The Meg came up from Cornelius on a Tuesday with a can she wasn't supposed to have yet. That's the whole Meg, right there. The rest of us wait for a thing to come out. She knows the people who decide when out is.
Cinnamon Roll Ale, she said, and handed it over like a verdict. Michael Waltrip's brewery makes it, the toastery up the hill did the flavor, and between them it's breakfast in a glass. It doesn't land for anybody else until the weekend, which is a detail the Meg has never once respected.
We were just up there. Took Ricky up the hill for a make-up Father's Day back in June, sat on that patio under the red umbrellas, ate a breakfast that took its time. Now the same place is a glass on my porch rail. The world got smaller in a way I don't hate.
First sip is dessert. No way around it, they built it to taste like the roll, icing and all. Sweet enough that a cookie beside it would be picking a fight. Set it next to a slice of cake left from Sunday and the two of them canceled each other out.
Second one, I quit fighting it. Went in and got a cold biscuit off the counter, split it, laid a little country ham across it, and brought it back out. That was the thing. A sweet beer doesn't want more sweet next to it. It wants salt sitting across the table.
Crank came out for the ham and stayed for nothing, which is his standing arrangement. Sun dropped behind the ridge. The Meg had already gone back down the mountain to do whatever it is she does that gets her the beer a weekend early.
Not officially out yet, and I've already got it figured for supper. The Meg would say that is the point of knowing her. She would be right, and she would say it anyway.