Big Lies in a Small Town - Diane Chamberlain Page 0,144

looked at the catering guy. “Are we squared away now?” she asked. I heard sounds coming from the small kitchen and guessed the servers were setting up for the opening.

“Good to go,” the man said. He looked at me. “You paint that?” he asked, nodding in the direction of the mural.

“I restored it,” I said.

“What’s that mean?”

“It means she brought it back to life,” Oliver said.

The man looked at the mural again, then gave me a confused-looking smile. “Cool,” he said. He headed for the foyer door, speaking to Lisa over his shoulder as he left. “I’ll be back to pick up the servers at five,” he said.

“Fine.” Lisa was already looking past him to the gallery’s first visitor: Andrea Fuller.

Andrea stopped in her tracks in the middle of the foyer. “Well,” she said, “that certainly looks different than the last time I saw it.” She looked at me, and I was afraid she might ask if I’d done the work entirely by myself. Did I have to admit to Oliver’s contribution to point one percent of the mural? But Andrea just smiled.

“Nice job, Morgan,” she said. She walked toward the side wall where Anna’s original sketch was displayed along with the “before” photograph of the mural and Oliver’s wall text about Anna Dale. She glanced from the photograph to the mural. “Unbelievable job, actually,” she said. Then she turned to Lisa. “You all set for the grand opening?”

“We are.” Lisa smiled broadly, and I knew she was letting out her breath in relief at Andrea’s response to the mural. Lisa was home free. “Let me show you around,” she said.

The two women started down the curved hallway and Oliver looked at me. “How’re you doing this morning?” he asked.

I looked again at the mural. It filled the entire foyer with color. “I think,” I said, returning my gaze to Oliver, “that I want to be an art restorer.”

He smiled. “And I think that’s an excellent idea,” he said. “Lots of schooling ahead of you, though.”

“That’s better than lots of jail time.”

He laughed and held an arm toward me. “Come here,” he said.

I walked over to him and he wrapped me in a hug. “You okay after last night?” He spoke quietly into my ear.

I knew what he meant. His loving words in the van. The kiss.

“I don’t know.” I pulled away with a smile. “I was really enjoying the whole ‘big brother’ thing.”

“This’ll be even better,” he said, a serious expression on his face now. “I promise.”

The front door opened and two women walked into the foyer, dressed in their Sunday clothes. “We’re your Art Guild volunteers, ready to man the information desk,” one of them said.

“Perfect,” said Oliver, letting go of me. “Let me show you around.”

It was an extraordinary day. People came from as far away as Asheville and Washington, D.C., and the reporter from the Charlotte Observer stayed for two hours. She interviewed me about the mural, and toward the end of our talk, she pointed to my alcohol monitor and said, “Interesting ankle jewelry.”

I told her the truth, all of it, while she scribbled her notes, and I had the feeling the whole tone of the article she would write changed in that moment.

The only negative of the day was that by five o’clock, my feet were killing me and my ankle let me know that my sprain was not completely healed. Shortly after five, once the last guests had left and the servers were cleaning up, I found Lisa sitting on the steps of the gallery’s small back porch, teary with happiness, or perhaps with relief. I sat down next to her and put a tentative arm around her shoulders. We sat in silence in the hot, sticky August air as Lisa blotted her eyes with her fingertips. Finally, she spoke.

“You don’t need to move out any time soon,” she said. “I think you have something cooking with Oliver, and I’m guessing you don’t have any place to go. Am I right?”

“Yes and yes,” I said, dropping my arm from her shoulders. “And I’d really like to stay for a while. Thanks.”

“You’ll have to find a job,” she said, sounding more like herself. “No freeloading.”

I smiled. “I’ll start looking right away,” I promised, though I had no idea what sort of job I could find in this little town. I’d do anything to be able to stay while I figured out what I’d do about school, though. “I think I want to go back