“You’re looking at Plainfield through rose-colored glasses,” her mother would have said. Even in Plainfield, those colored girls Anna thought of as her friends couldn’t go into certain shops or restaurants with her, and one of them told her they had to sit in the balcony at the Paramount Theater. The roller rink had a “colored night” set aside for them each week and they—as well as Anna’s Jewish friends—were unwelcome at the country club. But still, everyone knew it was worse in the South. They actually lynched Negroes in the south.
She’d considered simply doing her research for the mural in the Plainfield Public Library, knowing the drive to Edenton would take her two full days, but she’d read and reread the letter from the Section of Fine Arts that advised her to visit the little town. Her mother would have told her to do the job properly. Anna imagined her saying “be grateful for the work, sweetheart, and embrace the challenge.” Her friends who had graduated with her from the Van Emburgh School of Art in Plainfield were still hunting for jobs that simply didn’t exist, with the economy the way it was. Many of them had also tried to win the Section of Fine Arts competition and Anna knew how lucky she was to have been given the honor. She would do everything she could to make the Section glad they put their trust in her.
A few days before she died, her mother had given Anna a journal. The book of blank pages was bound in velvety-soft brown leather, the cover fastened together with a simple gold lock and key. So beautiful. Her mother had known then that it would be the last gift she would ever give her daughter, but Anna hadn’t known. It angered her when she realized the truth, and she didn’t want to feel that emotion toward her mother. In a fit of rage, she’d tossed the journal in the kitchen trash can, but she dug it out again, cleaned it off, and now it was packed in her suitcase. She wouldn’t throw away anything connected to her mother again. She needed to hold on to it all.
She also had her mother’s camera with her. Anna had choked up as she sat at the kitchen table winding a new roll of film into the Kodak Retina. She pictured her mother’s hands doing the same task over the years … although when Anna thought about it, she realized many months had passed since her mother had picked up the camera. Photography had been her passion. It brought in no money, but had given her great pleasure during her “lively spells.” The doctor called them “manic episodes” but Anna preferred her own term. The lively spells were always a relief to Anna when they followed the days—sometimes the weeks—when her mother could barely get out of bed. The lively spells came without warning, often with behavior that was impossible to predict. She’d awaken Anna early to inform her she was skipping school, and they’d take the bus to New York where they’d race through museum after museum or roller-skate through Central Park. One time, when Anna was about twelve, they slipped in the rear door of Carnegie Hall, found a couple of empty box seats, and watched an orchestra perform. It wasn’t the music Anna remembered from that day. It was the sheer joy of sitting next to her mother, leaning her head against her shoulder, feeling her wired energy. Knowing that, for as long as the lively spell lasted, their days would be joy-filled.
When the good spells came during the spring, as they often did, one of her mother’s favorite activities was to walk at a brisk clip through Plainfield’s neighborhoods, carrying her camera, snapping pictures of people’s gardens. She adored flowers and she’d walk up the driveways of strangers to reach window boxes overflowing with geraniums, even ducking behind the houses to capture backyard gardens filled with roses and hydrangeas and peach-colored daylilies. As far as Anna knew, no one ever badgered her mother about the intrusions. Maybe people had thought of her as a bit of a kook. Or perhaps they’d felt sorry for her, a woman widowed young with a daughter to raise. Or maybe they knew the truth—Mrs. Dale was not a well woman—and they kindly let her be.
Anna fended for herself when her mother’s spirits were low. She’d cook for both of them, although her mother ate almost nothing during those times. She’d clean the house and do the laundry. She did it all with patience, with love, waiting out the melancholia. There was one terrible time when Aunt Alice dragged Anna’s mother to a psychiatrist who insisted she be hospitalized. For two long months, Anna, then fourteen, lived with her aunt and uncle, angry at them both for putting her mother in that terrible place. When her mother was finally released, there were gaps in her memory, precious moments the hospital seemed to have stolen from her, and Anna vowed she would never let anyone lock her away again. She tried to keep her mother’s low moods a secret from her aunt after that, making light of them, riding them out. Perhaps, though, she’d made a mistake this last time. Perhaps this last time, her mother had needed more help than Anna had been able to give her. She tried not to think about that. She’d simply been waiting for the lively spell to return. She’d lived with her mother long enough to know that, in time, the smiling, happy mother she adored would come back, full of crazy ideas that would leave both of them giggling with wonder.
“Never be afraid to try something new, Anna,” her mother would say.
That’s what Anna was doing now, wasn’t it? Driving for two whole days through unfamiliar territory, landing in a tiny town where she didn’t know a soul. From somewhere in the heavens, her mother was applauding.
* * *
The letter from the Section of Fine Arts had arrived with a list of the winners of all forty-eight states. Anna had felt embarrassed and intimidated when she looked at that list. The contest had been anonymous, which she assumed was the only reason she’d been able to win. Still, many of the other winners were famous artists. There was So and So, from New York City, president of the League of Artists, studied in Europe, experienced muralist, had one-man exhibitions in New York and Los Angeles, and on and on. Winner after winner had accolade after accolade. And then there was Anna: Anna Dale. Plainfield, New Jersey. Born 1918. Graduate of Van Emburgh School of Art. And that was it. She thought the panel of judges must have been stunned into silence when they opened her envelope to discover the inexperienced girl they’d selected. She had to keep reminding herself that they’d legitimately picked her, fair and square, and she remembered what Mrs. Van Emburgh had whispered in her ear when she handed Anna her graduation certificate: “You are a standout, Anna,” she’d said. “You have a future in the art world.” Her words still sent a shiver up Anna’s spine. She’d told no one about them, not wanting to appear conceited, but she clung tight to the compliment now that she’d won the competition. Now that she was, so completely, on her own.
She had to come up with a whole new idea for a sketch very quickly, and the thought overwhelmed her. The concept for her Bordentown sketch had come to her easily. Clara Barton had founded the first free public school in Bordentown, so Anna had painted her ringing the school bell outside a little redbrick schoolhouse with lines of children walking and skipping to the school. She was proud of the way she captured the swish of the girls’ skirts and the energy of the boys. Too bad she wouldn’t be able to paint that mural now. The memory of her eager, happy production of that sketch, before everything changed, seemed to be from another lifetime.