In Reach by Pamela Carter Joern

Author:Pamela Carter Joern [Joern, Pamela Carter]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: FIC029000 Fiction / Short Stories (single Author)
ISBN: 9780803256774
Publisher: UNP - Bison Books
Published: 2014-06-03T16:00:00+00:00

Elsie’s piano is wedged in a tiny room off the living area of their apartment. With the door shut, it feels like a closet and smells like old work boots, but on this Tuesday, Elsie closes the door and leaves Banjo on the other side, picking his teeth and spooning beans from a can. Elsie moves her bulk around, shifts piles of sheet music from the piano bench to the floor, throws a red corduroy jacket off a broke-down chair. After a few minutes, there’s a cleared space for Annie to sit down.

Annie opens the music to Lady of Spain. She romps through the first line, pounds hard and fast, her breath quickening, and Elsie imagines ruffled skirts and heaving bosoms and a man’s penetrating gaze while a familiar shiver of alarm runs up her spine. What’s to become of this girl? She needs music like other people need air. She’ll have to learn to bridle that passion, the way women do, before it propels her into danger, before she launches a revolution from which she can’t return. She should stop giving this girl Latin pieces. Why, for God’s sake, was she looking for Tarantella? Learn to play pianissimo, she should say. But she closes her eyes and rides on the tumultuous waves, through the second chorus and to the end of I adore you before somebody pounds on the piano room door.

“Elsie, you in there?”

“Now, who in blazes is that?” Elsie mutters under her breath. She heaves herself out of the rickety chair and opens the door. Sheriff Pinski stands with his hands on his hips, brown uniform, sweat rings large under his arms.

“Bob? What are you doing here?”

“Best you come on out here.” The sheriff nods his head at Annie. “You, too, Annie. Best you call your parents. Tell them to come and get you early.”

“Now hold on there, Bob.” Elsie hasn’t been paid yet. What’s the matter with everybody? “Her folks don’t have a phone.” With one hand, Elsie motions Annie back to her seat on the piano bench.

Bob speaks softly to Elsie. “Well. I expect this is going to be all over town anyway.” The sheriff picks at the plastic liner on his shirt pocket. He studies his shoelaces. Elsie worries about Sheriff Bob because his daddy and his granddaddy both shot themselves, and who knows but maybe those things run in families. He seems nervous now, and Elsie’s glad he doesn’t have his finger on the trigger of a gun. “I got to take Banjo here in for a few questions. That’s all there is to it.”

“Questions,” Elsie repeats. “What for?”

Banjo shifts in his seat like he’s plunked down on a cocklebur. “What’s going on?” Banjo asks.

“We found Floyd Markham’s body down by the river.” The sheriff gazes over their heads, trying to find some place to put his eyes that offers a more restful picture.

“He’d been shot.” The sheriff takes his fingers off the plastic pouch and rubs them on the front of his shirt.

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