“How well do you know Lisa?” I asked.
“Lisa?” He looked surprised by the question. “Not well at all. I’d been to Jesse’s house a few times over the years, and I knew she lived with him and was his primary caretaker toward the end, but I never actually saw her there. She was—and I guess still is—a workaholic real estate agent. She called me when he died and said he wanted me to curate the gallery, which wasn’t a surprise. He’d told me as much. And I know she’s in a time crunch to get this place up and running.”
I looked down at the bottle in my hand, remembering back to the night before when I’d caught Lisa in tears. I didn’t think I should share that with Oliver.
“I think she’s a challenge, Morgan,” Oliver continued, “but she also gets things done, so hang in there. I just do what she tells me to do unless I think she’s completely off the wall. She’s leaving the placement of art entirely up to me—with the exception of having the mural in the foyer, which was Jesse’s wish.” He nodded toward the mural. “I think between the gallery and her job, she’s extremely stressed.”
“Do you know anything about the will?” I asked.
“The will?”
“If the gallery doesn’t open by August fifth, she loses her house. Jesse’s house.”
Oliver’s jaw dropped, and I could tell I’d left him speechless.
“She won’t inherit it,” I said. “Not only that, but if I don’t have the mural done by then, I don’t get paid and I’ll end up back in prison.”
“What? That’s insane.”
“Jesse Williams specified that the mural had to be done in order for the gallery to open, so—”
“Did Lisa tell you all this?”
I nodded.
He looked away from me, out toward the glass wall of the foyer. “She did tell me—several times—that everything has to be up and running by our opening date, but nothing about her house. Could she be making that up for some reason? To put pressure on you, maybe? Jesse was a real character, but I can’t imagine him disinheriting his daughter just because she can’t get the gallery ready by an arbitrary date.”
“I don’t think she was lying. I caught her crying and then she told me.”
Oliver grimaced. “Wow,” he said. “Well, I guess if I were in danger of losing something precious to me, I’d be a nasty SOB myself.”
“You’d always be nice,” I blurted out, then felt myself blush. Oliver struck me as perpetually calm, perpetually kind. “Seriously,” I said. “Thank you for helping me so much.”
He smiled, and I wondered if he knew I was developing the teensiest crush on him. “We’d better get back to work,” he said. “Let’s stay one step ahead of the boss lady.”
Adam and Wyatt came into the gallery around four and began taking measurements for the long “information counter” that would run parallel to the wall where the mural would be displayed. My ladder and supplies were in their way and after dozens of “can I move this?” and “excuse us” and a few other comments that let me know they thought their work was more important than mine, I called it quits. The air-conditioning wasn’t working properly, either, and being up on the ladder only added to my misery. I’d finished my quota of squares for the day, anyhow, and I left the gallery and headed back to Lisa’s.
“Done for the day?” Lisa asked when I walked in the front door, and I explained about Adam and Wyatt taking measurements in the foyer. For the first time since I’d met her, Lisa was dressed in jeans. They were dressy jeans, but still. She wore a loose embroidered yellow blouse and her hair was pulled back in a small ponytail at the nape of her neck. She looked very pretty and the closest to relaxed I’d seen her.
“Hmm,” she said. “Those guys are going to have to stay out of your way as they build that thing.” Then she looked into the air above my head as if pondering something. “Well, listen,” she said. “Would you like to see where my father grew up?”
The invitation was so out of character that it took me a moment to understand it. “Tonight?” I asked.
“Uh-huh. It’s my aunt’s birthday. Mama Nelle. My father’s baby sister.”
“Wow,” I said. Did I want to spend a whole evening with Lisa? But the thought of seeing where Jesse Williams grew up was enticing. “All right,” I said. “Give me a minute to change?”
Lisa looked at her phone. “Hurry up,” she said. “I want to leave in five.”
I raced to the sunroom. I had little in the way of nice clothes. Everything I’d bought after being sprung from prison had been with the idea that I’d spend the bulk of my time working on the mural. But I put on a pair of clean jeans and the only decent top I owned—the blue sleeveless blouse I’d worn the day I left prison. I ran a comb through my hair and hurried out front, where Lisa was already waiting in her car.
“How far is it?” I asked as Lisa began driving.
“Just a little ways outside town.”
“So, this ‘Mama Nelle’ is Jesse’s sister?”
“Yes.”
“How come you call her ‘Mama’ then?”
“Everybody does. Don’t know when that started, but everybody treats her like she’s their mama. She’s eighty-seven and has a serious heart condition and some of that come-and-go type of dementia, so we’re all thinkin’ this may be her last birthday.”
Lisa sounded different. The change in her voice was fascinating, actually. Her tone was more casual, her language looser. She was definitely off duty tonight.
“He grew up out in the country?” I asked as the town gave way to fields that stretched far into the distance.
Lisa nodded. “The Williams farm’s been in our extended family one way or ’nother pretty much since the end of slavery.”
“Were Jesse’s ancestors slaves?” I asked.
“What d’you think?” Lisa smirked as though it were a stupid question. “Mine, too. Remember? My ancestors are Jesse’s.”
Okay, I thought. So Lisa’s language might be looser but her personality was as prickly as ever.
“Right,” I said. “So, your … great-great-grandparents were slaves?”
“Exactly. On both sides of the family. Nearly all my people still live near the farm, except for a few who moved away. But people who move away tend to come back. Edenton’s got a magnetic pull on folks who were born here.”
“Have you ever thought of leaving?”
Lisa was quiet for a moment. “I only left for college,” she said. “And I don’t plan to leave ever again.”
After a while, she pulled into the driveway of an old white farmhouse set back from the road by a deep lawn. There was a cornfield to the left, and a few more houses scattered to the right. Kids, a couple of them white, were taking turns on a tire swing that hung from a big tree in the front yard. Some older men were playing horseshoes near the side of the house. And even before I opened the car door, I felt the thrum of music in the air. Chance the Rapper. I smiled, already moving my head to the beat. I had the feeling I was going to like it here.