Big Lies in a Small Town - Diane Chamberlain Page 0,61

apart.

Anna plugged in the space heaters, setting them on either side of the area in front of the windowless wall at the front end of the building, nearest the door. They didn’t exactly make the space toasty, but the temperature was quite tolerable. Tolerable enough that she could take off her coat. Her heavy sweater beneath her smock was plenty warm enough.

Around noon, she ate the ham sandwich Freda had made for her, and as she was cleaning up after herself, the lumber arrived for the stretcher. She’d never seen so much wood in an art studio and felt instantly intimidated at the thought of putting the massive stretcher together. She eyed the man who stacked the wood in the center of the warehouse for her. He was a rugged, Nordic-looking blue-eyed blond who would be perfect for the lumberman in the mural.

“How would you feel about being the model for the lumberman in the mural I’m painting for the post office?” she asked as she stood near the growing stack of wood

He looked up at her with those crystal-blue eyes and laughed.

“You’re kidding,” he said. “You want me on the post office wall?”

“Absolutely! You’d make a perfect lumberjack.”

He offered a good-natured shrug. “Sure,” he said. “What would I have to do?”

“You’d just be standing with an ax in your hands, facing forward, I think.” She tried to picture the scene. She would paint trees behind him. A forest.

He laughed again, and his eyes nearly disappeared into the planes of his face with his amusement. “I’ve never used an ax in my job,” he admitted. “I’m actually just a grader. All day long, I grade the quality of the wood. It’s about time I got to hold an ax in my hands.”

After he left, Anna sat down near one of the heaters and breathed in the clean scent of the wood. Now she had all five of her models lined up. Miss Myrtle, Madge Sykes—the mayor’s jolly and agreeable wife, who did not at all strike Anna as a woman who suffered at the mercy of a brutish, cheating husband—and Ellen Harper, the salesgirl from the Patsy store, would be the Tea Party ladies. Freda, who finally nodded her assent after Anna talked her into it, would be the peanut factory worker. And now handsome Frank from the lumber mill would be the lumberman. Anna was disappointed that Pauline had turned her down. “Karl doesn’t like the idea of me being up there on the post office wall,” she’d said. Anna had wanted to ask why, but decided to just accept her—or his—decision. Maybe it had to do with him being a policeman with a reputation to protect, or maybe he didn’t want his wife participating in something that seemed so frivolous. Whatever the reason for his decision, Pauline seemed content to go along with it.

Anna’s two helpers, Theresa Wayman and Peter Thomas, arrived at two fifteen.

“You have on pants!” Theresa exclaimed before even saying hello.

“I do,” Anna said, “and you should also bring some pants to wear because you’ll be climbing ladders and doing some messy work.”

“My parents would never let me,” she said.

Anna fought the urge to roll her eyes. Theresa struck her as a very feminine girl, her pretty, shoulder-length blond hair held away from her face with tortoiseshell barrettes and her lips painted with coral lipstick. She wore a blue plaid A-line skirt and ruffled white blouse. Anna considered suggesting that she keep a pair of pants in the warehouse to change into and out of when she worked. Her parents would never need to know. But the rigid look of the girl told her to hold her words. She didn’t know her well enough yet to make such a suggestion.

Peter was a slight, affable boy, small and thin but wiry, and in quite good shape. He, too, was very blond. In fact, he and Theresa looked quite alike.

“Are the two of you related?” Anna asked.

They both laughed. “Heck, no!” Peter said, taking a step away from the girl. Then he looked at the stack of lumber in the middle of the floor. “So what are you doin’ here, ma’am?” he asked. He actually rubbed his hands together as if anxious to get started. “How’re we gonna help you?”

The three of them sat down at one of the tables and Anna showed them her sketch as she described her plans for the cartoon and mural. They’d never heard of a cartoon and both of them asked