Friday Night Flights

by Susan X Meagher

  “That’s in…Philadelphia?”

  “Uh-huh. I stayed in Brooklyn, since I had my current job by then. I thought we were doing the long-distance thing pretty well, but…out of the blue, she decided we needed to live together, or break up. Of course, she couldn’t leave Penn, so I was supposed to quit my excellent job.” Her expression was grim when she added, “She hooked up with an adjunct ten minutes after I refused to quit.”

  “That’s like a junior professor, right?”

  “Exactly. I’ve been vaguely trying to get back in the dating game ever since, but I haven’t been motivated.”

  Casey stopped to give her another look, as Avery paused just a few feet away. She’d filled out in some pretty nice ways, not an unexpected development. She’d always been pretty, and popular, but she’d looked really young in high school. Now she had a sophisticated air to go with her brainy good looks. Something about dark-framed glasses on a natural blonde made her look super-smart, and her body was just about perfect. If she was single, she wanted to be. “You’re not dating at all?”

  “I’m not a hermit,” Avery said, with her pretty smile turning a little sly. “But I haven’t met anyone I like well enough to commit to. My job’s really time-consuming, so I’m concentrating on that.”

  “Mmm. I read you on that.” She started to walk again, thrilled by the scents filling her lungs. She was going to mention how the smell always gave her a buzz, but didn’t really have the words to express that. Besides, most people didn’t appreciate the scent of a mature plant, and she didn’t like to waste her time talking about things other people weren’t interested in.

  “Are you single, too?” Avery asked.

  “Uh-huh. I have been for…two years? Something around there.”

  “Was that a long-term thing?”

  “Pretty long. Four years. My girlfriend was an artist, and she moved to Sedona. I didn’t want to follow…”

  Avery laughed a little. “We’re both single because of geography.”

  “That’s happened to me twice. My first girlfriend went to medical school at Upstate, then found a job in Utica.”

  “I think they brew beer around Utica, don’t they?”

  “Sure,” she said, “but we’d broken up by then. Trying to have a long-distance relationship with someone doing a seven year residency is for…” She stopped, searching for the right term. “Is it sadists or masochists? I get my kinks mixed up,” she said, laughing a little.

  “Sadists inflict pain on others, masochists ask for it.”

  “Right. Well, I’m as far from a masochist as you can get, so I pulled the plug.”

  “Nothing since the artist flew the coop?”

  “Nothing serious. I don’t run into a lot of single lesbians around town, and I’m too lazy to travel far.”

  “I’m not surprised there aren’t a lot of single lesbians. The gay guys got here first.”

  “Isn’t that the truth? Gay guys found us when property was cheap enough to buy up everything with potential and improve the hell out of it. Property values are rising, but so are prices.” She tried to tamp down her annoyance, but was sure she wasn’t doing a good job of it. “Guess how much it cost me to have a dress shirt laundered last week?”

  “Um…two fifty?”

  “Yeah,” she said, feeling the air leave her balloon. “It used to be a buck! A hundred and fifty percent increase in just a couple of years. It’s like that with everything. I paid eighteen dollars for a pizza not long ago. Those aren’t Hudson prices.”

  “Brooklyn’s the same. A bartender demanded twenty-two dollars for a glass of wine last week when I was out with friends. I made that baby last all night long.”

  “But you’re getting Brooklyn wages. We’re not.”

  “Not so fast,” Avery said. “I’m in publishing. We’re glad to be paid at all. I’ve got to have a roommate just to make rent on a one-bedroom apartment.”

  “I live in my dad’s workshop. I tricked it out to look great, but still…”

  “Well, look at us,” Avery said, adding a laugh. “The pride of Hudson High, just barely getting by.”

  “But we’re happy, right?”

  “I love my job,” Avery said. “And my roommate is a close friend. Things could be worse.”

  “They sure could be. I could still be in high school,” she said, very, very happy those days were gone. “Ready to get those churros?”

  “I love a good churro. I buy them from a woman who sells them from a little cart in front of the Barkley Center. Two bucks each.”

  “Those prices haven’t reached us yet. Ours are still a buck,” Casey said, strangely relieved to still be getting a bargain.

  ***

  As they waited in line, Avery tried to engage Casey by talking about her podcast. But it was clear Casey had never heard of any of the big-time authors Avery had bagged for Short Shorts. When someone hadn’t heard of any of your Pulitzer Prize winners, you were barking up the wrong tree. “Um, do you come into the city often?”

  “Often?” She let out a quick laugh. “Some people twisted my arm to go to Times Square to watch the ball drop about ten years ago. Once was enough.”

  “Seriously? You don’t come into New York at all?”

  “I live in New York,” she said, raising an eyebrow. “I just haven’t been to New York City in a long time.”

  “But it’s just two hours away.”

  “And Albany’s even less, but I don’t go there either. Why would I?”

  “I can understand skipping Albany, but there’s so much to do in the city. Plays, museums, Central Park…”

  Casey nodded, like she was mulling over the thought of making the trek. “I might like Central Park, but I’m not much for plays or museums. Unless they’re outside. I went to see a Shakespeare play at Boscobel a couple of weeks ago. I couldn’t tell you much about it, but it was nice sitting on the banks of the Hudson to look across at West Point while we ate our dinner.”

  “I’ve never been to Boscobel,” Avery admitted. “But I always wait in line to see Shakespeare In The Park.”

  “I guess I’d do that, but then I’d have to drive home afterward. It’s hard to stay awake that late, given that I get up so early.”

  “The brewmaster has to be up with the chickens?”

  “She does,” she said, with her smile warming up significantly. They’d finally reached the front of the line and Casey waved at the woman in the truck. “Can you hook me up with four, Esmerelda?”

  “Casey,” she chided, clucking her tongue. “You don’t have to wait in line. Just knock on the door, like always.”

  The bright lights of the truck revealed Casey’s pink cheeks. She must have wanted to stand around chatting. Maybe she was interested…

  “I hate to cut in front of people when you’re so busy. I feel like I should wait my turn.”

  “Such a silly girl,” the older woman said. She handed over the sugar and cinnamon-laced sticks of fried dough and blew Casey a kiss. That was really nice to see. When the people you worked with seemed to genuinely like you, that was prime evidence you weren’t an asshole.

  Thinking back, she recalled that Casey had always seemed uninterested in tussling with the jerks from their school. Just then, she was hit with a memory, with a deep sense of shame covering her like a weighted blanket. Unless she’d repressed the memory, she was certain she’d never made fun of Casey’s last name, or her academic performance, or her I.Q. But she was equally sure one of the girls in her clique had. Often, if her memory was correct. She just hoped Casey had been so involved in her sports that she hadn’t noticed how catty and unkind high school girls could be.

  ***

  A sprinkling of rain forced the bluegrass band to leave their small outdoor stage and move into the greenhouse. Once they were settled, Avery and her parents sat on some hay bales, finishing their beers while listening to the surprisingly adept musicians. The crowd, which had thinned, was very appreciative, as well as vocal, w
ith people calling out requests and clapping loudly for particularly good banjo riffs.

  There were a least ten small kids running around playing tag, and a few well-behaved dogs sniffed the ground for treats. It was actually such a wholesome scene that Avery was sure she could write a short story about it if she had the time. But she wasn’t writing much these days, having found she needed not only dead silence, but lots of unstructured time to craft a decent story, neither of which she currently had.

  Casey was flitting around the crowd, seeming like she ran the place. She’d obviously found her spot in the world. Not many people got to do work they loved while making a decent living—although the fact that she was in her father’s workshop must have meant the living was a little shy of decent. Thankfully, she seemed not only happy, but content. That was a rare gift, and one that Avery was glad her old schoolmate had found.

  The band finished up at eleven, and everyone started to say their goodbyes. Given they didn’t know anyone besides Casey, Avery started to head for the exit when she felt her mom pull on the tail of her shirt. “We should wait to say goodnight.”

  Avery took another look, finding Casey in the corner talking very intently to a young woman. She wasn’t sure Casey was trying to hook up, but it sure looked like that might have been the number one item on her agenda. “She’s busy,” Avery said. “We can send a note to the brewery to thank her for being so nice to us.”

  “Really?” Her mom guided her to the edge of the crowd. “Are you sure you don’t want to wait?”

  “I don’t think so, Mom. Casey grew up to be a very nice-looking woman, and it’d be fantastic to have a girlfriend who could make beer, but I didn’t get any vibes from her.”

  “Did you give her any? Maybe she’s shy.”

  “I don’t think she’s shy,” Avery said, taking another look as Casey leaned closer to the woman to speak into her ear. “She didn’t feel any spark, either. It was just a chance to catch up.”

  Her mom looked so earnest. Women who had happy marriages simply couldn’t understand why you weren’t actively looking for one for yourself.

  Avery let herself take another glance, speaking without censoring herself. “I bet she’d be a heck of a lot of fun for a night, but by tomorrow we’d probably be bored with each other.”

  ***

  Casey finished talking to the bartender she’d caught comping beers. A few wouldn’t have bothered her, but this woman was clearly trying to jack up her tips by giving beer away, and that wasn’t ever going to fly. She’d had to be more forceful than she normally was, but she truly hated to be taken advantage of, and that’s just what had happened.

  Looking up, she saw her buddy Ben, sitting on the bar. He was a bear of a man, about six foot three, with a full, long beard, rosy cheeks, and twinkling blue eyes. He was a gentle giant, who had very little patience with people who went out of their way to comment on his size. Casey got away with it, but only because he teased her about being gay.

  Ben was in charge of distribution, and spent much of his day in the office they shared, but he loved beer, and the brewing process, nearly as much as she did. He couldn’t help it that he had a head for numbers and logistics.

  “Hey, you’re going to break that thing,” she said, walking over to poke him on the leg. “You know they’d fight a worker’s comp case if you smashed your head because you were sitting up there.”

  “I’m agile,” he said, giving her a sly smile. “Like a ninja.” He jumped off, trying to land in a crouch, but he didn’t quite hit his mark, and wound up having to grab onto one of the spools to avoid falling head-first onto the straw-covered ground. “Fuck! Where’d my ninja skills go?”

  “How many beers did you have tonight? I saw you knock back four.”

  “Big man, big appetite,” he said, slapping at his relatively modest belly. “But I might have had one too many for a display of my cat-like moves.”

  “Yeah, maybe,” she said, jumping up to take the spot he’d vacated. “Where’s Julie and Benji?”

  “Gone home. I thought I’d help you get organized, then you can run me home.”

  “Thanks, buddy,” she said. “I’m hoping the cleaning crew does most of the work, but I appreciate it.”

  “No problem. You’d do the same for me. So…” He leaned against the bar and spoke quietly. “Who’s the cute blonde I saw you with?”

  “Just somebody I went to high school with. Her mom’s the one I like, but she’s married.”

  “Really? I didn’t know you were into older… Oh, yes I did,” he said, laughing. “Is it still called an Oedipal complex if you dig older women?”

  “Since I don’t know what an Oedipal complex is, you’ll have to ask someone who gives a fuck,” she said, batting her eyes at him.

  “The mom was cute too, but I’ve never seen you go after a married one.”

  “And you never will. I was joking, Ben. Kathy, that’s the mom, brought her girl scout troop over for a tour a couple of months ago. We had to talk a few times to set everything up, and I found I really liked her. Not like that,” she stressed when he waggled his eyebrows. “She’s just cool.”

  “Well, not to be sexist or whatever, but the daughter’s the one I’d go for. But she’s not gay, right? I mean, she sure doesn’t look it.”

  “Sexist?” She laughed. “How is that sexist? I think you mean ageist, but you also hit an offensive lesbian stereotype on the way to your point. Good batting average there, buddy.”

  “Really? The daughter’s legit gay?”

  “So she says, and I have no reason to doubt her. She really is cute, isn’t she? When I met up with Kathy, that’s the mom, I was pretty sure Avery would look good. When your mom’s in her late fifties and could pass for forty, your odds of being hot are fantastic.”

  “Oh, yeah. Avery’s like an eleven.”

  “An eleven? Out of ten?”

  “Well, for Columbia County. After I’ve had five beers.”

  Casey laughed. “She’s a nice-looking woman, but she’s not an eleven. She reminded me of someone who’d model office furniture or bookkeeping software. You know?”

  He laughed, nodding. “Yeah, I can see that. It’s the glasses. They make women look smart. You know, when I was in Amsterdam last year a lot of the women in the red light district had glasses on. Big ones, like your friend.”

  “I’ll make sure to mention that if I run into her again in another sixteen years.”

  “Sixteen years? No follow up? You looked kind of interested.”

  She gave him a thwap on the arm. “Like you’ve seen me when I’m trying to charm a woman.”

  “Okay, I was interested, but Julie won’t let me go out with other women, so I have to live through you.”

  “Then I’m afraid I have to tell you you’re not getting lucky anytime soon, pal. Avery is definitely cute, but she lives in Brooklyn, and she works for some…literary magazine? Like I know what a literary magazine is. I don’t think we have much in common, other than both liking girls.”

  “That’s not nothing, although I can’t see you going to Brooklyn for any woman in the world.”

  “Well, I’d probably go for one or two, but not this one. She was one of the jerks who used to call me Butch Van Dyke.” Her voice grew a little quiet when she added, “Or Casey Van Dope, or Dumbass Van—”

  “Seriously?” Ben interrupted, his mouth having dropped open. “And you were civil to the bitch?”

  “Well, she wasn’t the only one. When everyone assumes you’re a dyke, and your name is Van Dyke, it doesn’t take a lot of imagination to—”

  “No excuse. No excuse at all,” he said with his voice getting so loud every member of the cleaning crew looked his way. “I hope you led her into that patch of poison oak we have out by the parking lot.” He stood in front of Casey, facing her dead-on. “I had no idea you went through that kind of crap in school. How stupid were those kids? You’re smart as a whip.”

  “You know reading’s not my th
ing. I fell behind right away, and by junior high everyone had tossed me into the dumb kids pile. Stuff like that’s like a fungus. Once it starts, it’s really tough to stop.”

  “I got it too,” he said, still gazing into her eyes, but looking a little tentative. “I was big, but not athletic at all, and that made me a target. The jocks thought I was a klutz, and the smart guys thought I was a big, dumb jock. I had to work twice as hard in math club to have anyone give me a chance.”

  “Kids suck, don’t they?”

  “A whole lot of them do. But some are nice. Benji’s not a bully. I’m sure of that.”

  “I’m sure of it too. He’s a sweetheart, just like his dad.”

  “I wouldn’t be sweet to that woman. What’s her name? Avery? I’d…well, I don’t know what I’d do, but I’d do something.”

  “I’ve tried to let all of that stuff go. My life’s too good to let old hurts rile me up again.”

  “So why’d you spend time with her if you’re not interested?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t specifically remember her taunting me, so I gave her a pass. But one of her friends made it a point to torture me every time she had the chance. I’m sure Avery didn’t tell her friend to knock it off, so she was spineless, if nothing else.”

  “I still don’t see why you didn’t just walk on by. You’re really good at ignoring people you aren’t interested in.”

  “Mmm, I am. Being bullied made me build up a thick skin. But I was at work, and I’m paid to be nice to our guests…” She slid off the bar and started to make sure the lines to the kegs had been cleared. “I really do like her mom, so I was trying hard to forget how Avery’s little group used to piss me off.”

  “It’s hard, isn’t it,” he said, giving her a very sober look.

  “It is. I’ve gotten good at not letting people get beyond my defenses, and it’s hard for me to turn that off. I found myself being pretty abrupt with her at first.”

  “Just at first?”

  “You saw how cute she was,” she said, rolling her eyes at her own lack of control. “I’m a sucker for a natural blonde with pale eyes. I couldn’t tell if they were blue or kind of gray, but she looked good out there in the moonlight. I found myself really talking to her, and caring what she had to say.”