Big Lies in a Small Town - Diane Chamberlain Page 0,22
how ragged the edges of the canvas are,” he said. “It looks like someone just hacked it from the stretcher. Why would anyone do that?”
It was only one of a hundred unanswerable questions about the mural, I thought. I tried to look beyond the damaged images to the work expected of me. The canvas reeked of mold or mildew, the scent strong enough to fill the whole room. It stung my nostrils and made my lungs burn. Filth coated the painting except for the areas where friction had simply worn the paint from the surface. There were dozens of scraped sections where there was no paint left at all. I felt Lisa turn her gaze on me.
“You’ll have to finish this by August fifth,” she said, quietly, so that only I could hear her. There was unmistakable worry in her voice. “Can you do it?”
Deadline or not, I didn’t know how to begin. If I had a year to learn about art restoration, a year to study and practice, then maybe I stood a chance. But I couldn’t let Lisa doubt me. I couldn’t let her see my weakness. I wouldn’t give her any reason to turn this job over to someone else and send me back to hell. I’d have to figure out how to restore this weird piece of art, and I’d have to do it quickly.
“Yes,” I said, looking directly into her eyes. “Absolutely.”
Chapter 8
ANNA
December 9, 1939
Anna’s very full Saturday began with moving into Myrtle Simms’s large and charming old home, and she felt as though she suddenly had a grandmother. She’d never known her own grandparents, so spending time with an older, overly attentive woman was unfamiliar to her, and rather a comfort.
The Simms house stood in a row of similar good-sized homes, some of which appeared to have fallen on hard times. Myrtle Simms seemed to have managed to keep the outside of her home and yard up, even if there were some signs of wear and tear inside. A bit of peeling paint here and torn wallpaper there. But all in all it was a charming home, and Anna was grateful to the men of the town for arranging her stay there.
Myrtle Simms was a compact little lady, quite short, and she greeted Anna at her front door in a yellow flowered housedress.
“Call me Miss Myrtle, dear,” she said, leading Anna into a neat and clean living room with comfortable furniture and carefully displayed knickknacks on every level surface. They sat down to a snack of tea and squares of pineapple upside-down cake baked by Miss Myrtle’s maid, Freda, who offered Anna a warm smile but didn’t speak. Once Freda left the room, Miss Myrtle confided that the maid was mute.
“She hears fine,” Miss Myrtle said, “but she’s never uttered a word to me in the thirty years she’s worked for me. I love her, though. She was a second mother to my daughter, growing up. We couldn’t have held this house together without her.”
They chatted for a while about the competition that had brought Anna to Edenton, and once they’d finished their cake, Miss Myrtle got to her feet.
“Let me show you around,” she said. They headed toward the stairs, the older woman chatting the whole time. “My daughter Pauline recently got married and her husband Karl is a saint,” she said. “He helps me with dripping faucets and leaky pipes. Pauline’s a nurse in a doctor’s office a couple of days a week, and Karl’s a policeman. They live about a mile away. You’ll be moving into Pauline’s bedroom.” They’d reached the landing and turned right. “There are two other spare bedrooms up here, but neither one has a bed.” She chuckled. “One is my sewing room and the other already has a crib in it. No baby on the horizon yet, but I’m an optimist!”
They walked into a spacious bedroom, and even though it appeared that Miss Myrtle’s daughter had cleared any personal possessions from the room, the wallpaper with its big magnolia flowers and the white feminine furniture made Anna feel as if she were trespassing.
“Won’t Pauline mind having a stranger staying in her room?” she asked.
“Not at all,” Miss Myrtle said. “I spoke to her about it yesterday evening and she was right pleased to know I’d have someone else here with me for when Freda goes home at night.” She smoothed a wrinkle from the pink chenille bedspread. “I had Pauline late in life. I was forty when