Big Lies in a Small Town - Diane Chamberlain Page 0,14

selected fair and square, so we’ll make it work, right?”

“Of course.” She shifted in the chair, hoping to take some control over this meeting. “And who is ‘we’?” she asked.

“The folks who run this town,” he said. “The movers and shakers. Our Mayor Sykes. Then there’s the editor of our paper, the Chowan Herald. Our various business leaders and myself, of course.”

“I see.” She realized she’d been mispronouncing “Chowan,” the county Edenton was in, if only in her head. It was Cho-WAN. She would have to remember that. What else was she getting wrong? “Well,” she said. “I’m going to do my best to give Edenton a mural it can be proud of.”

“I’d like to see your sketch,” he said. He looked toward her hands where they rested in her lap as though she might have the thirty-six-by-eighteen-inch sketch hidden away inside her coat. “Do you have it with you?”

“I don’t have a sketch yet,” she admitted, then told him about winning the competition based on her sketch of Bordentown, New Jersey.

“So you have no sketch at all for an Edenton mural?” He sounded aghast, his eyebrows crawling up his forehead toward his hairline again. “Do you have an idea, at least?”

“That’s why I’m here,” she said, trying to reassure him with a calm voice, although her stomach tightened with anxiety. “I want to learn about Edenton to get a subject—or subjects—for the mural. Perhaps I could meet with … the movers and shakers, as you call them? I need to learn what’s near and dear to an Edentonian’s heart.”

“A fine idea.” He nodded, finally looking a bit more relaxed. “I can set somethin’ up for next week.”

“I’m afraid I’m only here for two more nights,” she said. “Is it possible to get together with them sooner?”

He hesitated, looking thoughtful, then nodded again. “I’ll make some calls,” he said. He picked up a pencil from his desk but did nothing with it other than tap it on his blotter. “There’s somethin’ you should know,” he said, eyeing her from beneath those unruly brows.

“Yes?”

“An Edenton artist by the name Martin Drapple—a fella everyone knows—he was born and raised here, as was his daddy. Anyway, he also sent in a sketch to the Forty-eight-States Contest. Understand?” He looked at her to see if she was following him. She was. “No one will think it’s very fair some young girl from New Jersey won when Martin has lived here his whole life, right?” he said. “Martin’s a fine artist, too. Near everyone has a Martin Drapple painting hangin’ somewhere in their house. Everyone expected him to win.” He let out a small chuckle. “’Specially him,” he added.

“Oh.” She had no idea what to do with this information. What was she going to be up against in this town? If everyone in Edenton had one of this man’s paintings, though, he most likely didn’t need the income from the mural. It sounded as though he had plenty of work to do. Anna, on the other hand, would be flat broke if not for the small amount of money her mother had left her. “Well,” she said, “the judges didn’t know he was from Edenton or that I was from New Jersey.” She wanted to sound strong without being argumentative. “They judged the entries on the merits of the design.”

“Yes, I do understand that,” Mr. Arndt said. “I only worry that it’s goin’ to put you in an awkward position and I wanted to give you fair warnin’, right?” He got to his feet in a signal that the meeting was over. “It just doesn’t seem fair to Martin.”

He stopped talking and she wondered if he expected her to resign right then and there and turn the assignment over to this Martin Drapple fellow. “Perhaps not,” she said, getting to her feet. “But the decision wasn’t mine to make.”

“No, I know that, and if the gov’ment says you’re our mural artist, why then I can promise you we’ll do our level best to cooperate with you.”

She thanked him, then left the post office and began walking back to the hotel, playing the meeting with Mr. Arndt over and over in her mind. She’d started the day with a sense of promise and optimism. After meeting the postmaster, she was not so sure. By the time she reached her hotel, though, she had her confidence back. She would do a stellar job on the mural and ignore any petty concerns about her being a female, or