Chapter 25
Chapter Twenty-Five
B y the time I got to the brewery that night, the engagement party was well under way. Dick, Mabel, and their guests dominated the far corner of the room. Janet, Jack, and Gary had already secured a table, a little too close to the karaoke machine for my liking.
I had planned to get there earlier, but after I helped Gary pack up his paintings when the farmer’s market ended, I went home and jumped in the shower, standing there until the hot water ran cold, hoping for some sort of inspiration. Some brilliant idea to survive the night, without all of my plans completely falling apart.
Somehow, I had to get Janet to notice Gary, and make sure it was crystal clear that Gary and I were not even remotely, or possibly or potentially, together. Then, as if that weren’t difficult enough, I had to get Jack to notice me, without noticing what I was really up to.
When no lightbulbs magically popped up over my head, I got out of the shower, got dressed, and flopped down on my rented couch. Purrfect jumped on the coffee table and stared at me, but didn’t come up with any bright ideas either. Miraculously, she hadn’t ripped off the pink bandana yet. She was probably still trying to figure out a way to slip it off and then use it to strangle me.
I lingered in the front entryway of the brewery for a couple of moments, gathering my courage and my strength. Edna, from pickleball class, was up on stage singing a Rod Stewart classic.
If you want my body …
As she sang, it looked like she was doing some sort of Channing Tatum Magic Mike routine.
It wasn’t only Edna’s singing and dancing I had to prepare myself to endure. Even from across the room, I could see Jack, Gary, and Janet talking and laughing. I could only imagine what they had been discussing before I arrived.
“Hey Mary!” The owner of FoxPaw Brewing, Mike, called me over. Mike always let me sample the newest beers before they were officially put into rotation. He and I had become friends over the past couple of years, and not just because I tipped well. I helped Mike sell his old house after his divorce, and then find a reasonably priced condominium. I got him a sweet deal on both, so he had enough money left over to start his new brewery. Now, he was living the dream.
“You gotta try the latest,” Mike said as I moseyed over to the bar. He set a shot glass sized beer sample in front of me.
“What is it?”
“PuckerPaw.”
“PuckerPaw?”
“I’m still working out the name. It’s SourPaw conditioned with espresso beans and vanilla.” Mike smiled devilishly when he saw the concerned look on my face. “Then aged in bourbon barrels.”
I know exactly what you’re thinking. Because I was thinking about it too. The idea of a sour beer, combined with the taste of coffee and vanilla mixed with bourbon, sounded like somebody had let Dr. Frankenstein into the brewhouse. It’s like those houses at Christmas that put out a light-up Santa Claus, a nativity scene with the baby Jesus, and a giant blow-up of the Grinch all together on their front lawn. Blasphemy. I mean, pick a lane, right?
“Try it,” said Mike. “Trust me.” Just as I was about to push the glass away from me in disgust, something Gary said when we were arguing over the wallpaper in Aunt Catherine’s house came to mind. He said that sometimes, just because things don’t seem to go together, they actually end up making something better than if they were just kept to themselves.
I put the glass to my lips. As soon as the beer hit my tongue, my mouth exploded with complimentary flavors. It was sweet, and it was sour. It was light, but also rich. Somehow, all the flavors came together perfectly. It was like a seventy-piece orchestra playing Pearl Jam while Michael Jackson moonwalked across my tongue.
“See? Told you.”
I downed the rest of the sample, holding the glass up over my mouth to suck down every drop.
“Want a full pour?”
“Absolutely.”
Mike poured me a pint. “Just be careful. It’s twice as potent at Sourpaw. Too many of these things and your friends will have to carry you home.”
“Speaking of my friends, I guess I better get this over with.”
“You going to do Justin again tonight?” Mike asked.
“Not a chance,” I replied.
Taking another sip of liquid courage, I made my way across the room toward the engagement party. Edna was just finishing her song, which drew an enormous round of applause from the crowd. Judging by the smile on Edna’s face, I could only assume that she interpreted the outpouring of applause as the crowd thinking that she was indeed sexy, and they were letting her know.
“Mary, you made it!” Mabel was taking the microphone from Edna just as I arrived. “Mary Burns everyone!” The crowd once again applauded, although the applause was neither as loud nor as long as the applause letting Edna know how sexy she was.
“Everyone? Can I have your attention?” Mabel made her way to the center of the stage. “Can I have your attention, please?” The murmurs faded, and a hush fell over the crowd. “I’d like to take a moment to thank the person responsible for bringing us all together here tonight. If it wasn’t for her, none of us would be here. Mary?”
I was so busy watching Janet split her attention between Jack and Gary that I didn’t realize everyone else was looking at me.
Mabel held up her beer. “Cheers, Mary.” Everyone raised their glasses and took a sip. I swallowed down a mouthful of the PuckerPaw as Mabel continued, “I just wanted to say thank you, Mary. Thank you for giving me Dick.”
“Huh?” I almost spit out my drink.
Everyone in the entire brewery was staring as Mabel continued. “Now, Dick is waiting for me every Friday night after bingo. I wake up with Dick every morning. And Dick is the last thing I see every night before I go to bed. I fell in love with Dick thanks to Mary. And I’ve had a smile on my face ever since. To Mary!” Again Mabel raised her beer glass. But this time, everyone was too busy staring at me to follow suit. I downed the rest of my beer in one long chug.
By the time I made it back to the bar, Mike already had a second PuckerPaw waiting for me. “That was some toast.”
“Is that what that was?” I took a gulp of the freshly poured beer.
“Hey Mary,” Janet followed me to the bar. “Gary asked if you could get him a SourPaw while you’re over here and Jack wants a Blue Hawaiian.”
“It’s a brewery, Janet,” I said. “They don’t have rum or blue Curacao. They have beer.”
“Oh. Jack’s not much of a beer drinker. He only likes fancy drinks.”
I gave Mike our order and as he was pouring the drinks, I noticed Ralph and Karen had arrived, holding hands. I still couldn’t believe they were together. Ralph was the epitome of the stereotypical bachelor. I never thought he would settle down. And Karen, well, Karen was … Karen.
“So who’s your friend?” asked Mike, eyes focused on Janet.
“Oh, this is my best friend, Janet. Janet, this is Mike, the owner.”
“Pleasure to meet you, Janet.” Mike extended his hand and Janet took it.
“Pleasure to meet you, too.”
Janet brushed the hair out of her eyes and smiled. “So you own this place? It’s amazing. You must be so proud.”
Mike shrugged. “It’s been great to see all the hard work pay off. Can I get you something?” Mike pointed to the beer menu behind him.
Janet shook her head. “I’m more of a cider girl.”
“Well then, you’re in luck. Just a second.” Mike disappeared into the walk-in cooler behind the bar. When he returned, he carried a pint glass full of a pink translucent liquid. “You like strawberry?”
“I love strawberry.” Strawberry was Janet’s favorite. Janet took a sip and from the way her eyes rolled back in her head, I was pretty sure she liked it.
“That’s fantastic. What is it?”
“It’s my new strawberry cider recipe, StrawPaw.” After seeing our faces, Mike said, “Yeah, still workshopping the name.”
“Well, whatever you want to call it, it’s delicious. You should make more.”
“I’ve been experimenting with a watermelon recipe. And a dragon fruit.”
“I love dragon fruit,” said Janet.
“Then maybe you could come back and taste test for me.”
“Absolutely. I’ll be back for sure.”
As we left the bar with a fresh round of drinks, I couldn’t help but notice that Janet had an extra bit of a spring in her step. Once we were out of earshot, Janet stopped me and leaned in close. “That Mike guy is cute.”
I glanced back at the bar. Mike was looking our way. He smiled. “Yeah, I guess so,” I agreed.
“Is he single?”
“Divorced. But he was a client of mine, so don’t even think about trying to set me up.” Mike was super cute. Super nice too. But I had a strict rule about mixing business with pleasure. So I would never even consider dating a client.
“Who said I was trying to set you up?” Janet winked.
Before I could fully process what Janet said, Ralph and Karen spotted us from the entryway and made their way over. Karen actually hugged me. I assumed she had sustained a head injury and didn’t recognize my face.
“You doing Bieber tonight?” Ralph asked.
“Absolutely not.”
We made our way back to the engagement party, where I was horrified to find Gary flipping through the song sheets. “What are you doing?” I hissed.
Gary flashed a pair of doe eyes at me. “Just seeing what they got.”
Mercifully, a distraction arrived in the form of Dick and Mabel. “So are you kids having a good time?” Mabel and Dick each had a beer in hand. They seemed to be having a good time. A really good time. We all nodded enthusiastically and gushed about how wonderful of a time we were having.
But the reality was that things were not all that wonderful. I had this sense of impending doom hanging over me, like I was starring in a horror movie and I just started walking down the stairs into the pitch black basement.
“So when’s the wedding?” Ralph asked.
“As soon as possible,” Dick answered. “We’re old. Time’s a wasting. We could drop dead any minute.” Dick chugged the rest of his beer and signaled a waitress for another.
“The problem,” explained Mabel, “is that all the venues are booked. It’s impossible to find anything last minute.”
Jack said, “I know a place.”
We all shifted our gaze simultaneously.
“The ranch.”
Blink
“The reunion place.”
Blink
“Where Mary got run over by the cows.” The trauma of being physically assaulted by a herd of cattle remained fresh in my psyche. I still had nightmares, waking up drenched in sweat, the smell of cow lingering on my skin.
“That place would be perfect,” Ralph agreed. Apparently, he had no concern whatsoever about returning to the scene of my humiliation.
“I have a friend who’s friends with the person on the reunion committee who booked it. If you want, I could call her?” Jack offered.
“Would you? That would be amazing.” Mabel grabbed Jack and gave him a big hug. A big long hug. I mean a really big, really long hug.
Gently prying himself loose, Jack asked, “When would you want to do it?”
“We’re flexible,” gushed Mabel.
“And old,” Dick added.
“As soon as possible,” Mabel said.
“Old.” Dick tapped his watch, then feigned death by tilting his head, closing his eyes, and sticking his tongue out. Then he downed at least half of the new beer the waitress handed him in one long slurp.
Jack pulled his phone from his pocket. “Then I guess I better call Ashley right away.”
“Ashley?” asked Janet.
“Yeah,” said Jack.
“Ashley Griffin?”
Jack nodded.
“You have Ashley Griffin’s number saved on your phone?” Janet frowned.
Jack shrugged. “She’s an old friend.”
Before Janet could press further, Jack headed off to make the call. When Mabel and Dick moved on to socialize with the next table, Ralph put his arm around Janet’s shoulders and pulled her in close. “Everything okay?”
It took Janet a moment to pull her eyes away from the door. “With me and Jack? Things are going great. I mean, they’re good. Everything’s fine.”
“You went from great to good to fine in the span of two seconds.”
We all waited until Janet felt compelled to elaborate. “I mean, we have our differences, of course. Just like any two people do.”
“What differences?” I asked, doing my best to sound supportive.
“Nothing important.” Janet laughed, but stopped when she saw that no one else was laughing with her.
“Television shows,” said Gary.
“Television shows?” asked Janet.
“Someone told me once,” Gary glanced my way, “That you can judge the status of a relationship by the couple’s T.V. watching habits.”
“Like how?” Janet frowned.
“Do you watch the same things?” Gary asked.
“Well. Not exactly,” said Janet.
Taking the baton from Gary, I asked, “You don’t watch T.V. together?”
“No. It’s just, I guess we never seem to find something we both want to watch.” Janet’s face looked like she was trapped in an elevator with someone who had just eaten a family sized crock pot full of baked beans. “But that’s not a big deal. I’m sure most couples like different shows.”
Janet fixed her eyes on Karen and Ralph. “I mean, I’m sure Karen doesn’t like those old lawyer shows you’re always watching, right?” Ralph loved lawyer shows. Especially the classics like Matlock and anything with Angela Lansbury.
“Well, no, they’re not my favorite,” Karen admitted. “So we take turns. I watch one of his shows, then he watches one of mine.”
Ralph nodded, then said, “We binge watched six episodes of Doogie Howser reruns just the other night.”
“A doctor show?” Most times, Ralph refused to acknowledge that doctors even exist. Like Bigfoot.
“Actually, I kinda liked it.” Ralph gave Karen’s hand an extra squeeze.
Gary and I traded glances. We both remembered that night we made dinner. Well, we both remembered that night we burned dinner. Then, after we got out of the pool, we watched old episodes of Family Feud while Kyle slept. For some strange reason, I found myself wishing that Gary and I could just go back to Aunt Catherine’s house right then and there, curl up on the couch, and watch some more.
It seemed like Janet’s head was floating somewhere in outer space. “The other night when Jack came over, all he wanted to do was watch football. So I just sat at the kitchen table and played sudoku.”
“Well, I’m sure you two have plenty of other things in common,” said Karen. “What else do you enjoy doing together?”
I braced myself to hear something I didn’t want to hear, but Janet only shrugged. “To be honest, Jack is so busy at work we hardly do anything at all. We went to the movies last weekend, but it was one of those super hero ones where everyone just runs around in tights and blows things up.”
Karen and I both wrinkled our noses. “Yuck.”
“We’ve been out to eat a couple of times, but Jack always wants to get sushi.”
“You’re vegan,” I pointed out.
“Exactly.” Janet pressed her fingers into her temples.
Karen leaned in from across the table, dropping her voice low. “I hate to be blunt here, Janet, but what exactly do you see in that guy? Ralph told me about what a jerk he was in high school.”
The entire table fell silent, beer mugs frozen mid-sip. We watched as Janet’s gaze drifted across the crowded brewery. There, leaning against the exposed brick wall like a GQ model who’d wandered off set, was Jack, still deep in conversation on his phone. Ashley Griffin must have said something amusing because Jack smiled, his perfect white teeth lighting up the entire room. His rolled-up sleeves were fighting a losing battle against those unfairly generous biceps, and the way he ran his fingers through his perfectly tousled hair should have been illegal. A waitress carrying a tray of beer flights nearly walked into a potted palm, her head swiveling owl-like to steal another glance when Jack wasn’t looking.
Janet, Karen, and I all sighed in synchronized harmony.
“Okay, fine. He’s not horrible to look at, I suppose.” Ralph made a face, but Karen was still too busy staring at Jack to notice.
Eyes stilled glued to Jack, Janet said, “I guess I just never thought someone like that would be interested in someone like me.” I could certainly relate.
We all sat silently for a few moments, sipping our beers. While Janet seemed lost in thought, Gary caught my eye. I could tell he was plotting something.
“I’ll be right back,” Gary said, excusing himself.
What are you doing? I mouthed silently.
You’ll see. Gary mouthed back. And before I could press further, he was gone.
I looked across the table as Janet sipped her strawberry cider. Even though I wanted Janet to realize that Jack was not the right man for her, it pained me to see her struggling. I may have been a terrible, no good, horrible, rotten person, but I was still her best friend. The last thing I wanted was for Janet to get hurt. Which is why I had been trying to get Janet to see reason ever since I found out that she and Jack were together. I knew if she kept at this, it would only get worse.
Seeing Janet’s face in that moment only steeled my resolve.
I had to follow through with my plan, no matter what.