by Sarina Bowen
Alec: I’m not just being nice. If you ever want to hang out and talk and drink mocktails, you know where to find me. I won’t even try to get you naked.
May: You are a good man.
Alec: Not really. I’d still be thinking about getting you naked. But I wouldn’t expect it.
May: You caught me at a really wild moment. I never do that.
Alec: I know. Doesn’t make it wrong, though.
May: Okay. True.
Alec: Goodnight May. Prepare to get more jokes soon.
May: Funny ones?
Alec: Probably not. ;)
Chapter Ten
Alec
Even if the evening I spent with May was one of the best nights in history, the rest of my week is a drag. I’m behind the bar every night for the next five nights. Usually I get Tuesdays off, but Smitty doesn’t show up for his shift at all that night. I suppose everyone fucks up once in a while.
By Saturday morning I’m beat. Even so, I buy two of my sister’s lemon-poppy muffins and drive to the hospital in Montpelier. Turns out that Hamish had a heart attack and called 911 by himself. It probably was his ambulance that I spotted from my parking lot.
“You are the son I never had!” he says, peering into the bag.
“You have a son,” I point out.
“Not one that brings me muffins.” Hamish beams at me. “Now if only you could spring me from this jail.”
“What are you in for? How long is your sentence?” He looks thin, but then again he always looks thin.
The elderly carpenter scowls. “They say I gotta have surgery. On my ticker.”
“That’s no fun. When?”
“Monday. Then it takes a few weeks to recover. Might have to stay with Tad.” He makes a face at this idea. He and his son don’t get along. Hamish is an old hippie, and Tad is an uptight wanker as far as I can tell.
On those few occasions when he came into the Gin Mill, where I have nine exclusive craft beers on tap, Tad drank light beer. That’s all I need to know about Tad.
“You let me know if there’s anything I can do, okay?”
“We’re still having that party,” he grumbles. “Might have to put it off a couple weeks.”
“Yeah, we totally are,” I agree, hoping to cheer him up. “Hang in there, okay? Is there anything else I can do, besides feeding the cat?”
He shakes his head and points at the bakery bag. “You’re already doing God’s work here and I appreciate it.”
“Okay, man.” I laugh. “See you after the surgery.”
That night I work a long shift and then sleep until eleven thirty, skipping church. My mother won’t be happy. But I get up in time to go to Sunday luncheon at my uncles’ farmhouse. It’s our family tradition. My mother cooks a feast that we eat while trying not to lose it whenever my uncle Otto says something harsh.
Today my mother has made a delicious roast beef, with mashed potatoes and a salad. I eat too fast while I glance around the table at my family. On the surface, our gathering is really not so different from the Shipleys’ Thursday-night extravaganza. Except I never invite friends the way they do at the Shipleys’.
Mom wouldn’t mind if I did. She’d probably enjoy the company. But somehow it’s usually just us—Uncle Otto, Uncle Art, mom and her brood. Well—four of the five of us. Julian doesn’t live in Vermont and we never hear from him.
My whole life I’ve never invited anyone to Sunday luncheon. At first it was because I always felt the stain of being that family with a part-time father.
And then we became the family with no father. We’re the kids who ended up living in the trailer park after our dad left and we lost our little house on the outskirts of Colebury.
The night before Dad left for the last time, I lay awake in my bunkbed, listening to my parents fight. “I didn’t do nothing!” my father kept yelling. “Shipley fired my ass, and you want to make it my fault?”
“It’s four jobs in two years!” my mother shrieked. “What are we going to do?”
I knew it was bad. I lay there listening and wishing my mother would just shut up. My dad had a bad run of jobs, but she wasn’t making it easier. I knew he’d retaliate by going on a bender. He liked to disappear for weeks at a time, with god knew who, doing god knew what.
My mother put up with a lot. But the night after Shipley Dairy fired my dad, I wished she’d just shut her trap so he wouldn’t leave again.
But he did. And that time, he never came back.
That had been fifteen years ago, and we had some dark times for a while. But these days we clean up nice. Benito brought a bottle of wine to go with the roast, and Damien is teasing him because it’s a rosé.
“So what?” Benito complains. “Mom likes pink wine.”
Our mother beams at him and lifts her glass for more.
I brought a growler of beer for the table and a four-pack of Heady Topper for my sister.
“You remembered!” she’d said when I handed it to her.
“Of course. Keep it cold until you’re ready to drink it with Dave.” The beer is unpasteurized and needs to be stored cold.
She’d squirreled it away in her car before dinner so nobody could claim it. So now I’m passing around my homemade ale.
Zara and my brothers each take some and compliment the flavors. “It’s hoppy,” Benito says. “I like it.”
“It’s beer, therefore I like it,” Damien mumbles.
Otto passes the growler and says nothing.
Fuck. I need him to taste it and to be impressed. He’s the only one in my family who has the means to invest in my brewery plans.
“Here,” Zara says to me after I clean my plate. “Hold Nicole so I can finish my dinner.”
I take the squirmy toddler and push my plate out of the way so she can’t knock into anything. “Hello, beautiful,” I say to her. “Who’s your favorite uncle?”
“Ack,” Nicole says.
“That’s right, babyliscious. Ack is the man. Now—remind me. What’s his name?” I point at Benito.
“Bimbo,” she says.
Everyone laughs. God, I love this kid. “Don’t ever change, Nicole.”
Benito rolls his eyes. He doesn’t really mind that his favorite one-year-old has shortened “Benito” to “Bimbo.” But the rest of us will never let him live it down.
Let’s face it, I’m the bimbo in the room. I can’t stop thinking about the wild sex I had Monday night with May Shipley.
But when I’d dropped her off at her car, she’d begged me not to tell anyone.
“I won’t say a word,” I’d promised her that night. “It’s between you and me and the steering wheel.” Then I’d leaned over and given her a nice, slow kiss—one that had me thinking I should invite her upstairs.
But May nipped that idea in the bud by giving me an embarrassed wave and jumping out of my truck without another word.
So here I sit at the family table, thinking about her anyway. Maybe I’m obsessed because the whole thing was so unexpected—so spontaneous and wild. When I agreed to accompany her that night, I didn’t have any expectations. She needed a friend at her side, and I was willing to be that guy.
Two hours later she was grinding on my dick, moaning in my mouth, desperate for release. And I’m the guy who gave it to her.
Mmm. Now I feel all sexed up in the wrong company. While Nicole plays with my phone on the floor beside my chair, I’m supposed to sit here and listen to William Otello Rossi—Uncle Otto to most of us, except for Zara who calls him “Bill” just to be a bitch—treats us as his inferiors.
It’s a blast.
“Otto.” I push my luck, because I can’t help myself. “Try the beer. It’s a winter ale with a little spice to it.” I sip my own glass and sigh, because my beer is excellent.
“It is tasty,” Benito agrees. “But why do I get the home brew when Zara gets the fancy shit?”
“Because I did him a favor this week,” Zara says.
“And my home brew is f
antastic,” I add. “You should be so lucky. Otto—taste it.”
My uncle gives me a long stare. “I’m sure it’s good beer,” he says.
“Then have some.” I grab an extra glass I got out of the kitchen for exactly this purpose. And I pour him a little taste of it. The man already poured himself a glass of wine, but I need to wow him with my winter ale.
Otto swirls the beer around in the glass and checks the color, as if he’s a Paris sommelier. Then he tastes.
I wait for the praise, because this beer is seriously good.
“Not bad,” he says, setting the empty glass down.
“Not bad?” I echo. “That’s all you got? This is my best ever. Some of the stuff tourists drive two hundred miles to taste at my bar isn’t as good as that.”
“Tasty beer, son,” he says with a shrug. “But Vermont is lousy with excellent beer. You’re gonna make yourself insane with this idea that you can get rich making the next Goldenpour. It ain’t easy hitting it big. You gotta make a great product and then market it just right and then buy a fricking lottery ticket because it’s really just luck that makes these things big.”
My blood pressure spikes. “Thanks for making that clear. Like I don’t know that business is hard. But it’s a big world out there and someone’s going to appreciate this, even if you can’t.”
I’ve said too much. But all I get from this man is negativity.
“You gotta put in the time,” he says. This is his favorite rant, and it doesn’t matter if it doesn’t even apply to my situation. “A business builds slowly. Your bar is getting there, but you can’t spread yourself too thin yet.”
“I know your stump speech,” I point out. “But diversification matters. I need a plan for the day when I can’t get my hands on whatever limited-edition beer is all the rage. If I make my own, at least I can control it.”
“Just in case Chelsea gets tired of you, right?” Zara puts in.
I give her a death glare.
“I get it,” Benito puts in. “That’s called a vertical business structure.”
Both my mom and Zara laugh immediately.
“What?” Benny yelps. “I read it on Bloomberg News.”
“You read Bloomberg News?” Otto asks. “Now there’s a boy that’s goin’ places.”
“Yeah?” Benito asks. “Then this might be a good time to tell you all that I just quit my job at the DEA.”
And just like that, my brother sucks all the oxygen out of the room with this announcement. “What?” my mother gasps.
“Yay!” Zara cheers.
“That was a stupid-ass thing to do,” Otto says.
My uncle Art just sucks on his teeth.
And me? I’ve lost the conversation. And that’s really not okay, because I need Otto’s help. This spring I need him to let me borrow the fermentation tank where he makes perry during the winter. I have to modify it a little for beer, but it could change my life.
Right now I’m making good money because I serve up specialty products that aren’t so easy to get. The beer tourists have found me, because I advertise like crazy. I target Connecticut beer lovers. Come to Vermont and taste the magic. During leaf-peeping season, half the cars on the road are from Connecticut.
Word gets around, and I sell a lot of fancy beer. For now. But as my sister pointed out, my supply depends on the whims of the marketplace and the good graces of the distributor.
And I need to keep investing in my space. I need to save up for Hamish’s property, to insure that nobody can ruin the neighborhood. And my bar needs a kitchen so we can also serve food. I have the space, but I don’t have the equipment or the chef.
I need cash to grow. And here’s where it gets really tricky—Otto has cash to invest. I’d rather pay him instead of a bank. But when last we chatted about it, Otto wanted a fifty-one percent stake in the bar, but I said no. The Gin Mill is my baby, and I took all the risk to open her, even when he said I’d fail. So I offered him twenty-five percent. He turned that down.
How could he expect me to agree? He’s spent my life telling me I’m incompetent. If I gave him control, I’d be basically agreeing with him.
Now we’re stuck at this impasse. Sunday dinners are tense. The thing is, I’d give him fifty percent of a brewing operation. That’s something I’m willing to split down the middle, even though I’d do all the work, because we’d be using his equipment.
So far, no deal. And I think he’s resisting just to spite me.
“The new job,” my brother is saying, “is funded by a grant to the Vermont State Police. Six new drug-fighting employees.”
“And here I thought your new job would be safer,” my sister grumbles.
“Nope!” my brother says cheerfully. “But it gives me a better shot at taking down Jimmy Gage.”
My mother wrings her hands any time our ex-neighbor Jimmy Gage is mentioned. “You don’t have to take him down personally,” she says.
“Yeah, I kind of do.” My brother’s voice is low and serious. “Nobody else has done it yet.”
There is a silence at the table while we all consider my brother’s bravery. He probably will single-handedly solve Colebury’s drug problems. Benito has always been the serious kid.
I’m the party-boy fuck-up. Just ask Otto.
“Any luck finding that asshole who almost killed your sister?” Otto asks Benito. For once it’s Ben getting grilled instead of me. It isn’t even Benito’s job to solve the hit-and-run that almost ended Zara. But Otto expects us all to do the impossible.
“Not yet,” he says. “But I’ll never stop looking for that truck.”
“Time for cake,” my mother announces. “Once you guys clear the table, I’ll cut it.”
Everybody gets up, and once again I’ve failed to get anywhere with the most stubborn man in the world.
* * *
“Heads up!” Benito yells, whipping the football in my direction.
After dessert, my brothers and I are outside horsing around as the first snowflakes begin to fall. Benny’s throw is too high, but by some miracle I get my fingertips on the ball and wrangle it into my hands. “Go deep!” I yell to Damien, who lopes toward the chicken coop.
I use all my power to whip the ball downfield. It’s a nice, straight spiral but Damien doesn’t hustle and just barely misses it. Breathing the cold air has restored my equilibrium. Tonight I’ll tend bar and then sleep in while the plows clear enough snow to get my truck up to Stowe for the season’s first day of snowboarding.
Life could be worse, really.
Or at least I think so until our game of catch ends when Benito gets a phone call. When he steps away, Damien decides to drop a bomb on me. “I know where Otto is investing his money,” he says.
“What?” My mind is still on snowboarding—I’m thinking about how I might need to pick up some wax and sharpen up my board.
“Otto. He’s investing in the Giltmaker Brewery. They’re looking to open a brewpub somewhere.”
I stand stock still and replay that sentence in my head. Because that cannot be right. “Wait, what? Open a brewpub where?” I hadn’t had a clue that my uncle was tight with Vermont’s most decorated beer maker.
Damien—my quietest brother—gives me a shrug. “Not sure. Sounded like they weren’t settled on a location.”
“Who told you this?”
“Nobody. I heard them yapping together on the phone when I was over here fixing the tractor. They wanted cash, and he wrote a fat check. He gets interest and a revenue share.”
Interest and a revenue share. The words just sort of echo through my chest. For a minute I am speechless. But then the rage kicks in, and I drop the football, turn around and stomp into the farmhouse again.
“Dude,” my brother calls behind me. “Take a fucking breath.”
But I don’t. I storm inside, finding Otto in his lounge chair in front of a football game. “Are you investing in Giltmaker? Is that true?”
His eyes don’t leave the screen
. “Yes. So what?”
So what. I want to kick his ugly fucking chair like a toddler. “You’ll write a check to strangers. But you won’t let me borrow a twenty-five-year-old tank in your barn?”
“I write Giltmaker a check and earn at least twenty-five percent over two years. I lend you the tank, you make a mess, and I have to clean it up.”
Seriously? “I don’t get it,” I snarl. “I don’t get why you think I’m a kindergartner who can’t do anything right.”
“No, I don’t. I think you’re a playboy who hasn’t analyzed the competitive marketplace for craft brews. Giltmaker brought me a sixteen-page presentation analyzing why a new location was going to help them grow.”
And now my brain might explode. “Sixteen pages, huh? Pretty fonts? That impresses you?”
“No.” Otto looks up at me for the first time. “You know what impresses me? Hustle.”
“All I do is hustle!” I yell. “Six days a week. I fill my bar with both locals and tourists. I created a destination in a town that needed one. And, not that I expect you to notice, I also helped create a place where Zara can own a business. She didn’t bring me a sixteen-page presentation, though. Maybe I shoulda held out!”
I’m practically foaming at the mouth right now, and Otto is still staring at the TV. When I was a teenager who wanted him to help me get a job at the feed store, we had a conversation almost exactly like this one.
Fuck my life.
And I can’t stop yelling. “Here’s a thing you should know—I charge my sister cheap rent because she’s family! But you probably think that’s a bad business decision. Until Zara moved uphill, I would tend bar until two and then watch her kid at six a.m. So what I want to know is this—what the fuck does hustle look like to you?”
Silence. And then, “You can use the tank after the season’s perry is bottled.”
Aha! A crumb of generosity from the king in the ugly lounge chair. He probably thinks I should feel grateful. But I just can’t. “Keep your fucking tank. I don’t need shit from you.”
At that, I turn and storm back out again, passing my mother in the front hall. “Alec,” she whispers.