Big Lies in a Small Town (ARC)

by Diane Chamberlain

  “What’s so funny?” he asked.

  “You actually carry a handkerchief?” I asked. “I think you’re the only guy I know under fifty who carries a handkerchief.” I blotted my eyes, and when I handed the handkerchief back to him, he was smiling at me.

  “Aren’t you glad I had it?” he asked.

  I nodded. Rubbed my nose with the back of my hand. “You know,” I said, “Nathan’s a kid. Maybe he shouldn’t get to make this sort of decision on his own.”

  Oliver shrugged. “It’s not a big deal,” he said. “I get him for Christmas this year. He and I can take a trip somewhere then. It was just the … the kick in the gut that got to me.”

  Impulsively, I reached out to hug him. “I would have given anything to have a dad like you,” I said softly, my lips against his shoulder. The muscle and bone of his back felt good beneath my arms. I hadn’t touched another person this way in well over a year.

  He squeezed me gently, then let go. “Thanks for putting everything into perspective for me,” he said. “And I’m sorry for what you dealt with as a kid. You act tough, but you’re pretty soft inside, aren’t you.” It wasn’t a question.

  “I’m fine,” I said, and at that moment, I did feel fine. Fine, and something more. I was standing so close to Oliver, and I had a sudden urge to run the back of my finger over his cheek, the place that was always a little pink. When I first met him, I thought those pink cheeks gave him a boyish look. This close, though, I could see the gray shadow of his beard beneath his skin, the cut of his cheekbones, the sharp angle of his chin. He seemed anything but boyish at that moment, and as I turned back to my mural, I was surprised by a sudden pang of desire.

  Chapter 36

  ANNA

  February 1, 1940

  Today was the day they would stretch the canvas, the chore more intimidating than Anna had imagined. Fortunately, she thought, she had lots of help. Jesse and Peter, of course. Then Pauline arrived with Karl in tow, dressed in his police uniform and carrying a toolbox that she knew would prove invaluable. He looked so handsome. Anna hated to see him get the knees of his pants covered in sawdust from the warehouse floor, but he got down on the filthy floor, seemingly without a care. Anna felt some envy of Pauline as she watched Karl set to work with her young helpers. Someday she’d find a man with whom she wanted to build a future, she thought. For now, though, she was married to her mural.

  Pauline wore her usual skirt, blouse, and hose, so Anna knew she wouldn’t be much help with the stretcher, but she cheered everyone on from one of the chairs near the paint table. Anna, Karl, and the boys ignored the cold of the concrete floor as they knelt and sat and twisted to tack the canvas to the frame. Anna used the hammer a bit, but was careful not to place the tacks too deeply. The tacks would have to be removed when the mural was complete, and the thought of digging those tacks out again with the claw end of the hammer wasn’t pleasant.

  They were about a third of the way through the task when a knock came on the warehouse door.

  “Come in!” Anna called from the floor, but the door was already opening and in a second, Martin Drapple stood grinning inside the warehouse.

  “How can I help?” he asked.

  Anna sat back on her heels, frankly relieved to see him. She could tell that even with four of them, it was going to be a chore to properly get the canvas on the stretcher. Besides, Martin would know what he was doing better than any of them. She thought it was very generous of him to come.

  “Thank you!” she called across the space, her voice echoing against the walls and the beams of the ceiling. “Do you know Pauline and Karl, Martin?”

  Martin walked toward them, nodding at Pauline as he passed her. “Nice to meet you,” he said. “And I’ve met Karl a time or two.”

  Karl looked up from the stretcher. “Grab a handful of tacks,” he said in greeting, and Anna thought there was an uncharacteristic cool edge to his voice. She wondered exactly where the men had met “a time or two.”

  An hour later, they had nearly finished tacking the canvas in place when the door to the warehouse suddenly flew open. Anna looked up to see Mrs. Drapple practically fly into the room, the skirt of her green dress whipping behind her. She wore a pink apron over the dress and no coat, although it had to be thirty-five degrees outside. Her blond hair was loose around her shoulders. Anna had only seen her once before—during that nasty altercation on the library steps, when Mrs. Drapple wore a scarf and gave her a terrible chewing-out. She’d looked old and haggard that day, but now, as she blew into the warehouse with high color in her cheeks and her hair wind tossed, she looked quite beautiful. And quite furious.

  “I thought I’d find you here!” she shouted at Martin. She stood near the stretcher, hands in fists at her sides, and all five of them looked up at her in shock. At least, Anna was in shock. She was also a little afraid. She felt protective of Jesse and Peter. They were her charges and she simply didn’t know what this deranged woman might do. She was aware of Pauline hopping off her chair and backing up against the warehouse wall, out of harm’s way. For no good reason whatsoever, Mrs. Drapple’s presence made Anna feel guilty, as though she had stolen Martin away from her. Or at least, she’d stolen his time from her and his family.

  Martin stood up from the floor where he’d been working with the canvas. He dusted off his hands and moved toward his wife, almost casually, as though he were not terribly concerned about her intrusion. “What are you doing here?” he asked, quite unkindly.

  “What do you think?” she yelled, arms flailing in the air. “I’m looking for my husband, who people tell me is spending his days with her!” She pointed in Anna’s direction. Anna’s hands froze on the stretcher.

  Martin laughed, and the sound was mocking. “I’m not spending my days with anyone,” he said. “I merely stopped in to help out with this canvas.”

  Karl got to his feet then, looking powerful in his uniform. Authoritarian. Anna was glad he was there. He took a step toward Martin and his wife. “How about the two of you go out—”

  “You lost out to her!” Mrs. Drapple jerked her chin toward Anna, who didn’t think the woman had heard a word Karl said. “You lost out to a girl artist. You ain’t near as good as a girl, that’s what the judges said, and—”

  “Shut up!” Martin bellowed, and Anna’s heart began to pound. “This isn’t your business!”

  Anna hadn’t seen this side of Martin. He’d been kind to her. Good-natured. She hadn’t known this angry side existed, but his wife had clearly hit his tender spot. How galling it must have been for him to lose the contest to a female!

  “How is this not my business when you’re here with this tramp instead of trying to find work to feed your children?” Mrs. Drapple yelled.

  He slapped her. Hard. It happened so fast that it took a moment for it to register in Anna’s mind. She heard Pauline gasp and knew her friend was as horrified as she was.

  “You fucking bastard!” Mrs. Drapple kicked Martin in the leg. He grabbed her by the shoulders and started shaking her, her hair flying through the air like a spray of golden glitter.

  “Hey, hey!” Karl said. He was next to them in a flash.

  Instinctively, Anna got to her feet and stood protectively in front of Jesse and Peter where they remained on the floor, stunned, their hands still on the stretcher.

  Karl’s air of authority seemed to wake the Drapples up from their personal battle, and Martin withdrew his hands from his wife’s shoulders.

  “Go home,” Karl said, his voice quiet but commanding. “Both of you. Go home. Make up.”

  Martin and his wife were already moving toward the door, red faced and shouting at one another as though no one else were there. Anna could imagine what their home life was like. Their poor daughters! Martin slammed the door behind them as they left, and a hush fell over the warehouse. All of their gazes were on the door, and Anna’s heart still pounded out of proportion to what had just happened.

  “Oh my,” Pauline
said finally as she dropped back into her chair.

  “She call you a tramp?” Jesse said, looking up at Anna from the floor with a sort of disbelief in his brown doe eyes. “She sure ’nough got that wrong.”

  She was touched by his defense. You’re a love, she thought, but did not say. “Sticks and stones may hurt my bones,” she said instead, not bothering to finish the rhyme.

  “Well.” Karl knelt at the side of the stretcher again, his complexion ruddy but his hands steady. “Let’s get back to work here.”

  Anna wanted to thank him. She considered giving him a quick hug, but thought it inappropriate. She felt that little bit of envy creeping in again. Pauline had a man who was not only handsome and kind, but protective as well. She shook off the emotions—or at least most of them—and lowered herself to the floor again.

  She thought about Mrs. Drapple’s words as she worked, how Martin had lost out to a girl. It was tough for a girl to even be considered an artist much less to win a competition against a man. She felt sorry for him, then, but she thought the sound of that slap was going to echo in the warehouse for a long, long time.

  Chapter 37

  MORGAN

  July 11, 2018

  Oliver and I were still at work at nine o’clock when Adam and Wyatt walked through the foyer to the front door. Wyatt stopped and looked over at me.

  “We’re gonna grab something at the pub down the street,” he said. “You two wanna come?”

  “No, thanks,” I said automatically, but Oliver stood up from his desk and stretched.

  “Let’s do it,” he said across the foyer to me. “I don’t know about you, but I’ve reached the point of diminishing returns here.”

  I hesitated. The idea of being with Oliver made me feel safe. He knew I couldn’t drink. He’d keep the guys from pressuring me. Not that I was worried I’d give in to them or be unable to handle them myself. I just didn’t want the hassle.

  “Okay,” I said, getting up from my chair. Only then did I realize how exhausted I felt, my back and shoulders seizing up on me. “Let me clean up my mess.”

  Oliver helped me carry my paints and brushes into the kitchen.

  “Will this be hard for you?” he asked quietly as we cleaned the brushes.

  I shook my head. “No.” I smiled at him. “I’ll be fine.” Would it be hard for me if I didn’t have the monitor on my ankle? I hoped not.

  We left the gallery, Oliver locking the door behind us. I walked between him and Wyatt. I was the first to speak. “I don’t drink,” I said, for Adam’s and Wyatt’s sake. Then I was annoyed with myself. Why did I say that? My whole life had been ruled by alcohol in one way or another. Was I going to let it continue to rule me, even in its absence? I felt Oliver’s hand gentle on my back, and I tried to interpret what that meant. You don’t need to explain yourself, I thought he was saying. Or maybe he just wanted to touch me. I liked that idea better.

  “That’s cool,” Wyatt said, like my admission was no big thing. “They got club soda and whatever.”

  “Yeah, but they’ve also got Moscow mules,” Adam said. “You at least have to have a sip of mine.”

  “No, thanks,” I said.

  “And mojitos,” Adam added.

  “You’re an asshole,” Wyatt said to Adam, who only laughed at the insult. He was an imbecile.

  Oliver dropped his hand from my back. I missed its warmth.

  The pub was crowded and smelled strongly of beer and lime and the mouthwatering scent of grilled beef. There were no empty tables but a few people were leaving the bar and we were able to grab four stools in a row. I made sure to sit next to Oliver, my safety blanket. I’d had nothing to eat since lunch and quickly ordered a burger, as did Oliver, and Adam and Wyatt ordered Moscow mules, which arrived in copper mugs. Oliver ordered a beer and I asked for a Coke. Above the bar, TV screens were showing a repeat of today’s World Cup game, which apparently had taken place in Moscow, and the crowd in the pub seemed to find that fact uproariously funny as they toasted with their copper mugs.

  The place was too loud for conversation, and that was fine with me. Adam and Wyatt seemed to know nearly everyone. I felt uncomfortable with the noise and the crush of people, many of them banging into us as they walked past. Even when I drank, it hadn’t been in a place like this. First of all, I’d been barely old enough to go to a bar by the time I was locked up, so when I drank, it was at parties with people I knew, people I’d cared about. People I would probably never, ever see again.

  I kept my gaze on the TV as I ate. Trey had loved soccer and I followed the game easily. I felt proud of myself: I was watching a game that made me think of Trey and it wasn’t bothering me, and although I was surrounded by booze, I was happy to simply enjoy my burger and Coke. It felt like a test, sitting there at the bar, and I was acing it.

  Oliver and I had a shouted discussion about what was happening on the soccer field—it was clear he wasn’t much of a fan—but we soon gave up and focused on our food. On my other side, a couple of women stood talking to Adam and Wyatt. I couldn’t understand a word they said, but I could easily make out the conversation’s flirtatious tone.

  I’d nearly finished my burger when there was a sudden escalation in the noise behind me. Then male voices, shouting. I looked at the TV. Nothing special happening in the game to merit the clamor.

  “Oh, shit, here they go again,” Adam shouted in my ear as he pointed over his shoulder.

  I turned around to see a couple of men exchanging blows directly behind us. I rolled my eyes. Idiots. The two women standing next to Adam and Wyatt started yelling, holding their drinks in the air to ward off any wild blows from the dueling men. I wanted to leave. I reached into my purse and took a twenty from my wallet. Placed it on the counter next to my plate.

  Oliver set his own bills on the bar and leaned toward my ear. “We’re out of here,” he said, starting to get up. Just then, the idiotic man closest to me tossed his drink at one of the others, and I jumped from my stool, trying to get my ankle and its monitor out of harm’s way. I moved too quickly. The stool toppled over behind me, catching my right ankle—the one without the monitor—in one of the rungs, twisting it hard enough to make me scream as I fell to the floor. The men never stopped fighting. They were so damn drunk. God, I hate drunks, I thought. Wyatt and Oliver were instantly next to me on the floor, helping me up, while Adam extracted my foot from the rungs of the stool. All three of them were talking to me, but I couldn’t hear a word they said for the cacophony.

  Once I was on my feet, Oliver took my hand and cleared a path for us through the sea of revelers, leaving Adam and Wyatt behind. I kept up with him, hoping against hope that my monitor was clean and dry.

  Outside, I felt a welcome blanket of thick midsummer-night air wrap around me, the craziness inside the bar nothing more than a hum now.

  “What a zoo!” Oliver said, and I could see him shake his head in the light from the streetlight. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine.” I bent over and lifted the leg of my jeans to see if my monitor was unscathed, but it was too dark to tell. Bending like that, though, I suddenly became aware of pain in my right ankle, the one that had been caught in the rungs of the barstool. It was just enough of a twinge to make me yelp.

  “What’s wrong?” Oliver asked.

  “Caught my ankle in the bar stool when I fell,” I said. “It’s okay, I think.”

  “Can you walk? We can head back to the gallery and I’ll give you a ride to Lisa’s.”

  I nodded and we started walking. We talked about how the inpainting was going on the mural and the challenge Oliver was having as he wrote the text for it, since Anna Dale’s reasons for adding her oddities to the painting were unknown. I could barely concentrate on the conversation, though. Every time I put my weight on my right foot, I winced, and by the time we reached the corner, I could go no farther.

  “Sorry,” I said, coming to a stop. I leaned against a lamppost, balancing on my left foot and righ
t toe. “I don’t think I can make it to the gallery.”

  He looked down as if he could see my ankle beneath the leg of my jeans. “Wait here and I’ll get my van.” He touched my bare arm. The softest, quickest of touches, yet it made my knees turn to mush and I held on to the lamppost to keep myself upright. And as I watched him break into a jog as he headed up the dark sidewalk toward the gallery, I felt the slightest twinge of danger. I’d given my heart to one man and look how that had turned out. Right now, I needed a friend more than a lover. I would have to keep that in mind.

  Chapter 38

  ANNA

  February 13–17, 1940

  Anna received a letter from the Section very quickly after she sent them the photographs of the cartoon. They seemed to be in as big a rush as she was. Mr. Rowan shared a few complaints about how fat one of her Tea Party ladies was (Miss Myrtle), and the too-slender build of her lumberman, as well as a few other minor things she could easily fix to his liking. She immediately set about trimming Miss Myrtle down and beefing Lumberman Frank up on the cartoon until she thought she’d reached perfection.

  Along with the letter from Mr. Rowan came Anna’s second payment, which she took immediately to the bank. She loved looking in her little bankbook to see the money she’d earned all on her own. Fortunately, she made it in and out of the bank without bumping into Theresa’s father and bank president Riley Wayman. That had been a relief.

  She spent most of the day carefully pricking the holes along the outline of her cartoon drawing with a dressmaker’s wheel she borrowed from Miss Myrtle, while Jesse and Peter watched in fascination until boredom set in and they resumed work on their own paintings. They had each painted twice over the canvases she’d given them, and she’d ordered them a couple more now that she had a little pocket money to spend. They would be able to start fresh once those canvases arrived, and keep the work they liked.

  Once she’d finished with the dressmaker’s wheel, the boys helped her tack the cartoon over the canvas. Trying to get it square was a challenge, but the three of them finally succeeded. A few townspeople stopped by to see how things were coming along, including Mayor Sykes and Mr. Fiering from the cotton mill. Anna was excited and nervous; tomorrow she would pounce the design directly onto the canvas, and once that was done, she’d finally start painting. She felt as though she’d been in Edenton for a year rather than two and a half months. She couldn’t wait to see her design come to life.