Ruin Me, Daddy novel · Chapter 9 of 32
Chapter 9: Episode 42
"What do you mean, I'm not on it?"
"I mean exactly that, Honey." Lyman's voice was gentle, like he was talking to a child about a dead goldfish. "We've been developing something. The timing's just turned out beautifully."
"Developing what?"
"Listen on Friday. You'll like it. It sounds just like you."
He hung up.
I walked back into the diner and sat down in front of my cold eggs.
Lettie looked at my face and didn't ask. She just slid my coffee closer.
Thursday the phone at the distillery rang so much that Lettie unplugged it and put it in a drawer.
Two vans from Lexington TV stations parked at the end of the drive.
A man with a camera tried to film through the rickhouse door.
The bottling supervisor walked out and stood in front of it with his arms crossed.
He stood there for three hours. He didn't say a word.
I stayed in the cottage and recorded stop four, about the copper still.
My voice came out steady. I didn't know where from.
That night Forrest came down the hill without a tray.
He stopped at the bottom step, like always.
"Reporter called the house," he said. "Asked me if it was true."
"What did you say?"
"I said I'm a widower who couldn't sleep, and he could print that." He looked at me in the porch light. "Are you all right?"
"I got fired. I'm famous. A seventy-year-old woman told me about her bath."
"Lettie told me." The corner of his mouth went up. "She's telling everybody."
"Of course she is."
He stood there a long moment.
"I'm sorry it's your name," he said. "If I could take it, I would."
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