Mayor Sykes stopped by one evening after leaving his office and he, too, seemed concerned at realizing how late she was working in spite of the fact that he was the person who told her she didn’t need a lock on the warehouse door in the first place. Even Jesse gave her a talking-to about it.
“You shouldn’t stay here after dark,” he said. “Remember them words on the side of the warehouse? You don’t wanna be here at night when someone’s out there paintin’ on your buildin’, do you?”
No, she certainly did not, but a full month had passed since hooligans defaced the warehouse and nothing had happened since. The only reminder of the deed was that the paint Mr. Arndt and Peter used to cover up the words was much brighter and whiter than the old paint on the warehouse exterior. Anna didn’t look at the paint when she walked from her car to the door. That was the way she dealt with it.
“You know,” Jesse said one afternoon, “you sound like your mama.” He kept his eyes on his work at the easel as he spoke, as if he knew he was treading into dangerous territory.
Anna looked at him sharply, her guard up at the mention of her mother. “What are you talking about?”
He glanced at her. “You said how she had all that energy sometime,” he said. “That’s how you sound now.”
Anna bristled. “This is completely different,” she said, although his words shook her, ever so slightly. She thought of her mother’s “lively spells,” remembering how she would scour the house from top to bottom or race through the neighborhood with her camera, trotting up strangers’ driveways to take pictures of their gardens. “Really, Jesse. You didn’t know her. I’m nothing like her.”
It annoyed her—perhaps even angered her—that he would mention her mother at all and particularly in that context. Her mother’s manic spells had been like a living, breathing thing, a third being in the house with them. Jesse was completely wrong. Yet as Anna returned to her own work after their conversation, she was aware that her heart was thudding like a drum in her chest.
Chapter 45
MORGAN
July 16, 2018
Five days had passed since I sprained my ankle, and although I still couldn’t walk more than half a block without grinding pain, I barely felt a twinge when I focused on the mural. I was working faster and more confidently now. I understood what I was doing. I knew exactly how to mix the conservation paints with silica to match the sheen in Anna’s oils. I knew how much pressure to apply to my brush to match Anna’s strokes. Only when I came to an unusual abrasion in a delicate area did I need to turn to Oliver for advice.
“You know as much as I do now,” he told me. I knew that was a lie, but it pleased me nevertheless.
Still, there were only three weeks left before the gallery was to open, and I figured I had five weeks’ worth of work left to do. Adam and most of the other workers were now gone, having taken other jobs, but Wyatt stayed behind to hammer molding into place and help Oliver frame any artwork that was coming in unframed.
Late that morning, Lisa blew into the gallery carrying a large flat package wrapped in brown paper and taped together with crisp, yellowed, ancient-looking tape.
“Wait till you see what I stumbled across in my father’s studio closet!” she said, motioning Oliver and me to come close to her at the folding table.
I set down my brush and stood next to Oliver as Lisa untaped the brown paper to reveal a plain white board about three feet by one and a half. She turned the board over and I gasped. In front of us was a full color sketch of the mural.
“Too cool!” Oliver said, grinning. “What a find! You know what this is, Morgan?”
“Other than the obvious?” I asked.
“This is what Anna Dale would have turned in to the Section of Fine Arts to get her commission to move forward with the mural,” he said. “This would have been her first interpretation of what the mural would look like.”
I quickly scanned the sketch, looking for the aberrations that were so apparent in the mural. “Look.” I pointed to the circle of women at the mural’s heart. “No motorcycle.”
Lisa looked from the sketch to the mural. “No knife in the peanut lady’s teeth,” she said.
“And no hammer,” Oliver added.
“No skull,” I said. “No little man in the compact mirror.” The list went on and on. Anna Dale had created the sketch, it seemed, before she’d lost her mind.
“We have to frame this,” Oliver said. I could tell he was excited. It made me smile to see how enthusiastic he became about all things artistic. “We’ll hang it here in the foyer along with the mural.”
Once Lisa left, Oliver and I shared a container of pad Thai for lunch, sitting across from one another at his table, both of us eating quickly so we could get back to work. Oliver could have returned to his office now that I didn’t need his help all that much, but he seemed content to continue working in the foyer and I was glad. We worked mostly in silence, listening to our wildly different music, but occasionally we pulled out our earbuds to talk. That afternoon, Oliver talked about Nathan, telling me all sorts of funny and touching anecdotes about the son he loved. It warmed me, listening to him.
I worked until five thirty, then took an Uber to the library. Seeing Anna’s sketch made me want to dig deeper into her time in Edenton, and I hoped I could find more articles about her in the old Chowan Herald. I had to know how she came to fall off the face of the earth. If only the newspapers were indexed! Then I would know in two seconds if there was any other information about her.
I was soon back in that cramped atticlike space in the library, fighting with the microfilm machine as I worked my way through the blurry print of the newspapers from early 1940.
I nearly missed the article in the February 22 edition, since it had no picture with it and Anna’s name was buried in the text. Mural Artist’s Warehouse Defaced, the headline read.
Policeman Karl Maguire stated that the former Blayton Company warehouse, where New Jersey artist Anna Dale is painting the government-sponsored mural that will hang in the Edenton Post Office, was reportedly defaced with a racial epithet over the weekend. Maguire learned of the event only after the offending words had been painted over. The identity of the culprit remains unknown.
I read the article a few times, trying to imagine what the racial epithet might have been. I remembered the picture of Anna standing in front of the canvas with the young white boy Peter somebody and the boy-who-could-pass-as-a-man, Jesse Williams, and I thought I could guess. Had there been more between Anna and Jesse than a work relationship? There was only one person alive who might know. I thought of how Mama Nelle pressed a finger to her lips when I talked to her about Anna. “You know you got to be quiet about her, right?” she’d asked me. Was this why? Were Anna and Jesse closer than artist and apprentice? I would invite Mama Nelle to the gallery, I decided. I’d show her the mural up close and personal, and pick her brain at the same time.
Chapter 46
ANNA
March 21, 1940
Anna awakened in the darkness of the warehouse, confused. Was she in Pauline’s bedroom? No. Her hand felt the rough fabric of the cot beneath her. She squeezed her eyes closed, concentrating, trying to remember. She’d eaten a bowl of cold leftover stew she’d brought with her from Miss Myrtle’s. Yes. And then she’d gone back to the mural. So close to being done, yet as driven as ever. She’d painted the fine lines of the netting on the fishing vessel. Made a mistake. Painted them over. And over. She’d pulled the lamp closer. Stood on the third rung of the ladder to reach the upper left corner of the mural. She hadn’t been able to space the lines of the netting evenly. No one would notice, but she would know. She’d been working too long. She’d had no nap today and she’d noticed that her hand had a little tremor. She’d decided to lie down for a few minutes. Yes, it was all coming back to her. She’d stretched out on the cot. Pulled the quilt over her. Now she had no idea what time it was.