“If you want me to check your work the first few times, just ask,” Oliver said, bringing me back to the here and now. “Might be a good idea.”
I smiled at him from under the visor. “You worried I can’t do it?”
“The paint’s just different than what you’re used to,” he said. “But I have confidence in you.”
By the end of the day, I’d inpainted one tiny square inch near the upper left-hand corner of the mural. It was only background, only blue sky, nothing like what I’d be dealing with later—one of the Tea Party ladies’ missing eyelashes, for example—things that would truly matter, but Oliver declared my work competent. His faint praise told me it was quitting time for the day and I was relieved to slip the visor from my head.
Standing back, I looked up at the speck of paint that had taken me so long to apply. August fifth, I thought. One short month away. Slowly, I shook my head. This was going to be impossible.
Chapter 30
ANNA
January 17, 1940
Anna stopped in the library on her way to the warehouse, hoping to pick up some art books for Jesse. Peter had borrowed some of the library’s books on drawing, and when Anna suggested to Jesse that he do the same, he replied, “Ain’t no colored library here, Miss Anna.” She’d been more frustrated than surprised at that news. So she checked out some books for him herself, wondering what the librarian would say or do if she told her she planned to put them into the hands of a colored boy. But she behaved herself, quietly checking out the books without comment. She thought people talked about her quite enough already.
She’d been working on the cartoon alone in the warehouse for a few hours when an unfamiliar man suddenly pushed open the door and strutted into the space as though he owned it. Anna stepped back from the cartoon, charcoal pencil in hand, unsure if she should be frightened or angered by the intrusion.
“You’re Anna Dale?” the man asked, his voice deep and gruff.
“Yes, and you’re…?”
“I’m Riley Wayman,” he said. “Theresa Wayman’s father.”
Oh, she thought. Theresa Wayman’s father and president of the bank. She set down her pencil and walked toward him, dusting her hand off on her smock before holding it out to him. “How do you do?” she asked, but he seemed to want nothing to do with her hand. She felt him eye her up and down, taking in her slacks, her charcoal-smeared smock, her oxfords. A cold wind had blown into the warehouse with him and Anna shivered despite the warmth her two space heaters were putting out.
“I want to know why you brought in this colored boy and kicked my daughter out,” he said.
“I didn’t kick her out,” Anna said. “Theresa told me you wouldn’t allow her to work with me if Jesse stayed. She chose to leave.”
“She was with you first.”
“But I have room for three students to work with me and Jesse was referred to me by his art teacher,” Anna said. “I would have loved to have Theresa stay. She’s quite talented.” Was she? Anna hadn’t actually seen any of her work. “It was her choice to leave.”
Riley Wayman folded his arms across his big barrel chest and looked at the cartoon, frowning. He studied the drawing for so long and so silently that Anna said, “I’m happy to take her back if she chooses to come,” simply for something to break the silence.
He turned back to her. “You don’t belong here, little lady,” he said. “You know that, don’t you? You don’t fit in; you could live here twenty years and you still wouldn’t fit in. People here like you right now because you’re a novelty and they’re excited our post office was chosen for one of the paintings, but they’ll get past that pretty soon and realize it was a mistake bringing you here.”
“I’m doing fine in Edenton.” Anna stood her ground. She was doing fine in Edenton, but she knew what he meant. She knew exactly what he meant. She’d been in Edenton nearly a month and a half and there were some things she would never understand. She would always be thought of as a furriner, no matter how long she lived in the town.
She knew arguing with Mr. Wayman would get her nowhere, so she took on a different tack.
“Please let Theresa come back,” she said. “She’s interested in art and this could be a very good experience for her.”
He was shaking his head before she’d even finished her sentence. “I’m not going to open my door to all sorts of talk and innuendo,” he said. His eyes traveled down her body again, which was masked quite thoroughly by her smock. He shook his head in what she took to be disgust. “She said she had to wear pants to work here.” He nodded toward Anna’s dusty slacks. “That it was a rule you made.”
“There’s no such rule.” She was annoyed that Theresa would fib that way. “It’s just easier to move around in pants. To work on the stretcher, she’d have to be on the floor. Don’t you think pants of some sort would make a lot more sense?”
He glanced at the stretcher taking shape on the concrete floor, then looked around the warehouse as if noticing its vast size, its dark corners, and its spooky beamed ceiling for the first time. He was making her increasingly nervous. She wanted him to leave.
“Never mind,” he said finally. “I don’t want her working here with you anyway.” He turned on his heel and walked out of the warehouse, his footsteps echoing behind him.
Lovely man, Anna thought, and she felt some sympathy for Theresa as she watched him go.
She had plenty of other visitors to the warehouse that day. Her lumberman, Frank, came to pose for her. He was an excellent model, keeping perfectly still, even though he had to hold a long-handled ax steady the whole time. Anna could tell he got a kick out of posing and having some time off from his real job grading wood. About half an hour after he left, Jesse and Peter arrived and started working on the stretcher, and a short time later, Martin Drapple showed up again.
“I had some spare time,” he said. “Thought I’d come see if I could help out with the— Hey!” He noticed the cartoon. “You’re making great progress!” He stood back to admire—she hoped—her drawing. “You’re quick,” he added, and Anna wondered if he thought she was working too quickly to do a good job. Why did she doubt herself so? She would accept his words as a compliment. Still, she was annoyed he was there. Was he keeping an eye on her?
“Thank you,” she said. “It’s going well so far.”
He turned toward Peter and Jesse where they grappled with the stretcher on the floor.
“Hey, fellas,” he said. “Looks like you could use another pair of hands.”
“Sure could, sir!” Peter said. Jesse kept his head down, focusing on the screw he was turning into place. Martin lowered himself to the floor and held the two lengths of wood steady for him. Anna watched for a moment as the three of them worked together and she gradually shifted from annoyance at Martin’s arrival to gratitude. The boys could not easily manage the stretcher alone. She turned back to the cartoon and let the boys and Martin work on their own.
Did Martin’s wife know he was at the warehouse? she wondered. Did she know he’d stopped in last week as well? Did he go home and tell her he’d helped Anna Dale make the grid lines on the cartoon? She doubted that very much. They’d be divorced by now if he had. She remembered the angry woman on the library steps, how she’d clutched Anna’s arm. How afraid she’d seemed over the family finances, with Martin’s design not being accepted for the post office. He shouldn’t be here in the warehouse, Anna thought, working for free. He especially shouldn’t be here with her.