by Anna Castle
“Aha! So you were keeping it a secret!”
My pump clunked off and both of their heads swiveled toward me. I pretended to be absorbed in my own thoughts as I holstered the nozzle and walked past them to go inside for some coffee and an apple fritter. As I waited for my change, I heard another heated argument going on at the back of the chips aisle.
“It wasn’t me, Emmie! I don’t use that chat room for flirting. I don’t even go in that chat room. And even if I did, I sure as heck wouldn’t flirt with some clown named RandyMan!”
The moon must be in the marital conflict phase. Lucky for me I was married to my art.
I had to do a little two-step to push the truck door shut against the wind blowing across the parking lot at DeGroot’s Groceries. Good thing I’d thought to bring my big coat to the studio yesterday, with my warm gloves and stocking cap in its pockets.
DeGroot’s checkout girl, Lexie, usually greeted me with a cheery smile, but this morning she was engaged in a furious whispered fight with a girlfriend. They were both about seventeen with long hair ironed straight, wearing skinny jeans and drapey boyfriend sweaters. The air vibrated with the tension of a white-hot argument on Pause as I walked past the counter. I ventured a small wave and a “Howdy.” They smiled at me in that stiff way that said, We’re just waiting for you to leave so would you please hurry?
I got a cart and started cruising the aisles, picking out chips, Diet Cokes, cookies, frozen dinners, canned soup. Ty says I live on snacks. I say, why not? I eat fruit and drink V8. That’s like a salad in a can. Every time I neared the checkout end of an aisle, I caught another installment of the girls’ argument. Fury supercharged their whispers and their voices carried well into the condiments section.
“I can’t believe you forwarded him that email,” Lexie spat. “I trusted you, you bitch!”
“I am not either a bitch!” The other girl sounded close to tears. “I didn’t send it, Lexie, I swear!”
“Now he won’t even talk to me.”
“It wasn’t me. Jesus, what do I have to say? I bet it was Carey; I told you not to trust her.”
“I never sent it to Carey. I only sent it to you! I’m unfriending you, as of right now.”
The intensity of their anger raised my adrenaline levels a notch, but I wasn’t even curious about what was in that dire email. Seventeen-year-olds? Probably some goopy confession of lust for a guy’s eyelashes. Or worse: poetry.
I rounded an aisle and aimed for the produce section for a bag of Ruby Red grapefruits. The door swung open, letting in a blast of cold air and Greg Alexander, Long County’s Internet service provider. He’d connected the two computers in my studio to his new high-speed satellite service a few months ago and I was delighted with the results. It was as fast as anything I’d had in Austin.
“Good morning, young ladies,” Greg said. He spoke in that singsong voice that teachers use to elicit a group response.
The other girl mumbled something, but Lexie glared at him with such radioactive hostility it set me back a step. And I was tucked in between the onions and potatoes and thus well out of the line of fire.
Maybe he’d hit on her last time he was here. He was a pasty fellow with an apple belly. A cubicle guy; quite the contrast to the ranchers the town served. He had short hair, dark-rimmed glasses, a soul patch, and that know-it-all smirk that makes geeks so endearing. I kind of liked him, but he was nobody’s Teenage Dream.
I got the grapefruit and some apples and rolled my cart full of photographer fuel to the checkout counter. The unfriended girlfriend had gone. Lexie scanned my items with stony concentration, a deep line creasing her forehead. I wanted to say something comforting, but I couldn’t think what. For all I knew, this really was the worst day of her life.
Greg came up behind me as Lexie was weighing my fruit. He had a stack of boxes decorated with pictures of hot pink snack cakes zooming across a turquoise sky.
I glanced at my bags of chips and cookies and said, “Another health food nut, I see.”
He grinned at me. “I love these little beauties.”
To each their own. I was working my hands through the handles of my plastic shopping bags when Greg said, “Thank you, Mr. Alexander,” to Lexie in that same singsong voice. She turned away and fiddled with the register tape. Her back was so rigid it was practically vibrating and I was sure I saw steam rising from her ears.
Greg held the door for me on the way out. As it swung shut behind us, I said, “Aren’t we glad we’re not seventeen anymore?”
He lifted his upper lip, showing a row of small, even teeth. “Some people have to learn things the hard way.”
* * *
I went home to shower and change and drop off the groceries. Home was a three-bedroom bungalow a few blocks from the square. I didn’t need a whole separate house, but it was paid for and everyone said I should wait until the economy improved before trying to sell it. My plan was to use the money to build an apartment over my studio and become Lost Hat’s first downtown resident.
I went back to the studio fresh and clean and ready for a new day. While I was putting groceries away, my Mac bugled that I had mail. There were two messages in my inbox. The first one was from the contest manager confirming receipt of my entry and giving me an entry number. I crossed both fingers and did a little dance in my rolling chair. Now all I had to do was wait three months for the results to be announced.
The next message was from Mariposa Internet Services. Probably an ad for upgrades. I opened it and caught one glimpse and rocked back in my chair like I’d taken a punch to the gut. Under some lines of text was a copy of one of my figure studies, the front shot of Ty lying on his side. But my modesty drape had been edited out and replaced with an enormous erect penis.
It was hideous. It was frightening. Who would do such a thing?
I closed my eyes and commanded myself to breathe: in, out, in, out. Then I steeled myself for another look. The paste job was amateurish. The skin tones didn’t even match. But only a pro would notice details like that. My beautiful figure study had been turned into pornography.
Was the contest bogus? How could it be? I’d known about it for years. I’d gotten the website from an article in a reputable magazine and typed it in by hand.
I took another deep breath and tried to focus — calmly, calmly — on the text. The first two lines read:
You’re not the only one in this town that knows how to use Photoshop. How do you like my work?
Then came the hideous picture. I scrolled past it quickly, getting it all the way out of view. The message went on:
Didn’t you think it was a just a tad risky to put naked pictures of your boyfriend out there to be phished up by everybody and their bot? Or did you put your AMBITION before your INTEGRITY? Did you even ask Mr. Big Shot for permission first?
I don’t think so!!!
Now I’ve caught you in my net (that’s a pun: get it? Cuz I’m ROFLMAO) Unless you and your lover want to see my artwork all over the web tomorrow morning, you better come to my office today at 5:00 sharp to receive your penalty.
Your ever-vigilant Internet service provider,
Greg
The blood drained from my face. I felt icy cold. I sat back in my chair, staring at the screen, patting my cheeks and pressing my hands over my temples to squeeze out the dark panic that filled my brain.
What had I done? Heaven help me, what had I done?
I’d been so pleased with myself when I’d submitted those photographs. Penelope Trigg, Photographer Extraordinaire, setting out on the electronic highway to greatness. Oh, what a clever artista I was! What lovely photographs I had made! Why, these were sure to win! And what else could matter, beyond my art and my creative impulses?
Not Ty’s privacy, that’s for sure.
I’d barely listened to the voice of my conscience. I’d betrayed his trust as surely as if I had hung framed prints of his naked body at the front of my studio, where everyone in town could see the
m through the windows. I couldn’t fix this by taking it back. Even if I withdrew my entries from the contest, Greg had copies. He could do whatever he wanted with them. He could put them on YouTube, Facebook, Flickr. Nobody would care that they’d been doctored, if they even noticed.
Ty had built his reputation and his fortune in Internet security. That picture could ruin him. It could get him fired. At the very least, it would make him a laughingstock among his peers. He would be furious and rightly so. He’d never speak to me again.
What would this do to my portrait business? If this got out, nobody would trust me. That was my bread-and-butter, my life support. Without it, I’d have to leave. Move back to Austin and go back to work at the Monster Wedding Studio for thirty bucks an hour. Struggling to make my rent and spending half my time stuck in traffic.
I couldn’t let that happen. I had to get those pictures back. Somehow, anyhow: I had to get them back.
What did Greg mean by ‘my penalty?’ He must know I didn’t have much in the way of cash money. Maybe he’d settle for antiques. Something up there in those stacks of stuff that my aunt had left me must be worth a few bucks. 5:00 sharp. It was now 11:48. It would take five minutes to drive to Greg’s office. That gave me five hours and seven minutes to kill.
What to do in the meantime? Scream? Shred things?
Thank God Ty was gone again until Friday. Maybe I could get things resolved by then.
I deleted the evil message, but it didn’t help. I needed to do something physical. I needed to wring that weasel’s neck. I had liked him. How could I have been such a lousy judge of character?
I laid my head down on the worktable and let my tears drip onto the scarred old oak.
Chapter 4
A voice sang out from the kitchen. “Lunchtime!”
On Mondays, Tillie Espinoza Jernigan, my part-time assistant and new best friend, brings me leftovers from her family’s Mexican restaurant, Seven Sisters. Tillie’s mother and her grandfather run the show, with frequent assists from the rest of the clan. Since there really are seven sisters, the Espinozas constitute a good-sized clan.
I sat up and wiped my eyes with the cuff of my flannel shirt. Tillie must not know about the doctored photo or Greg’s nasty letter. I wasn’t ready for exposure. I needed time to figure things out in my own head first. “In a sec!”
I went down the back hall to the bathroom and splashed cold water on my face. It felt good. Restorative. I studied my face for signs of guilt and saw a little puffiness around my brown eyes, but that could be explained by the late night in the darkroom. My thick blond hair was stravaging out of its braid, but that was not unusual. I hadn’t sprouted horns or been branded on the forehead with a flaming cross.
There should’ve been something. Some mark of the beast I felt like.
I found Tillie stacking Styrofoam boxes and cups of salsa into the fridge and heisted a box from under her hands: pork tamalitos, my favorite. I perched on the kitchen table and ate one with my fingers. “How was your weekend?” I was hoping for a long, distracting story.
“OK.” She shrugged. “Pretty slow at the restaurant. Winter, you know.” She filled the teakettle at the tap and put it on the stove. Flipping her black hair out of the way, she struck a match and lit the burner on the Chambers range with a little poof.
No story there, alas.
I set out some mugs and Tillie popped in the tea bags. We settled into the straight-backed wooden chairs for our weekly planning session. I’d originally hired her for the Christmas portrait season. Now that was over, we were blue-skying about things to sell at the crafts fairs that would spring up all over Texas in April along with the wildflowers. I ate another cold tamalito, licking every drop of savory green sauce from my fingers. I detected a hint of longing in Tillie’s dark eyes and offered her the box. She shook her head, patting her plump tummy.
“I gotta stop eating this stuff.” She waged a constant battle with her weight. She was the favorite daughter in a large family of strong-minded women for whom food was the very substance of love. Women who could cook circles around puffed-up showboats like Emeril, I might add. Plus, most of her week was spent sitting down doing office management chores at the computer. Ten hours with me, fifteen at her aunt’s beauty salon, and a goodly chunk of the weekend at the restaurant.
In her mind, Tillie was a chubby thirteen-year-old with no redeeming qualities. In reality, she was the Empress of Organization. She could sort a carton of crumpled receipts into database shape faster than Diana Prince could twirl herself into Wonder Woman. She was also beautiful, if you bothered to notice. She had glossy black hair, liquid brown eyes, porcelain skin and a zaftig figure. I thought her weight gave her presence. She was so self-effacing, if she were fashionably thin, she might disappear.
On the other hand, her mother was majorly obese and Tillie could see that coming if she didn’t watch out.
“You could run with me in the morning,” I offered. “Then you could eat whatever you want.”
“I’d slow you down.”
We’d been around this track before, so I didn’t pursue it. The kettle started whistling just as the bell over the front door jangled.
“I’ll get it,” we said simultaneously, each knowing what we meant. Tillie grabbed the hot pad and I went for the front door.
“Hey, Marion. Whatcha got there?” My second cousin Marion Albrecht usually dropped by on Mondays around lunchtime, bearing plastic containers of leftover salad and chopped veggies. Everybody brought me food. I didn’t know if it was because I was single, skinny, or poor. Whatever: it was free and I didn’t have to cook it.
“Vegetables, of course. I know you have ample supplies of sugar and fat.” She sailed ahead of me into the kitchen, where she greeted Tillie and stowed her offerings in the fridge, setting one container of salad at my usual seat. She cast her gimlet eye across the open box of tamalitos on the table and shook her head, as if to say she knew I’d eat nothing but starch without her supervision.
Which is a total lie. Everyone knows salsa is a vegetable.
Marion was my mother’s cousin. They’d been the best of pals as girls growing up in Kerrville, so when I moved to Lost Hat she’d appointed herself my surrogate mother. Never mind that I had two fully functional parents a mere phone call away. I was in the same generation as her teenage sons and therefore counted as a child.
Marion’s bossy style got my dander up, but she really had been helpful to me, encouraging people to come in for portraits and introducing me around the town. She was the Long County agricultural extension agent for Family and Consumer Sciences, so she knew everyone and her word had weight. And there was a slight family resemblance, which people liked to see. Half the town was related to the other half one way or another.
At all costs, I had to keep her from finding out about this business with Greg. The last thing I needed right now was a full-bore lecture about thoughtlessness and carelessness from Marion. She’d barge in and try to take charge, and the whole thing would blow way out of control.
So I smiled sweetly at her and asked, “What’s up?”
“I’ve got a project for you,” she said. “Now that the Christmas season is over, you need something to keep you busy.”
My smile stiffened. She could never get a grip on the fact that the whole point of moving out here was to lower my expenses so I could survive on a couple of busy seasons a year and have the rest of the time for my own work.
I cherished the slow seasons. I lived for the slow seasons. To Marion, making art was just fooling around. What was it good for? Did it put food on the table or build shelter? I might as well be smoking pot and watching the Cartoon Network all the livelong day.
“I’m pretty flush,” I said, struggling to keep my voice steady. She might be insensitive to art, but she had special powers for detecting secrets. “Christmas was berry, berry good.”
“Thanks to me,” Marion said.
“Thanks to you, absolutely. I’m just saying
, I don’t want projects right now. This is my downtime. In a month or two, we’ll be gearing up for the spring arts and crafts fairs. Then it’s graduation season and we’ll be up to our eyebrows in pimply teenagers.”
Tillie and I exchanged looks of mock-terror. Could May’s prom queens be worse than the rampaging toddlers of Christmas?
“You’ve got too much time on your hands,” Marion said. As if time was something messy that needed to be cleaned up. With turpen-time, one supposed. “I was talking to Burrie after church yesterday and we came up with a wonderful idea.”
“Who’s Burrie?”
“Burrie is Edith Burwell-Jones, president and charter member of the Long County Historical Society, which is having a meeting tomorrow night at the museum, which I would like you to attend.”
“Oh, you would, would you?” I deliberately reached across her to lift a tamalito from the box and pop it into my mouth. That was my revenge for thinking I had nothing to do. But then I remembered that I was trying to be cool, so I asked with almost genuine interest, “What’s the project?”
Marion did her Mona Lisa impression, if you can imagine a pudgy Mona with blond hair in a chin-length bob. “If you go to the meeting tomorrow night, you’ll find out. Don’t worry; it’ll be fun. You’ll meet lots of interesting people.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Tillie flutter her thick lashes and shake her head microscopically. Not that interesting, I gathered.
Marion caught the gesture and shot her a quelling glance. Pink spots flared briefly on Tillie’s ivory cheeks. “You should go too, Tillie. Burrie and I agree that we need to get more of you younger people involved in the society. We need some fresh blood.”
“It’s a society of vampires,” I added helpfully.
This time I got quelled.
“Al Muelenbach is an active member,” Marion said, knowing that would be a plus. Mr. M. was my next-door neighbor and one of my favorite Lost Hatters. “Jim Donnelly is too.”
“Jim’s in it?” Jim was my best buddy, next to Tillie. He was editor of the Long County Communicator, our local newspaper. We called ourselves Square Heads, because we owned businesses on the courthouse square. Somehow, the term had not caught on.