Big Lies in a Small Town Read online

  But all that came to an end late that afternoon as she was leaving the library.

  She’d walked out the front door and was heading down the steps just as a woman began climbing them. The woman’s hair was blond beneath a blue scarf and she was flanked by sullen identical twin daughters. The girls were about eleven or twelve years old with curly strawberry-blond hair. Anna smiled at the threesome, but the woman suddenly grabbed her arm.

  “You’re that artist from New Jersey, right?” she asked.

  “Yes,” Anna said, still smiling, though the woman wasn’t smiling back and her fingers dug into the woolen sleeve of Anna’s coat.

  “I’m Mrs. Drapple,” the woman said. “My husband should be the one paintin’ that mural!”

  “Oh!” Anna said, taken aback.

  “You’re nothing but an amateur,” Mrs. Drapple went on. “Your drawin’ in that Life magazine looks like a ten-year-old did it. My girls could have did it!”

  Anna twisted her arm from the woman’s grasp, stunned. She wasn’t sure what to say. She wasn’t going to apologize for winning the competition. Why should she?

  One of the woman’s daughters spoke up before Anna could.

  “Mama,” she said, trying to tug her mother toward the library door. “Let’s just go inside.” But the woman stood rooted to the steps.

  “I wish everyone who entered could have won,” Anna said, lamely. “But I won the competition, fair and square. The entries were anonymous and—”

  “Well, they shouldn’t have been anonymous!” The woman yelled so loudly that a man walking down the street turned to look at them. “The people runnin’ it should have taken experience into account, not to mention knowin’ somethin’ about Edenton! And they should have taken into account that a man would have a family to support. We could have used the money.”

  The twin who hadn’t spoken studied Anna hard from beneath her furrowed brow, but the other one tugged again at her mother’s arm. “Mama,” she said, “it’s freezing out here!”

  “I’m very sorry,” Anna said, annoyed at herself as the apology left her lips. She had nothing to apologize for. “It’s out of my control,” she added. She moved past the threesome and down the steps, clutching the railing, her knees shaking.

  She walked briskly away from the library, looking over her shoulder every minute or so as if worried that Mrs. Drapple might be following her, ready to grab her arm again. Ready to sling more insults. Anna felt as though she’d stolen something from someone. She pictured Martin Drapple, whom she hoped never to meet, in a deep depression, penniless, struggling to figure out how to support his family. It wasn’t her fault, and yet she felt guilty. She was an interloper. An outsider. A female. Had she taken food from those little girls’ mouths?

  Chapter 19

  MORGAN

  June 18, 2018

  It was dusk when I reached Lisa’s house after my third full—very full—day of cleaning the mural. Sharp pains pierced my shoulder blades and I thought I could already see and feel a new firmness in my right bicep. I let myself in the front door with the key Lisa had given me, pulled out my earbuds, and headed through the living room for the kitchen. I was starving. I’d again skipped going out with the guys in favor of working on the mural. Safer and smarter that way. While I was cleaning the mural today, Adam began a conversation about music with me. I could tell he was just trying to find something to talk to me about. I felt torn around him. He was my type, or at least the type I used to be drawn to. Very male, very good-looking. The sane part of me said I should run in the opposite direction, and I was glad when Wyatt came into the foyer to drag Adam back to work.

  As I neared the rear of the living room, I could see through the hallway into the kitchen. Lisa sat at the table, her back to me, a glass of wine at her side. Was she on the phone, as usual? Something in her posture—the way she was a little slumped, her shoulders drooping—caused me to stop. Should I go in?

  She must have heard me. She suddenly spun around, getting to her feet so quickly she knocked over the wine. The glass rolled from the table and fell to the tiled floor, splintering into pieces.

  “You surprised me!” she said, hand to her throat, and I knew she’d been crying. Her eyes were red, her cheeks damp. I caught a glimpse of a photograph on her phone before the screen suddenly went dark: Lisa, her arm around an elderly man. Her father, no doubt. I was touched by her grief.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. I grabbed a handful of paper towels and began cleaning up the mess. The air filled with the scent of wine. Lisa seemed almost paralyzed. She stood in the middle of the floor, not trying to help, not doing anything, really. She just watched me work. “Move back,” I said. “Let me get the glass up.”

  Lisa backed up woodenly against the far counter, her hand still at her throat, while I picked up the shards of glass with the damp paper towel.

  “Thank you,” she said quietly.

  “I think I got it all,” I said, straightening up. A pinprick of pain pierced my right shoulder. I threw the paper towels and shards of glass into the trash and washed my hands, then turned to face Lisa, who looked away from me, one hand wiping away tears on the side of her face. She wasn’t wearing her Michelle Obama hair. Her natural hair, with its short curls and coils in a halo around her face, made her look younger and more vulnerable, and for the first time since meeting her, I felt sympathy for her. For the first time since meeting her, I felt as though I was the one with the power.

  “Are you okay?” I asked. The words came out more gently than I’d anticipated.

  Lisa drew in a shaky breath. “Just…” She glanced at her phone, as if remembering the picture of her father, but she didn’t mention it. “Nothing’s going very smoothly,” she said instead. She moved to the cabinet over the dishwasher and took out another glass, then poured herself more wine. She looked at me. “I’m sorry,” she said. “It’s rude of me to drink in front of you.”

  “It’s fine,” I said. It was.

  “Are you hungry?” she asked.

  “I am.” I walked to the refrigerator, opened it, and took out a yogurt. I was more interested in learning what was going on with Lisa than I was in fixing myself something to eat. I got a spoon and sat down at the table across from her. “What’s not going smoothly?” I asked.

  Lisa drew in a breath. “One of Judith Shipley’s paintings and two of Ernie Barnes’s that my father loaned out to another gallery have been delayed and might not make it here in time for the opening,” she said. “And the roofer had an accident and is now backed up. The workers lost half a day when they built your stretcher … which I know is not your fault,” she added hurriedly. “But still, they’re behind. And you’re…” She offered me a sad, apologetic smile. “You’re a novice in an unfair position. I know that. I want you to know that I understand that. That my expectations of you are completely unreasonable. We’re both in an untenable position. And we both stand to lose so much.”

  I was stunned by her sudden show of empathy. “Then … why are you killing yourself to get everything done by some arbitrary date?” I asked. “Why don’t you just change the date of the gallery opening? It’s a pretty simple solution.”

  Lisa looked away then let out a long, frustrated-sounding breath. She was not at all the woman I’d come to know over the last few days. She took a swallow of her wine, and her hand trembled when she set the glass down again. “I can’t,” she said simply.

  “What is so magical about August fifth?” I asked. “If it’s causing you this much … agony, why not just say, hey, we need to move it to September fifth. Or October, even. I could really use the extra time, believe me.”

  Lisa looked across the table at me. “My father put several conditions in his will.” She held up a hand as if to prevent an argument. “Don’t get me wrong,” she said. “He was a kind man. A very loving man. I always felt his love. Always. But he was also very controlling. And I guess his will was his final attempt to control me.”

  “I d
on’t get it,” I said.

  “He had the idea for the gallery for years and years—it was his dream—but when he neared the end … well, he thought if he left it in my hands, it would fizzle out. And he was probably right. I’m not an artist.” She shrugged. “I’m not even particularly interested in art, except for my father’s, which I love. But the gallery is not my dream. It was his. I guess he figured he had to come up with a way to force my hand. To make the gallery happen. So he tied my inheritance—specifically, this house—to the opening date of the gallery. Andrea Fuller—remember her? The attorney who came with me to the prison?”

  I nodded.

  “Andrea’s his executrix. If the gallery isn’t open by August fifth—with the mural restored and hanging in the foyer—the house will be donated to some indigent-artist fund or whatever.” Lisa waved a dismissive hand through the air. Then she swallowed hard, studying the wine in her glass. When she looked up at me again, tears brimmed in her eyes. “I can’t lose this house, Morgan.”

  I frowned. “You can put something like that in a will?” I asked.

  Lisa nodded. “It’s a conditional will. You can’t force someone to do something … he can’t force you to restore that mural, for example … but he can tie your doing so to his bequest. And he’s tied you and me together, for some bizarre reason known only to him, and he’s not around to explain it. I can’t open the gallery until you finish the mural and if I don’t open the gallery by August fifth, I lose the thing that’s most precious to me.”

  “Wow,” I said. “That sounds … extreme. Why didn’t he at least give you more time?”

  “I told you he was manipulative,” Lisa said. “I suppose he figured the more time he gave me, the more I’d dawdle. And don’t get me wrong. He’s not leaving me destitute. He left me cash—I won’t starve—but it’s the house I want.” She gave a sorrowful shake of her head. “He had faith that I’d move heaven and earth to keep it.”

  “Still, it’s only a house, Lisa,” I said. “I mean, I get that it’s beautiful and everything, but if he left you some money, too, couldn’t you just buy another? You’re only one person. You don’t need this much space.”

  “You don’t get it,” she snapped, the prickly, dry-eyed woman I’d come to know suddenly back. “Don’t you have strong feelings about your childhood home?”

  I pressed my lips together, remembering the chaos of the house I grew up in. The shouting and fighting between my parents, while I hid out in my room. The haphazard meals, bags of cheap burgers or fried chicken tossed on the kitchen table for dinner most nights. Staying home alone and scared most of the night when I was as young as five or six because they were out drinking. Spending as much time as I could at my friends’ houses, afraid to go home to my unpredictable parents. I’d felt safer and more cared about in my friends’ homes than I had in the house where my parents lived.

  I thought of the height chart in Lisa’s pantry, the handprints on the front walk, and my heart contracted with envy.

  “I never really felt attached to the house I grew up in,” I said, not wanting to get into all of my crazy history with her.

  “Then you can’t understand why this house is so precious to me.” She took another swallow of wine. “Do you know how rare it was for a black family to have a house like this when Daddy bought it in 1980?” she asked. “Or even today, for that matter? How hard my father had to work to make that happen? And I came up here—was raised here. I had a swing hanging from that big oak out back.” She motioned through the window toward the dark backyard. “In the summers, I sat reading in the corner of Daddy’s studio, while he created glorious art that now hangs in museums. This is the house where I did my homework, and baked with my mama, and got picked up for my first date. That garden out front? I still think of it as my mother’s garden. Bulbs she planted when I was a kid are still blooming in it. I don’t ever want to lose this house, and my father knew I’d do everything in my power to hold on to it. And I will hang on to it.” Her eyes blazed. “It won’t be easy with people taking their good ol’ time getting work to me, and the roofer dragging his feet, and this being my busy time at the office. You, though.” She gave me a steely-eyed look. “You’re my real loose end. I can’t control you. You’re the only person who can control you. You can cost me this house, not that I think you have a reason to care. But at least you should care about yourself. About the fact that this job got you out of prison and that it can make you a lot of money.”

  I thought of the meticulous cleaning I’d done the last three days. “I’m doing my best, but from everything I’ve read, a job like this usually takes weeks or even months of work by a whole team of trained people.”

  “I’ll tell you the truth, Morgan.” The steely, dry-eyed Lisa was back. “I don’t care how it turns out. It’s so weird.” She shuddered. “That bloody ax? Just weird. All I care about is that it’s clean and has those bare spots covered over. No one’s going to be looking at it close-up.”

  I felt a surprising flash of anger. The sympathy I’d had for Lisa only moments ago began to evaporate. She was nothing more than a wealthy woman so desperate to keep her family home that she’d ruin a piece of valuable art to hold on to it.

  “I don’t think I can go into it with that attitude,” I said. “I don’t want to do a half-assed job.”

  “Well, whatever your attitude,” Lisa said, “you have to finish the mural in time for the opening. All right? That, I’m afraid, is the bottom line.”

  Chapter 20

  ANNA

  January 4, 1940

  Anna, who had been brought up on the New York Times, had to admit that the small, provincial Chowan Herald fascinated her. She read the paper that morning while sitting in Miss Myrtle’s little sunroom, which had a view of the backyard, the trees bare, the birdbath water crusty with ice. Billy Calhoun, the paper’s editor whom Anna had met at lunch and who didn’t want to be “above his raisin’,” had written a beautifully crafted wrap-up of 1939 for the paper’s front page. We live in a safe haven, free from the scorching breath of war, he’d written. Anna nodded in agreement. Americans were very lucky, she thought, when so much of the world was not. She needed to remember that and count her blessings.

  Then she read that Edenton’s first white baby of the new year had been born at 2:15 a.m. on January 1. She wondered if a colored baby had come earlier, but if so, the paper didn’t mention it. And then she learned how to rid cattle of lice and where she could buy hog-killing supplies.

  Her mother would have gotten such a kick out of this paper.

  From the time Anna was or twelve or thirteen, she and her mother would devour the Times over coffee every morning—at least during her mother’s lively spells. They’d read the news to one another, argue mildly over politics, and daydream about attending shows on Broadway. More than anything, Anna missed those mornings with her mother, though if she was being honest with herself, she had to admit that her mother hadn’t gotten up early enough to make it to the breakfast table since late summer. Still, as Anna read the Herald, she remembered those mornings with her mother with a wistful tenderness.

  What would her mother have thought of the Bible lesson that was always on the front page of the Chowan Herald? Anna couldn’t imagine seeing a Bible lesson on the front page of a Northern paper. Miss Myrtle was after Anna to go to her Baptist church with her, but so far, she’d resisted, although she was beginning to think maybe she should go. Church was important here, and she wanted to stay on people’s good side. She and her mother had been Episcopalian, but they only went to church on Christmas and Easter, and sometimes not even then, depending on her mother’s mood. These days, though, Anna was fed up with God. Why had he made her mother’s life so unbearable? Why had he taken such a wonderful woman so young? She hadn’t forgiven him for that and wasn’t sure she could sit through a service that praised him.

  She was lifted out of her thoughts by the sound of footsteps heading toward the sunroom, and in a moment, Miss
Myrtle appeared in the doorway.

  “You have a gentleman caller, dear,” she said. “He’s waiting for you in the front yard.”

  A gentleman caller? The only gentlemen she knew were the so-called movers and shakers in town. She knew they were anxious to see what she’d come up with for the mural, but she didn’t think Miss Myrtle would leave one of them standing out in the cold, despite her house rules.

  “Who is it?” she asked, setting down the paper and getting to her feet.

  “You’ll see,” she said cryptically.

  Anna smoothed her skirt and headed through the living room toward the foyer. She opened the front door to see a man leaning against the lamppost, smoking a pipe. He wore a brown suede jacket with a leather collar and a rust-colored woolen scarf. He was a good-looking older man, perhaps late thirties or early forties, and when he tipped his brown cap to her, she was startled by his mop of thick red hair. She didn’t think she’d ever seen such a vivid color on a man’s head. She stepped onto the porch and he smiled up at her. He had a dramatically crooked front tooth, but even that couldn’t detract from his handsomeness.

  “I’m Martin Drapple,” he said, standing up straight now. “And you’re the little lady who stole the mural competition out from under me.” He never did lose his smile, but Anna feared she lost hers rather quickly.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. She remembered his wife’s fingertips digging into her arm through her coat sleeve. “I know that must have been terribly disappointing.”

  “I’m only teasing you.” He grinned, slipping his pipe into his jacket pocket. “I’m actually here to apologize for my wife’s behavior. She told me about bumping into you at the library. I’m afraid she had a frightful headache and took it out on you.”

  “Oh, that’s all right,” she said. Her mind scrambled to connect that nasty woman to this charming man. “I’m sorry she wasn’t feeling well.”

  “So,” he said, dragging out the word, “have you ever painted a mural before?”