like to point out to students, one of those telling details—like how Simenon’s daughter got her gun—that are found in abundance in life but are mostly absent from student fiction. The poet got into her car, a vintage 1967 tomato-red Cougar, and turned on the ignition

We didn’t believe when we first heard because you know how church folk can gossip. Like the time we all thought First John, our head usher, was messing around on his wife because Betty, the pastor’s secretary, caught him cozying up at brunch with another woman. A young, fashionable woman at that, one who switched her hips when she walked even though she had no business switching anything in front of a man married forty years. You could forgive a man for stepping out on his wife once, but to romance that young woman over buttered croissants at a sidewalk café? Now, that was a whole other thing. But before we could correct First John, he showed up at Upper Room Chapel that Sunday with his wife and the young, hip-switching woman—a great-niece visiting from Fort Worth—and that was that. When we first heard, we thought it might be that type of secret, although, we have to admit, it had felt different. Tasted different too. All good secrets have a taste before you tell them, and if we’d taken a moment to swish this one around our mouths, we might have noticed the sourness of an unripe secret, plucked too soon, stolen and passed around before its season. But we didn’t. We shared this sour secret, a secret that began the spring Nadia Turner got knocked up by the pastor’s son and went to the abortion clinic downtown to take care of it. She was seventeen then. She lived with her father, a Marine, and without her mother, who had killed herself six months earlier. Since then, the girl had earned a wild reputation—she was young and scared and trying to hide her scared in her prettiness. And she was pretty, beautiful even, with amber skin, silky long hair, and eyes swirled brown and gray and gold. Like most girls, she’d already learned that pretty exposes you and pretty hides you and like most girls, she hadn’t yet learned how to navigate the difference. So we heard all about her sojourns across the border to dance clubs in Tijuana, the water bottle she carried around Oceanside High filled with vodka, the Saturdays she spent on base playing pool with Marines, nights that ended with her heels pressed against some man’s foggy window. Just tales, maybe, except for one we now know is true: she spent her senior year of high school rolling around in bed with Luke Sheppard and come springtime, his baby was growing inside her. — LUKE SHEPPARD WAITED TABLES at Fat Charlie’s Seafood Shack, a restaurant off the pier known for its fresh food, live music, and family-friendly atmosphere. At least that’s what the ad in the San Diego Union-Tribune said, if you were fool enough to believe it. If you’d been around Oceanside long enough, you’d know that the promised fresh food was day-old fish and chips stewing under heat lamps, and the live music, when delivered, usually consisted of ragtag teenagers in ripped jeans with safety pins poking through their lips.

Then she stood in front of Elizabeth, her hands on her hips. ‘Now, this is the plan.’ Thank God. There was a plan. She didn’t have to try to figure out this horrible mess herself. She just had to follow the plan. ‘I’ve told work you’re not coming in for a few days. Your sister has organised for John to be out of the house for the next two hours. We’re going to your place and we’re packing three suitcases of your things. Then you’re coming back to my house for two days, and I will feed you cups of tea, chocolate, ice cream and vodka on constant rotation as the mood necessitates. You can resign from your job when you feel ready. Then you’re getting on a plane.’ ‘A plane?’ ‘Your parents have organised a ticket home to London.

was a child. When someone needed a ride and didn’t have a boat available, they called Dick. He charged twenty bucks, a twelve-pack of beer, or a fifth of vodka. Cate paid cash. His thirty-year-old son, Adam, accompanied him these days and stared at Cate in a way that gave her the creeps. She stared back, and Adam finally had the grace to look away. Cate decided she’d never ride with Adam when he took over for his father in the future. “I brought over Dr. Powers,” answered Dick. “He’s the one who said to call the FBI. Kurt Olson from the sheriff’s office and a new deputy, Bruce Taylor, were already there.” Dick glanced over his shoulder at Cate. “You met Bruce or Dr. Powers yet?” “No.” She only knew Kurt. He’d been a deputy on Widow’s Island forever. “Bruce is young. Only been here a few months. From southern Oregon. Haven’t made up my mind about him yet,” Dick said, pulling at his beard. “Dr. Powers is a good guy. We’ve needed a doctor on the island since Dr. Hardy died three years ago. Tessa Black from the sheriff’s department shared his ride. Didn’t you two run around together when you were young? You know she’s a county deputy now, right?” “Yes.” Tessa had been like a sister to Cate while growing up. After nearly ten years of being a Seattle police officer and detective, Tessa had returned to Widow’s Island about a year and a half ago and joined the sheriff’s office. Cate had been back on the island for five days and still hadn’t contacted her good friend. Her grandmother had repeatedly pushed her to call Tessa, but Cate had dragged her feet, stating she needed more rest, and had firmly ordered her grandmother to keep this visit to the island under her hat. Cate wasn’t ready to face people. But tonight’s discovery gave her no choice. Trespassing teenage lovebirds had found the bones. The coroner—the new Dr. Powers—believed they belonged to a teenage female. Two years ago the FBI had conducted an investigation of a missing local girl, Becca Conan, with no results. Fourteen-year-old Becca was the daughter of Rex Conan, sole resident and current owner of Ruby’s Island. Now the FBI—meaning

But alas, I’m here, drunk off my ass, boobs practically spilling out of my shirt, and my mascara slowly melting off my eyelashes and onto my face, morphing me from new-in-town college girl, to trash panda from the raccoon clan. “Dottie, Lindsay,” I say weakly, moving my head from side to side. “Where art thou?” “You need help?” a deep voice slurs next to me. I look to my right through very blurry vision and make out what I’m going to assume is an incredibly attractive man. But then again, I’m drunk—the whole mascara melting off my eyes in full swing—and I’ve been fooled once before. But hey, I think those are blue eyes. Can’t go wrong with that . . . reasoning that will be thought better of in the morning. “Have you seen Dottie or Lindsay?” “Can’t say that I have,” he answers, resting against the wall with me. “Damn it. I think they’re making out with some baseball players. Have you seen any of those around?” “Baseball players?” “Mm-hmm.” I nod, shutting my eyes for a second but then shooting them back open when I feel myself wobble to the side. The guy catches me by the hand before I topple over, but thanks to his alcohol intake, he’s not steady enough to hold us up and . . . timber . . . we fall to the couch next to me. “Whoa, great placement of furniture,” I say, as the guy topples on top of me. “Damn near saved our lives.” I rub my face against the scratchy and worn-out fabric. “How many people do you think have had sex on this thing?” “Probably less than what you’re thinking.” The couch is deep, giving me enough room to lie on my side with the guy in front of me, so we’re both facing each other. He smells nice, like vodka and cupcakes. “So, have you seen any baseball players around? I’m looking for my friends.” “Nah, but if you see any, let me know. I can’t find my room.” “You live here?” I ask, eyes wide. “Yup,” he answers, enunciating the P. “For two years now.” “And you don’t remember where your room is?” “It has a yellow door. If the damn room would stop spinning I’d be able to find it.” “Well . . . maybe if we find your room, we’ll find my friends,” I say, my drunk mind making complete sense. “That’s a great idea.” He rolls off the couch and then stands to his feet, wobbling from side to side as he holds out his hand to me. Without even blinking, I take it in mine and let him help me to my feet. “Yellow door, let’s go,” I say, raising my crumpled cup to the air. “We’re on the move.” He keeps my hand clasped in his and we stumble together past beer pong, people making out against walls, the kitchen, to an open space full of doors. “Yellow door, do you see one?” I blink a few times and then see a flash of sunshine. “There.” I point with force. “Yellow, right there.” His head snaps to where I’m pointing. A beam of light illuminates the color of the door, making it seem like we’re about to walk right into the sun. I’m a little chilly, so I welcome the heat. “Fuck, there it is. You’re good.” 

No skid marks. The lady blew right through a red light. “Probably prescription pain pills,” Luke mumbled. Shawn scoffed. “She looks like vodka to me.” I shook my head. “I hope the accident didn’t ruin her buzz. She’ll need it where she’s going.

I watch the hand nearest me disappear into the pocket of his pants, pulling out a pack of cigarettes. He offers me one. “No, thank you.” He tosses his head, breathing in a long drag, then pushes a curl behind his ear. It doesn’t catch, though, and when he smiles it brushes the top of his lashes. “Where does your friend work?” I ask, petting Bruce, who has jumped onto the bench and rolled over so I can reach his belly. “Cristiano and his sister own Club Fluid.” He raises his arms in the air, gyrates with his hips. “It’s where we like to dance. Do you like martinis? Silvia makes a good martini.” He blows smoke out of his mouth when he says martinis. “Vodka or gin?” “Gin,” he says, frowning. “Vodka is disgusting.” I prefer vodka, but don’t say so. He points at the terrier. “Bruce likes you.” There’s that wry smile, as if he’s in on some private joke at my expense. It’s exasperating to be next to someone so young and confident.