Page 185 of You've Got Hate Mail

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If she’s not sober, she’s close.

“Mabel. More drink,” Ten says, pouring her a glass.

“I’m Cricket.”

“Dammit. You’re like fun Mabel. But Mabel’s never fun anymore.”

“Because she thinks we’re—hic!—broke,” Pip says.

“To broke!” Cricket cries, lifting her glass.

“To broke!” Ten cries, lifting his glass.

“To forgetting where I put my keys!” Pip cries, lifting her glass.

Pip and Ten slam their wine.

Cricket does a magician’s trick with swapping her full glass for the empty glass, and she slams the empty glass.

Chaotic good.

That’s my Cricket.

She takes responsibility as seriously as I do.

“Are you—hic!—not really broke?” Cricket asks Pip.

“I’m so broke that my nail salon sent me to collections.” Pip giggles.

Ten giggles.

Cricket giggles.

“Wait,” Ten says. “Fuck Dean.”

“Yeah, like, Dean fuck. I mean, fuck Dean,” Cricket says.

“You should wine this sell. Sell this wine. It’s fucking good shit, Pip,” Ten says.

“Never.”

“Re-hic!-name it,” Cricket says.

“Yeah! Yeah. Rename it,” Ten says. “Call it Pip the Awesome’s Greatest Wine Even Better Than Devil Dean’s Wine. Aged longer than his body has.”

Cricket laughs so hard she snorts and falls over.

That one might be a real reaction.

I’m even stifling a snort of laughter.

“Doorknob wine,” Cricket says.

“Doorknob? What the fuck?” Ten says to her.

“Because he’s deader than a doorknob! Doorknobber than a deadhead! Wait. Is that a real saying?”

“It’s a doornail,” Pip says, then she burps, the sound echoing through the cellar.

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