Cloudy Sunnyland
‘Speaking,’ Caleb answers slowly, confused. I look out over the construction zone in front of me, idly eyeing someone skateboarding across a ramp. Jewel explains, ‘They haven’t figured out what to do with this land. It’s kind of the only waterfront-y area in Bellingham.’ Some silos in the distance seem reminiscent of a time when there may have been more shipping through here, or maybe they’re still in as much use as ever. I can’t tell.
‘I’m…not…sure…’ Caleb says slowly, and hearing his hesitation, I look back at him.
‘Meg, do you have they rental car keys?’ he asks me.
I open the flap of my purse. ‘I do not!’ I answer confidently. He lets out a little sigh of almost relief and continues speaking. I turn back to Jewel while he does.
When he hangs up he says, ‘That was the Bellingham Police Department.’ He continues taking calls while the police play telephone between us and Peter, the man who has found our rental car keys. No we were not at Twin Sisters Brewery, but could you by any chance leave them there? Peter is 20 minutes away. The three of us start walking in that direction. The police have unhelpfully told Peter we will be there in 15. Or they will be forced to impound the keys and thus our rental car through the weekend, until Monday. We’d really like that not to happen. Why can’t we just pick the keys up?
Caleb hesitates, looking at me as we pause for a moment at a crosswalk, and we have a whole unspoken conversation during the hesitation’s brief pause.
‘Want me to take your tech bag?’ I ask.
‘Yeah…’ he answers, handing it to me and looking from me to Jewel.
‘We’ll catch you up, or call you. Don’t worry,’ I tell him, as he starts to take off.
I realise Jewel has not heard our unspoken conversation, so I explain to her what’s going on as Caleb starts to take off. ‘He wants to split up so he can run ahead and make sure we get the keys,‘ I explain to Jewel, ‘But he doesn’t want to make us feel deserted or left behind.’
‘That,’ he answers. ‘I just know I can move faster if—‘
‘Go,’ I interrupt him, ‘You’ll feel better,’ I say, and then add, ‘I’ll feel better too.’
Jewel and I laugh as he sets off with alacrity, his long legs carrying him across the pavement. He is already all the way across the parking lot as we finish crossing the street. Jewel and I walk through a park and up a set of steps, and I ask he how long she has worked at the library just as we happen to approach it. She asks about my work in return and I provide her an abbreviated résumé.
It is perhaps the biggest bit of adventure we have in Bellingham, although only the second best story.
‘So how do you know Otherlands?’ Jewel had asked me earlier, on our walk to get ice cream.
‘Are you coming with us!?’
‘Of course!’
‘Well then, if you don’t mind, I’ll tell you there. It’s a good story. But I don’t know how it ends yet.’ I hate to tell a story before I know how it ends.
‘One more street,’ Jewel reassures me, as we cross a grassy lot. I realise Caleb must have the keys by now, or an update. I pull my phone out of my pocket to a text, a missed call, and a voicemail. Success! says the text. I call him back and leave a voicemail in return.
‘He’s limping…’ Jewel says, she and I noticing at the same time. I ponder and offer a possible explanation.
‘Success!’ Caleb repeats, this time in person.
‘Thank you!’ I say, ‘I am feeling embarrassed that I lost the car keys. And grateful that you got them.’ He reassures me that I needn’t feel embarrassed. We check in on his limping.
‘I came around this corner,’ he waves his hand in indication, ‘And saw two young bucks. Fawns, I think? Anyway, they still had velvety antlers,’ he describes the deer, ‘And they were surprised to see me. And boy was I sure surprised to see them.’ It’s mid-afternoon in Bellingham, WA, a city of 90,000. ‘So I rolled my ankle a bit as I stopped.’
We walk back to Jewel’s as we catch each other up on the stories of what transpired while we were apart. The stories swing, shift, get interrupted as we enter the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Silly Walks, as we pass raspberry bushes with the slim pickings of late-season fruit.
Jewel stops on the side of the street to pick a bunch of raspberries and I hold out my hands for her to place them in.
‘Do you need to rest? Or ice it?’ we check in on Caleb and his injury.
‘They’re end-of-season raspberries,’ Jewel explains in apology, popping some in her mouth. End-of-season raspberries are never as good.
‘Do you want any?’ I ask Caleb, knowing he will decline roadside fruit, and because I know so, popping most of the raspberries into my mouth because I won’t have to save any for him. Jewel is right; they do not taste as good as in-season raspberries, but they’re raspberries nonetheless.
‘No thank you,’ he answers. ‘And no,’ he answers carefully as we continue through a back gate into Jewel’s backyard.
‘Any ibuprofen?’ I offer.
‘No,’ Caleb declines again, explaining how he has rolled his ankle many times before.
‘Okay,’ I say, ‘I trust you.’
We regroup briefly before heading over to Otherlands, two blocks from Jewel’s.
As we approach the brewery, Jewel detours at the last second to look at a poster on the window of the building next door to Otherlands.
‘Table for two?’ the man at Otherlands asks.
‘Three!’ I correct, as Jewel reappears. I really like Jewel. She is comfortable to be around: comfortable with herself, comfortable with her friend’s friend, comfortable with roadside fruit, comfortable taking detours to explore something that has caught her eye.
‘Inside or outside?’
‘Outside please,’ I answer, and he gestures to a table.
‘Anything else?’ he asks.
‘Yes, is Ben working?’
‘I’m Ben…’ he answers slowly.
‘Ben Howe! Hi! I’m Meg Cassidy,’ I hold out my hand. ‘And this is Caleb Howe!’
‘No relation,’ Ben jokes, shaking Caleb’s hand.
‘And Jewel!’ I don’t know Jewel’s last name, and have forgotten to ask in the interim between imagining this exchange and now. Jewel greets Ben.
‘Ah yes,’ Ben puts it together, ‘I was just at Idle Hands. I came there at close and was sort of like, “Sorry,” but they were great.’ I nod and smile. They are great.
After we meet Ben and seat ourselves at our table, I explain to Jewel how I know Otherlands.
‘So the place I had my birthday,’ I start, ‘My local brewery. I affectionately refer to it as my living room. It is a place I feel comfortable, and safe. Being in the habit of going down there fairly often, I know most of the staff—and the regulars.’ Here I pause for a moment, recalling with fondness the faces of the friends I have there, staff and regulars, guests, puppies of the patio. ‘And when I was explaining to them that I was coming here on vacation, I was told I have to visit Otherlands. “Idle Hands West” is how it was described. Someone who used to work at Idle Hands moved out here and started it.
‘We’re here to see you,’ I smile at Jewel, ‘And the fact that it just so happens it’s two blocks from your house is a bonus.
‘And just the other week,’ I continue, ‘I was catching up with my bartender friend Ryan there. And he mentioned how this man had walked into Idle Hands. He had never met Ben, nor worked with Ben, but he knew his face. It was close to closing and he was saying how he was just kind of awkwardly like, “Are you Ben?” and sure enough, it was Ben who had moved out here to start Otherlands. And he told Ben, “This is going to sound weird, but, if there’s an energetic woman named Meg who walks into your bar later next week, she’s a regular here.”
‘And that’s how I know Otherlands,’ I grin, still undecided on what I want to drink. Caleb is choosing a pale ale to determine whether it holds up to Slate. I know I don’t want an IPA. I select a saison, knowing Farmhouse Pale is perhaps the Idle Hands beer I like least, thus giving Otherlands an advantage.
There’s food here, too, and wine, and cider. Jewel is delighted and selects a very fun cider, pinkish orange and matching her outfit.
I can’t remember how she reacts to the end of the Otherlands story. We sit on their patio all afternoon—or most of it—enjoying a couple beers as she sips her cider, getting food and watching it disappear. I pick at pickles and a pretzel, the irony of eating a pretzel at Idle Hands West not lost unto Caleb. I even manage to try some of Caleb’s pierogi sauce with the pretzel, before realising in a double-take that he’s finished his pierogi before I can ask for a bite. Sorry, he mouths wordlessly, and I glare a, Not sorry at him for having done nothing other than finish his food.
At some point between our first and second rounds Ben returns with a bottle. I eye it, intrigued. I know the feeling of someone bringing you something special to enjoy, and this is that feeling. ‘This is our [//redacted]. It’s not yet released. We only bottled it this week,’ he explains, telling us about the style as he tells us to enjoy it.’
But I don’t remember what it is. After some investigative journalism, I am still unable to remember exactly. It was a saison, or some farmhouse. Just bottled, but not yet on the menu, so neither A Spring Will Come nor Send in the Clouds. I never got a picture, nor did Caleb. We must have smuggled it into Canada, since we didn’t drink it at Otherlands, and couldn’t take it back on the plane. In a way I’m glad no pictures exist of it; it lives on only in memories, in the moment.
The sun sets slowly, us being farther north and farther west in the timezone than we’re used to being back home. We haven’t decided where we’re going next, whether we’re even going to get up to going someplace else. Caleb hands me his card as he heads to the restroom, and I take it. I wonder how many steps it takes him to realise what he’s done, to catch up. Jewel and I continue chatter, and decide that we’re going to go someplace else. She hands me her card as well. I demure for a second, then accept it, and slide it into my pocket alongside Caleb’s.
Caleb returns before they’ve come with the bill, but our server does just as he comes back, just after I’ve mentioned they haven’t come for it yet.
Our server produces the bill, and I tilt my chin up slightly to indicate that he can give it to me, which he does. Caleb nods and I sort of shrug at him in a Yeah, no one pays for beer in my living room way, even though this isn’t strictly my living room, nor my patio, but still—transitive property of breweries. Jewel realises by now what’s going on, but I still have everyone else’s credit cards.
I pay, and they can’t even really protest. I’ve invited them here. Transitive property of breweries.
And this is the best story in Bellingham.
Next we walk into an Irish pub, right into a ceilidh. Caleb and Jewel are unfamiliar with ceilidhs, and I briefly explain, thinking fondly of Good Time Jack in Kinsale. While we love to dance, we decide not to stay for the ceilidh, and instead walk to the picnic tables outside around the corner.
The sun is setting slowly, and it is quiet enough that we can take up a whole table for ourselves without feeling like we are taking up too much space. We settle and sigh. A baby toddles over to us, pulling up grass and throwing it, showing off his newfound skills. He wants to show us more, but his parents call him back. This sort of remonstration is always curious to me. I want to hear more about the grass, about the discovery, the wonder this tiny human is experiencing. Are his parents calling him back to keep him in sight? For fear of strangers? Or just out of some thoughtless habit?
I have a pint of a pale ale, Jewel a glass of red wine, Caleb a half pour of a dark porter.
‘It’s Friday!’ I realise. Sean, my stepbrother, and I always text each other on Friday, a habit he started I suspect out of worry, since it only began once he found out my ex and I had broken up. But it’s become an unspoken way to check in on each other, get the weather report.
‘Sláinte!’ I send him, with a photo, ‘I said I wanted people in the photo and my friend’s friend Jewel said, “Like a finger?” And happy Friday!’
‘Happy Friday’ he sends back, with a picture of an abandoned kirk in the Scottish wilderness.
We sit and talk and drink, slowly. At one point Caleb turns and leans back against the wire fence, relaxing. Jewel giggles, astounded.
Jewel and Caleb have known each other a while, years.
She continues giggling, exclaiming, ‘I have only ever seen Caleb recline twice! What is this relaxed Caleb!’
‘I’m on vacation,’ he smiles smugly back at her, relaxing even more against the wire fence, having tested its ability to support his slight weight.
Relaxed Caleb reclines. Vacation Caleb is relaxed…
‘What was the other time!?’ I ask, and she pulls out her phone to show me a picture.
‘This!’ she says, sharing the picture of Caleb laughing, having lain himself in a gaming chair at an Airbnb, his long limbs sprawling over the side. His gangliness, laughter, and the glass of wine in his lap belie the fact that I think he had had only two sips of that rosé before Michaela had taken that picture. And I would know, because I was there.
Relaxed Caleb reclines.