Page 7 of Whiskey Reveals

Chapter 5

Fox loved his job,loved the days when he could focus on his projects and not just other writers’ copy, and he had a feeling today was going to be one of the days he remembered. Always. At least, that’s what he hoped. He’d been working on his research for Ms. Pearl and the piece he wanted to do on her for a few days now, though he’d had the idea for the story for a couple of years. He’d been waiting until the time was right, and Ms. Pearl was ready to share. He’d finished the other two editorials that would go out in the next two weeks since he didn’t write full articles like he was doing now every day. In fact, this would be one of his longest pieces if he had anything to say about it. His goal was to make it like a series for two or even four weeks over the next few months. From what he could tell from what he’d dug up on this woman with such a rich backstory, if she let him, she could be a whole book on her own. Fox didn’t write novels, though, so perhaps he would just make her story a serial that people could come back to.

All of this, of course, was just in his head until he heard the stories directly from her lips. Until then, he wouldn’t know exactly what he had beyond a short biography.

His nerves didn’t help matters, and he hadn’t been sleeping well at all since he saw Melody at the bar a few evenings ago. He’d been shocked as hell that she was not only back in town, but, according to Loch, also moving here permanently. Apparently, she was opening up a dance studio next to his brother’s gym. He didn’t know when that decision had happened, but apparently, he should’ve asked more questions. However, at the time, he’d been memorizing every single curve on Melody’s body.

Jesus, he really needed to get his head out of the gutter and on to his work. Just because she was moving back to town didn’t mean she wanted anything to do with him. And, frankly, he wasn’t sure what he wanted if the option presented itself to him. Their evening together was only supposed to be a single whiskey-filled night. Yet he couldn’t get her out of his mind. And, now, she was in his town, and perhaps in his life permanently. She would be working right next door to his brother. The damn building next door to where he went four times a week to work out. He wasn’t a gym rat, and frankly wasn’t as strong as either of his brothers, but he hated to be left behind. And his sister trained even more than he did thanks to her husband. He was slowly falling behind on the athletic curve, but that was nothing new when it came to him. He’d always been the one in his books and his words while trying to catch up with his gangly arms and legs that he felt were just now getting toned.

And now he was once again letting his thoughts wander to every single thing except for what was important: his work. He was on his way to Ms. Pearl’s home where, hopefully, she would regale him with stories of her past and the rich life he knew she had led. Still led if he were honest. He didn’t want the story to just be a bullet point list of the people she had met or the places she danced before she came to their small Pennsylvania town. He wanted to hear the inflections in her voice and see the light in her eyes as she spoke about it so everyone could hear and see who she was when she had lived that life.

He wanted to crack open the truth and find out more about this very interesting woman. And though it was his job as a reporter to sometimes dig beneath that first layer and find the ugly truths, he didn’t want this story to be about that either. He wasn’t in the habit of hurting those he wrote about, making them face something they would rather not confront again.

Finding the delicate balance was a talent he had honed over time, and something he thought perhaps he could excel at one day. So he would tell this woman’s story and show the world that there was more to their neighbor than met the eye. And while doing that, he would make sure she knew that he valued her time and her life, and would do his best to honor the trust she was putting in him. Others had tried to interview her before, and she had said no. But for some reason, she had come to him with her story, even though he had been thinking about it before that. He was going to do his best to show her how grateful he was.

That was how he found himself sitting in his car in her driveway, taking notes as he looked at her sprawling house that was set off one of the connecting streets off Main Street. Whiskey had one main thoroughfare where most of the shops and restaurants were located. It made it easy for tourists to walk from place to place, shopping and grabbing food and drinks as they filled the town’s coffers. The town survived on tourism, and he’d never take that for granted. His brother’s bar was right off Main Street, while Loch’s and Melody’s businesses, as well as his own, were off side roads that could all easily be seen from multiple directions off Main. The founding fathers of Whiskey had set each street at a diagonal, so it was easy to see the buildings that were in the direct line of Main Street. But that meant giving directions that had anything to do with north or south or even east or west was a little trickier than it should’ve been.

Fox lived in a small house a couple of streets off Main Street. That meant he could walk to most of the establishments, as well as his job. He could’ve walked today, too, but he’d chosen to drive because rain was in the forecast, and he really didn’t want to get any of his notes or his computer wet.

Ms. Pearl’s home was one of the original houses from back before Prohibition. The architecture in itself was art that took his breath away. Loch would probably know more about the exact era and everything that had to do with every single brick and turret, but Fox could still appreciate the beauty and history that came with the building. Ms. Pearl’s family wasn’t the original owner since she had bought the place from the great-great-great-grandchild of the original owner or something like that. But, now, she was her own history within the very historical town, and that was just one more thing he was going to try to portray to the best of his abilities in his piece.

He didn’t take any photos since he knew he wanted to speak to her first and make sure they had laid out the ground rules before he started his article. But he had a feeling that past and present photos of the extraordinary woman wouldn’t be the only highlights of what he was about to write. Because her home was as eccentric and graceful as she was.

He walked up to the door and rang the doorbell that made a loud gong sound, and he couldn’t help but smile. Of course, a house like this would have a very unique doorbell.

Ms. Pearl opened the door herself, surprising him. For all her mystery and aura, he had figured she would have staff to do that for her. Instead, the woman herself, the subject of his piece, stood in front of him, all five feet of her looking as if she could take on the world even at her undisclosed age. One thing Fox did not plan to do was ask her age. Not only had he learned never to do that, his mother would also beat the hell out of him for even thinking about it. And he wanted to make sure that Pearl kept some air of mystery even if she told him a lot of her secrets so he could tell the world. He liked the idea that no one knew her exact age, and that she could’ve lived in any century, any era, and been the star of any of them. It could’ve just been his writer’s mind at work, but he didn’t care. He was going to thread that into the story and make sure the world knew that you could make a difference at any age.

“Mr. Collins, I’m so glad you’re here. And on time. I really do love that in a man. And, boy, do I have stories to tell you about men who knew what to do with their time.” She winked, and he couldn’t help the deep belly laugh that came at her words. She joined him in laughter and took a step back, gesturing for him to enter the house.

“Call me Fox.” He did his best to call her Ms. Pearl in his head, even though sometimes he couldn’t help but call her Pearl. He didn’t even know her surname because she had spent so long going by “Ms. Pearl” to the world, that everyone had just assumed it was her last name. But he knew that Pearl was her first name and that she kept her last name under wraps for only her family and her lawyer. Not that he knew too much about her family. That was one thing she had kept secret, and it was something he wasn’t sure if he wanted to unravel for her. There were some confidences that should be kept, and even as a reporter, he’d learned that lesson long ago.

“Well, Fox. Welcome to my home.” At her words, he couldn’t help but look around and be entranced by the building he walked into. Someone, perhaps the woman herself, had taken great pains to restore every inch of the house. Large, arched, wooden columns stood by the doorway, creating an even grander entrance for those who walked beneath them. There were heavy drapes on the tall windows that practically took up the entire back wall across from where he stood. But the curtains didn’t look too ornate or fussy for the house. They had been drawn back so light filled the room and made the house look even larger—yet homier at the same time. He wasn’t sure if he would ever be able to describe the beauty and warmth of the house he now stood in. And while there were modern conveniences that he could spot throughout the home, there were still historical edges on every piece he could see. His mother would probably weep at the beauty of it and want to sit down and hear about every single inch of history and architecture. Her favorite shows were always the house-building and selling shows where they went back and restored some of the older homes rather than just carrying out what might not work now for modern convenience. He had a feeling the woman at his side and his mother would probably agree on a lot. And because he knew that his mom was a force to be reckoned with, he was a little afraid to ever introduce them beyond how they might know each other already. It was a small town, after all.

“Your home is beautiful.”

She beamed at him and looked even younger than she already did. Seriously, he had no idea how she could look so radiant for someone who had to be in her late seventies, if not older. Either a plastic surgeon with the skills of a god had gotten to her face, or she had won the lottery with care and genetics.

He could still see laugh lines around her eyes and mouth, however. And for that, he knew he’d fallen just a bit more in love with Ms. Pearl—not that he’d ever tell her that.

“Thank you,” she said, her smile reaching her eyes even more. “I find it beautiful, as well. Would you like a tour before we get started? I’m sure I can tell you a few things about the place, though my lawyer has every single inch detailed down to the bones if you would like that information. I find that a little too dry for my taste. I’m sure as I give you the tour, however, we can talk about the logistics of exactly what the two of us will be doing for the time being.” She took his outstretched arm and patted his bicep.

She didn’t make her words sound sexual at all, but he could hear an almost seductive quality to her tone. It isn’t sexual, he thought again, It was more that the woman was all warmth and smoothness like whiskey, wrapped around someone who knew exactly who she was, what she wanted, and how to get it. And he admired the hell out of her for it.

“I think that can be arranged. I would love a tour. You know, the town has legends written and spread about this house and the woman who inhabits it. The fact that you keep the mystery well and true has only aided that myth.”

She tossed her head back and laughed. “You know, I do spend my mornings with my cup of tea figuring out exactly how to weave my web of mystery and lies so the town has something to talk about. I’m a regular femme fatale.”

“So I hear.” He said it so deadpan that Ms. Pearl stopped right in her tracks and gave him a look.

“You know, I’m interested in hearing what kinds of stories you’ve already heard about me, Fox. I’m sure I have even juicier tales for you. Alas, I am merely an old woman locked in a dusty mansion, wandering about in my nightgown, scaring the small children of this quaint Pennsylvania town.”

Fox couldn’t help the snort that escaped. “Unless you play that role on Halloween, I’m pretty sure nobody except the weirdest members of our town would actually believe that if I wrote it.”

She shrugged as if she hadn’t a care in the world. “Quite true. And I only played the woman in the attic once. Perhaps I will again this year just to see who screams at my mere presence. Now, let me see, what stories have you heard? Is it the time I danced for the king? What king? That will have to wait until we get to know each other a little bit more. Or was it the time I ran naked down the strip, the mob on my tail—so to speak—as I held two bags of money with large dollar signs printed on the front? At the time, I did not have the Clyde to my Bonnie, unless you’re hearing the wrong stories.”

Fox shook his head, knowing she was playing with him, trying to figure out exactly how this interview would go. He didn’t mind that, and was well prepared. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t had tough interviews before.

“I’m guessing only part of that is true, even though I have heard both of those stories. When our town isn’t drinking whiskey and discussing the days of Prohibition and everything that came with that, they’re pretty much discussing exactly what happens with you. Or rather, what happened with you.”

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