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Now, it should be said that during the weeks with Danny I have not been drinking. Well, not exactly. But I have been tasting, sniffing, and learning about nose, bouquet, and finish. (Of my affair with Danny, I would later say, “Nice nose, nasty finish.”) And I have not been going to meetings. I can control my drinking myself, I have decided. This is what they call in the Program “stinkin’ thinkin’.”

But everyone has been so approving of my affair with Danny—André, my dealer; Sybille, my analyst; the twins; their fairy godmother, Lily. Why? Because he’s rich. Because he’s from Dallas. Because he has a mansion on either side of the Atlantic (not to mention various flats). Because he buys me jewelry (and erotic videos). Because at long last I have a proper millionaire, befitting my station as a celebrity artist. Nobody thinks that I’m a drunk falling in love with a wine collector for cover. No one but Emmie. However, I am avoiding Emmie. I haven’t called her since I fell in love with Danny Doland. And she, knowing I have to reach my bottom in my own way, has called from time to time but doesn’t noodge. I almost wish she did.

Just one sip, I think, nose into the bowl of the Tiffany Bordeaux glass. And then another. And another. And then the whole glass.

How does it taste after all these sober weeks? Metallic, sweet, sour, like liquor to a kid. My head gets the buzz, the heavy, fruity, prehangover feeling, but no click. I wander about the wine cellar reading labels, glass in hand.

Here are the châteaus of Pomerol: Pétrus, Trotanoy, Lafleur, La Conseillante, Rouget, Le Gay, Bon-Pasteur, Petit-Village, Clos René, La Violette, La Croix-de-Gay. . . . And here are the châteaus of Margaux and Médoc: Palmer, La Lagune, Malescot-Saint-Exupéry, La Tour-de-Mons, Paveil de Luze, Camuet . . . of Graves: Haut-Brion, Domaine de Chevalier, Carbonnieux. . . .

(Oh, I am not getting drunk on wine so much as on these lovely French names that roll off my tongue even more trippingly than the wine.)

The châteaus of Pauillac: Latour, Mouton-Rothschild, Lafite-Rothschild, Pichon-Longueville, Comtesse de Lalande . . . of Saint-Émilion: La Tour-Figeac, Troplong-Mondot, Couvent-des-Jacobins, La Clotte, Ripeau, Villemaurine. . . . (Not even out of the Bordeaux, and I’m already tipsy!)

I wander among the wine labels, thinking of the great châteaus of France, her lovely snaky rivers: the Loire, the glimmering Rhône, the sun glinting off the wineskins of Bordeaux. Claret, the English call it, as if it gave clarity. In vino veritas, as if it brought truth. But to me all it brings are tears. I weep and drink, sprawl on the cold floor of the cellar, and keep on draining the bottle. The little picture on the label invites me into a sunny world of châteaus and glimmering rivers, cool cellars and hot sun. But here on the floor I am suspended in time, seeing the parts of my life all jumbled together as in a kaleidoscope.

The silver silo. The flapper dress of moonbeams. Dart’s cock. Dart’s letter about time and eternity. The chocolate-scented puppybodies of my twins. Dolph, Thom, Elmore, Dart, Danny. My mind rushes as it used to on pot—white nights awake by Dart’s side after much lovemaking. (Pot made him sleepy, me wakeful—a paradox for such a well-mated couple.) Is this where my hegira has taken me—to a wine cellar buried in a basement in the Berkshires, drinking claret and getting murky?

I stagger up, wander through the house, inspecting Danny’s treasures: his art collection (Monets, Modiglianis, Warhols, early Sands), his glass collection (Lalique, Gallé), his antiques (Queen Anne, Georgian, Biedermeier). I think about my life as a part of that collection. Dinner parties with rehearsed jokes. The right art collection. The right people. Climatically controlled air, jokes, wine, paintings. I think again of Élisabeth Vigée-Lebrun, of the French Revolution, of the year 1789, of living to be eighty-seven! Artists can be incredibly long-lived.