“She’s my friend too, Arch,” I said. “She’s been my friend almost as long as you.”

“Are you in love with all of your friends?” he asked.

“Not all of them,” I said.

A police siren rang out from the street below. The precinct office stood across from the building.

“I’m not angry,” he said. “Vanessa needed someone. I had to work. She needed a distraction. It seemed safe. Who better than you?”

I had not thought of what I’d been doing as a distraction, for either of us. It certainly wasn’t meant as a favor to Arch.

A plane passed overhead. I drew in a deep breath.

“Come work for me, Charlie,” he said. “I need you.”

“What about Nick?” I said.

“Nick is moving on.”

“Where to?”

“Atlanta.”

“To do what?”

“There’s a tight governor’s race down there. They offered him a lot of money.”

“Your doing?”

“I helped.”

“And how does Nick feel about that?”

“He’ll warm up to it. Atlanta’s a great place to be.”

“Queer capital of the South,” I said.

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“I just mean, maybe Atlanta’s a better place than Nashville for Nick.”

“Be careful, bud,” he said. “I mean it.”

“You too,” I said. “I mean it.”

“So you’ll do it?”

A tense quiet set in. Arch leaned against the wall in his shirtsleeves, arms crossed, his expression calm.

“Yeah,” I said. “I’ll do it.”

Arch smiled. “This is going to work out perfectly,” he said. “You’ll see.”

fourteen

Thus began my short, ignoble career in politics. It was really just for a few months, or so I told myself. I pushed back the delivery dates for the portraits I had been commissioned to do and bought a new wardrobe—with Arch’s credit card, naturally. Brooks Brothers suits and ties and shirts, polos and chinos, loafers, and boat shoes. I cut my hair and started shaving every day. Arch rose early and went to bed late and expected me beside him almost every minute he was awake. In the morning, while he worked out in the gym at the house or whatever hotel we happened to be staying in, he took a briefing on the day’s schedule from Bart Walsh, who’d taken over Nick Averett’s role. Afterward, we might meet over breakfast with a donor or a local honcho of one sort or the other, followed by a photo-op visit to a school or church or community center. When we didn’t have a lunch meeting, we ate in the back of a car on the way to yet another venue for handshaking and bullshitting. In the evenings, after we’d made our last pilgrimage to kiss rings and babies, and Arch had delivered his final recitation of the stump speech, we’d head back home or to the hotel and huddle up for debate prep.