macho, but everything a girl could need is here, except for male companionship—a six-burner professional Viking range to boil water, fully equipped gym, spa and sauna, plasma screens in every room. The views are pretty great, taking in a ten-acre pond and, beyond that, a pasture spreading out to the base of a wooded ridge. I've been out walking every day, but yesterday Tom called and told me not to go in the woods 'cause it's deer season. And to wear orange if I take out the garbage or whatever, which I thought was sweet. When I told him I didn't look good in orange, he got all Big Daddy on me. “Alison, this is for your own protection,” he said in that voice he sometimes uses to lecture journalists. Any minute I expected to hear him say, What the American people want is for Alison Poole to start wearing protective orange clothing during deer season. “I'm kidding,” I said. “Joke.” Poor Tom was working on about two hours of sleep a night, plus yesterday this fucking political blog called Below the Beltway printed my name: Who, exactly, is Alison Poole? And why doesn't the Phipps campaign want to talk about her? Jerk-offs.
After two days of deer season, even yoga can't quite quell the restlessness. I'm getting a little stir-crazy, and I'm down to my last cup of yogurt, so I decide to go into town for groceries. It's almost a mile from the cabin out to the paved road. I have to stop short of the gate, get out, open the padlock and unchain the gate, get back in the car, drive through and lock it all up again. On the front of the gate is a big PRIVATE PROPERTY, NO TRESPASSING sign. A really determined snoop could just climb over the fence and walk down to the cabin, but he'd be trespassing and I could call the local sheriff, who's been instructed by Skeet Jackson, the owner of the property, to keep an eye on me. From the gate, I drive the three miles into town, if that's the word for a grocery store, a post office, a firehouse and a BP station.
I wave to Cassie, the checkout lady at the Piggly Wiggly, who's my new best friend since last week. “Your boyfriend come by looking for you this morning,” she says, causing me to crash my shopping cart into a stack of rock-salt bags. For just a second I'm all excited, and then I think, Wait a minute. How does she know who my boyfriend is? If she does, she shouldn't. And why would he be looking for me, when he knows exactly where I am?
“Boyfriend? I don't have a boyfriend,” I say, trying to sound non chalant.
“Pretty girl like you? This fella was awful cute.”
“What'd he say?” I ask. “What makes you think he was looking for me?”
“Showed me your picture.”
I'm like, “What'd you tell him?”
“I didn't say nothing,” she says. “I figured if you wanted him to know where you was, you would of told him. Whatever's going on between you-all, it ain't none of my business.”
“Did he tell you his name?”
She shook her head. “Said you was friends. Asked me how to get to the Jackson place.”
I say, “You didn't tell him, did you?”
“Like I said,” she says, “I don't stick my nose in other people's business. I said I wasn't rightly sure where it was. But I saw him talking to Pete over to the BP. I don't know, like I said, it ain't none of my business, but he seemed awful nice. Whatever he done, I'm sure he's sorry.”
“Thanks, sweetie,” I say. “I appreciate you covering for me.”
“You don't have any reason to be scared of him, do you?”
“No, I don't think so,” I say. “Not physically anyway.”
“Tell you what. You take my mobile number,” she says, scrawling it on an old receipt. “You can call me anytime. If he gives you any trouble, my husband'll straighten him right out. Jake's already got his buck, so now he's just sitting around on his big ol' butt waiting for turkey season.”
So I give her a hug and pick up a few groceries and think about who could have followed me here. Back by the freezer case I call Tom, but he's not picking up. Then I call Rob, who says Tom's speaking to a Rotary Club. I fill him in on the situation here. He thinks it might be somebody from one of