Chapter 9: Louisville

I sat down on the gravel.

"Where's the buyer now?"

"Louisville. They're opening a distribution center off the interstate. He's walking the floor there all week."

"Then that's where I'll be tomorrow."

"Torrie, he won't take a meeting. I've tried."

"I'm not asking for a meeting. I'm going to stand in his lobby until he walks past me."

Sheree laughed, a little wild.

"Go get him, hillbilly. I'll hold the fort."

I hung up and sat there a while longer, with the creek talking beside the road.

Thirty million dollars of company. Sixty people.

And a man in green who thought my code was his.

***

I didn't have a car.

Granny solved that at supper by pointing a fork at Jeb.

He'd stayed to fix her porch swing. Somehow he'd also stayed to eat.

"Jeb'll drive you."

"Jeb has a mill to run," Jeb said.

"Jeb has a fake girlfriend to court," I said under my breath.

He shot me a look across the green beans.

Granny smiled.

"What was that, baby?"

"Nothing, Granny. Pass the cornbread."

He picked me up at five the next morning.

There were two coffees in the cup holders and a paper sack of sausage biscuits on the seat.

"Imogene called me at four," he said. "To make sure."

"She called you at four in the morning?"

"She said you can't sell anything hungry."

I ate two biscuits before we hit the main road.

The sun came up over the ridges in long orange stripes.

"So," I said. "Notes."

He groaned.

"Note one. At supper, you pull out my chair."

"I pull out everybody's chair. My mama raised me."

"Note two. You look at me when I'm talking."

"I look at the road when I'm driving."

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