Clara softened a smidgen. Like, a miniscule. “I don’t mean to be hard on you, but we can’t make mistakes now. You two put me in charge of running this company, so you have to trust me to do that, and take my advice seriously. We need to make sure we stand out at these festivals to get a buzz going. Without that, Foxy Diva cannot and will not take off.” Which was the only thing anyone thought about lately.
To be successful, Foxy Diva needed to become a staple across North America. So far, locally, they’d made it a huge success, but they needed distribution across North America to actually make decent money. They wanted Foxy Diva to be in every restaurant. Every bar. Every beer store. Or at least, Clara and Amelia did, and Maisie just followed along, doing her part to make the beer a hit.
Clara uncrossed her arms to take Maisie by the shoulders. She dropped her gaze to Maisie’s eye level. “I’m going to ask you again: Are you sure you can do this? No one is going to fault you if this is too much.”
Maisie could barely hold Clara’s fierce stare. Part of her wanted to run and hide, mortified her sisters were gliding through this brewery gig, while Maisie was basically drowning. She was an artist, not a business-minded person. But she owed this to Pops. He’d left them everything to make this dream happen. His final wish. And heck, she’d bartended for years. “It’s not too hard. I’ve got this. One hundred percent. You don’t need to worry.”
The look Clara gave her said she didn’t believe her. Though blessedly, she let Maisie off the hook and changed the subject. “I need to go to the post office. I’ve got Foxy Diva entered into five more contests, so I need to mail in the samples.” Which was how beer contests happened. Now all they had to do was wait to see if Foxy Diva won any awards.
“That’s great news,” Amelia cut in. “I’m crossing my fingers something comes of the awards. That will help us nail a distributor more than anything else.”
Maisie rolled her eyes. “Oh, sure, now you’re part of the conversation.” What about helping her out when Clara cornered her?
Amelia shrugged. “Just ’cause I’m the middle sister doesn’t mean I need to get in the middle of everything, including your conversations.” To Clara, she asked, “How long do you think it’ll take before we get the results?”
“Months,” Clara said with a long sigh before her voice perked back up. “But getting the awards is really just step one. We need to get buzz going, and social media is our greatest tool for that.”
“Which is where I come in?” Maisie asked.
“Exactly.” Clara nodded. “When we finally go to the distributor, we need all the ammunition to stand out from the other hundreds of craft beers sent their way.”
“And,” Amelia added, “if we get enough buzz going, they might come to us.”
Great. If that wasn’t a reason to drink, Maisie didn’t know what was. To avoid the pressure that became near suffocating, she grabbed the door handle to the storage room. “Well, I’ve got a four-day road trip, and a trailer that isn’t going to pack itself. See you later.”
“Maisie.” At Clara’s soft voice, Maisie froze. “I know today has to be hard for you. Are you okay?”
Maisie shut her eyes and breathed deep. She’d avoided thinking about what today was ever since she’d woken up. It was why she’d gone and painted, to bring a little brightness to a very dark day. But there was no running away. The articles that splashed across the media two years ago haunted her: Murder Rattles the Small Town of River Rock. Young Woman Brutally Murdered. Officer Hayes Taylor Leaves Denver Police Department After Wife’s Murder.
Laurel’s murder had been declared a robbery gone wrong at their home in Denver. Hayes had hunted down her killer, and after a shoot-out, the killer was dead. After that, he quit his job and moved back home to River Rock. But even with the justice of finding Laurel’s murderer, nothing had been the same since. For a month, Maisie could barely breathe, function. Her sisters had come to her aid. They’d fed her, forced her to shower, brought her out of the darkest place Maisie had ever gone. Laurel’s absence felt like half of Maisie’s body was missing, and she’d struggled to learn how to walk again. But slowly, through her sisters’ love, things had gotten better, and Maisie remembered how to take one step in front of the other. More importantly, she remembered life was a one-time deal. The loss of her parents, of Pops, and of Laurel had taught her that. The world, her life, was far too beautiful and special to waste the time she had.
For Laurel, for her parents, and for her grandparents, she looked for the beauty every day, until the beauty was all she saw. She drew and painted and never stopped until that ache in her chest, while still there, didn’t shadow her happiness.
“I’m okay,” she told her sisters, glancing back at them with the smile she knew they needed to see. “Thanks for worrying about me, but really, I’m remembering the good stuff about Laurel, not the bad memory that took her away. I know she’d want that.”
Amelia gave a gentle smile. “You’re right, she would.”
Clara added, “We’re here for you.”
Maisie glanced between her sisters. She’d always felt so different from them growing up, but Laurel’s death had changed that. And the best friend that gave so much love to Maisie, in death, had brought Maisie closer to her sisters. They’d loved her hard through her grief and brought her back from that unforgiving pain. For that, Maisie had stuffed her dreams of owning an art studio far away, giving all of herself to the brewery, even if she was late and didn’t always get things right. “Thanks,” she said to her sisters. “Now let me get back to work, would ya? Geesh, you’re always holding me up. Don’t you know I have a thousand things to do today?”
Amelia laughed softly.
Clara rolled her eyes.
Maisie chuckled, reminding herself that laughing was good. Especially on days like today. Smiling, enjoying life, was the best way she could honor Laurel’s life. She finally pulled the heavy door open and hurried through, when the reality of what was ahead of her hit her like a brick to the face. The first festival was in Fort Collins, then Colorado Springs, finishing up in Boulder. Panic creeped up like icy fingertips along her spine. She was in way over her head, never having done anything like this before. Her pink Converse scraped against the rough floor as she moved farther into the storage room, her nose scrunching at the musty air.
Pushing aside her fear of failing—since failure was not an option—she pulled out the note in her back pocket of her blue jeans, scribbled with her to-do list. The first item on that list: kegs. She grabbed the dolly, moving toward the kegs with the Foxy Diva label. She smiled at the label of the vintage sexy pin-up woman with Foxy Diva written in calligraphy around her. Maisie was proud of the design, and she was still surprised Clara approved the logo. But Foxy Diva was an Indian pale ale with a buttload of spices that Maisie knew nothing about, and Amelia had said the spiciness of the woman fit the beer inside perfectly. That had been the first time Amelia had ever taken Maisie’s side, and Maisie still felt the high from that.
Determined to get the trailer packed and the workday behind her, Maisie shoved the dolly under the keg and pulled back, her arms shaking as the dolly caught the edge of the keg.