Chapter Nineteen
There is too much cheer here.
It’s the first thing I notice when I follow Tessa, Jen, Arun, Randy, and Marina through the sprawling parking lot and up the winding path leading to Strawberry Moon Brewery.
A cheer rings out from the group playing cornhole up ahead when an elderly woman gets her bag through the hole.
On our left, a pair of kids toss a Frisbee back and forth.
A woman sitting on a picnic blanket coos at a giggling toddler.
Ahead of us, people sit at a sea of tables outside the brewery, talking, eating, laughing, drinking, being nauseatingly merry.
The sun is shining, the grass is a vivid shade of green, and nothing has ever been more disgustingly perfect.
“Perfect!” Randy says, right on cue. “A table’s opening up, center stage.” He weaves through the tables to snag it just as its previous occupants, a young couple, take their leave. Randy waves us over, and I fake a grin when I slide in across from him.
“Art’s set is an hour,” Arun says, checking his watch. He cranes his neck to inspect the stage behind me. “No sign of him yet.”
The name Art McKenzie probably wouldn’t ring a bell for most people outside of Virginia.
Music snobs would recognize him as a former guitarist for Cranefly, a Richmond-based indie band from the ’90s.
They never reached mainstream success, but their albums earned critical acclaim, and some musicians still cite them as an influence today.
Virginians would recognize Art as the baritone-voiced singer-songwriter who frequents the local music festival circuit.
When he went solo after the band broke up, Art never reached Cranefly’s level of success, but he remains a beloved presence in Virginia.
No music festival in the state is complete without an Art McKenzie set.
But Greenstead has a special, if one-sided, connection to Art McKenzie. One of his songs, “Green Thread,” made waves throughout Greenstead when it hit the local radio in the early 2000s. Greensteaders were convinced he’d written it about our town.
Of course, there’s no evidence that he ever actually lived in or even passed through Greenstead, and the lyrics make pretty clear that the song is about missing an ex who left a shirt behind.
But Greensteaders decided this melancholy acoustic song was really about a longing for the way our town used to be before the flood, about a soulful desire for those bright days to return.
So, naturally, the citizens of Greenstead became Art McKenzie’s collective number one fan.
Our local radio station cycles through his music constantly—and he hasn’t put out any new albums in at least a decade.
Any festivals or gigs he’s playing are announced on our local news, in a special segment called “Art Alert,” which has its own custom graphic featuring a cartoon image of Art playing the guitar.
(Art has, coincidentally, refused any offers to come on the show.)
So when Arun told us last week that Art McKenzie was playing a gig at a brewery in Richmond, I thought he was just doing what Greensteaders do, sharing important updates about the only musician who matters—until Arun said he wanted to ask Art to play at the apple festival.
It sounded impossible, on par with calling up the king of England to invite him over for a crab boil. Art was… Art . He was bigger than all of us.
But Arun insisted it was worth a try, pointing out how it would help drive attendance from all over the state if our little festival could boast Art McKenzie’s presence.
And so we hopped into Randy’s van and made the hour-long trip to Richmond for a chance to ask Greenstead’s god for a very large favor.
On the drive, Arun and Tessa ran the numbers and enthusiastically debated how much of our budget we could reasonably afford to offer Art.
I sat in the back seat, staring vacantly out the window, unable to reveal that those funds they’re counting on don’t exist anymore.
I’ve gone over and over the budget. I’ve reviewed it at the Ryser Cares office, crunching numbers while people around me joke and brainstorm and make things happen.
I’ve reviewed it sitting at the kitchen table at home late into the night, getting puzzled looks from my dad and Wendy when they pop in to say good night on their way to bed.
No matter how I look at it, there’s no way we can throw this festival without the money Ryser pledged.
And after getting the buy-in from all the vendors, I can’t just turn around and ask them to pay participation fees after all.
Especially when it was the promise of Ryser covering those fees that made them trust us enough to agree to participate in the festival in the first place.
But we need that money to cover the booth rentals, advertisements, insurance, banners, portable bathrooms, and everything else a festival requires.
We do have the funds Solar Summit provided when they agreed to sponsor the festival, but that money went toward the pie contest costs: the stage, stipends for the judges, a cash prize for the winner. We’ve been counting on the Ryser money to cover the necessities.
Then there’s the part of me that wonders, what would Marina think?
Marina only came around to thinking Ryser isn’t as bad as they seem because they pledged the money to support this festival.
When she discovers they’re just as selfish and greedy as she’d always said they were, how would that change how she thinks of me?
Only a horrible person would want to work for such a horrible company, right?
I can’t see her overlooking this, especially after I’ve gotten her hopes up about this festival and its potential to save the community center. To save our town, period.
She wouldn’t look at me the same way. She couldn’t, especially if she knew that even after all of this, I’m still trying to think of a way to keep my old job. That I still want to align myself with Ryser because it’s the best means to an end I can conceive of.
Which is why, now, I keep my thoughts to myself.
I volunteer to keep our spot at the table while the rest of them go inside the brewery to order.
I glance around the picnic tables filled with people enjoying themselves and think about how unfortunate it is that I don’t even get to appreciate being here at this place that feels so much livelier than anywhere in Greenstead.
Tessa’s been talking about wanting to show me her favorite pubs and breweries on our next weekend trip to Richmond, and now here we are, at a brewery so scenic it could be a park, and I can’t enjoy anything.
I thank Marina with as much sincerity as I can muster when she presents me with a cheeseburger exactly the way I like it—cheddar cheese, grilled onions, no pickle, extra tomato, extra crispy fries on the side—without asking.
She knows me so well, even now. Except for the thing I can’t bring myself to tell her about.
Art takes the stage as we’re finishing our food.
It’s easy to spot him among the backing musicians taking their places onstage with him.
Though his hair is gray, close-cropped, and thinner than the shaggy style depicted in the Art Alert graphic, his tall, slender frame is the same, and he’s wearing his usual jeans and Converse.
He even has a distinct walk about him, a nonchalant way of shuffling onstage as if he’s just wandered there by accident.
When Art greets the crowd with a quiet hello, he’s met with loud cheers and applause, including an over-the-top whoop from Arun.
Art’s gaze flickers toward our table with a touch of wariness, and I wonder if he’s pegged us for the Greensteaders that we are, if he has a security team whose sole purpose is protecting him from the frightening enthusiasm of his Greenstead fans.
His set is the same as I remember it from when he played at the DC State Fair I attended in college.
It’s mostly his solo work, but he always scatters in a few Cranefly songs throughout.
Our table cheers loudest when “Green Thread” starts up, earning us another cautious glance.
And though I’m 99 percent sure the song isn’t actually about us, I can’t help but feel like it is, today.
Every aspect of it speaks to me. The fragile pluck of the guitar, his melancholy voice, the futile hope in the lyrics: I’ll hold onto this thread and wait for our love to be resurrected .
I’m doing the same thing, aren’t I? Holding too tightly onto a thread, hoping in vain that circumstances will change?
I can’t even decide what my thread is: the festival, Marina, Greenstead, Ryser Cares, my old job, that promotion I’m chasing.
I just know that in this moment, no one else understands me like Art McKenzie does.
As I’m vowing to keep my TV tuned to the local news at all hours of the day so I don’t miss any future Art Alerts, the song ends, the crowd breaks into applause, and I must come to the terms with the fact that I’ve teared up over a song about an old shirt.
Partway through the last song in the set, Arun stands and gestures for us to follow him.
We weave through the crowd until we reach the side of the stage, though I’m not quite sure of the game plan.
Are we going to ramble out a festival invitation in the three seconds it’ll take Art to pass us on his way offstage?
When the mention of Greenstead sends him into a panic, will we chase after him, shouting assurances that our town is totally normal?
When Art finishes his last song and thanks the crowd for coming, he turns to the side, sees us, and stops in his tracks, looking like a frightened deer. Before we can speak, he turns and exits from the opposite side of the stage instead.
“Maybe we shouldn’t have cheered so loud,” Tessa murmurs.