wouldn't take it," my brother Griffin says, coming through the door.
“It's not really fair for you to skip your own sister's party for me,” Audrey says.
"It was a couples dinner, you goof," I argue. Besides, May would rather see Audrey anyway. Everyone knows it. I lift my laptop from the table and stow it in my backpack.
"How about a drink before you go?" Griffin asks. “Or three drinks. I have some new applejacks to sample.”
“Ooh, twist my arm.” While I've been out trying, and failing, to save the world, Griffin has been busy learning to make all kinds of yummy and profitable things. He’s a respected family man and a community leader.
I am a failure. But I am here to celebrate his success, especially if it means a taste test.
Audrey gleefully sets out nine tiny tasting glasses, while my brother gets bottles out of the cabinet. “The two year is finally ready," he says. "Let's compare it to the 90-day aged, and the unaged.”
"Let's," I agree.
I taste the clear, unaged liquor first. I roll a drop of it around on my tongue. “Crisp,” I say. “Notes of citrus and paint thinner.”
Audrey laughs, and Griffin kicks me under the table.
“What? I’m not a boozer. Maybe you asked the wrong girl.”
“Try this one,” he says, pushing the two year toward me.
I take another little taste. “Ooh. This one is more my speed. It’s deep and bold. Notes of plum, and pretentious leather upholstery.”
“You’re just fucking with him now.” Audrey giggles.
“It’s good, I mean it.”
Griffin gives me a smile. He’s great at his job, and we both know that my opinion doesn’t really count here. He sets the third shot between the other two and then takes a drink for himself. “You know Mom is on a dating app?”
“What?” I nearly choke on my third taste. “She is not.”
“She is,” Audrey confirms. “I helped her with her profile picture.”
“Why?” I demand. “Those sites are full of con artists and assholes.”
Griffin’s eyes lift. “You have a lot of experience with this?”
“No,” I say firmly. “But I read. And the news isn’t good.”
“Mom is too smart to be conned,” Griffin says. “But I wish she could just meet a man at the church coffee hour.”
“Why does she have to meet a man at all?” I whine.
“She’s only in her fifties, Daphne,” my brother chides. “In a couple of years you’ll be gone to God knows where, and your brother will be shacked up with Chastity somewhere. Do you want Mom and Grandpa to be all alone?”
“What’s wrong with being alone?” I ask the happiest couple in America.
They look back at me with identical pitying smiles.
I pick up one of my shot glasses and drink it down.
An hour later I'm walking carefully down the wide, grassy aisle that cuts through row upon row of our apple trees. I rarely allow myself to get tipsy. I like to stay in control. But the applejack had begun to loosen the big ball of stress in my chest almost from the first sip.
So I'd drunk plenty. And why not? The journey home is only a quiet walk across our own property. It’s a quiet summer night, and yet I’m not completely alone. Up ahead, at the halfway point, I see an unfamiliar creature. Someone is lying on a blanket and staring up at the stars.
As I get closer, that person suddenly sits up, his body tense, and stares in my direction.
It’s Rickie. And I feel myself smile in spite of myself. I don’t know how a guy can seem sexy and strong and still a little hapless and silly all at the same time. It’s something to think about later, after I metabolize all the apple brandy I just drank.
“Hey McFly,” I call out. “You’re awfully jumpy.”
“Bears,” he says, clutching his chest. “I have to look out for bears.”
“Not in the dark,” I argue, dropping to my knees on the edge of the blanket. “Deer wander around in the dark, though. So do coyotes.”
“Good to know,” he says, dropping back down, his hands behind his head. “What are you doing out here?”
“I was babysitting my nephew. What are you doing out here?”
He points upward. “Absolutely nothing. Just watching the night sky. Your brother and Chastity went to bed early.”
“Of course they did.”
He grins.
“And people wonder why I didn’t jump at the chance to move into your house in Burlington. Who wants to overhear sibling sex?”
Rickie reaches out and covers my hand with his. “Well, it depends on how we