Free Music of Ghosts by Sallie Bissell Page B

that much he remembered from his high school football days. If you keep moving, you’ve got a chance, Coach Peebles had told them. Once you’re down, it’s all over.
    â€œWell, if you need anything, just let me know.” Squeezing his arm, she whispered, “We’re all so sorry about your daughter, sir. If there’s anything we can do to help … ”
    He nodded his thanks. Her words rang strange in a terminology new to him. He’d had people express sorrow over a bill that foundered in the legislature, or that his first wife had died much too early from cancer. But sorry about his daughter? His Tootie? The thought of it made him sick to his stomach. He turned away from the woman and strode over to a huge map of North Carolina that covered one wall. Keep moving , he reminded himself. Keep moving and you’ve got a chance .
    He was staring at the map, thinking how the blue highway lines resembled the veins on the back of his hands when his wife emerged from the bathroom.
    â€œCarlisle?”
    He turned, looked at her. For a horrible moment, he couldn’t think of her name. Was it Tootie? Marian? No, those were the women he loved. This woman was something else. She began walking toward him, preceded by the scent of coconut suntan lotion. He struggled hard, desperate for her name, then finally, blessedly, it came to him. Pauline.
    She came over and put her arm around his waist. “Honey, are you all okay? You look awfully pale.”
    â€œI’m okay.” Christ, how did she think you were supposed to look when some hayseed sheriff called to tell you that your daughter was the victim of a homicide?
    She looked up at him, her nose slightly sunburned, a tiny dot of red lipstick on her front tooth. “Do you want anything to eat?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œHow about a drink? They can get you something from the airport bar.”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œThen why don’t you take one of my pills.” She started digging in her purse. “It’ll help you relax … ”
    â€œBecause I don’t want to relax!” He jerked away from her, hating her touch, hating her smell, hating her for everything she was not. Not his Marian. Not his Lisa. Not anybody, really, except a marginally acceptable fuck. “I want to find out what the hell is going on!”
    â€œI understand, sweetheart,” she said, talking to him as if he were a two-year-old. “I’ll be right over here if you need me.” Smiling at the young blonde officer behind the flight desk, she retreated to the other side of the waiting room, her sandals hitting the floor in a strident tattoo.
    He turned back to the map, staring at the county lines, the cities, the little airplane symbols that indicated where a state chopper could land. Thirty years ago, this state had been his—a fiefdom that stretched from the Atlantic Ocean to the Appalachian Trail, with loyal lieutenants from Manteo to Murphy. He’d been the first governor since Zeb Vance to do anything more than wave at the western counties on his way to Raleigh.
    â€œYou’re wasting precious time, going over there,” his old mentor, Judd Thompson warned. “Everybody knows the state ends at Charlotte.”
    But he knew if he carried the western mountains along with his native eastern shore, then the fancy fat middle—the Charlotte bankers and the Raleigh pricks—could go fuck themselves.
    So he’d gone and stumped at their Baptist churches, feasted on their fried chicken, winced as he sipped their moonshine. And on election day, the folks of Watauga and Buncombe and Pisgah counties pulled him through.
    â€œLittle Pisgah,” he whispered, tracing the outline of the county with a liver-spotted finger. Of all of them, he’d liked Pisgah best. Half of the residents were fair-skinned Scots, the other half dark-eyed Cherokees. Most were poor, only a few well educated, but they weren’t stupid.