Friday Night Flights

by Susan X Meagher

  Avery shrugged. “I didn’t care if we had a football team at all, so I’m sure I didn’t care who was on it.”

  Her dad reached over and tugged on her ear. “One day I’ll convert you into a sports fan so we can enjoy a game together.”

  Avery laughed. “That’s going to be a big job, Dad. I think we should continue to girl-watch together. Let’s go with our strengths.”

  “Get your eyes off that girl’s butt,” her mom said, playfully slapping her husband in the chest as he continued to stare. In her dad’s defense, when Casey leaned over the bar to reach the taps it was pretty hard to resist taking a gander.

  Before the family ogle-fest got out of hand, Casey returned, setting the glasses on their table. “So…” She put her hands on her hips, gazing at three tall shot glasses filled with a deep red-tinted beer.

  The opaque-skinned greenhouse created a golden glow as the sun started to set. Casey held up a glass so the flattering light infused it. “See this luscious color? We blended three different brown ales together, then added tart cherries. After aging it in Cabernet wine barrels for two years, it turned into a pretty complex beer, but I’ll admit it’s not for everyone.” She handed a glass to Avery, watching her avidly. “Give it a sniff.”

  Feeling like she was under a microscope, Avery stuck her nose in and inhaled, looking up sharply. “It smells like Cherry Coke.”

  “A little bit,” Casey agreed, with her smile growing wider. “You might get some vanilla, too. Take a sip and see what you think.”

  Her parents weren’t racing for their glasses, which wasn’t surprising, given that her mom didn’t like beer much at all, and her father was perfectly happy with a Budweiser.

  Avery took a sip, surprised by the level of carbonation, not to mention the acid. Then she closed her eyes for a moment, and really let her senses speak to her. While it was a very unexpected taste, she could see that she might grow fond of it. Looking up, she said, “You probably hear this all of the time, but it reminds me of Sour Patch Kids—with a punch.”

  “It does,” Casey said, grinning. “I’ve always loved sour candy, so I might like this more than most people would.” Her expression grew thoughtful when she said, “Even though it might seem playful, this beer isn’t a gimmick. They started brewing sour ales in Belgium hundreds of years ago. My predecessor was from Brussels, so he always tried to have at least one sour in the rotation.”

  Her mom took a tentative sip, blinked a few times, then shook her head. “I’m going to have to get used to this, Casey. I’ve never had anything like it, and it’s going to take me a second to adjust my tastebuds.” She kept her warm gaze on her and said, “I was just going to send Avery to rustle up some food for us. Will you join us for dinner?”

  “Let me set you up,” she said. “Pulled pork sliders?”

  “Sounds great. But take Avery with you to carry everything.”

  “All right. Baked beans and cole slaw good for everyone?”

  “Sounds great,” her mom said, with her father echoing her. “We’ll drink these little tasters while we guard the table. Big crowd tonight.”

  “Great. If you like the ale, I’ve got more, and if you don’t, I’ll switch you over to something else. I have four other beers on tap tonight, along with a cider I’m saving for special friends.”

  “We’re easy to please. And hungry.”

  “Got it,” she said, giving a little salute as she led the way through the crowd. They didn’t have far to walk, but Casey paused to shake hands with nearly every other person they passed, adding personal greetings to many of them. Avery wasn’t sure why she knew so many people by name, given a brewmaster probably spent her time inside the brewery, but the solitary girl from Hudson High had become a real social butterfly.

  They exited through a propped-open door, and Avery filled her lungs with the tangy scent of barbecue coming from the charcoal grills set up next to the food truck. There were at least twenty-five people in line, patiently waiting to reach the counter and order.

  In the moments it had taken to walk away from the building, some of Casey’s élan had dimmed. Avery was sure she wasn’t imagining it, with Casey now seeming almost businesslike. “We can go right around the back,” she said, walking so quickly Avery had to race to catch her.

  A middle-aged Latino was working the grill, and he called Casey over, speaking to her in Spanish for a second. She was smiling as she walked away, but the smile faded in a matter of seconds. “I’m trading Tomas some sour ale for our dinner. Wait right here.”

  Tomas started to fill a tray with the sliders, cole slaw, and beans, and just as Avery was about to reach for it, Casey returned. She handed the cook a generous glass, and added a kiss to his cheek. “We’re set,” she said, grasping the tray to head back to the greenhouse.

  Avery hadn’t been needed at all, feeling like the little sister foisted on a reluctant older sibling. But she did have the ability to count. “We only have three plates.”

  “Right. I ate hours ago, and I’ve got to get back to work. How did you feel about the sour? Want more?”

  She felt a little silly, but Avery found herself trying to be more bubbly to get Casey to engage more. “Oh, definitely. I can already imagine how it will taste with some tangy barbecue.”

  “Great. I’ll get you another. Full-size this time.” She laughed softly. “I bet your parents will ask for water.”

  “My mom’s willing to try new things, but my dad likes his Budweiser. He’s not very experimental.”

  “I’ve got a pretty safe lager on tap. It’s more complex than Budweiser, but it’s in the ballpark.”

  “That should work.”

  “Great. I’ll grab a pair of those and get you the challenging stuff.” They stopped at the table and Casey set the plates down. “That’s two no votes on the sour ale,” she said, obviously seeing that the glasses were largely untouched. “Be right back with something I’m sure you’ll like better.” As she backed away, she added, “When I have a minute, I’ll stop by with some churros.”

  As she walked over to the bar, she stopped to speak to more people, offering hugs and handshakes to what must have been old friends. Oddly, she gave off the vibe of a politician, able to amp up her personality in an instant. Or maybe she’d turned it down when she was alone with Avery. But that made no sense. They hadn’t seen each other for sixteen years, and Avery was sure they’d barely spoken to each other even then. She was certain they hadn’t been in the same homeroom, and couldn’t recall being in any classes together, which made sense, given they were on different academic tracks. There had been little to no overlap between the kids, like her, who had been obsessed with their GPAs, and those just biding their time until they could get jobs. Casey had definitely been in the latter group. Avery didn’t have a wealth of concrete memories of her, but one of them was of Casey proudly standing up at Senior Honors to identify herself. Avery could still see the grin on her face when she stood tall and said, “Casey Van Dyke. College? None.”

  Forcing herself to stop following Casey with her eyes, Avery said, “I don’t know what happened to the shy introvert who only looked alive when she was kicking or hitting a ball, but that gawky girl is gone.” She knew she was only giving her mother ammunition, but she couldn’t hide the fact that she was intrigued, even though Casey clearly hadn’t been. It wouldn’t have done any good to try to hide her interest. Her mother could read her like the world’s best clairvoyant.

  ***

  It took a while to speak to everyone she knew, and a little longer to check in with a few strangers to get some feedback on the sour. It was getting late, and Casey was surprised to see the Nichols family still sitting at their table. They were either really looking forward to those churros, or Avery had developed an addiction to the tart beer, with a fresh glass now sitting next to a spent one.

  If she’d had anything pressing, Casey would have just waved and kept on moving. But it was kind of fun to talk to one of the cool girls f
rom high school, if only to show that the divide that had seemed like a canyon when they were sixteen had mostly disappeared.

  As she crossed the room, still full of people who’d gotten a little louder as the night wore on, Casey slightly revised her categorization of Avery. She hadn’t technically been one of the cool girls. She’d been one of the brainy ones, the ones so involved in their classes that they weren’t even aware they weren’t super cool. All Avery’s group had cared about was getting into one of the special programs their high school reserved for smart kids, then clawing their way into the best colleges. You would have thought their lives depended on where they parked themselves for four years.

  She made eye contact with Avery again, surprised to have her lock on and not let go. Kathy hadn’t been kidding. Her daughter had definitely flipped at some point. But in Casey’s memory, Avery was the cute straight girl who always had a boyfriend. She’d worked her way through the brainy guys like she was simply sampling the merchandise, never finding the perfect match.

  Even though she’d had no true friends in high school, Casey had interacted with far more boys than girls, and she’d always kept her ears open when they were talking about other girls, since she was as obsessed with them as the guys were. She recalled that the smart jocks were seriously interested in Avery and a couple of her equally brainy friends. Casey smiled to herself when she thought about a guy once saying that Avery was the kind of girl you had to work to get. She wouldn’t jump into your car just because you beeped the horn.

  As Casey swung by the table, she put her hand on Avery’s shoulder and left it there, pleased when she leaned into the touch slightly. “Want to go get those churros?”

  “Love to,” she said, smiling up at Casey with a look that was almost flirty. “Be back in a minute,” she said to her parents.

  “We might have to wait in line for these,” Casey said to Ken and Kathy. “Can you hang out for a while?”

  “We’re in no hurry,” Ken said. He was also on his third glass, but Kathy had left her lager mostly untouched. She’d be able to drive them home.

  “Great. See you in a few.”

  Leading the way, Casey turned right as they exited the building, refreshed by the cool air that hit her skin. “It really heats up in there when we have a full house. I need to cool off a little before I can even think about waiting in that line.”

  “We could go for a walk, but you’ll break your neck in flip-flops.”

  “I know this land like the back of my hand,” she said, “and I’m stone cold sober. Nothing worse than a brewmaster too drunk to talk up her beer.”

  “I’m up for a walk.” Avery put her hand over her eyes to scan the grounds, resting it on the dark frames of her glasses. “What’s out there? I can’t tell if this a working farm or not.”

  Casey paused and turned her body, making sure it would be impossible to miss the two-story, clearly industrial building in the distance. “Um… It’s a brewery?” she said, sticking her thumb over her shoulder. She didn’t usually tease people she didn’t know, but she found herself getting some pleasure out of poking a little fun at someone who’d once poked fun at her.

  “I knew there was one somewhere around here, but I didn’t know I could throw a rock and hit it.”

  “It’s right…there,” Casey said, picking up a big pebble and giving it a ride. A second later, there was a soft metallic “ping” when it hit the side of the metal sheathed building.

  “How did I miss it?”

  “Well, that’s hard for me to know. Maybe you came in from the east? You see our grain fields from that direction.”

  “We came up from Hudson, so…yeah, I guess we did.”

  “Then maybe you’re not totally oblivious,” Casey said, pleased when Avery smiled at that. “Follow me and I’ll show you what we’re up to.” She started off down the main path, pleased that even in flip-flops she still walked faster than Avery. It took just a minute to be out in the field, where the almost ripe hops climbed twenty feet into the sky.

  Avery stopped and looked into the clear, dark night. “How do you hold those plants up there?”

  “Trellises, but they’re hidden by the fruit now. The bines are heavy, and they need support.”

  “Did you say bines, or vines?”

  “Bines,” she said, slightly distracted. She put her hand on the plant, tempted to take a taste. But she’d been out sampling already that day, and knew the ripest plant was still a day or two away from peak. Avery was gazing at her curiously, and Casey elaborated. “A vine holds on and climbs by tendrils or suckers, and a bine’s stem curls around a support. Not a big deal, but it’s botanically different.”

  “Interesting,” Avery said, taking a closer look at a stem.

  “They’re about ready to go. We’ll start harvesting by the middle of next week.”

  “These are…what?”

  “Oh!” She laughed at herself. It wasn’t odd for her to focus on details and forget that other people didn’t know how to brew beer. “Hops plants. We grow almost all of our own. Actually, that’s how the brewery began.”

  “As a farm?”

  “Uh-huh. Our founders are a pair of Wall Street guys who went in together to buy a big chunk of farmland, thinking they’d eventually subdivide it for home sites.” She shrugged. “You know the type of guys I’m talking about. Rich guys who have enough money to make everything they touch turn to gold.”

  “I certainly do,” Avery said. “The same people who don’t give a damn about maintaining the subways because they have a driver take them everywhere they want to go.”

  “Maybe,” she said, not knowing a thing about subways or drivers. “So…after weekending up here for a while, they had kind of a come-to-Jesus moment and realized houses could be built anywhere. Arable, fertile land was a limited resource.” She put her fingers on a hop, testing one more time that the fruit was still firmly attached. “I think it was their wives and kids who pushed them in that direction, but I don’t care what their motivation was. They did the right thing.”

  “So…they became farmers?”

  “Not exactly. Or, I guess I should say that wasn’t their plan. They’d both made so much dough in the stock market that they claim they’d lost interest in chasing more.” She laughed a little and added her own interpretation. “I think their wives were threatening divorce, and their kids were becoming entitled little jerks. Cutting back from their eighty-hour workweeks saved them a ton of money in alimony and child support.”

  “A cynical view,” Avery said, smiling. “And probably the correct one. But how do people who’ve been on that crazy train get off? It seems addictive.”

  “I don’t know. Both of these guys are from small towns around here. Maybe they had some good role models when they were growing up.”

  “Couldn’t hurt, I guess. So how did they start?”

  “Are you really interested?”

  “Of course. I love hearing about rich people who make good choices.”

  “Okay,” Casey said, pleased that she wasn’t just talking to entertain herself. “Well, they were both still young, and had all of that stockbroker energy, so they started brewing beer, just to see if they could. Luckily, they found they had the knack for producing a good lager. I served your dad our signature beer, their first creation.”

  “God, I wish more of them would do that. New York would be so much nicer with fewer testosterone-poisoned multi-millionaires jacking up property values.”

  Casey rolled her eyes. “I don’t really want those people up here, either, thank you. But my owners are pretty good guys, even though they’re filthy rich, and keep tripping over ways to make more dough. When they discovered local breweries were having trouble finding good hops, they decided to jump in and fill that need. A while after that, they added grain.” She put her hand on the plant again, always getting a warm feeling in her heart when she connected to one of the integral parts of her craft. “This part of the Hudson Valley used to suppl
y hops for the entire country back in the day. The land is just perfect for it.”

  “Amazing,” Avery said. “How long have you been in business?”

  “Not long—for a brewery. They started production right about when we graduated from high school.”

  “And you started working for them right then?”

  “It’s a longer story than that. But I’ve been here almost thirteen years. It’s gone by like that,” she said, snapping her fingers. “Enough about me. I could keep talking for days, but unless you’re in the business I’ll bore you to death.” She started to walk again, finding she talked more freely when she was moving. Threading her way along the fruit-heavy plants, she said, “So… Last time I talked to your mom, she said you were single—and looking.”

  Avery rolled her eyes. “She could run her own little PFLAG group. I’ve been single for a couple of years now, and it drives her nuts.”

  “Mmm. A few years can seem like a long time, can’t it?”

  “Oh, yeah.” She sighed softly, with the sound barely reaching Casey’s ear. “In my mind, my last girlfriend and I were as good as married, but it turned out that she didn’t share that belief.”

  Casey laughed, thinking of how odd the twists and turns of life were. “You know, you would not have been near the top of my list if I’d had to guess who in our class would have wound up gay.”

  Avery revealed a pretty cute smile when she said, “I guess you can’t tell a lesbian book by her cover.”

  “I guess you can’t. Tell me about this almost-wife.”

  Avery started to walk again, with her voice taking on a reflective quality. “It’s actually not a fascinating story, but it sure did have a big impact on my life.” She took a breath, and continued. “Michelle and I met at Iowa. I was getting my masters, and she was in the Ph.D. program. Then we lived together in Brooklyn for a few years while she completed her dissertation. After that, she got a job at Penn.”