I was supposed to be in a Zoom meeting about budgets and floorplans. Instead, I was halfway down Lafayette in an Uber that smelled like lemon Lysol and stale sweat, wearing tinted lip balm and a too-tight vintage skirt, on my way to Zimmi’s in West Village. It was a Tuesday. A gray and rainy one. The kind of afternoon that wants to be evening. The kind of afternoon that whispers:
Call out. Fall in love. Or at the very least, drink something French.
Zimmi’s is one of those places that only exists if someone tells you it does. No ego. Just buttery jazz and an uncanny sense of discretion.Lyle was already there when I arrived, naturally because I was 20 minutes late. A glass in hand, looking like he’d been poured into his chair. He kissed both of my cheeks as he offered me champagne to start the night.
“This,” Lyle said, handing me an another glass, “is Joliette. From the south-west. Lionel’s baby.” Sure- I love double fisting.
The first sip was all bruised plum and a sweet vanilla. We tried a flight. 2003. 2011. 1997 was my personal favorite. Each one deeper, sadder, more honest than the last. Since it was a wine dinner and Zimmi’s is aggressively communal (as all secret treasures are), we were seated at a long table with five other people, strangers. Until the second glass.
There was a writer from Manhattan who was friends of a friend of mine to whom we had to bond over. We sent him photos of us being goofy. An older gay couple from the West Village who held hands under the table and told me about their first trip to Bordeaux, where they’d gotten lost and ended up crashing a local wedding. And a girl my age in a vintage hoodie who whispered, “I came alone. Is that weird?”
“No,” I told her. “It’s French.”
The foie gras toast arrived looking sinful, as it should. It was the kind of dish that tastes like you’re getting away with something. There was an asparagus followed, delicately laid out like it was attending its own funeral.Perfectly salted, almost too beautiful to eat, which is exactly why I did.
Conversation hummed like a record left spinning. We talked about love and summer travels and weather patterns. Someone made a joke about Mercury retrograde. “This wine,” Lionel said, swirling the 1997, “Was a mistake. A beautiful one. We didn’t know it was in the cellar until we took over the property.”
I checked my phone and saw eight missed calls and a passive aggressive “???” in the group chat titled “Ops Team .” I told them I was in a tunnel. Spiritually, I was. I left before dessert. Kisses on the cheek again, a wink from Lionel, and a small brown paper bag passed discreetly into my hand. Inside: a bottle of the 1997. Still cool from the cellar.
The table gave a collective sigh, the kind you make when someone’s leaving and you wish they weren’t. The girl in the hoodie grabbed my wrist and said, “Please post about this so I can find you.” I promised I would.
I carried the bottle back uptown like a secret love letter I hadn’t opened yet.
Later that night, I drank a glass barefoot on the kitchen floor. The kind of wine that reminds you that life is so unfair and so unbearable. For a moment, I didn’t feel behind. I didn’t feel like I was wasting time. I felt like I was exactly where I was supposed to be-
mid-shift, mid-sip, mid-life.
you're almost too good