The Bourbon Thief

“Don’t you worry about that. This house has stood for over a hundred years with the river right behind us. We’ll make it another hundred.”

“If you say so,” she said, not sure she trusted his judgment as implicitly as he did. Granddaddy was the richest man in the state and everyone knew it. People bent to his will all day long—she’d seen it with her own eyes. He’d get pulled over for speeding and the cop would look at his license, laugh and let him off with a warning. Restaurant owners would bring him drinks on the house. One hotel he stayed at in Louisville assigned him his own personal concierge to fetch and carry for him. People were one thing, but something told her the river wouldn’t bend to his will quite so readily. The river had been here before Granddaddy and it would be here after.

“You’ve had quite a day, haven’t you, little lady?” He took up twice as much room as she did on the window seat.

“Happy Birthday to me, right?”

“Want to tell me what’s going with you and ole Levi?”

“Nothing’s going on with me and ole Levi.”

Granddaddy raised his eyebrows and his glass. He took a sip and so did she, wincing. She’d had a taste of bourbon here and there—the house was full of the stuff—but she hadn’t had nearly enough to get used to it yet. She hadn’t even figured out coffee yet.

“Your mother claims she caught you two rolling in the hay.”

She flushed crimson. Bad enough talking about Levi with her mother. If she had a shovel, she would dig her own grave with it right now.

“There was hay, but no rolling,” she said. “I asked him to kiss me on my birthday, and he kissed me on my birthday. Tomorrow’s not my birthday, so he won’t kiss me tomorrow.”

“You sound a little disappointed about that.”

She shrugged and sat back, her arms clutching her pillow. When she exhaled through her nose, the window turned into a cloud.

“You like him?” her granddaddy asked her. He reached out and pinched her toe. How drunk was he? Very, she guessed. Very very. “Tamara, answer me?”

She laughed at the toe pinch. “Yes, I like him.”

“How much do you like him?”

“I don’t know. A lot?” She finally met her grandfather’s eyes. He was smiling, but the smile didn’t make her feel any better. This was the last conversation in the history of conversations she wanted to be having with her grandfather.

“A lot, huh?” Granddaddy sat back and kicked his boots off. They landed on the little pink rug by her rocking chair and left a boot polish stain. She didn’t care. She was so sick of pink she was ready to burn the house down to get rid of it all.

“A lot. More than a lot, whatever that is.”

“I’ve noticed you and him talking before.”

“Only talking.”

“He dotes on you.”

“He does not. He’s mean to me. He tells me I’m lazy and he makes me muck the stalls and he says I’m spoiled rotten. He even calls me Rotten. I don’t think he’s ever called me by my name.”

“I used to call your grandmother Ornery because she was the orneriest woman I ever met. Drove me crazy when she was younger. I couldn’t keep my hands off her.”

“Granddaddy, really. I don’t want to hear any of that at all, now or ever.”

“You’re old enough now to hear about things you don’t want to hear about.”

“I still don’t want to hear about them.”

He sighed and nodded.

“Such a pretty girl you’ve turned into,” he said. “I’m surprised Levi’s the only boy we’ve had trouble with over you.”

“Y’all send me to an all-girls school, remember?”

“It’s a good school.”

“It’s an all-girls school,” she said again.

“I went to an all-boys school, Millersburg Military. Best school in the state.”

“Great. Can I go there instead?”

“And you wonder why we try to keep a close eye on you,” he said, giving her a smile. “Maybe we should have kept a closer eye.”

“Momma’s only mad because she hates Levi for no good reason.”

“She has good reason.”

“I know he’s older than me, but he’s not that much older. And he’s good with the horses. And Momma said either I had to let her fire Levi or she’d give Kermit to the glue factory. I can’t live without Levi. I can’t live without Kermit. Is she trying to kill me?”

“You won’t die without Levi.”

“Maybe I will,” she said. She might. Stranger things had happened. “I don’t get why Momma hates him anyway, other than I think she hates everybody.”

Granddaddy sighed another one of his Granddaddy sighs. She smelled cigar and bourbon in that sigh. She wanted to open the window.

“There’s something you don’t know about Levi you need to know. Long time ago, Levi’s mother used to work for me. She cleaned the Red Thread offices.”

“She was a janitor?”

“Cleaning lady.”

Tamara felt a stab of pity for Levi. Growing up the son of a cleaning lady must not have been easy. She knew his mother was already dead, but he’d never mentioned that she used to clean for Granddaddy. “Momma hates him because his mother used to be a cleaning lady?”

“Tamara, honey, his mother was black. You didn’t know that?”

Tamara narrowed her eyes at her grandfather.

“What?”

“She was.”

“But he’s—”

“He’s light skinned. But he’s not white.”