A Charming Brew Read online

  I stared for a moment. I hadn’t known that. I reached out a hand and clasped with her for a moment.

  “It’s time for your bedtime, Lydia,” Merry said. “Let’s go collect a few hairs, then off to bed with you.”

  “Yes, Mom.”

  * * * *

  On the front step fifteen minutes later, I pulled my sister tightly into my arms. “Thank you. It would kill me if I couldn’t see her.”

  “I know. I couldn’t do that to either of you, and I couldn’t be apart from you myself. I love you, Jacqueline.”

  “I love you, too, Meredith.”

  Date Night

  Ron and I made arrangements for the next evening. Somehow, and I suspect a certain little matchmaker had something to do with it, Phoebe Mathis found out about our plans, and I received a mid-afternoon phone call.

  “You and Ron are picking up the brush tonight.”

  “Yep.”

  “Is there room for one more? I could use some time outside.”

  “Sure. He said he’ll pick me up about 5. Can you be at my place by then, dressed for time in the woods? You’ll want gloves, too.”

  “Sure. I’ll see you then.”

  By the time they arrived, I was in outdoor gear. Jeans, work boots, and a flannel shirt. I had a jacket and gloves waiting near the door.

  Phoebe arrived first, and she was dressed quite similarly to my choices. She smiled as I let her in. “We match.”

  “I suppose we do,” I said.

  “So, where are we going?”

  “It’s all part of the great lesbian network,” I said.

  “Another friend. Wait, wait. Don’t tell me. She’s a lumberjack.”

  “Her family owns an apple orchard. Well, it’s more than an apple orchard. They have all sorts of things. It’s one of those pick your own places. They always have brush and dead branches and stuff. The bigger pieces get used for firewood, but the sticks and such aren’t useful for too much. But she keeps it for ‘projects’ as she puts it, and only mulches it when the pile gets too big. I called her this morning.”

  “Gotcha. So, I understand congratulations are in order?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You’re going to be a second aunt.”

  “Ah. Lydia probably should have waited to announce it.”

  “Are you kidding? She was just bubbling with excitement and couldn’t wait to tell.”

  “What else did she say?”

  “Only that she’s sure it’ll be a little sister, but it’s too early to see a bump or anything.”

  “Merry is only a few weeks along,” I explained. “She isn’t really announcing it, but I suppose we didn’t tell Lydia that.”

  “She was awfully excited,” Phoebe said. “She did say you’ve been lining up more help.”

  “Merry wants to help at the party,” I said. “I don’t know about John, Lydia’s father. He’s kind of reserved. I’ve never seen him in any sort of costume. Merry hasn’t let her hair down that much in years, either, but I think she’s looking forward to this.”

  “Does Abby need to make another costume?”

  “No. Merry will pull something out of the attic or something, I suspect.” I laughed.

  “What?”

  “One year we were twin Elviras, although that wouldn’t be fitting for a school event.”

  Phoebe smiled. “I’d like to have seen that.”

  “It was a long time ago,” I said.

  Just then, Ron pulled up, parking in the street in front of my house, the truck and trailer filling a good amount of the available space. I grabbed my jacket and gloves and ushered Phoebe from the house. By the time we were outside, Ron was out of his truck. Jenny his daughter, was with him. She looked at us, then past us, and then she looked crestfallen. “Lydia isn’t coming?”

  I glanced at Ron’s truck. It was an extended cab.

  “Is there room for five?”

  “If one of you rides with the girls,” Ron said. “Sure.”

  I dug out my phone. It took seconds to explain the situation to Merry. It took seconds longer for her to explain to Lydia, and I could hear the screeching in the background. “I’ll drive her over. Someone’s parked in front of our place, so there’s nowhere for Ron to park that monstrosity of his.”

  I smiled at Jenny. “They’ll be here in a few minutes. We can wait inside.”

  Jenny perked up, and once inside, I offered sodas and coffee all around then packed a second set in a cooler. We made small talk until Merry and Lydia pulled into the driveway. They let themselves into the house, and the two girls immediately stepped aside to jabber at each other.

  “Congratulations, Merry,” Phoebe said.

  Merry looked down at her stomach and then over at Lydia, lost in conversation with her friend. “Oh, right. We didn’t tell her to wait before she told anyone.” She set her hand on her stomach.

  “Oh,” Ron said. “Oh. Congratulations! Is it a boy or a girl?”

  “It’s a girl,” Lydia said. I guess she wasn’t completely lost in her conversation with Jenny. “Mom says a woman just knows these things.”

  Merry smiled. “We’re not sure, but my daughter might very well be right. It feels like a girl.”

  “Does your husband want a boy?” Ron asked.

  “My husband will love whatever I pop out,” Merry said.

  “Um.”

  But Jenny turned on her dad. “Is that it, Dad? Do you wish I was a boy, too?”

  “Wait, wait,” he said, holding up his hands. “I never said-“

  Jenny began laughing.

  “I think your daughter has been hanging around my daughter too much,” Merry said. “She’s a bad influence.”

  “It’s Aunt Jackie’s fault,” Lydia said. “I was a sweet girl until you had her.”

  Phoebe snorted.

  “I’m pretty sure there’s something wrong with that,” Ron said.

  “Just go with it, Ron,” I advised him. “Merry, I have something for you. No one minds if we delay just one more minute, do you?”

  “I want to see,” Lydia said immediately. “We’ll be right back.” She grabbed her mother’s hand and began dragging her upstairs with me in tow.

  * * * *

  “Thank you, Jacqueline,” Merry said as I handed her the belt.

  “You don’t have to thank me.”

  “And you don’t have to thank me for all the stuff you thank me for,” she replied. “But we don’t take each other for granted, do we?”

  “I suppose we don’t.”

  “Can I see it?” Lydia asked. So Merry handed her the belt. The girl inspected it carefully before handing it back. “It has some of my hair in it?”

  “The three I took last night, plus some from your mom and your dad.”

  “Did you pretend to tug his out with your bracelet, Mom?”

  “I told him they were grey, and I plucked them,” Merry said. “He was deeply offended.”

  Lydia turned to me. “What else can I do?”

  “When I need more hair—or anything else—I’ll let you know,” I said. “Thank you.”

  “You don’t have to thank me,” she said with a grin.

  “But you and I don’t take each other for granted, either. We have to get going.”

  “What are you going to tell Jenny if she asks what we were doing up here?”

  “That Aunt Jackie made a charm belt for you,” she said. “Unless you tell me to say something different.”

  “Sticking close to the truth is best,” Merry said. “Good.”

  * * * *

  We saw Merry off before climbing into Ron’s tuck. I volunteered to sit in back with the girls. “I’m shorter,” I told Phoebe.

  “But you know the way,” she protested.

  “Ah, but if I’m back here, I can torment my niece in front of her friend,” I said.

  “Try it and suffer,” Lydia said without a glance. “Maybe I should sit in front and Ms. Mathis can sit in back with you.”
>
  “Yeah, that’s not happening,” I said. “Get in.”

  * * * *

  We had a nice time. It was a forty-minute drive out to the Frank Family Farm. There were other families there, collecting pumpkins and going on hayrides, but Toni was waiting for us. We did greetings and then she hopped on a 4-wheeler to show the way to the waiting brush pile. The rest of us followed in Ron’s truck.

  “Take as much as you need,” she said. “And you can bring it back if you don’t know what to do with it when you’re done. We take clean trimmings, too, if you have fallen branches, so in the future, remember us.” She looked at the girls. “Are you staying?”

  “It’s a school night,” I said.

  Both girls turned to us, and Lydia turned on her eyes. “Hayride?” she asked simply. “And can we buy pumpkins?”

  “Oops,” said Toni.

  “We don’t know when Mr. White and Ms. Mathis need to be home,” I told Lydia.

  Immediately both girls changed the target of their imploring looks. What was funny was that Lydia turned to Ron and Jenny turned her eyes on Phoebe.

  “Oh, don’t try that on me,” Phoebe said. “Unlike some people around here-“ and she offered a brief glare at me. “I am immune.” But she smiled. “That being said, I haven’t been on a hayride in a long time. However, I also haven’t had dinner.”

  “The next hayride is in just over an hour,” Toni said. “And we have things to eat back at the main barn. Most of it’s dessert stuff, pies and cobbler, but you can always eat dessert first.” She offered a grin. “We have half hour and one-hour hayrides.”

  Ron and Phoebe nodded to each other, so Ron said, “If we can get the truck filled in time, and we get back to the main barn in time for all of us to get a bite, then we can take a short hayride. But it’s a school night, and your mother will skin me alive if you don’t get a proper dinner before bedtime.”

  “Thanks, Dad!” Jenny said.

  Ron began directing the loading of the trailer, but Toni pulled me to the side.

  “So, the teacher is cute.”

  “She’s straight.”

  “So am I,” Toni said with a cackle.

  “That’s what Carol tells me,” I replied. “I don’t do straight girls. You know that. And don’t change the subject.”

  “What subject?”

  “You knew the girls were listening.”

  She cackled again.

  I gestured to the crew loading the trailer with the branches from the brush pile. “Thanks for this.”

  “No problem,” she said. “This is why we don’t mulch them immediately. But I want pictures when your maze is built.”

  “Sure.”

  I got a hug, and then Toni was back on her four-wheeler and disappeared in the direction we had come. I dived in to help load the trailer.

  * * * *

  We made our self-imposed deadline, and soon enough we found ourselves on a large wagon full of straw, parents, and excited children. Phoebe and I sat near the front of the wagon leaning against a shared straw bale. Ron found a couple of other dads to talk to, and the girls found some other teenagers.

  The Frank Family Farm did it right, as far as I was concerned. A lot of hayrides are pulled by tractors. But on the Frank Family Farm, they used horses for a more nostalgic experience, and I appreciated that.

  “Real horses,” Phoebe commented. “That’s rare.”

  “Yeah.”

  “I love this age.”

  “What age?”

  She gestured with her nose to the girls. “This age. They’re still so young and full of joy. I’m glad I teach where I do.”

  “A private girls’ academy? Why?”

  “We aren’t as constrained as the public education system. We can have a Christmas party, but I can also teach about Rosh Hashanah and Kwanzaa. I can explain the true origins of Easter, and every year we celebrate the spring equinox. At the same time, we only take girls who are in school to learn. We don’t exclude a single girl due to aptitude or parental financial standing, but we do exclude based on attitude. We don’t have a single problem girl.”

  “Surely there are some issues.”

  “Of course. They’re young teenagers. They make mistakes. And when they do, there are consequences. But it’s very rare we have a repeated discipline problem with a particular girl. When we do, it can almost always be traced back to a particular cause, usually trouble at home. We try to figure out the cause of the behavior and deal with it, getting the girl the help she needs. And look at them.” She nodded towards Jenny and Lydia. “Just two examples. Two of my favorites in the current crops. Don’t get me wrong, Lydia especially is exemplary, but all the girls are like her, in a way. They don’t all have her joy, and some are quite serious, but they are all in school to learn. Do you know what a joy that is for an educator?”

  She sighed. “Most teachers get a wider mix, and I applaud the work they do. And maybe I’m selfish. I suppose we skim the cream that might otherwise attend public school. I feel bad about that, I guess. But my responsibility is to the kids in my classroom, and I’ll protect them with every fiber of my being.”

  She sighed again, then laughed. “Now I’m being entirely too serious. Tell me about your job.”

  We were twenty minutes into the thirty-minute hayride when it happened. I honestly couldn’t quite tell you who started it, but a hay fight broke out between Jenny, Lydia, me, and unbeknownst to me, Phoebe. My first realization I was involved in a hay fight was when I had a great deal dumped into my hair by my giggling niece. I jerked upwards and turned towards her in time to see her scramble away.

  The rules on the hay wagon were simple. “No standing and no trying to climb back on from the sides.” So my niece was crawling away, but when she turned away, she received a face full of hay from Jenny. And I saw Ron had hay in his hair and clothes, so I figured either he had started it or the two of them nailed him before they got me.

  I chased after my niece anyway.

  Now, I have to admit, I used to be the queen of the thrown hay fights. I was a real champion, and I had a medal to prove it. Or at least, that’s my story, and I’m sticking to it. It wasn’t long before both girls looked like scarecrows, and there were four of us kneeling in a circle in the middle of the wagon, throwing hay at each other, with Ron sputtering almost as much as the girls as they tried to spit swallowed hay back out of their mouths.

  I was ready to declare myself the winner, as I wasn’t sputtering a bit, when, with absolutely no provocation or the slightest bit of warning, Ms. Phoebe Mathis engaged in a surprise sneak attack, stuffing a large amount of hay down the back of my shirt.

  I roared at the betrayal, betrayal of the most fiendish sort, and spun to face the new foe. Phoebe was laughing but already had her next handful of hay ready, and she launched it at me.

  I, of course, was the Queen of the Hay Fight, and I was not to be outdone by one back hay-stuffing opponent. A junior league opponent, I was sure. I went after her, hay flying from both hands as I advanced. She crabbed backwards, giggling and launching her own return volleys of whatever hay her hands could find. But I caught one leg and began pulling, working my way up her body. I stuffed one handful inside the ankle of her jeans and had the next handful ready when I felt hands on my own legs.

  Jenny and Lydia both pulled, and I fell face down on top of Phoebe. I don’t think I’ll mention what I was left to stare at. But she shoved me off of her and onto my back before launching herself on top of me.

  Lydia and Jenny jumped onto my legs, and Phoebe pinned me across my chest.

  And then hay went where no hay has gone before.

  I tried fending off the treacherous miscreants, but between three of them pinning me to the wagon, the view down the shirt of the worst of the miscreants, and my own laughter, they kept me completely at their mercy.

  “Surrender!” Phoebe demanded. She was holding a handful of hay. “Or you won’t like where this is going.”

  “Surren
der,” I managed to gasp. “I surrender.”

  “Good,” she said. Then she deliberately pulled the front of my shirt forward a little bit and shoved her last handful of hay into my cleavage.

  “Hey!” I complained. “I surrendered.”

  “That’s right. If you hadn’t, it was going into your laughing mouth.” She grinned at me and rolled off.

  Down near my feet, both girls were giggling their heads off. And I was sporting a lot more hay than either of them. But a surrender is a surrender, and thus it would have been against all the rules of hay fights to retaliate further. And so I sat up, pointed one accusing finger at each of the girls, but then when Phoebe nodded back towards our previous seats, I scootched backwards until we were again leaning against the straw bale.

  “I have hay where no hay belongs.”

  Phoebe laughed and showed no remorse. “That’s so sad.” She laughed again. “That was fun.”

  “You’ll get yours.”

  “Ah, ah, ah,” she said. “You surrendered. No hay backs.”

  “Who said anything about hay backs?” I asked. “But revenge will be sweet.”

  “Ah, ah,” she said. “No revenge.”

  I sighed dramatically. “No revenge.” But then when she wasn’t looking at me, I stared at her profile.

  I wanted this woman. I wanted her like I’d never wanted a woman in my life.

  * * * *

  With the trailer unloaded into my garage, Lydia and I waved our guests away. Moments later, my niece was giggling.

  “That was fun.”

  “It was.”

  “You like her.”

  “Lydia, please.” I turned to her. “Please.”

  She studied me, sobering slowly. Finally she nodded. “Ask her out.”

  “Lydia.”

  “What do you have to lose?”

  “My pride.”

  “There’s this thing you say. A lot. What it is? It’s right on the tip of my tongue. Something about nothing gained if you don’t go on an adventure.”

  I sighed. “Brat.”

  “No, that’s not it. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. That’s it!”

  “Lydia...”

  “I’ll make you a deal.”