By Alayna Seggi
“Hi! Would you like to try some?” Her sweet voice and cherry-red-lipstick smile emerge from chaos and cake her paper straw. Customers stop to try Barefoot Spritzers, Apothic White, Sol Sangria, and Crook & Marker. Thick-winged eyeliner and buggy glasses, demo samples in the middle. Wednesday night at 7:45 we are busy bees doing nothing. Ameera dances to “Shiny Happy People” with wine bottles in hand and complains that we never hang out, or that she can’t make “that white people face.” She waddles away like a penguin in her “non-slip” black Crocs. Glass crashes around the corner and the aroma of Pink Catawba fills the air. Maintenance cleans the mess and places those yellow caution signs accordingly. After close, she’ll drag me to her car to get Chick-Fil-A fries. The 2019 Hyundai is littered with trash, clothes, and receipts, but it all rolls from side to side when she whips in and out of parking lots. The speedometer hits 65 up Peach Street, music blares and thumps from the bass, but we are rewarded with fried, salty, waffle treats and the miracle of surviving it all.
Alayna Seggi is from Erie, Pennsylvania and attended Fort LeBoeuf High School. She is majoring in English education and will graduate in the spring of 2021. She plans to attend graduate school and earn a degree in school counseling while simultaneously teaching. She played volleyball for three years, and in her sophomore season helped her team secure an AMCC championship and NCAA appearance. This is her first publication. She’d like to continue studying creative writing at some point as well. High Roller, Santa Date, War Zone