Big Lies in a Small Town - Diane Chamberlain Page 0,66
moment?” he asked Anna, nodding toward the far end of the warehouse.
“Jesse, please have a seat here and I’ll be right with you,” she said. “You can look at my sketch for the mural.”
She walked with Martin nearly to the end of the warehouse.
“I’m not leaving you here alone with him,” he said quietly.
“Why? Do you know something about him?”
“No, but you can’t stay here alone with that boy.”
“And why on earth not? Plus my other helpers will be here in an hour or so.”
“It’s not right and it’s not safe.”
“Ridiculous,” she said.
“I’m not leaving until your other students come.”
“Yes,” she said. “You are.” Who did he think he was? Her father? This close to him, she thought she could smell alcohol on his breath. It was not even one in the afternoon. “This is my space and I make the rules.” She couldn’t believe she was speaking to him that way, but she liked the strength in her voice. “I appreciate your help and your concern, but I really do insist you leave.” She worried their voices had gotten too loud and the boy might hear them. She glanced toward him. He seemed engrossed in studying her sketch.
“It’s your neck on the line,” Martin Drapple said. “Not mine.”
He walked the length of the warehouse, flung his jacket over his shoulder, and left without saying good-bye. Jesse never even looked up from the sketch.
Anna walked over to the table.
“So,” she said, sitting down across from him. She was trembling slightly after the altercation with Martin, but pleased she’d held her own. “What do you think of the sketch?” she asked.
“You like red a lot.”
“I guess I do.” She smiled. “Do you think I’ve used it too much? The red?”
He smiled too, his gaze still on the sketch. His teeth showed. White, straight, with a slight space between his front teeth, and Anna realized who he reminded her of: Dabney Johnson from her high school in Plainfield. A big, shy, unassuming boy who did little to impress until you saw him play basketball.
“I think you ain’t used it enough,” Jesse said, his tone teasing, and she laughed.
“How about the composition?” she asked, wondering if he even knew what the word meant. He did.
“My aunt Jewel saw the picture … the photograph of this in the post office,” he said, nodding respectfully toward the sketch rather than touching it. “She told me all the bits and pieces you got here and I thought, that gonna look like a big ol’ bowl of Brunswick stew for sure. But it don’t. The way you spread it all out, and how you made this part—the trawler and the Mill Village—how you made them smaller but they still stand out. It looks right good.”
“Thank you, Jesse,” she said. “I think you have a real artist’s eye. Can I see some of your drawings?” She carefully moved her sketch aside so he could put his sketchbook on the table, facing her. He handled the book with a delicacy she understood. It was precious to him, and she was touched. She would handle the pages with the same care as she turned them.
To say she was astonished by his skill would have been an understatement. She had to keep reminding herself that he was an untrained seventeen-year-old. The sketch pad contained portrait after portrait of his family members. “This my little sister, Nellie. This my aunt Jewel. She the midwife ’round where I live. This my mama. My other sister Dodie. This my cousin Chee.” And on and on. Then there were cows and pigs and chickens.
“You have to go to art school, Jesse.” The way Anna said it, it sounded like a foregone conclusion. That’s how she felt at that moment. There was no other path for this young man. He must go to art school. “You have to hone your talent.”
“What that mean? Hone?”
“You’re extremely talented,” she said. “You’re a natural. To ‘hone’ it would be to learn all the technical aspects of art to bring your talent to full fruition … your full potential.”
He shook his head. Leaned away from the table. “I’m done with school, ma’am,” he said. “I jest want to sit on a stack of hay and draw.”
“Please don’t be done with school!” she practically begged him, and he drew back slightly. She thought she’d momentarily scared him with her intensity. “Please don’t hide this talent in your … your family barn or wherever.”