Champagne for Maureen

Today was supposed to have been the hottest July day ever recorded in Britain. I wouldn't know; I spent most of it indoors at work! Afterwards I had dinner at my friend's house. We opened the bottle of champagne that Maureen had bought for her in anticipation of the dinner party that would be held when my friend's divorce and her mortgage came through. Tonight, with the divorce done and the first mortgage payment taken out of my friend's bank, it was time to celebrate, and we drank the champagne in Maureen's honour. I opened the bottle on the back step in the intense evening heat, and the cork flew up in an arc and landed over the fence in unknown territory, like Maureen's essence destined for rebirth a thousand miles away or in the house next door.