CHAPTER EIGHT GREEN’S WHISKEY
CHAPTER
EIGHT
Green’s Whiskey
Uncle Drew had been right about Lee’s friendship with Cora being a bad idea.
It had been hard enough to be close to her before Roscoe got back, but once he moved in with her, Lee couldn’t take it.
The sight of Roscoe opening Cora’s front door or washing up breakfast dishes or going into Cora’s bedroom ripped him in two.
He had to stay away or something was going to happen. She was too far under his skin.
Staying away from Cora meant not seeing Roscoe either, and with Jasper and Benny gone, the loss was a huge blow.
Lee heard through the grapevine that Roscoe had taken a job picking oranges under a foreman who didn’t like colored vets. Lee could well imagine what Roscoe had to deal with every day and he thought he had just the solution.
After a solid year of twelve-hour days, seven days a week, and a big loan from Uncle Drew, Lee set up Green’s Whiskey like he and Green George said they would.
He had his charcoal-filtered barley and rye aging in barrels in a barn he rented by the river, and a nice mellow corn whiskey that he could sell right away.
Orders were pouring in for the corn and in a couple years he could mix Green George’s special blend from his barrel stores.
He’d hammered some boards together and built himself a lean-to on the side of the barn.
After all those nights sleeping cramped in a tank, it felt like luxury quarters, and with every last dime going into Green’s Whiskey, living where he worked cut costs and gave him more time in the business.
Lately, his twelve-hour day had crept up to fourteen, but it still wasn’t enough. He needed help.
Lee rapped on Cora’s door and when she opened it, he stepped back, reminding himself to be cool. It made no difference: he still softened and hardened at the sight of her. ‘Cora.’ Her name rose from deep in his chest, riding up his baritone voice, like a knot uncoiling.
‘Lee.’ His name rushed from her lips in a whispered gush of air, the way she used to say it when they’d be pressed up against each other, all hands and skin and need.
Lee lowered his eyes to the ground and took another step back hoping this wasn’t a mistake. He cleared his throat. ‘I came to see Roscoe.’
‘Oh.’ The disappointment he heard in that made him look up at her in time to see an embarrassed half-smile flash and fade. ‘He’s …’ She looked behind her and opened the door wider. ‘Come on in.’
As Lee stepped past her, he turned his face her way and breathed in deeply. Cocoa butter and mint, just like he remembered.
Roscoe sat on the sofa with a flimsy card table pulled in front of him where he laid out cards in a game of solitaire. He paused mid-play when Lee walked in. ‘Look what the cat dragged in,’ he said. ‘I thought you might have forgotten where we live.’
Lee ignored the dig. ‘Hey, man. How’re you doing?’
Roscoe set down the deck, got up, and clapped Lee in a rough hug. ‘I’ve been better. I’ve been worse.’
‘I feel you,’ Lee said.
‘You want a drink?’ Cora asked from the door. ‘I’ve got two beers in the icebox.’
‘No. I drank those this morning,’ Roscoe said.
The echo of exasperation drifted over her face, almost there but not really, like the heat shimmer off a tar road.
‘Well, you want some ice water, then?’
‘Thank you, Cora. That’d be just fine.’ The softness edging his voice had no business being there. He cleared his throat.
‘Come sit down,’ Roscoe said. ‘We can play a hand while you tell me what you’ve been up to.’ He collected his cards from the solitaire game and shuffled the deck. ‘Five hand draw,’ he called, placing five cards on the table in front of Lee and five in front of himself.
Lee fanned his cards in his hand. ‘So, how’re you keeping?’
Roscoe snorted and tossed two of his to the side. Then pulled two more from the deck. ‘The same old same old. You?’
Lee looked at his cards, tossed four away. Drew four more. ‘I started a business. Oh, I almost forgot.’ He fished a small bottle of corn out of his jacket pocket. ‘Thought you might like to try.’
Roscoe raised his eyebrows. ‘You making hooch?’ He took a sip. ‘Not bad, Lee.’
‘The secret’s in the filtration. It’s something I learned from a guy I served with. His family used to—’
‘Pair of twos. What do you have?’
‘Oh, uh,’ Lee looked down at his hand, ‘ace high.’
‘I knew we should have bet,’ Roscoe said.
Cora brought the ice waters in and set them on the table. ‘Did I hear you say you started a business?’
Lee pointed to the bottle on the table. ‘Green’s Whiskey.’
Roscoe laid the cards without looking up.
‘That’s wonderful,’ she said. ‘Your own business.’ He swelled a little at the awe in her voice. ‘I always said if you put your mind to it, you could do just about anything.’
Lee felt his face warm. ‘Well, you haven’t tasted it yet.’
She waved at his words, like swatting a fly. ‘I don’t even have to, but you know what?’ She picked up the bottle. ‘I think I will.’ She poured a thimble full into three glasses and they drank together, with Roscoe keeping one eye on his cards and Lee keeping both eyes on Cora.
‘Ooh, that’s good, Lee,’ she said. ‘That’s real smooth.’
He warmed from the corn and from her words. ‘It’s the filtration,’ he said. ‘The charcoal filtration takes out the—’
‘Don’t nobody want to hear about your charcoal, Mr Businessman. Pick up your cards and let’s play.’
‘Roscoe,’ Cora chided.
‘What?’ His tone spiked acid sharp. She raised her eyebrows and set her mouth, like she wanted to say something, but then she smoothed her face to a smile. ‘Deal me in.’
Lee hopped up to give her his place on the sofa and carried in a chair from the kitchen for himself.
Cora shuffled through her cards and asked about his business. He sorted through his own cards as he told her about his charred oak barrels and cold spring-water cooling.
‘Pair of fives,’ Roscoe said. Lee and Cora folded. ‘You got some money on you? Let’s play for real.’
Lee checked his pockets and came up with a few coins.
‘Did you get started with a GI business loan?’ Cora asked.
He shook his head. ‘I don’t qualify for a GI loan.’
‘Ain’t that the truth,’ Roscoe said, a bitter undertone lacing his words.
Lee’s eyes flicked to Roscoe, then settled back on Cora. ‘Uncle Drew lent me something to start me off, and I found an old barn to rent cheap over by Turner Creek. I can distill and store there. I’ve been working like a dog for months getting it off the ground.’
‘So that’s why we haven’t seen you,’ Roscoe said, shuffling the cards.
Lee flushed a little and turned his head away from Roscoe to hide it. ‘That’s where I’ve been.’ He took a sip of the ice water, feeling it run cool down his throat. ‘In fact, I’ve gotten so busy, I can’t keep up any more.’ He turned to Roscoe. ‘So, how about it? You want a job?’
Roscoe snorted, fingering the cards in his hands. ‘You trying to give me a handout?’ His disdain was razor sharp.
‘No one said anything about a handout,’ Lee said. ‘I need to hire somebody. I don’t see why it shouldn’t be you.’
‘You think I don’t know what this is?’ He stabbed a dirty look at Cora and then Lee, and tossed the deck of cards onto the table where they spread and spilled.
‘Coming in here, talking about hiring me after you haven’t said boo to me all year?
You’re not better than me. You think you are, but you’re not.
’ He knocked the cards to the floor and got up.
‘I don’t need your charity, Lee. I have a job. ’
Cora reached out to grab his arm, hold him back. ‘Roscoe—’
‘Don’t,’ he said, pointing a finger at Cora, silencing her. ‘Just don’t.’
He walked out of the front door letting the screen bang closed behind him.
‘I’m sorry,’ Lee said to Cora, floored by Roscoe’s reaction. This bitter, thorny person wasn’t the man he’d known. ‘I didn’t mean anything by it. I just thought—’
‘Hire me,’ Cora said, turning to pin him with steel eyes.
‘I …’ He felt like she could see right into the pulsing, yearning center of him. ‘I don’t …’ Working next to her every day was not a good idea.
‘I need a job. I’ve been looking since February, but I can’t find a thing.’
‘Cora—’
‘It’s been five months, Lee. I’m an excellent secretary, and I can help with the distilling if you show me what to do. I’m a fast learner.’
‘I know, Cora, but I …’ Just sitting here alone with her was too much temptation. He wiped his palms along his thighs. Hiring her would be like throwing the doors wide open for Trouble to walk right in.
‘Just give me a chance for a few weeks. If you still don’t want me after that, then fire me, no hard feelings.’
He let out a dry bark of a laugh. ‘If I don’t want you?’ He shook his head. ‘Cora, I can’t.’
‘Please, Lee. I need this job.’
He swallowed hard, feeling himself flush with heat. ‘I just—’
‘Please.’ Her pull was like gravity.
A stronger man would have stood firm. Lee let himself fall. ‘Okay,’ he said.
She beamed with a smile so bright it lit up the room. ‘Thank you.’
She reached out to him with both hands, and as they touched, a spark of static electricity zapped. Cora laughed it off, but Lee’s gut clenched at the snap of the charged air bristling between them.