The Bourbon Thief

  “About what?”

  “About what you found out in your daddy’s note.”

  She shrugged and wrapped her arms around her knees, pulling them to her chest so she could rest her chin on them.

  “I was sad,” she said. “I loved Daddy. Love Daddy. Judge Headley’s a good man, and he’s always been like an uncle to me. But it was hard to read the truth.”

  “I’m sure it was.”

  “He’s married, been married twenty years. He never seemed like the type to cheat, but I’ve given up thinking I know anybody. I don’t even know myself sometimes.”

  “I don’t know you, either. You’re different now.”

  “I’m not a kid anymore.”

  “You did chores you didn’t have to do. I’ll say.”

  Tamara grinned. “I miss the horses. I miss my Kermit.”

  “I’m sure he’s somewhere missing you, too.”

  “If he’s alive.”

  “I’m sure he is. He’s a sturdy old boy. Did your mother tell you who bought them?”

  “No. Momma and I haven’t exchanged ten words in a year and a half. Cora does all the note passing for us. Momma wouldn’t tell me who bought Kermit if I put a gun to her head. And believe me, I’ve thought of that.”

  Levi climbed the steps and took a seat beside Tamara. He’d told himself he would maintain his distance from her. That resolution hadn’t lasted long.

  “She shouldn’t punish Kermit by taking him from you for something I did. Bad enough she punished you.”

  “Tell Momma that.”

  “I’d rather not. She’d call me names and threaten to kill me again. It’s cute when you do it. Not so much when she does.”

  “Momma shouldn’t have treated you the way she did. You deserve better.”

  “We don’t always get what we deserve. The world doesn’t work like that.”

  “It will someday,” she said.

  “Yeah, you keep telling yourself that.” Levi leaned back and rested his elbows on the step behind her. “What the hell is that smell?”

  “It’s the angels’ share,” Tamara said. She turned around to face him. “You know, it’s the bourbon that evaporates while it’s aging in the barrels. Smells weird, right?”

  “Can’t tell if I like it or hate it.”

  “I can’t, either. It’s kind of gross and yet I keep sniffing it.”

  “You’re the heir to the biggest bourbon distillery in Kentucky. You can’t call it gross.”

  He’d meant to make her laugh, but she didn’t.

  “I’m not a fan of our bourbon,” she said. “Don’t tell.”

  “Not a soul,” Levi said. “I always thought it was pretty good myself. Tastes like apples. Apples and licorice.”

  “Proof you’re a Maddox right there,” Tamara said. “Everybody tastes the apple in Red Thread. They say only Maddoxes can taste the anise. A Maddox tongue is made for tasting the bittersweet.”

  “Lucky me. What do I win?”

  “You don’t sound happy. Lot of people would be happy to wake up with Maddox for a last name.”

  “No,” he said. “I’m not happy. Did you really think I would be?”

  “I guess it was a shock.”

  “It was and it wasn’t.”

  Tamara wrinkled her nose, something he remembered her always doing when he said something to her that confused her. She was about to launch into a series of annoying personal questions. He decided to cut her off at the pass.

  “You know anything about Plato?” Levi asked.

  “The gooey stuff?”

  He glared at her.

  “I know,” she said. “The philosopher. I’m young, but I’m not dumb.”

  “Well, Plato had this theory—anamnesis. He believed all knowledge was innate. It’s like...fish. Fish in a pond. The fish is knowledge. You own the pond. And you’re up on the dock trying to catch the fish. You already have the fish in a way, since they’re in your pond. But until you catch a fish, you don’t really have the fish. That’s why sometimes when you’re learning something, a math formula or something, it suddenly clicks and it’s not like you’re learning it but discovering something you already know.”

  “I’ve felt that before,” Tamara said. “Like when you find that one puzzle piece in a jigsaw puzzle you’ve been working on for days, and then you finish the rest of the puzzle in a few minutes. It all comes together and you wonder how you didn’t see it before when the piece was right there.”

  “That’s it exactly. That’s what it was like when you told me who my father was. Like I’d known without knowing and finally I had that fish in my hands, squirming and gasping for air. I wanted to throw it back. But that’s where the metaphor breaks down. You can’t ever throw it back once you catch it. And as soon as you see the pattern in the puzzle, you can’t unsee it.”

  “You’re something, Levi Shelby,” Tamara said. “You’re a stable boy who knows more about Plato and stuff like that than any of my teachers did.”

  “I read.”

  “Why?”

  Levi boggled at her, shook his head, bulging his eyes out like a Tex Avery cartoon wolf.

  “You know what I mean,” Tamara said, laughing. She put up two fingers as if to push his eyes back into his head. “Why do you read about Plato and stuff like that?”

  “Some of us can’t afford college.”

  “Lots of people who don’t go to college also don’t read Plato for fun.”

  “It’s not for fun. Not really. There was this man Mom used to clean houses for. Every Thursday. The Thursday House was my favorite house. It belonged to this college professor, Dr. Amos Golding. Taught philosophy at NKU. She’d bring me with her and give me stuff to play with while she worked. Dr. Golding was home one semester, on sabbatical. He started talking to me, and we got to be friends. He was in his forties and I was five, but still, I was crazy about him. I had all these fantasies that he was my real father. I think that’s why I read so much. He’s the one who told me I didn’t need college as long as I read something every day. Something hard. Something that made me think.”

  “Were he and your mom...close?”

  “He was very kind to her, respectful. Flirted a little. And he wasn’t married. She’d worked for him several years, so there was this little part of me that believed it was him, and he couldn’t do anything about it, since he was Jewish and Mom wasn’t. We tell ourselves lies to survive when we know the truth will kill us.”

  “It didn’t kill you.”

  “Not yet,” he said.

  It was then Levi noticed that Tamara had put her hand on his knee. She seemed to notice it at the same time he did. She squeezed it like they were old friends and it was old times. He looked down at her hand on his knee and she quickly pulled it away.

  “It’s okay. I’ve had more time to get used to this news than you have,” Tamara said. “Now we have to decide what to do.”

  “I don’t think there’s anything we can do, is there? Raise a big public stink? What good’ll that do us? Do you think the courts would really give me Red Thread based on that letter you found? Half the judges in this state probably have kids with their secretaries or housekeepers. They aren’t about to set a precedent like that.”

  “We don’t need the courts. We have a judge on our side.”

  “Oh, yeah, Judge Daddy. Does he know you’re his daughter?”

  “If he does, he never told me. But it doesn’t matter. He’ll help us.”

  “Us? When did ‘we’ become an ‘us’?”

  “Aren’t we in this together?”

  “I don’t know what ‘this’ is. And I don’t know why I’d be in it with you.”

  “You’re the only living child of George Maddox. You deserve to inherit his money, his house, his company. All that.”

  “Why? He fucks my mother and I get to be a millionaire? Not sure that’s how it works.”

  “Come on, Levi. You know we have to do something to make this right. You lost your
job because of me. I want to make it up to you.”

  “Tamara, as much as I’d love to blame you for me getting into trouble and as much as I did blame you, the simple fact of the matter is I am twelve years older than you are. I knew better than to kiss you and I did it, anyway.”

  “Because you wanted to kiss me.”

  “Because I wanted to shut you up.”

  “By kissing me.”

  “By any means necessary.”

  “You know you liked it. And you liked me. You still like me or you wouldn’t be here.”

  He gave her a long flat look. A steamroller look. She remained upright.

  “I’m leaving, Rotten. Very nice to talk to you. Some of us have to work tomorrow.”

  He rolled up off the steps and walked past her. Tamara grabbed his hand and he turned around.

  “Don’t,” he said. But he didn’t pull away.

  “I can help you. Let me help you.”

  “How can you help me?”

  “Tell me your wish,” she said, looking into his eyes. She had blue eyes, too, but he liked hers a lot more than he liked his.

  “My wish?”

  “Your wish. Your dream. If I was a genie and I could grant you one wish, what would you wish for?”

  “A horse farm of my own. Nothing fancy. Fifty acres. A hundred maybe, if we’re dreaming big. A few horses. A nice farmhouse.” It came out so fast he couldn’t stop himself.

  “A wife? Kids?”

  “I don’t need a genie for any of that.”

  “What if I told you I could give you all you wish for? Horses. Land. House.”

  “You don’t look like any genie I’ve ever seen before. What’s the catch?”

  “No catch.”

  “There’s always a catch. How are you, who won’t inherit anything until you’re twenty-one, going to give me a house and a hundred acres of land?”

  “Easy,” she said. “I’m going to marry you.”

  12

  Tamara was proud of Levi. He didn’t laugh in her face. She expected that he would.

  Now, he did laugh near her face, but not quite in it.

  “Laugh all you want,” Tamara said. “I am going to marry you.”

  “I’m flattered, Rotten. I really am. I had expected a lot of nonsense tonight from you, but a marriage proposal? Now, that’s special. You still watching The Young and the Restless?”

  He sat back on the steps, leaned on his elbows again, crossed his legs at the ankles. She watched his every movement, surprised and pleased to discover she wanted him as much as she ever had. Nice try, Granddaddy. He’d only bruised her. He hadn’t broken her.

  Levi waved his hand.

  “Go on,” he said. “I’m all ears. This is a good show—the Tamara Makes a Fool of Herself show. Very entertaining. You should be on Carson with this routine.”

  “I’m seventeen,” she said, undaunted. The show must go on. “That’s a problem, but not a big problem. A girl can get married at seventeen if she has a parent’s permission.”

  “Like your mother will let you marry me with anything less than a machine gun to her head and probably not even then.”

  “Not my mother. My father. Judge Headley will marry us.”

  “And why will he do that?”

  “I’ll tell him I’m pregnant and it’s yours. He’s done it before. When his daughter’s best friend got pregnant at sixteen, he married her to her boyfriend.”

  “Her boyfriend probably wasn’t thirty years old. I am.”

  “He’ll do it. I know he will. He believes in marriage. And—even better—he’s a big-shot judge. No one will question it if he marries us.”

  “You’re smarter than you look. This might be the cleverest murder plot in history. You’re trying to get me killed, right? This oughta do it.”

  Tamara rolled her eyes.

  “I’m trying to get you rich. You think you’d take me a little more seriously.”

  “Why? Why do you care?” Levi sat up straight. “Why would anyone in their right mind try to give money to someone they don’t have to give it to?”

  “Because it’s the right thing to do. You’re Granddaddy’s only child. It’s your birthright. I’m not his granddaughter. I’m not blood. I shouldn’t inherit anything. We get married and we both win. We inherit everything, you and me. Then we get divorced in a few years and split it fifty-fifty. Half of a fortune is better than nothing, right?”

  “Can’t spend that money if I’m dead. And your mother will kill me.”

  “She won’t. Once we have the money, everyone will do what we say. She tries anything and we have her arrested.”

  “You are a child, Tamara Maddox. I’m not marrying a girl who still eats Frosted Flakes twice a day. And don’t pretend you don’t.”

  “But, Levi—”

  “What?”

  “They’re great.”

  Levi leaned over, put his head between his knees and half laughed, half groaned.

  “Levi? You’re behaving oddly.” He was, too.

  He slapped his knees and stood up.

  “Well, this has been worth the price of admission,” he said. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to run along. The real world is awaiting my return.”

  Tamara reached for him and took his arm. He looked at where she touched him. Why did he keep doing that? Did he like it? Or did he hate it? Didn’t matter. She didn’t let go.

  “Levi, please.”

  “Please what?” he asked.

  “You kissed me on my birthday because you wanted to.”

  “I don’t go around kissing people I don’t want to kiss.”

  “You were going to...”

  “Fuck you? Probably.”

  Tamara blushed. “Do you have to say it that way?”

  “You’re planning on telling this judge of yours I knocked you up and yet you can’t handle talk about us fucking? Yeah, I wanted to fuck you that day. It doesn’t mean anything.”

  Tamara lifted her chin, met his eyes. “It meant something to me.”

  “What did it mean, Rotten? Tell me.”

  “Momma sold all the horses to punish me for kissing you. And you know what? I still don’t regret it.”

  “Dammit, Rotten.”

  “Sorry,” she said.

  He sighed and leaned back against the wall. He shook his head.

  “Poor little rich girl. What I wouldn’t give to have your problems...”