And Emmy keeps laughing, but this time she’s in on the joke. And now she understands that Jessica is only gracing these boys with her attention because she knows there is nothing they can do to hurt her. These two boys, each exactly half her age: boys, only men at a stretch. It is a fictional stretch Mona is willing to consider tonight, because it’s the big night, Alanna’s big night. Jessica knows that these boys have been corn-fed to exert sex appeal with no hint of a threat: a rare delicacy. And look at her side-butting one of them out of the way to pop herself up on the leatherette, sending for a drink immediately. ‘I’d rather die of old age than of thirst and I ain’t got that long left, boys,’ she says.

When googling ‘woman drinking’ by far the most popular entry is ‘woman drinking wine’, probably for subliminal reasons tethering a woman’s physique to the shape of the glass. Our girl Alanna has her crown on her head and each palm wrapped around a magnum of Prosecco. She does look mighty fine. Her rings sparkle.

Here we are: the girls. We’ve filled in a semicircle around her, and then Mona, or Jessica, in any case no boy’s mother, pops the cork and pours. Of course it is pink wine, pinker in the low light that reflects off the red sofas.

Alanna takes a sip and sticks out her lips. ‘Jeez, this Prosecco sucks, let’s do cocktails!’ We got you, Alanna, we got you, just you wait, just wait, baby girl. We raise our glasses and clink them. ‘To our girl Alanna, on her big night.’ Soon we’re squabbling over the last half of the second bottle. When it’s gone the boys return to the table, carrying a tall bottle of a liqueur they say they’ve invented. They call it The Cherry Punch, says the one holding a gold-plated Zippo. It’s just a lighter. Why does it make him so smug? They exchange a look and it’s not a hard task, all you have to do is pour some cherry pop. Hey! Over here? We’re ready. It’s our night! We were born ready. We forgive them when they put down the frozen shot glasses. We cheer! We’re thirsty. The velvet liqueur pours out too slowly; we lick our lips. The other boy sets the shots aflame. We are parted from them momentarily by a wall of blue fire.

They blow the shots out and order us to drink them immediately. The hot syrup hits our throats with its balsamic edge and we nearly cough, but hold back. Our eyes water. We are stronger than they want us to be. We laugh through our tears and at the end of it we all have big fucking smiles on our faces from the effort.