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