“Where’s her house?”
Maisie puts the paper down in front of Mason. “Can you draw it?”
As he picks up the crayon, I ask, “Are you planning to grow this brewery into a national brand?” I’m hoping the question will keep him from thinking too hard about what he’s doing.
“Nah.” He sketches a few crude lines. “Matt was the mastermind behind Fish Brothers becoming a household name. For me, it’s always been about the craft and the science.”
“Have you considered offering brewing classes?”
“Not really.”
“You could do a weeklong seminar,” I say, cutting the lasagna into squares. “Participants would take part in the brewing process and leave with a sample of the beer they made. If you offered the seminar only once a year, you’d sell out the minute the reservations became available, and you could feature the resulting beer as a limited release.”
“That’s a really great idea. How do you come up with this stuff?”
“I’m always thinking about it.” I bring the salad bowl to the table, then go back for the lasagna. “I mean, the point of hospitality is keeping your guests entertained, whether they’re family and friends or paying customers. The more activities we offer, the more likely it is they’ll return or tell other people.”
Mason puts down the crayon and slides the picture back to Maisie. Drawing is not one of his best skills, but the porcupine’s house bears a resemblance to a pineapple—not unlike SpongeBob SquarePants’s house.
“A prickly porcupine should have a prickly house,” Mason says, making Maisie giggle. He looks at me. “Is there anything I can do to help?”
“You just did.”
Mason plates the lasagna while I fill our individual bowls with salad, and we eat together. Like a family.
Stop it, Rachel.
Like friends.
* * *
The resort auction is scheduled early on Saturday morning—and I don’t want us to miss out on anything good—so we drop Maisie off at Avery’s house on Friday afternoon. On the ferry, Mason and I sit in the truck, listening to a podcast about hops.
“I had no idea there were so many varieties,” I say. “I thought hops were hops.”
“This is what makes brewing complicated and exciting. Every hop has a different flavor profile and there are so many other ingredients you can add during the process that will affect the outcome.”
“How do you know what to add?”
“Some things are traditional, and you learn as you go,” he says. “But mostly it’s about experimenting. There’s a brewery in Cleveland using seaweed from the northern coast of Ireland in one of their stouts, which lends a briny umami note to the beer, and I hate that I didn’t think of it first.”
“Do you experiment more now than when you were at Fish Brothers?”
“Definitely,” Mason says. “Busting out of the gate with our amber ale set the tone for the rest of our beers. We wanted to appeal to the masses, so I played it pretty safe. We did the things big breweries were doing, like a Mexican-style lager meant to be served with a lime wedge.”
He rolls his eyes, like maybe making that particular beer wasn’t completely his decision.
“Even the smallest breweries need some standard ales or lagers for people who aren’t interested in green tea or seaweed or fruit in their beers,” he says. “But without the pressure of a buying public, I can brew whatever I want.”
I tuck my legs up beneath me on the bench seat as I shift to face him. “How did your parents react when you told them you wanted to make beer for a living?”
“Growing up, I was the nerdy kid who—Okay, did you ever see the movie Up?”
“Yes.”
“Russell is basically nine-year-old me.”
“Aww, that’s so cute.”
“I was the kid who asked for a chemistry set for Christmas, won first-place ribbons at the science fair, and did not flinch when dissecting things in biology class. So I’m sure my parents assumed I’d pursue something STEM,” he says. “I’m not sure they’d have ever guessed fermentation science, but they’ve been surprisingly chill about it. Especially when I started getting good at it.”
The lake is shimmery and blue, and with the windows down we can hear the faint screams of roller coaster riders at Cedar Point. I fiddle with the fringe on the edge of the Mexican blanket.
“We went on a family vacation once to the Grand Canyon,” I say. “I don’t remember much about the actual canyon, but I have vivid memories of the motel.”
“Yeah?”
“There were these desert landscape paintings hanging above the beds that—I realize now—were objectively terrible, but I thought they were beautiful. And it was so glamorous that they gave you shampoo and soap.”
Mason laughs.
“I’m not saying that’s where my desire to work in hotels began, but…” I give a little shrug.
“What was your go-to response when people asked what you wanted to be when you grew up?” he asks.
“Usually whatever my Barbie was doing at the time.” I tick them off on my fingers. “President. Ballet dancer. Polar marine biologist.”
“That’s … oddly specific.”
“I know, right? At one point I wanted to be an aerobics instructor because of Barbie, but not once did I ever say I wanted to scrub hotel toilets. I only ended up doing that because I graduated from high school without a plan.”
Mason clears his throat. “I called Cecily after you sent me your résumé. She said your talents were being wasted as a night desk manager.”
I slap the dashboard. “I knew it! You did call my references.”
“Only her.”
“Still, I knew you couldn’t be that trusting.”
“I trusted Cecily, though,” he says, his eyes fixed on the horizon. “And she wasn’t wrong.”
CHAPTER 15
Mamihlapinatapai
Yaghan
“a meaningful, but wordless, exchange between two people who both desire to initiate something but are hesitant to act on it”
I’m still feeling the warmth of Mason’s compliment when we park along a block-length row of shops and restaurants in the historic section of downtown Sandusky, where he’s booked a couple of rooms in a boutique hotel overlooking the bay. The hotel has only nine guest rooms, along with two bars—including one on the roof—and an adjoining taco restaurant.
After checking in, we take the elevator to the second floor. It’s a brief ride, but being enclosed in a small space with Mason makes me jittery. This is a business trip, and we have separate rooms, but when we make eye contact, I feel like I might spontaneously combust.
Our rooms are at the back of the building, across the hall from each other, and when I step inside, my hotel nerd heart swells with joy. The room is modern, with an exposed brick wall and white subway tiles in the bathroom. Through my window is a view of Jackson Street Pier—part ferry dock, part city park. Thanks to the warm weather, Sandusky is bustling. Cyclists pedal past the hotel on a bike trail. A busker plays guitar in the park on the pier. And a couple holding hands buys ice cream from a tiki-themed cart.