“And you’ll be there beside me when they do.”
I smiled, but couldn’t help but notice the way my stomach dropped at his words. I was happy for him, and a part of me couldn’t wait to move back to North Carolina after the wedding. Of course, I wished I was going back to the university, but I wasn’t really sure why.
This was what I’d always wanted. It was what I’d always hoped would happen.
I was marrying someone with the same political heart as my father, and his father, and his father’s father. It was what my family had always wanted for me. If anything, Anthony was more — he didn’t just want to be mayor, he wanted to be president.
And I would be his first lady.
My smile grew a little more genuine at that, at being in a position where I could make a difference. That’s what had always appealed to me about living in the political circuit. I could help children, or battered women, or the homeless. I would have a platform, a goal, and a voice to raise.
And a husband who would stand beside me, just as I would him.
“I miss you,” Anthony said on a sigh, bringing me back to the moment.
“I miss you, too. But I’ll see you soon. Six weeks.”
“Six weeks,” he repeated. “And then you walk down the aisle to me.”
My stomach dropped again, and I placed a hand over it just as my mother appeared on the front porch. She hung her hands on her hips, her eyes hard on me.
“Well, the wedding planner is waiting on me,” I said. “Good luck with the media circus over there.”
“Thanks, babe. Talk to you soon. Tell your mom I said hi.”
I laughed. “If I can get a word in edgewise, I’ll do that.”
Mama was already down the porch and en route to my car by the time I pushed the driver side door open. She held the handle, eyes wide as she took in my appearance.
“I cannot believe you put that top down after I spent all that time on your hair this morning, Ruby Grace,” she tsked, but she offered a hand out to take my bag, anyway.
“I got it,” I said, stepping out and shutting the door behind me.
Mama looped her arm through mine, the other hand picking at my tangled strands.
“How’d it go?”
“Fine,” I answered as we climbed the porch stairs. “I still think it’s way too much to spend on a barrel of liquor.”
“It is,” she agreed. “But, it’s good to support the community, and your father has built a great relationship with the distillery over the years. Anthony will enjoy it, I’m sure.”
“I don’t even think he drinks whiskey.”
“He will once he’s in this family,” Mama said with a chuckle. “Your father will make sure of that.”
It was true. Anyone who married into the Barnett family, or any family in Stratford, for that matter, had to be a whiskey lover. Our town was built around the Scooter Whiskey Distillery, and it was our main source of income. It brought us tourism, fame, notoriety. If you lived in Stratford, you either worked at the distillery or had family who did. It was our livelihood.
Scooter Whiskey was known all over the world. You were hard pressed to find a bar that didn’t carry it, and more than the whiskey itself, Scooter was a brand. Women wore the logo stretched across their breasts in tight little tank tops. Men wore it on their motorcycle jackets and tattooed it on their arms. There were houses all over that were decorated with Scooter Whiskey barrels and neon lights, with glasses and barware, with posters and branded chairs.
It wasn’t just a whiskey, it was a lifestyle — and Stratford was where it was born.
“Speaking of which, where is Dad?”
Mom waved me off. “Oh, you know him. He’ll be working until at least seven, and then I’m sure he’ll find somewhere to play cards or bet on horses.”
I nodded. Tennessee didn’t have a single casino, but drive to any state border and you could find a way to gamble. Dad had always been big into cards and horses, sometimes sporting events, and if he wasn’t at the casino on the Georgia state line, he was at one of the council members’ houses, where they’d make a casino of their own.
I hung my purse on one of the hooks in our mud room, kicking off my heels and wincing as my feet adjusted to being flat on the hardwood floor. My toes ached, the balls of both feet on fire, my ankles screaming.
Mama bent to retrieve the shoes as soon as they were abandoned, shaking her head at me.
“These are designer heels, Ruby Grace. You don’t just kick them off. Go put them away in your room.”
If only she knew where I’d kicked them off less than an hour ago.
“Yes, Mama.”
She handed them to me, but before I could make my way upstairs, her hands were in my hair again, trying to fix the mess the wind had made. I studied the faint lines on her face as she did, seeing so much of her features in my own reflection now that I was nineteen that it somewhat scared me.
Her hair was the same burnt orange as mine, though hers was cut just above her shoulders, and our noses were identical, the tips of them rounding in a little button. Her eyes were mocha brown where mine mirrored the hazel of my father’s, and her freckles were more pronounced, her skin as pale as Snow White’s, where mine was easily bronzed in the summer sun. She was rail-thin and just barely over five feet, where my curves were slight but still present.
We were different in so many ways, and yet in so many others, exactly the same.
I wondered if I was looking at my future, at the woman I would become — a wife, a mother, a last name known all over town.
Or maybe all over the nation.
She sighed, giving up on my hair and hanging her hands on her hips again. “Well, why don’t you go up and get changed. Your father will be home in an hour or so. Come help me with supper and we can talk about the photographers again. I talked Mr. Gentry down on his price. And we need to make a decision between ribbon or—”
“Ribbon or twine on the chairs,” I finished for her, fighting back a sigh. “I know.”
I made my way upstairs, my feet aching with every step, but Mama kept talking.
“Yes, and your sister said we can video call her after dinner to talk about the shades of pink for the flowers.” Her voice grew louder when I hit the top stair, making my way down the hall toward my old room. “Can you bring that book down here? Oh, and—”
“The seating chart,” I said at the same time as her. “I’ve got it, Mama. Be right down.”
When my bedroom door closed behind me, I pressed my back against the wood, closing my eyes and reveling in the momentary silence.
If my older sister, Mary Anne, were here, she would be in heaven. She was older than me by four years, and as soon as she graduated college, she ran off to Europe, hell bent on chasing her dreams of being a fashion designer. So far, Dad had said about all she’d done was blow through his money and kiss foreign boys. I didn’t know if that was true, but I did know three things for sure.
One, she would have loved this wedding stuff more than I do. And she would have known what decision to make, what colors to choose, where to sit who at what table.
Two, I envied her a bit, that she got away from this town, from her responsibility as a Barnett daughter.
And three, she wasn’t here — and even if she was, she could never save me from the mile-long wedding to-do list I was faced with.
I sighed, letting my head fall back against my door. I was supposed to be excited about all of this, wasn’t I? Shouldn’t I want to plan the seating chart, and care about the color of the flowers, and get excited about the photographs and the cake cutting and the first dance? It was my wedding. It would only happen once, and it felt more like a chore to me than the big day I’d dreamed of since I was a little girl.
I loved the man I was marrying, and I loved the town we were getting married in.
I had the dress of my dreams, my best friend to stand by my side, and the honeymoon of a lifetime planned in the Bahamas.
Everything was perfect, and if you asked any of my friends, they’d say I was the luckiest girl in Tennessee.
So then why did it feel like I was drowning?
“Why, that can’t possibly be the Miss Ruby Grace, can it?”
My best friend, Annie, flourished her thickest Tennessee accent from behind the front desk at Stratford’s only nursing home, her gap-toothed smile wide and welcoming as I let the door shut behind me. When I unwrapped the mint spring scarf from around my neck, she gasped, pressing her hand to her chest.
“Why, it is. Oh, heavens. Someone give old Mr. Buchanon his blood pressure medicine before she walks through the halls.”
I chuckled, hanging my purse and scarf behind the desk before I lifted a brow. “Haven’t seen you since Christmas, and that’s the welcome I get?”
“Well, I’d jump up and hug you, but it’s a little more difficult these days,” Annie said, gesturing to the watermelon of a belly she had blooming under her oversized scrubs.
“How about I assist?”
I reached down, and when Annie’s hands were in mine, I pulled her up, both of us laughing as she leaned back to balance out the weight of her belly. It was hard to believe she was the same girl I’d road tripped to North Carolina with just two summers ago, the same blonde, giggly girl I’d stayed up too late with on countless nights, laughing and dreaming and making plans for our future husbands, our future families. I was so sure we’d room together at UNC, or chase our dreams of traveling the country and helping others in AmeriCorps. It didn’t matter what we did — I just knew we’d do it together.
But when Annie fell in love with Travis, everything changed.
It wasn’t out of place for a nineteen-year-old to be pregnant in Stratford. Half my graduating class was already married and popping out babies. But, seeing my best friend with a stomach the size of Texas was new for me. It was proof that we were older now, that life had changed, that all those dreams we’d had on the days we’d played house as kids were coming true.
She was a wife. Soon, she’d be a mother.
And I wasn’t far behind her.
“Annie, you look…”
“Fat? Sweaty? Like I did our freshman year with all this acne?”
I laughed. “You look beautiful. You’re glowing.”
“Why does everyone say that?” she asked, hugging me as best she could with her belly between us. “There is positively no glow going on here. Unless the fluorescent light is hitting my sweat sheen in some magical way.”
That sent both of us into a fit of laughter, and when it settled, Annie shook her head, eyes sweeping over me. They widened a little when they took in the kitten heels Mama had insisted I wear, even though I’d be on my feet all day. “You look incredible. I swear, I’m going to blink and have your mother as a best friend one day.”
I grimaced. “Please don’t say that.”
She chuckled, waddling back into her chair. “I didn’t think I’d see you here so soon. Didn’t you just get into town Sunday night?”
“Yep,” I said on a sigh, flopping down in the chair next to her. “It’s been a hundred miles a minute on wedding planning since I got here. I just needed a break, to do something for myself.”
Annie nodded in understanding, patting my hand just as a visitor approached the desk. While she checked them in, I let out a long exhale, taking in the familiar surroundings of the nursing home.
I’d first volunteered as a fourteen-year-old my freshman year of high school. My dad had been the one to suggest it — more as a way for me to give back to the community than anything else — but he never could have known the love it would spark inside my heart.
I still remembered that first day, losing hours with people seven times my age who had the best stories to tell. I remembered the scent of Mrs. Jeannie’s perfume, the collage of photographs she hung on her wall from her time as a nurse in the Vietnam War. I remembered Ms. Barbara’s lemon cake, the way it melted in our mouths that afternoon after she gave me the recipe to try to make it since she couldn’t anymore.
She’d nearly cried when that first bite hit her tongue.
I remembered the soft velvet of Mrs. Hamilton’s hands in mine as we gently danced in her room, and the euphoria I felt when I turned on an old record from the fifties and saw a room of faces light up, and the incomparable joy I experienced when I was the one who made grumpy Mr. Tavos laugh for the first time in years.
It was the first time I felt the high of my own personal drug — helping others. It was the spark that gave way to a flame that burned brightly in me ever since. I loved to volunteer, to give my time to people, organizations, causes that mattered to me.
I’d dragged Annie with me, and though she hadn’t taken to it quite as quickly, she’d made it her home just as much as I had. And now, she was a full-time employee.
“Well, do you want me to give you the run down or do you just want to frolic on your own?” Annie asked when the young family she’d checked in made their way down the hall to their mother’s room.
“I’ll meander, make myself useful.”
She leaned back in her chair, one hand soothing her stomach. “Okay. Well, when you’re done meandering, you owe me a lunch and a thorough run down of all the wedding planning I know your mother has you doing.”
I chuffed. “We’ll need more than one lunch break for that.”
“I can’t believe it’s so soon.”
“Six weeks from Sunday,” I murmured, rocking in my own chair.
Annie watched me. “That’s not the best reaction to have when you’re six weeks from getting hitched.”
I sighed, shaking my head before I let it fall back against the head rest of the chair. “I really am excited — to be married, to start a family, to be by Anthony’s side as he makes his dreams come true. I just…”
My words faded, because it felt selfish and ungrateful to follow them up with something as petty as I just wish I could travel or get my degree before I get married. This was what so many girls in this town dreamed of, it was what I had dreamed of — I’d just found it sooner than I imagined.
And I loved Anthony. I was lucky to have found him at all.
I sighed in lieu of finishing my sentence, and Annie just continued rubbing her stomach.
“I know,” she said. “I’m sure wedding planning with a family like yours is a lot of pressure and a lot of stress.”
I lifted my head again and nodded rather than telling her my true feelings on the subject. “Yeah. But, I’m lucky to have parents who are paying for such an extravagant wedding, and to have a fiancé like Anthony. I couldn’t have dreamed up a better match for me, for my family.”
“Mm-hmm,” Annie agreed, but the way she watched me, I knew I’d let my façade slip. She saw it, what I was trying to hide — not just from her, but from myself. “Speaking of wedding planning, I heard you got Anthony the classic wedding gift.”
I frowned. “How did you possibly hear about that? I was at the distillery for all of an hour.”
Annie scoffed. “Come on, like you don’t already know this town is filled with bored old women who have nothing better to do than gab.” She paused, biting back a smirk before she waggled her brows at me. “I heard something else, too.”
“What? That I tasted the whiskey? Like no one in Stratford has ever had a drink underage.”
“Oh no, it wasn’t the barrel tasting making the gossip rounds,” she said. “It was the certain barrel raiser who hosted the tasting that everyone wanted to talk about.”
My jaw dropped, foot stopping where it had been rocking me gently in the office chair. “Noah? What were they saying?”
“Oh, not much,” Annie said, glancing at her cuticles before she peeked at me again. “Just that he was looking hot as sin when he walked you into that warehouse, and that you looked a little flustered when the two of you came out.”
My cheeks burned, the memory of Monday afternoon with Noah making my skin crawl in a way I wasn’t sure how to
decipher.
Annie shot up, eyes widening. “Wait, is there a little truth behind this rumor?”
“There’s no truth in this town, period.” I stood abruptly, making myself a volunteer name tag and smacking it on my blouse. “People are ridiculous.”
“What happened? Did he get all up in your space? Did he give you that sexy Becker smirk?” She gasped. “Oh, my God. If he kissed you I will die.”
“He didn’t kiss me, for Christ’s sake. He showed me the barrel, and the most scandalous thing that happened was he let me taste a single drop of whiskey.”
“Off his tongue?”
“I’m engaged, Annie!”
She threw her hands up. “You say that like a Becker brother would even pause at that fact before they planted a hot one on you.”
I rolled my eyes. “And on that note, I’m going to make the rounds.”
“Don’t leave me hanging!” she hollered at my back as I made my way down the hallway. I flitted my hands above my head, waving her off as she groaned. “That’s just cruel, Ruby Grace.”
I chuckled, shaking my head as I dipped into the first room and introduced myself to a new resident who hadn’t been there before I left for college. His name was Richard, and it wasn’t long after our introductions that he was telling me stories about his days in the distillery and showing me pictures of his late wife.
And just like that, all my wedding planning stress was forgotten.
I lost myself within those walls, surrendering my thoughts and energy to others. I asked to hear about the decades I hadn’t been alive to experience, administered medicine, played board games, fixed hair, applied makeup, told jokes, crocheted, danced — and before I knew it, an entire morning had passed.
It was just the release I’d needed.
“Hey,” Annie said after lunch, eyes softening as she watched me pull a stack of magazines out of my leather Kate Spade bag. “Remember what I told you.”
“I remember.”
She frowned more. “I just don’t want you to be disappointed. She might not even recognize you.”
“I won’t be disappointed, even if she doesn’t,” I promised, balancing the magazines in the crook of my elbow as I smiled. “But, I talked with Jesus this morning, and I think she will.”
On the Rocks Page 4
