HOLLY
It is early evening, and I am at our dining room table with Jessie and Nat, pouring a flight of wines for us to taste. Nat has a pad of paper in front of her (how retro!) and has just crossed off another suggestion from her list. “Okay, Holly’s idea, ‘Once Upon a Wine,’ is out, as is ‘The Vintage Point.’” Nat looks over at Jessie as she continues, “You also killed my idea, ‘Que Syrah, Syrah.’”
“Because we’re not serving only one type of wine,” Jessie pipes up defensively.
“Which is the same reason you didn’t like ‘Don’t Get Me a Cab,’” Nat says as she crosses out another line on her page.
“No, I just found that one to be a passive-aggressive snipe about my taste in wine.”
“I don’t think it was passive…” I think aloud.
Nat continues reading from the elimination round. “Holly made a face at ‘Wined-up Dolls.’ And ‘It’s Ireland Somewhere’ doesn’t even make sense—they don’t make wine in Ireland. Next.”
My face lights up. “How about ‘Corkscrewed’?”
“We are not putting the word ‘screwed’ in the name of our bar,” Jessie tells me firmly.
“Why not? People will want to go there either because they already feel that way…”
“Too dark…” Nat says, shaking her head.
“Or they want to get—”
Jessie shuts me down with, “I’ll give you a thousand dollars not to finish that thought.”
I shrug, finish pouring a Meritage from the Central Coast of California, then watch quietly as Nat and Jessie take a minute to stare into space with writer’s block.
Some days the Muse not only refuses to visit, she texts you to say she went to Cabo for the week.
“‘Pinot envy’?” I ask.
Nat winces. She absentmindedly runs her fingers through her shiny, dark brunette pixie cut as she stares off into space, thinking.
Jessie eventually snaps her fingers. “Oh. How about ‘A Clean, Well-Lighted Place’?”
“You want to name the bar after a short story about the inevitability of death?” Nat asks, mildly horrified. “Why don’t we just call it ‘We’re All Gonna Die. Everybody Drink’?”
Jessie’s eyes widen. “Wait. That’s what that story’s about?”
“Yeah. Remember, the old man sits in a corner by himself getting drunk, and the young waiter with the hot wife waiting for him at home just wants to call it a night, and the middle-aged guy is all pensive because he knows he’ll be the old man one day.”
Jessie looks crestfallen. “Crap. How depressing. See, this is why we shouldn’t read the classics at sixteen. No one should take AP English until they’re thirty. How about ‘Grapes of Wrath’?”
Nat narrows her eyes at her. “Honestly, would you ever go into a bar with the word ‘wrath’ in its name?”
“I would before I’d go to one with ‘screwed’ in its name,” Jessie counters. “‘Grape Expectations’?”
“Do you want to know what that book’s about?” Nat asks in an almost threatening tone.
“I’m gonna say no. ‘Waiting for Merlot’?”
“I am seriously going to make you take an English class.”
A bit later …
“‘Something Fabulous’?” I throw out.
Nat juts her chin back and forth quickly, debating. “It’s, like, it’s good, but not great. I’ll date that name, but I won’t marry it.”
“Oh! ‘Nice Stems’?” Jessie suggests.
Nat begins doodling a flower on her pad. “We’re a wine bar, not a florist. ‘Hollywood and Wine’?”
“We’re in Echo Park, not Hollywood,” I point out.
And we’re back to thinking.
And a while after that …
“‘Eternally Grapeful’?” Jessie suggests. “‘Who’s Drinking Gilbert Grape’? ‘Dinner Is Poured,’ ‘Wine Girls,’ ‘Wine Notes,’ ‘Quit Your Whining,’ ‘Winenot’? Snickers!”
“Snickers?” Nat repeats. “You want to name our place after a candy bar?”
“No, I’m getting snickers from both of you,” Jessie snaps. “If I were to name the bar after a candy, obviously it would be 3 Musketeers.”
Nat opens her mouth, but Jessie shuts her down before she can speak. “And don’t tell me what that’s really about, because no, I’ve never read it, and the only thing I know is, ‘All for Wine and Wine for All.’ And if you tell me they all die at the end, I’m just going to get upset and have to eat some Snickers.”
Nat shakes her head. “Seriously. Next time you get the urge to watch Bravo, promise me you’ll crack a book instead. The line is—”
“Wait,” I tell Nat. “I think Jessie just came up with our name.”
“I did?!” Jessie blurts out happily, her face glowing. “Oh, yay! Good for me! Which one was it? It wasn’t the Gilbert Grape one, was it? Because actually I hate that one.”
“‘All for Wine, and Wine for All.’ No matter who you are, and what you like, we will find a wine for everyone.”
And, with that, we finally had our name.
Now all we needed to do was get the sign made, get it out on social media, finish redoing the ladies’ room, move in the rest of the furniture, teach those two how to use a cash register, and pick some wines for opening night.
Three months earlier …