“You have such a good eye, Morgan,” he said. “Trust yourself a bit more.”
He did return to his worktable then, and I began mixing paint, but my mind was still on him. I thought I was sort of falling in love with him. He seemed so much older than me, and so different. Bob Dylan? Really? But where I’d seen a nerdiness in him only a few weeks ago, I now saw an intelligence. Where I’d seen a straight-arrow rule follower, now I saw a maturity I wished I could emulate. And where I saw the smooth, slightly pink skin of his cheeks … well, there were moments when I wanted to press my lips against that skin, just to see what it would feel like. The thought sent a surprising jolt to the pit of my stomach, and I returned my attention to my work, smiling to myself as I carefully brushed Anna’s “signature color” into the trees.
It was dark by the time I walked home that evening. I felt no fear walking through Edenton’s downtown at night. The town seemed idyllic to me, a charming water-bound haven that was easing the hypervigilance that had been my companion in prison. I no longer looked over my shoulder as I walked. I no longer tightened my fists when I was out in the open, ready to defend myself.
Lisa’s car was gone when I reached the house. I took a bath in the walk-in bathtub that had been installed for Jesse, then headed for the sunroom. In the hall, I passed a small framed medallion I had never truly noticed before. I stopped to look at it, gasping when I realized what it was. The National Medal of Arts. I knew Jesse had been awarded the medal at some time, but it never occurred to me that the actual bronze medallion was here, just a few yards from where I slept each night. I read the inscription on the plaque beneath it.
Presented by President Barack Obama to Jesse Jameson Williams on this day, August 5, 2012
Oh my God. August 5? Was this the reason Jesse wanted the gallery to open on that date? To commemorate his receiving the National Medal of Arts? If that was the case, the medal was more important to him than it appeared to be, hanging in the hallway here between the sunroom and bathroom. We needed to move it to the gallery.
We.
I stunned myself as the pronoun passed through my mind. We. Not they. The gallery was no longer simply my job. My mere ticket out of prison. It had become more to me than that.
Carefully, I lifted the framed medallion from the wall and carried it into the kitchen. I propped it up against the fruit bowl on the island, then wrote a note for Lisa. Check out the date! We need to hang it in the gallery.
Then, with a smile on my face, I went to bed.
Chapter 34
ANNA
January 28, 1940
Following the directions Jesse had given her, Anna drove into the countryside, imagining what her afternoon with the Williams family would be like. Sunday dinner would be at three o’clock because they apparently spent the entire morning and early afternoon at church. Anna hoped they didn’t ask her about her own churchgoing habits—or lack thereof. She felt nervous about this visit. What right did she have to tell a mother and father how they should handle their son?
She expected that they would be very poor, like so many colored families. She pictured their farm on a small plot of land. Perhaps they were sharecroppers and their home little more than a rundown shack. She needed to prepare herself to feel even more like a fish out of water than she already did in Edenton.
As soon as she pulled into the long driveway of the white, two-story farmhouse, she knew her expectations had been wrong. She had faulty preconceived notions about people, just like everyone else, she thought. She had prejudgments. She had prejudices.
The house was not huge by any means, but it was not a shack, either. On either side of it stretched fields, fallow now for the winter. A truck and a wagon were parked on one side of the house, a dusty black sedan on the other. She stopped her Ford in the driveway and dogs appeared from nowhere to greet her as she got out of the car. Four of them clustered around her, barking, tails wagging. They seemed friendly enough and she held out her hand for them to sniff. Jesse came out of the house, screen door slapping closed behind him, and told the dogs to “hush.”
“Dinner’s near ready,” he said in greeting. “Come on inside.”
She followed him up the steps to the front porch. This close, Anna could see that the house needed painting and some of the railings on the porch were splintering, but she would have to say that Jesse’s house was in no worse shape than Miss Myrtle’s for having gone through some rough economic years.
The front door led almost immediately into the kitchen, where three women bustled around the stove and the counters, and the air seemed thick with cooking smells both savory and pungent. Anna’s mouth instantly watered.
One of the women worked over a frying pan filled with something that popped and sizzled on the stove. She lifted her head in Anna’s direction with a half smile. “I’m Jesse’s mama, ma’am,” she said. Anna was surprised by the woman’s light skin and silky black hair tucked behind her ears in waves. The woman could probably pass for white if she chose to. She was definitely Jesse’s mother, though, no doubt about it. Her eyes were like his: round, dark, and beautiful. “We about to put dinner on the table,” she said. “Glad you could join us. Jesse, you git washed up now.”
“Yes, Mama,” Jesse said, and he disappeared from the kitchen.
“Thank you for inviting me.” Anna felt awkward standing there empty-handed while the three women worked. One of them set down the knife she was using, wiped her hands on her apron, and took a few steps toward her.
“I’m Jesse’s aunt Jewel,” she said. She was a pretty woman with skin the same rich shade as Jesse’s, almond-shaped eyes, and coarse hair smoothed back into a bun. The woman’s smile struck Anna as serene, as though nothing in the world could fluster her, and she liked her instantly. “Jesse’s told us about what y’all are working on,” Aunt Jewel continued. “It’s all he talks about these days. And he loves those books you got for him to borrow.” Aunt Jewel looked at the third woman in the kitchen who was whipping something in a large beige crock. “Dodie?” she prompted. “Say hello to our guest?”
The woman stilled her hands and looked up from the bowl, and Anna saw that she was really a girl, no more than eighteen or nineteen. She had a boxy build, a narrow dark face, and an expression that was either tired or bored.
“Hey,” the girl said.
“Hi, Dodie,” Anna said, but Dodie had already returned her attention to her task.
“Jesse’s sister,” Aunt Jewel said.
“Ah,” Anna said.
“We’re ready.” Jesse’s mother lifted a platter of fried chicken from the counter and walked past Anna into the next room.
Soon, Anna was sitting with the entire family at a large table in a spacious dining room. The table looked hundreds of years old with wood so dark and silky that Anna couldn’t resist running her fingers over it. She was seated between Jesse’s mother and Aunt Jewel, while across from her, Jesse’s eight-year-old sister Nellie sat flanked by Jesse and Dodie. The little girl shared those round doe eyes with her mother and Jesse.
Mr. Williams sat at the table’s head. A bespectacled man with black hair salted with gray, he hadn’t yet offered her more than a grunt in greeting. Was he the sort of man who never smiled, or did his grim expression have to do with her presence? She hoped none of the Williams family had read Thursday’s paper, which had printed a letter to the editor from Theresa’s father, Riley Wayman. The letter was about Anna and was quite bitter. Riley Wayman said that Anna Dale didn’t understand Edenton’s “mores,” and what was she thinking, having a young male colored student working with his daughter in a “seedy, decrepit warehouse”? He went on to blame the government for “hiring this outsider” when Edenton already had a “perfectly fine and willing painter” right in town. Et cetera, et cetera. If anyone in the Williams family had seen the letter, no one was mentioning it.